mountainman

Yes.



Four supposed eyewitnesses will naturally generate four different accounts and testimonies. This principle known to modern police departments was also known to the ancients. Think about it. The ancient rulers used spy networks. Four independent spy reports are received. They are not expected to be the same. Variations and contradictions are to be naturally expected. If there were no contradictions, and all reports agreed on every detail, there would be something suspicious and unnatural about the SET of reports.

The Eusebian/Ammonian Canon Tables

The evidence found in the earliest Greek new testament bibles is that they were all published with a set of tables that analysed the sayings that were agreed by all 4 gospels, sayings that were shared with just 3 gospels, sayings which were shared between 2 gospels and sayings which were unique to the supposed gospel authors. These are called the Eusebian or the Ammonian Canon Tables. Eusebius writes about them and claims that they were assembled in the 3rd century by an historical figure called Ammonius.


The regime published therefore both the contradictory gospels and the open analysis of their contradictions bound together.

However at the time of publication the regime held supreme power over the empire and the preservation of literature, and they appeared to have had, as a motto for their operations, that Socrates critical questioning was a menace to the state. Under this mode of operation, nobody was about to seriously question the 4 contradictory accounts for fear of persecution.

We are dealing with the new and strange testament as an extention of the majesty of a Roman Emperor, and whoever questioned the story was seen as questioning the majesty of the emperor. Ammianus describes the existence of widespread religious auto de fais (inquisitions) in the Roman Empire under Constantius, Constantine's son. Civilians were tortured and/or executed in large numbers at that time by the christian regime.

Duvduv

Mountainman, please clarify this point. On the one hand you are saying that the very different texts were INTENTIONALLY produced to give the effect of four different "witnesses" so that the public would not be "suspicious". Furthermore, you argue that the original gospels even had tables that addressed the differences among the gospels.

However, if there was evidence for the first generation that the gospels needed reconciling, and the first generation knew there actually were no historical witnesses to the gospel stories, then what difference would it have made whether the stories were uniform or not? Why would the regime pretend that there were different witnesses if there was reason to believe there weren't, especially since the Jesus story was brand new?

mountainman

This is what some of the earliest extant Greek codices reveals. See Vaticanus, Alexandrinus or Sinaticus.



A tetrarchy of witnesses that agreed on every detail is not credible since the stories of witnesses will naturally exhibit variation. The regime fabricated what they needed with an expected variation.


The regime was fabricating its historical origins.

The King Arthur story is a similar example.

The Muhammad story was a much earlier example.

Large areas of an expanded empire were difficult to hang on to. The implementation of a distinctive monotheistic imperially related cult assisted the rulers to manage the far flung dioceses of the empire without excessive military deployment.

All this is related to war. The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are based on so called HOLY WRITS which were suddenly found and published by the victorious warlords of the respective empires. They were the products of wars designed to control what had been secured by the army. The only thing new under the sun is the history we do not know (Harry S Truman).

Best wishes

sotto voce

Because, apart from the Bible, we allow into print only what we want to know, what we want to be known. If we published what we know must be the truth, we would expose ourselves as morally corrupt to a breathtaking degree.

At the personal level, the only things we do not know are not worth knowing. We know what is of divine origin, and what is not. That's all we need to know. It's also more than we want to know. How do we know that?

We oppose, may even kill those who promote the books of divine origin, and promote those who oppose those books, by their misrepresentations of them. We accuse those who promote those books of association with and condoning of the crimes committed by those who killed those who promoted those books. Which is perverse, but also a criminal offence; but it goes unprosecuted. Why? Because what we know is more than we want to know.

We know that we cannot defend atheism, so we support, explicitly, or by implication, those theists who misrepresented and misrepresent those books of divine origin. Even these theists went to war with each other because they believed that they had better lies than others. So Muslims warred against Catholics and Orthodoxy, because they felt that, while Catholicism and Orthodoxy effectively paganised their adherents, it was safer to replace those beliefs with one that was not even Christian in name. Catholics opposed Muslims, because they felt that Islam was not a good enough tale to tell, while there remained Bibles that could not be reached and destroyed. Catholics and Muslims alike attacked Jews, because Jews provided the world with evidence for Jesus, even though Jews detested Jesus, and maintained their faith only to oppose his following. So it was all madness; and it still is, except for the bloodshed. At least, the more obvious bloodshed. Because what we know is more than we want to know.

Sheshbazzar

Perceptive sotto. There is nothing that low and ignorant men hate more, or are more willing to react violently towards, than having as yet unrecognized, or unpopular spiritual truths brought to their attention, and their nose rubbed in such truths as they do not wish to know nor to acknowledge.
Nothing new under the sun, the usual response all down through the generations, has been to silence or to murder the message bearers.

