Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 03-21-2008, 02:01 AM

mm- Could you clarify - do you think that the gospels were composed from scratch in the 4th century? Do you think that there were people called Christians before that?

mountainman · 03-21-2008, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Asclepius was known both as "Healer" and "Saviour".

Can you supply us with specific ancient texts in which such epithets are used of Ascelpius?

Emperor Julian

Quote:

I had almost forgotten the greatest of the gifts of Helios and Zeus. But naturally I kept it for the last. And indeed it is not peculiar to us Romans only, but we share it, I think, with the Hellenes our kinsmen. I mean to say that Zeus engendered Asclepius from himself among the intelligible gods, and through the life of generative Helios he revealed him to the earth. Asclepius, having made his visitation to earth from the sky, appeared at Epidaurus singly, in the shape of a man; but afterwards he multiplied himself, and by his visitations stretched out over the whole earth his saving right hand. He came to Pergamon, to Ionia, to Tarentum afterwards; and later he came to Rome. And he travelled to Cos and thence to Aegae. Next he is present everywhere on land and sea. He visits no one of us separately, and yet he raises up souls that are sinful and bodies that are sick.

Aelius Aristides

Quote:

"Asclepius is the one who guides and rules the universe,
the saviour of the whole and the guardian of immortals,
or if you wish to put it in the words of a tragic poet,
"the steerer of government," he who saves that which
always exists and that which is in the state of becoming".

--- Aristides, Oratio 17.4 (Edelstein),
see also Oratio 23.15-18

Quote:

Or is this claim on the order of your previous one that Ascelpius was known and depicted in ancient texts as an ascetic?

I never made this claim, but the following ...

Philo describes the therapeutae of Egypt as ascetics.
The Asclepian therapeutae also involved themselves
in ascetic practices, as did the followers of Pythagoras.

Quote:

And even if there are such texts, what does this have to do with your authority's misspelling of Iasios' name and his claim that the epithet "healer" was attached to it?

He did not mispell it. I mistyped it.
His claim was in regard to the nomina sacra "IS".
Here is his claim again ....

Quote:

I argue that the Coptic IC, Greek IS,
can indicate I(asiu)S rather than
I(eseo)S, the Greek spelling of Jesus.

Quote:

The head priest of Asclepius is described by Eusebius
as "an unseen inmate, neither demon nor god, but rather
a deceiver of souls, who had seduced mankind
for so long a time through various ages."

In prompt obedience to this command, a band of soldiers laid this building, the admiration of noble philosophers, prostrate in the dust, together with its unseen inmate, neither demon nor god, but rather a deceiver of souls, who had seduced mankind for so long a time through various ages.

Where specifically in this passage is the word "priest" used and what specifically indicates within in it that the "unseen inmate" referred to here is a priest of Asclepius?

Would it be more appropriate then to refer to the
publically executed prophet of Asclepius?

Best wishes,

Pete Brown

Roger Pearse · 03-21-2008, 02:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patcleaver

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Patent nonsense.

I think it was the authors of the KJB, probably The Authorized Version of the KJB of 1662, that first translated Iesus as Jesus. What evidence do you have that I am wrong?

Can you prove to us that Jesus is a translation of Jesus/Iesus?

Roger Pearse

mountainman · 03-21-2008, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

mm- Could you clarify - do you think that the gospels were composed from scratch in the 4th century?

YES. (The canonical texts from 312 to 324 CE, and the
non canonical from 324 to 424 CE in opposition thereto)
Hopefully the above diagram clarifies this issue.

Quote:

Do you think that there were people called Christians before that?

NO. Christians emerged as part of a top-down-emperor cult. The Council of Nicaea was a "boundary event" at which the 318 "Nicene Fathers" pledged their alliegence to Constantine's agenda under military duress. They were created from the beginning as tax-exempt extensions and instruments of imperial power. A fraudulent pseudo-history was fabricated to deceive. The archaeological record is silent on christianity (IMO) until the time Constantine became Pontifex Maximus.

