mountainman

Islam may have more reasonably adopted that idea from post Nicaean sects, for example when was the Gospel of Barnabas authored? The present text advertises Muhammad. It also describes that Judas was crucified instead of Jesus.

There is plenty of evidence for a docetic Jesus after Nicaea. A very docetic Jesus was being presented in codices that were being manufactured in the mid 4th century. The burning ofthis material only served to have such codices secreted out of the Roman Empire elsewhere. Photios finds a stack of these books in Bagdad centuries afterwards.

Some of this further evidence from the Nag Hammadi codices is as follows:

For example NHC 7.3 The Apocalypse of Peter (Gnostic) states

NHC 7.2 The Second Treatise of the Great Seth states

NHC 11.1 The Interpretation of Knowledge states:


Which brings us back to the question of the war of codices that was commenced within the Roman Empire immediately after the Council of Nicaea, and which persisted for many centuries thereafter.

Islam wanted its own authoritative "Holy Writ" and simply copied the success that Constantine's Church had achieved by the sword in the 4th century. Earlier, in turn, Constantine simply copied the 3rd century success of Ardashir and his centralised state monotheistic religion.

But Islam did not have to go back to any "Early Christians" of the epoch prior to the time of Nicaea to get their raw materials, since the post Nicaean Gnostic black market was literally awash with docetic renditions of Jesus.

mountainman

Arius of Alexandria is described by multiple sources as an antichrist , so that makes the Arians an antichrist sect. The specifications for what constitutes an antichristian OPINION is found in the letters of John. Anyone who refused to confess that Jesus had appeared in the flesh (i.e. the equivalent of appearing in HISTORY) was therefore to be known in christian heresiological circles as antichrist .

It is very reasonable to suspect that the early Islamic scribes who assembled the Quran had access to the works of many Arian minded heretics, and that they used the opinions in these works rather than the opinion which they would have found by way of studying the Constantine Bible, or any of the orthodox christian heresiologists.

Pamela Spencer

The Muslim evangelist, Ahmed Deedat, was also an ardent proponent of the "swoon theory". Some Muslim theorists believe in the "substitution theory", where Simon (voluntarily), Judas (involuntarily), or Paul/Horus? (involuntarily) was placed on the cross. I've also heard about a particular variant of the "swoon theory" that appears to be relatively popular with people of the Indo-Pak Subcontinent-that Jesus was a Yogi of sorts that practiced deep breathing techniques and also had the ability to induce coma-like states.

mountainman

If the NT is a fiction book, Pagels and Ehrman are fiction book reviewers, writing copious commentaries upon fiction piled upon fiction. One thing we know for a certainty is that the book dedicated to Constantine, and known as the "Historia Augusta" is a massive fiction book, or if you prefer, a "mockumentary".

One thing we dont know for a certainty is the role that Eusebius played with respect to the warlord Constantine, around about the time of Nicaea, and whether the "Historia Ecclesiastica" and other works are also exemplars of a fictional "mockumentary".

The Christian history behind its "Holy Writ" represented by Eusebius and his continuators is paralleled in a lineage of Islamic identities a few centuries later with respect to their own "Holy Writ" and its history. After the supreme victory, and the formation of a revolutionary centralised monotheistic state (held together by the sword and avoidance of poison) by which the "Holy Writ" was officially "Canonized", it was just the usual heresiological politics.

Convert or kill the unbelievers.

Pamela Spencer

Not quite. An illusory Crucifixion would only serve to confirm a thematically consistent Yahweh of the Old Testament, namely, A God that always seems to provide a last minute exit plan for his Representatives (in this case, the Logos, known as "Kalimatullah" or "Word of God", in Islam). Examples of divine intervention exit plans:

-God providing safety in the form of an Ark for Noah
-God saving Jonah with a whale (or whale shark?)
-God saving Abraham from Nimrod's fire (by calming the flames)
-God saving Moses by parting the sea (via Khidr?)
-God saving Jesus from execution
-God saving Muhammad by commanding that a spider seal the entrance of a cave with a web (and then a dove proceeded to lay an egg at the focal point of that web). Muhammad and Abu Bakr took refuge in the cave.

mountainman

-God saving the Christian provenance in the Roman Empire by commanding that Constantine convince himself that he'd had a religious experience.

Muhammad may have already known that Constantine had already himself already stated in his "Oration" that the dove sent out by Noah landed on Mary's head.

sotto voce

But for that reason? Multiple sources could be wrong- mistaken, or mendacious. Arius was surely heretical, was antichrist, because he argued with his own sacred text. He in effect denied that there was a christ, denying atonement, the function of the christ— if there is a christ. Atonement, in the biblical perspective, requires a perfect sacrifice. Only one is perfect; deity. Ergo, only one can be sacrificed; deity. So the sacrifice of the Arian 'christ' was not actually that of a christ. The term 'Arian Christianity' is therefore a misnomer, and 'Arianism' is more accurate. (It is possible that the Arian controversy was contrived, in order to make the imperial party look orthodox, when it was anything but.)