Nevertheless, progress is made; Word upon word, precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.
That in the end, it will be found that the pen, and the everlasting word, are mightier than any sword, army, or institution that men may ever raise, and will prevail.

Duvduv

I follow what you're saying, Mountainman. However, doesn't this approach ignore the contextual and textual elements among the gospels or even among the epistles? How does your view account for the fact of more similarities between Luke and Matthew than between Matthew and John?

Or why it is shown that GMatt bases itself on GMark, or at least a source on which GMark was directly based? In other words, you must examine the rhyme and reason that exists between the similarities and differences which would otherwise suggest that despite similarities, the gospels each reflect a different perspective, if you will, and some kind of variations on the same theme, and even variations in the use of the Greek language and familiarity with Aramaic and Hebrew.

Wouldn't all of this require a much more sophisticated, premeditated, and centrally organized project on the part of the a central imperial authority than is actually credible (especially with silence in terms of such a project)? The same points could be made about the pauline epistles even as composite documents.

aa5874

The authors of the Four Gospels did NOT state anywhere that they are eyewitnesses.

Only the author of gLuke claimed he did some kind of investigation and used information from eyewitnesses but there are no names and it cannot be assumed that he knew or was a contemporary of those eyewitnesses.

A story is NOT expected to have contradictions -- it is expected to have minor differences.

Contradictions are big red flags that that an account is fiction.

Duvduv

I don't think Mountainman meant "eye witnesses," but rather "narrators".......
We'll wait to let him speak for himself.

Toto

mpuntainman clearly implied that the forgers of the gospels intended for them to be regarded as eyewitnesses.

It is dubious that the ancients expected the authors of the gospels to be eyewitnesses in the modern forensic sense, or that they had a modern appreciation of the way that uninspired eyewitness accounts differ.

mountainman

Hey Duvduv, the following may not be psychologically digestible for some but the human mind has the capacity to find correspondences and patterns in any text or any thing, particularly if it has been the subject of study and reverence for centuries upon centuries. It is impossible for some to consider that there may have been a great swindle perpetrated in antiquity, and we are still devoting human lifetimes in the textual criticism of a fictional fabrication.

*(nb: the fabrication is based on the Greek LXX with nomina sacra codes, where a new and strange testament uses the Joshua code for Jesus, and vast amounts of prophecies are described by mapping elements of the Greek LXX to the greek NT into the mouths of apostles and jesus. This version of the LXX may have been found in the library of Origen the Platonist)

Just imagine for a moment if JRR Tolkien had been available to Constantine's scriptoria and that he presented a new god called Bilbo Baggins using the accounts of four other hobbits who travelled in fellowship with the new and strange god. The letters of Bilbo to the Elves and Dwarves etc are then collected into the canon and voila! we have an act of authorship.

If the collection of books about Bilbo J Baggins was then raised the the status of the Holy Writ of the Roman Empire and people began to study it in great and enthusiastic earnestness to please the Emperor, they would surely begin to see patterns and correspondences in it. After many centuries of textual criticism there would be much written and believed.

But what value does it have if Bilbo Baggins is fictional and that we are dealing with a once off fabrication commissioned by a Roman Emperor in order to monopolize the scattered religions of the 4th century empire. People will textual criticize until the cows come home. There will be patterns in all things, even fiction.

Constantine is described as a brigand. He extracted gold from taxing rich subjects and later robbed the temple gold. In return he published a textual work that had the integrity of a pile of beads and trinkets. He swindled the market on books and the regime connected with his book monopolized the entire market for almost 17 centuries via death and destruction.


Silence in preparation was conducted in the years 312 to 324 as the war effort continued to escalate. After victory in 324 CE the silence was no longer required, and Constantine declared himself a follower of Bilbo Jesus Baggins and commenced building basilicas after tearing down the pagan temples to use their foundations.

I believe he and the regime had massive problems after Nicaea with the appearance of the Gnostic versions of Bilbo Jesus Baggins, which were very popular with the pagan greek speaking populace especially in the City of Alexander the Great.


We often see the term THE GREAT SILENCE applied to the first century of legendary christian history. If we examine the evidence we will soon see that this silence covers the period up until Nicaea, if Eusebius is set to the side. What is not often understood is the even greater historical silence for the epoch 324 to 352. The most important christian victory and no accounts survive. We use the histories of 5th century heresiologists. There was during this time a massive controversy over the historical integrity of the new and strange emperor God Jesus. The words of Arius .... HE WAS MADE FROM NOTHING EXISTING .... were buried by the believers and those who were hanging on to the imperial bandwaggon.

After the historical silence is broken in the 350's Ammianus attests to the existence of auto de fe's (inquisitions) by the imperial christian regime against the pagans. The majesty of the emperor and the majesty of Bilbo Jesus Baggins were inseparable.