mountainman

We are not discussing the absolutes in this instance.
We are essentially discussing the relativities of the
approximate gauge that one may place on an aspect
of historicity, in comparison between one author A1
and another author A2, according to the information
available to us.

The criteria being evaluated are those of Richard Carrier.
We seem to be stuck on the first of the five.

However, it is clear that on the surface of things, the
historicity test case A2 appears to have the potential
for scoring well on this first criteria.

I agree.

The distinction of the methodology that I have here
outlined, IMO, is that it seeks a relative measure,
not an absolute measure, of "approximate historicity".

You must appreciate that these criteria are to be
applied in a comparitive sense, not an absolute one.



Pete Brown

mountainman

Hi Ben,

I choose to differentiate between the scholarship of biblical
history, and the scholarship of ancient history. Furthermore
I am of the opinion that the former is merely a subset
of the latter.

However, far more seriously, I suspect that it is clearly
a good bet that the Eusebian chronology is a false and
fabricated historiology, implemented 314 CE. Unfortunately
the Eusebian chronology is another "unexamined postulate"
of the mainstream biblical history scholarship.

To a lesser extent, the general ancient historian is not
obliged to deal with the Eusebian historiology, if his or
her research is specific and concentrated enough. The
history as presented in an ecclesiastical sense of doctrine,
and the small numbers of "purported persecutions, etc"
are obviously only very small ripples on the pond of
life and death for the citizens of the Roman Empire for
the period 0-300.

What you perceive as an arbitrariness in my argument is
most likely a reflection of this above-stated principles, by
which I am guided.

How can I appeal to anything said by Eusebius of Caesarea
as being consistent or as having any integrity if I am at the
same time essentially claiming that he forged the new
testament and all its mass of historical substructures
under Constantine, you ask?

Apollonius of Tyana was a bigger figure in the time of Eusebius
than was either Constantine or Eusebius, IMO. It was the
memory of Apollonius which was calumniated by the Eusebian
regime of propaganda, which involved the creation of a new
god, and religion, to replace the ancient traditions, which IMO
Apollonius had revived, and the Second Sophistic had praised.

Therefore, Eusebius, or rather whoever was occupying the position
of Constantine's Minister for Propaganda, needed to make a
formal polemic against the ancient philosopher/sage. This was
a separate task to that of forging a new work of literature for
a very rich and imperial sponsor. Moreover, it necessarily had
to look OUTSIDE the scope of the NT, in order to address
the work of Philostratus, and the historical existence of the
author A2.

Perhaps this quote from Momigliano (Pagans and Christians
in the fourth century) is relevant to our discussion:

The question then arises whether the Christians became the masters of the field also on the higher level of original historical writing and whether here, too, they confirmed their capacity for assimilating without being assimilated.

If the question were simply to be answered by a yes, it would not be worth asking.

The traditional forms of higher historiography did not attract the Christians. They invented new ones. These inventions are the most important contributions made to historiography after the fifth century B.C. and before the sixteenth century A.D. Yet the pagans are allowed by the Christians to remain the master of traditional historiographical forms.

To put it briefly, the Christians invented ecclesiastical history and the biography of the saints, but did not try to Christianize ordinary political history; and they influenced ordinary biography less that we would expect. In the fourth century A.D. there was no serious attempt to provide a Christian version of, say Thucydides or Tacitus – to mention two writers who were still being seriously studied.; A reinterpretation of ordinary military, political, or diplomatic history in Christian terms was neither achieved nor even attempted.

Lactantius in the De Mortibus persecutorum is perhaps the only Christian writer to touch upon social and political events. he does so in a conservative and senatorial spirit which must be embarrassing to those who identify the Christians with the lower middle class, but he never seriously develops his political interpretation: he is not to be compared as an analyst with Ammianus Marcellinus or even with the Scriptores historiae Augustae.

The consequence is plain. No real Christian historiography founded upon the political experience of Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, and Tacitus was transmitted to the Middle Ages.

Best wishes for now,



Pete