Best wishes

Pete Brown

mountainman · 03-21-2008, 04:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

At the very least, Clement's clear use of it establishes a terminus ante quem of ca190.

This terminus ante quem is derived from the (mainstream) postulate that Eusebius faithfully presents an ancient history. If you believe and swear by Eusebius, then of course it's clear that there was "christian activity" before Eusebius. Equally possible from the available evidence is the scenario that we have Clement being created by Eusebius' scriptoria during the period 312 to 324 CE.

So how do we tell if Eusebius was lying through his teeth?
Questions like these are the subject of the field of ancient history.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwin Johnson

Who was Eusebius?

"This unknown monk pretends
to be a man of research
into very scanty
records of the past

... [...] ...

He is not a man of research at all,
except in the sense in which
many novelists and romancers
are men of research for the
purposes of their construction.

This writer is, in fact,
simply a theological romancer,
and only in that sense can he
be called an historian at all".

Edwin Johnson's "Antiqua Mater:
A Study of Christian Origins" (1890)

Edwin Johnson (1842-1901) was a recognised English historian, who is best known for his radical criticisms of Christian historiography. His above work was published anonymously in 1887, and a second work “The Pauline Epistles: Re-studied and Explained" was published in 1894. Both are available in full on the net. The quote is from Antiqua Mater, where Johnson is referring to the author of the original "Ecclesiastical History" (period to 325 CE), Eusebius Pamphilus of Caesarea.

Best wishes,

Pete Brown

Jeffrey Gibson · 03-21-2008, 06:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Can you supply us with specific ancient texts in which such epithets are used of Ascelpius?

Emperor Julian

Quote:

I had almost forgotten the greatest of the gifts of Helios and Zeus. But naturally I kept it for the last. And indeed it is not peculiar to us Romans only, but we share it, I think, with the Hellenes our kinsmen. I mean to say that Zeus engendered Asclepius from himself among the intelligible gods, and through the life of generative Helios he revealed him to the earth. Asclepius, having made his visitation to earth from the sky, appeared at Epidaurus singly, in the shape of a man; but afterwards he multiplied himself, and by his visitations stretched out over the whole earth his saving right hand. He came to Pergamon, to Ionia, to Tarentum afterwards; and later he came to Rome. And he travelled to Cos and thence to Aegae. Next he is present everywhere on land and sea. He visits no one of us separately, and yet he raises up souls that are sinful and bodies that are sick.

So, these words are reproduced correctly? Are they at the beginning of the book? And where does the specific epithet "Healer" and "Saviour" appeal in this text?

Quote:

Aelius Aristides

Greek text please.

Anything earlier?

Quote:

I never made this claim [that Ascelpius was known and depicted in ancient texts as an ascetic],

You didn't? Short memory.

Quote:

but the following ...

Philo describes the therapeutae of Egypt as ascetics.

Does he? Where specifically? Please give me the exact Philonic reference.

Quote:

The Asclepian therapeutae also involved themselves
in ascetic practices,

You have yet to provide evidence that this is so. What text can you adduce that shows the theraputae of Asclepius to have been ascetics?

And again -- what does this have to do with your authority's misspelling of Iasios' name and his claim that the epithet "healer" was attached to it?

Quote:

He did not mispell it. I mistyped it.
His claim was in regard to the nomina sacra "IS".
Here is his claim again ....

Quote:

I argue that the Coptic IC, Greek IS,
can indicate I(asiu)S rather than
I(eseo)S, the Greek spelling of Jesus.

There is not all he claimed, let alone all you produced of what he claimed. More imnportantly, there is no god whose name is Iasius. And the mythological figure Iasos associated with healing was a dactyl.

On top of all this, your "authority" hasn't a clue as to how the the name Jesus is spelled in Greek.

Besides that, the NS at Dura Europa is not written in Coptic .

Quote:

Where specifically in this passage is the word "priest" used and what specifically indicates within in it that the "unseen inmate" referred to here is a priest of Asclepius?

Quote:

Would it be more appropriate then to refer to the
publically executed prophet of Asclepius?

