Toto

That is the point.

Poe's law does not operate upon the reader. Poe's law describes the situation in which an argument is so ridiculous that an attempt to parody it cannot make it more ridiculous.

:banghead:

OK, assume that Eusebius was a master forger. You can see what a proper parody of Christianity would look like, and it does not look like the Acts of Peter.

Of course they were, and it would be obvious parody. That's not what you have here.

mountainman

The former is polemic by a christian against the non-christians
whereas the latter is polemic by a non-christian against the
christians. You seem to think these these must "look the same".


The christians could afford to be OBVIOUS.
The non-christians at that time had to be, and were,
far more subtle. I am arguing that they were very
educated ascetic priests. Think of a pagan "gnostic",
well equipped with their own hidden meanings, none
of which were remotely "christian".


Also, consider do we have any non-christian parodies
against the fourth century christian regime? Were
in fact these part of the "heretical writings" declared
to be sought out and destroyed?

The Acts of Philip is a 4th century "heretical work".
Why was is considered so?
Why was it sought out?

Just because it stated at the conclusion that the
powerful christian angel executed 40 Jewish priests,
and there followed mass conversions to christ?

Or was it because the whole text was a polemic?



Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Toto

I think that you have a private definition of a few words that does not match the general understanding, including polemic and ascetic.

It is generally agreed that gnostic Christian writings contain hidden meanings and allusions. If you say that there are such hidden meanings, some of which subvert orthodox Christianity, I don't think that anyone would disagree. But that's not a parody, or a polemic.

The elements that you have identified in the Act of Peter as parody just do not read like parody to me.

mountainman

Please also see my comments above, added after your
response regarding the "heretical status" of The Acts
of Philip -- known to be a 4th century text.

My position is that there existed the category of
non-christian gnostics, and these people were
opposed to the spread of christianity under Con.

You do not seem to allow for the existence of
such a group of authors. Why?


Poe's Law to me suggests that it is very difficult to
distinguish between a weird "christian story" and a
parody of christianity, in which the Apostles by name
and appear along with the miraculous events and acts,
written by a clever non-christian gnostic author.

(If you will allow such a class of person to exist)


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Toto

I allow for them, but what evidence is there that they had anything to do with this text?

You seem to think that this is a point in your favor. I don't see how it helps you.

ETA: The primary opponents of Christianity were not the gnostics, but the established pagan priests. Gnostics were concerned with private activities, not public religion.

mountainman

The text (as are most non-canonical texts) is characterised
by bizzare, outrageous and idiotic events. The genre of Romance
is invoked, in addition to this, by many scholars in their assessment
of these texts.

Poe's Law
"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor,
it is impossible to create a parody of Christianity that SOMEONE
won't mistake for the real thing."

The narration accompanying this is:

In other words, No matter how bizzare, outrageous,
or just plain idiotic a parody of a Christianity may seem,
there will always be someone who cannot tell that it is a parody,
having seen similar REAL ideas from real religious/political Christians.

The pagan priesthood was not christian and their antiquity
and traditions stretched back to Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotles,
Asclepius, Apollo and Imhotep, Hermes, Toth, to name a few.

Non christian gnostics and non christian pagan
and ascetic priests -- for the purposes of this argument -- need not be
separated, and clearly existed, as commentary since Nag Hammadi has clearly revealed.

As a bit of a background here, most ancient historians
agree that when christianity was embraced by the
emperor Constantine, much of the populace of the
empire (particulalry the Greek east) were pagan. The
fourth century was a time of intolerant persecution by
the christian imperial regime against the pagans. One
article summarises this by a list of citations:
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_060.htm

Read this article to understand the political environment
in which these non christians found themselves in the
fourth century.

Given all this background, my position is that perhaps
some of these texts - such as this "Acts of Philip" -
were written as parody, which resulted in them being
declared heretical, and targetted for destruction and
the fire.

Poe's Law emphasises that it is often a terribly difficult
thing to do, if not impossible to identify a parody of Christianity
from the real thing, when the same people are involved.
(ie: Jesus and the Apostles for example).

We have a whole stack of really really weird stories about
the Apostles and Jesus, that make very little sense. This
is the general consensus of opinion at the moment.

My question is, could they be considered as parody?
ie: polemic against the new christian regime.
It is a question for discussion, that's all.

Thanks for any feedback.
Best wishes,



Pete Brown

Toto

This misstates the law. It isn't that there is someone who cannot tell that it is parody, it is that it is indistinguishable from parody. And please note that this "law" is meant for internet discussions, where it is common to misrepresent oneself and construct malicious parodies of one's opponent.

And we are still waiting for some critical evaluation of Vlassis Rassias' polemic.

I think I have to stop responding to your posts, but I can't seem to. . .

First of all, parody is not polemic.

Second, if you want discussion, you need to flesh out your ideas, instead of just throwing out a possibility.

There is a lot of speculation, especially in "extreme Bible studies," that there are hidden clues in Christian writing as to the "real meaning" which could not be uttered in public. On some level, this is always possible. The Christian church did enforce orthodoxy by government force, and in such cases there are always going to be people who go along with the powers that be while secretly plotting to subvert from within.

