jgibson000

I will as soon as you answer the questions I posed to you -- which, as you should have noted, are grounded in the assumption that the translation you have given is accurate.

Let me pose them again:

1 You have claimed that "When somebody states rhetorically "why should I do X," he/she is acknowledging that there is some question about obligation and that someone did or might ask them to do X"."

But are you certain that this is what someone in Eusebius' time who used this phrase (i.e., TI DEI KATALEGEIN TON EN TH DHLWQEISH GRAFH TWN MARTURWN KATALOGON)-- which, BTW, is formulaic (cf. Aelianus Soph.NA 4.43.8; Origen Contra Celsum 8.4; Selecta in Psalmos 12. 1121; Athanasius Expositiones in Psalmos 27.181; Theodoret Interpretatio in Psalmos 80.1136.14) -- would also have been doing?

Is there any chance that your assertion involves an anachronistic (and historically uninformed) reading of this text?

2. You have claimed that in saying what he says Eusebius "is acknowledging it [his obligation], not as an eyewitness or a Bishop, but as an historian."

But where does he say or imply this?

3. How is it "irrelevant", as you have claimed it is, to ask for documentation of what ancient historians tell us about what historians qua historians were expected -- or felt obliged -- to do in certain circumstances, especially within the context of the assertion on your part of a particular claim about what ancient historians felt they were obliged as historians to do in certain circumstances?

4. Please tell me by what canons of ancient historiography it would have been incumbant on Eusebius to do what you claim it was his duty as an historian to have done where you say he should have done it.

That is to say, please show me some evidence that ancient historians -- or for that matter any one in the ancient world -- actually thought that when writers were acting as historians were expected -- or felt obliged -- to do what you say they were expected or felt obliged to do.

I would be grateful if, in your reply to this, you finally answer them instead of finding yet another way to avoid them

Jeffrey Gibson

Roger Pearse

I beg your pardon. I should have written Teaching (or Doctrine) of Addai. (I have a temperature and a splitting headache, so pardon my mistake and incoherence).

You've already found the 1876 version I have:

* Intro and translation.

The text is NOT a very early work. Evidence of this comes to us from the Chronicle of Edessa, which knows nothing of Addai and his efforts, but does record ca. 200 AD (513 A. Gr.) a flood in Edessa which washed away a Christian church.

Unless we suppose that Eusebius was competent to compose in Syriac -- and there is no evidence of this --, we must necessarily suppose that someone else wrote the Teaching of Addai. Once we know that a Syriac author composed such a text, containing the letters of Abgar, surely any question evaporates? We just don't need the hypothesis of Eusebian authorship.

However the text cannot have been written much before Eusebius' time, I would guess. It probably relates in some way to Christianity becoming the official religion in Edessa, if I had to guess.

Not that is known to me (I appreciate the thought).

The key point to bear in mind is that the Teaching is a long text, from which Eusebius only quotes a tiny bit (as is his wont). That demolishes the idea that he could have composed it.

But remember anyway that this 'Eusebius the forger' stuff is just malicious rubbish, endlessly repeated. Once you get accustomed to reading his works, and seeing his endless quotations from other authors, some still extant, some not, you realise that the people peddling it clearly aren't that familiar with his works and approach. It's inconceivable that anyone would sit down to write such a thing and introduce fake documents along the way, of so little importance to the works in which they appear. He just doesn't NEED to fake them.

It's all very simple, really. Eusebius has access to a wonderful library. He's as pleased as punch about this, and delighted to show it off as often as possible. This comes out all over the place! Books 11-15 of the Praeparatio Evangelica are a rather decent primer on Greek philosophy, mainly from lost sources. But of course not all are lost, and we can check them.

That Eusebius himself was rather a genius in things historical seems often overlooked. But he did create the whole basis of modern history, in his Chronicle.

Every other theory seems to involve dull small-minded people with little education or imagination sitting down to undermine the authenticity of a marvellous ark of lost literature, and in pursuance of some evident but tedious and improbable polemic. Such sad people deserve only a hearty laugh of derision, and to be encouraged to come out into the sunlight and pursue enthusiasms, not little-minded hatreds.

In my humble opinion, of course.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

PhilosopherJay

Hi JG,

I remember this happened the last time we exchanged messages several years ago. After answering your questions, about a dozen, as I recall, I asked you a simple question and you refused to answer.

