mountainman

Gregory Hays' 2003 translation of Meditations
Hays' endnote for 11.3 says:

"This ungrammatical phrase [like the Christians]
is almost certainly a marginal comment by a later reader;
there is no reason to think Marcus
had the Christians in mind here."

Maxwell Staniforth's 1964 translation of Meditations
The translation is as follows:

Happy the soul which, at whatever moment the call comes for release from the body, is equally ready to face extinction, dispersion, or survival. Such preparedness, however, must be the outcome of its own decision; a decision not prompted by mere contumacy, as with the Christians, * but formed with deliberation and gravity and, if it is to be convincing to others, with an absence of heroics.

[1] The corresponding footnote reads as follows:

* If these words are authentic and not a later insertion,
they are the only reference which Marcus makes to the Christians.

C.R. Haines, however, in the Loeb edition of the Meditations,
points out that the clause is

'outside the construction, and in fact ungrammatical.
It is in the very form of a marginal note,
and has every appearance of being a gloss
foisted into the text.'

All this (IMO) is simply a polite way of saying Marcus has been interpolated by a later hand.
Furthermore, to my mind, both Marcus Aurelius and the author Lucian of Samosata in Life of Peregrine both probably wrote about the Indian dude who burnt himself in a public place in the Roman empire, since they both speak about this type of subject matter: self-inflicted death and/or regard for death. The INDIAN event would have been "quite publically topical" at the time these two wrote. I dont have the reference to the brahmin handy.



Best wishes,


Pete Brown
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essene...s_Aurelius.htm

mountainman

Who was Lithargoel, the travelling Pearl Man of
his "City of Nine Gates" where the pearl was to
be acquired by the ascetic pilgrim? And how much
of the Logos was represented in this Lithargoel,
the physician and healer, by his author?


This is a two edged sword.

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Amaleq13

The "point" of joining a discussion board is to discuss rather than simply repeat unsubstantiated assertions.

If you don't think anyone at IIDB is capable of discussing the subject matter, you should stop posting.


Amaleq13, BC&H moderator

aa5874

Theological fiction? Can you provide me with an example of "theological fiction" in Acts. And what is "theological truth"?

Acts 1.9 Now this is fiction, not history, but is it "theological fiction" also?

Maybe one solution is that the author wanted to give the false impression that he wrote Acts before the so-called Paul died. Once Acts is deemed to be written after the death of this so-called Paul, then it would have been to the author's advantage, I would think, to state the manner of his death especially if the so-called Paul died for Jesus.

Martyrdom for Paul would definitely not be a downer, isn't that the reason he was called St.Paul? The author of Acts missed the best part of the story.

Or that the authors were named Luke.

DevilsAdvocate

[QUOTE=mountainman;5170187]Maxwell Staniforth's 1964 translation of Meditations
The translation is as follows:

Happy the soul which, at whatever moment the call comes for release from the body, is equally ready to face extinction, dispersion, or survival. Such preparedness, however, must be the outcome of its own decision; a decision not prompted by mere contumacy, as with the Christians, * but formed with deliberation and gravity and, if it is to be convincing to others, with an absence of heroics.

[1] The corresponding footnote reads as follows:

* If these words are authentic and not a later insertion,
they are the only reference which Marcus makes to the Christians.

Agreed.

As with most ancient writings - and even more so with Aurelius considering the informal and disorganized form of his writings - it is difficult to distinguish the original writings from later notes or interpretations of himself and other readers or copyists.

Must we assume he did not make the notes himself? - especially the unstructured Aurelius

Does it mean we dismiss the entire text as a later fabrication?

Does it mean we should therefore create other fictions to explain it in the later historic context and call it history?...

We can make up an excuse for the deviation and ignore all other evidences and possibilities...

The possibilities seem endless...

DevilsAdvocate

So is it fact with fictional embellishment by the author or those relating the "history"...
or is it fiction with fact dispersed in it to support the ruse?

Either case could be made, and so neither should be dismissed outright.

Though this does become a very sophisticated and complicated ruse, and the more complicated it becomes, the more unlikely since the simplest explanation is generally the most likely.


And yes... Authorship by Luke...the companion physician of Paul (Colossians) is traditional and quite disputable ...

Dates depending on the premises you accept from 70-150 AD...
This would not support a fabrication by/for a Constantine conspiracy...

mountainman

Many of Klaus's assertions are substantiated with their appropriate academic reference. Spin has pointed this out at least once. His unsubstantiated assertions are derived from his responses to the unsubstantiated assertions by others in response to one of his original substantiated assertion.

Best wishes


Pete Brown

mountainman

We have computers today. In theory we should be able to logically and objectively deal with all possibilities, and so generate a set of all possible outcomes, which can be scanned for referential integrity and a "match" to the evidence now in our possession, including the non-literary remains.

That is, we should be able to follow all paths logically towards their end. Why should we pick and choose, according to any emotional baggage? If Jesus is fiction, then so be it. We'll get over it.


Best wishes


Pete Brown

DevilsAdvocate

In theory... Someone has to develop the mathematical model... find and enter all relevant data from antiquity (much may be missing) including models of language, customs, and culture from all regions and times ... and then at best the result would be a fuzzy probabilistic outcome that is subject to human interpretation and bias...and missing data.

I think that takes it full circle ...

aa5874

Your suggestion is unrealistic and not needed. Achilles, Apollo, Zeus, the Cosmocrator, Hercules, Allah, the God of the Jews, Vishnu and many more are considered non-existent without any mathematical model. We have enough models to deduce that Jesus, his disciples and Paul were fiction.

Read the writings of Eusebius,Tertullian, Irenaeus and "Paul", they are perfect models of fiction.