But why assume that the authors were anti-Christian pagans, as opposed to slightly less orthodox Christians, or Christians letting their imaginations run wild to construct a good story? You find that they make little sense. I don't think they are that difficult, compared to something like the Revelation of John. (I find that the gospel of Thomas is hard to make sense of.)

And not all of these writings were condemned as heretical. Some were just not accepted into the canon.

But if you want to make some progress, you have to compare these writings to other writings of the period. Can you identify a text that these writings seem to parody (the hypotext?) Can you identify the elements that are transmuted?

mountainman

Can we agree in the sense then, that it is
indistinguishable from parody?
(ie: it would be very difficult to distinguish)


Yes, I appreciate the apparent blatant anachronism
of comparing 21st century usenet discussions to the
human behaviour of the fourth century.

However, in all epochs were the technology of writing
existed, it is entirely reasonable to expect that is was
common to misrepresent oneself and construct malicious
parodies of one's opponent.

Political lies existed in antiquity just as they exist today.
The world of human behavour has not substantially changed
in some ways.


Yes, it was a pity that the threads started here years ago
were not continued. I for one would be interested to go
through the motions of pulling apart Vlasis Rassias' list of
citations one by one, in another new thread.

However, in the absence of this critical evaluation, my gut
feeling is that the fourth century was not a nice epoch, and
that - even reading Ammianus - the torture of the upper
classes became a political reality under the christian emperors.



Statistically there were vast numbers of academic
non christians effected by COnstantine's agenda.

The simple answer to this question is that I think
there are always two sides to the story of history,
even if the tradition of our history has been preserved
by the christian victors --- which is as we find it.

Irrespective of the question regarding its historical
integrity, COnstantine implemented Christianity, and
made massive changes to the entire structure and
content of the empire --- effecting all levels of people.

I would expect there to be opposition to Constantine.
We know he operated against a pagan majority.
But where is this opposing polemic from the pagans?

Is it possible that this text is an example?
This is the question I am trying to explore.



Definitely. The "Acts of Philip" parody the canonical "Acts".
The genre of the non canonical acts present weird stories
about the figures mentioned in COnstantine's literature.

Yes, hundreds of textual references to events and people
mentioned in the canonical Acts and gospels, are incorporated
with novel twists into the narratives of the non canonical "Acts",
to present really weird abberations of their counterparts, of the
"spiritual message" of the Canon, the "historical nature" of the
Canon, to form Romances and totally unbelievable
miracles involving talking animals, destroying armies by crossing
oneself, christian angels as massive assault weapons.

Constantine's Canon was being parodied by intelligent authors
who were writing their own versions of the "Acts" and "Gospels".
Seeing COnstantine, and then Constantius and later Theodosius
et al had the military supremacy in hand, the pagans could not
physically fight back.

Their choice was endurance and habitation of the storms
created by the appearance of christianity in the 4th CE, and
to take up the pen against its authority. That's one possibility.
I am interested in opinion on it.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Toto

Are you familiar with the Apocryphal Acts Homepage?

The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles (NHC 6.1): Allegory, Ascent, and Ministry in the Wake of the Decian Persecution (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Andrea Lorenzo Molinari ?Molinari has a chapter in The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years: Proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Commemoration (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies , No 44) (or via: amazon.co.uk) which may be previewed on Google Books

Molinari appears to be one scholar who has spent a lot of time on this text, and does not think it a parody.

mountainman

Thanks for this data Toto.

I had already made a summary of academic opinion on the Acts of Peter and the 12 (TAOPATTA), which included these sources and others. The summary from "Apostolic commission narratives in the canonical and apocryphal Acts of the Apostles" by Czachesz, István (2002) concludes:

We have a C14 date for TAOPATTA of 348 CE, however it is usual for scholars to entertain conjectures of an earlier version, such as does Molinari et al. It is for this reason (ie: chronology) that I have attempted to restrict some of this discussion to "The Acts of Philip" whom practically all scholars date to the mid to late fourth century.


The only scholar to mention parody that I know so far is April Deconick in relation to the Gospel of Judas, however she dates this in either the second or third century, according to her theories on it.

And sure, there have been quite a few people who have looked at these "ACTS" and each to date have failed to identify any anti-christian polemic and/or parody. However, it is to be expected that the mainstream will examine any text from that time, which presents any of the apostles and Jesus, and a narrative of their actions and travels, and have no doubt in their minds that they must be dealing with a christian author.

That is why I introduce Poe's Law, and ask could it be in operation here? It may not yet have occurred to anyone to ask the question, perhaps these were not written by a christian author. We have - all of us - presumed this to be the case, on the face value of the narratives covering the names of the apostles and Jesus. But what if a non-christian has written a parody? (ie: the canonical apostles are performing really weird actions!).

As I understand Poe's Law, it would theoretically be difficult to differentiate between "another weird christian narrative" and a "pagan parody of the christian canonical narratives". Nag Hammadi has sharpened the intensity of the question by its fascinating data, which is neither wholly christian, not yet wholly pagan, but somewhere in the middle -- almost as if a transition was at that time in progress.

Best wishes,


Pete Brown