You tell me. And tell me too where we can find in the primary literature any reference to a prophet of Asclepius, let alone that Asclepius had prophets.

Sloppier and sloppier, Pete.

Jeffrey

Amaleq13 · 03-21-2008, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

At the very least, Clement's clear use of it establishes a terminus ante quem of ca190.

This terminus ante quem is derived from the (mainstream) postulate that Eusebius faithfully presents an ancient history.

How is accepting Clement's clear use of Barnabas dependent upon the assumption that Eusebius presents reliable history?

Quote:

Equally possible from the available evidence is the scenario that we have Clement being created by Eusebius' scriptoria during the period 312 to 324 CE.

What specific evidence suggests this to be an "equally possible" explanation?

patcleaver · 03-21-2008, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by God Fearing Atheist

Hmm...

On page 131 on vol. II, Frazer says that the two current accounts of Attis' death were that he was "killed by a boar" or "mutilated himself under a pine tree."

Looks like Pat's claim is right up there with Pete's that "The Life of Sophocles ... tells us that Sophocles served as a priest to Asclepius" and his plagiarized assertion about what appears in Michael Grant's The Rise of the Greeks.

Jeffrey

"The number of pagan deities (mostly virgin-born and done to death in some way or other in their efforts to save mankind) is so great as to be difficult to keep account of. The god Krishna in India, the god Indra in Nepal and Tibet spilt their blood for the salvation of men; Buddha said, according to Max Müller, 'Let all the sins that were in the world fall on me, that the world may be delivered;' the Chinese Tien the Holy One - 'one with God and existing with him from all eternity' - died to save the world; The Egyptian Osiris was called Savior, so was Horus; so was the Persian Mithra; so was the Greek Hercules who overcame Death though his body was consumed in the burning garment of mortality, out of which he rose into heaven. So also was the Phrygian Attis called Savior, and the Syrian Tammuz or Adonis likewise - both of whom, as we have seen, were nailed or tied to a tree, and afterwards rose again from their biers or coffins. Prometheus, the greatest and earliest benefactor of the human race, was nailed by the hands and the feet, and with arms extended, to the rocks of Mount Caucasus. Bacchus or Dionysus, born of the virgin Semele to be the Liberator of mankind (Dionysus Eleutherios as he was called) was torn to pieces, not unlike Osiris. Even in far Mexico [179] Quetzalcoatl, the Savior, was born of a virgin, was tempted, and fasted forty days, was done to death, and his second coming looked for so eagerly that (as is well known) when Cortes appeared, the Mexicans, poor things, greeted him as the returning god! In Peru and among the American Indians, North and South of the Equator, similar legends are, or were, to be found."
-- Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, pp. 129, 130. http://www.edwardcarpenter.net/

Do you need more quotes?

Toto · 03-21-2008, 05:00 PM

Not more quotes, but quotes from primary sources or at least reliable secondary sources.

"Edward Carpenter, famous for his thoughts on on spirituality, sexuality and socialism." (1844-1929) does not have a stamp of reliability.

I thought you had a cite to Fraser?

God Fearing Atheist · 03-21-2008, 05:03 PM

Pat,

You attributed the nailing of Attis to a tree/pole to Frazer's book. Where in that book can it be found?

And even more importantly, on what primary sources is this claim based?

ETA: Beat to the punch.

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03-21-2008, 02:01 AM	#111
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	mm- Could you clarify - do you think that the gospels were composed from scratch in the 4th century? Do you think that there were people called Christians before that?

03-21-2008, 05:00 PM	#119
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Not more quotes, but quotes from primary sources or at least reliable secondary sources. "Edward Carpenter, famous for his thoughts on on spirituality, sexuality and socialism." (1844-1929) does not have a stamp of reliability. I thought you had a cite to Fraser?

03-21-2008, 05:03 PM	#120
God Fearing Atheist Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Massachusetts, USA -- Let's Go Red Sox! Posts: 1,500	Pat, You attributed the nailing of Attis to a tree/pole to Frazer's book. Where in that book can it be found? And even more importantly, on what primary sources is this claim based? ETA: Beat to the punch.

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