Theology may be said to have fairly close correlation of its truth (as defined by the Bible) with the moral behaviour of its adherents. Any particular heresy is always classifiable as either legalist or liberal, though the end results in terms of personal morality may turn out to be very similar. Legalism motivates, very strongly at times, but in a wrong direction. It supplants faith, that generates love, with one or more man-made rules, kept out of sense of duty. Liberalism removes motivation, simply removing the necessity to keep normal moral 'rules' by removing motivation to keep them, indulging harmful behaviour. Anything that detracts from the deity and perfection of Jesus reduces gratitude for atonement, and therefore encourages less than ideal moral behaviour.

Islam is both liberal and legalist. It denies any sacrifice, so totally removes any incentive to do good. One may suppose that the incentive of Islam is to make a superficial, social 'goodness' that provides immunity from the gospel, that would create real goodness. So Islam may be simply a negative reaction to Christianity, and has not a shred of authenticity of its own.

Constantinianism, when developed, was as legalistic as Islam, teaching that water baptism, or taking a piece of bread, or carrying out any particular religious duty, pleased deity. This denied Christianity equally effectively by saying that humanity did not need atonement, even though there was nominal agreement that Jesus had died. The circumcision party was the first legalist group, that was explicitly, scripturally condemned, never to rise again; but there were many other ways to destroy faith by legalism, including the most superstitious ideas, and they were found at their most developed in the medieval Holy Roman Empire, so called.

John's definition has to be taken in its historical context, that was evidently early and undeveloped; and in the context of other NT authors, who widened the scope considerably. What can be learned from John is that there were many antichrists, some of whose successors the empire would have termed 'fathers'. All the other NT writers except James were of a similar view, and some antichrists were already within the church, they wrote.

Islam may have taken up the Arian theme, though it may be that the very simple expedient of taking Jesus off the cross was the product of unsophisticated minds. Islam is legalist as far as justification before deity is concerned, though, as with Constantinianism, there is no way of knowing, at death, whether one has been justified. Fasting, regular formal prayer, pilgrimage and charity, added to a mere recitation, make for a set of duties that at least seem pious. One may suppose that they were partly copied from the Bible, but they make an arbitrary overall criterion, without any rationale or motivation. It's theology that humans, not deity, would devise. It may seem to be what Paul called 'a form of godliness, but denying its power'.

mountainman

In the context of the claims made above, namely:




The warlords Constantine and Muhammad .... [also see Ardashir c.222CE]


1) were supreme military commanders of their respective empires;

2) during this epoch of supremacy they each implemented centralized monotheistic state religions;

3) that these religions were characterized by the "canonization" of a "Holy Writ"

4) that on obtaining supreme military power, they publically executed key satirists (dissidents, etc)


Arius fits in at #4. It is known that Constantine wanted him dead for a long time, and if the story of Athanasius can be believed, Arius was finally poisoned in the city of Constantine c.336 CE.

They key evidence is the Original Nicaean Creed which basically says:

We the undersigned do hereby believe what Constantine says,
and not what Arius of Alexandria says.


Constantine himself said of Arius ...

He brought state orthodoxy into the light;
He hurled his wretched self into darkness.
He ended his labors with this.

The art of political leadership... consists in rivetting the attention of the people against a single political adversary and taking good care that that that this spotlight of attention is always switched on.

We do not really have all that many sources for Arius. Recent books only serrve to stress how little we know about the person who was supposedly ejected from the council of Nicaea for his OPINION.

This opinion has always been seen to be a theological opinion, because that is what has been stated by the heresiologists who represent the theology in the 4th 5th and subsequent centuries. It may have been more than theological .....




This brings us to the hypothetical historical context of "John". When were the letters of John written?



It is also possible that Jesus was the product of unsophisticated minds. The Arian theme, mirrored in Islam, is a reaction against the so-called Nicaean agreement which effectively subsidized another 50 Bibles and burned the literature of the Greek academic tradition.



People felt secure in knowing that they had the right to leave property to the respective churches.



It is likely that the mass movements from the cities to the deserts in the Roman Empire, on the wings of the Nicaean agreement, had to do with people attempting to flee from the Constantinian revolution. We know that the tax exempt bishops lived well in the 4th century, even though c.350 CE, land tax had tripled within living memory.

Doug Shaver

Sure we might, if we redefine fiction as anything you disagree with.

Doug Shaver

Who appointed you to be the judge of that?