I engage in dialogue. The over 1300 posts I have made on Jesus Mysteries over the past six years and the 279 posts I have made here should attest to that. Of the more than one hundred people I have answered, you are the only one who has accused me of not answering a question. I believe you have accused me altogether twenty or thirty times now.

I do not submit to interrogations.

Thank you for your responses.

Best Wishes for the Future,

Philosopher Jay

S.C.Carlson

Yes, that's right. In fact, I'd say that Eusebius's biggest flaw was pride, pride in his great library. He couldn't help but show it off by quoting his works. Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for us), he did not notice that his sources not infrequently failed to quite support what he claimed they said. For example, neither Clement nor Papias manage to fully support what Eusebius claimed about Mark, but we only know this because Eusebius quoted from their now-lost works.. Eusebius pride in library and his desire to show it off with actual quotes had the effect of preserving for us some fairly interesting testimony would be otherwise lost.

Stephen

Roger Pearse

I've noticed this also. I read somewhere that this may suggest that he left inserting the actual quotes to his slaves.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

aa5874

You couldn't be serious. Do you have some hidden affidavit from Eusebius that no-one has ever seen? It is evident you do not understand the modus-operandi of fraudsters.

jgibson000

But even if your recollection is correct (and unlike what you've done in this exchange, you did not confuse responding to my questions with actually answering them), please note that I am not refusing to answer your question. As I noted, I'll be pleased to do so once you answer the one's I asked you -- which are, I remind you, ones which assume that the translation you appeal to is correct.

All it attests to is that you write a lot.

Even if that's true (and, to my recollection, it is not true for this list), so what?

All that this is likely to mean, given your venue, is that the people "you have answered" or who are most likely to read your posts are -- if not so bored silly by their silliness that they think it a waste of time to reply, let alone to ask you questions -- gullible, have no critical acumen, and lack sufficient grounding in NT studies and the areas you make claims about to know when you've pulled a howler and (as with the teaching in the Temple claims you've made) when you really don't know what you are talking about.

I mean, it is the JM list, fer chissakes, where most of the people there are conspiracy theorists who credulously accept as gospel, and are unwilling or incapable of asking hard questions about, almost anything, no matter how uninformed and silly it is, that "confirms" their (and your) beloved "Jesus was really only ..."/the NT originally was about .../was faked by ... " scenarios.

Moreover, it is logically fallacious to conclude, as you seem to want to do, that just because X number of people haven't "accused" you of not answering questions, you haven't actually refused to answer questions.

Perhaps so. But whether it was twice or 20 or 200 times, the fact of the matter is that whenever I've "accused" you of not answering questions it's because you haven't answered questions.

Even assuming that that's what I've been subjecting you to and that it wasn't/isn't fitting to have done so, it's clear that another thing you don't do is to be responsible for claims, to back them up when asked to do so. Rather, as is apparent here, you run away and use sophists' tactics to justify your refusal to bear the burden of proof.

JG

yalla

Thanks Roger, look after your health,
I have the Penguin copy of Eusebius's "HE."
In it E states "...from the Record Office at Edessa....which I have extracted from the archives and translated word for word from the Syriac as follows:''
[Abgar to Jesus and replies follow] p.31.
After quoting the letters he says "this valuable document ....literally translated from Syriac''.

This [assuming a correct translation] seems to directly state that E, or his associates, had direct access to the archives and were fully competent to translate Syriac to Greek.
As this appears, from my limited research, to be the first appearance of this material we have no reason, other than the word of Eusebius, to assume it existed prior to his translation.
The other stories that became the full version, "the Doctrine of Addai", were apparently composed later.
Later in the 4c it seems.
So we don't absolutely know that something existed prior to E and that he took an extract from it.
It may be that his Abgar correspondence was the inspiration for the later "Doctrine.."
We don't know that a Syriac author wrote the 'Teachings/Doctrine' prior to Eusebius story of Abgar's letter with JC.
All the extra material [other than E's bit] may have been added later.
By whoever.
So Eusebius, or a colleague [whoever did the translating 'word for word'] may have written the Abgar letters.
Possibly.
I just don't see how we can absolutely reject that possibility.
It may be improbable, but its not impossible.
We only have the word of Eusebius.
cheers
yalla

aa5874

But maybe his slaves were illiterate, I read somewhere that slaves were usually illiterate.

Ben C Smith

The ancient world had both kinds. Some slaves were highly literate.

Ben.