Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 11-12-2012, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

They adopted the imperial story of Jesus and the Apostles and then wrote their own Gnostic Gospels and Gnostic Acts. One may call this mimicry or parody or in some instances satire. In Eusebius's assessment these people were blasphemous and heretical. These gnostics may well have been educated pagan academics voicing their literary skills against the monstrous tale that the Emperor was trying to pass off as non fiction.

Or, perhaps some really believed that they had a better or more authentic set of writings and doctrines than those selected by Bullneck & Co.

There is no doubt that the Nag Hammadi codices contain writings that these people wishes to preserve which did not make mention of the Jesus figure, such as the discussions between Hermes and Asclepius, and other books.

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Just like the JW's of today sincerely believe that their organization and its 'version' of the NT is superior and more authentic than what has came out of Rome and her daughters.
They are very serious, and their writings are not intended as being parody, satire, or mockery of 'traditional' or 'mainstream' christianity. But simply reflect a legitimately different and opposing set of deeply held beliefs.

I take it you mean you are referring to the JW's writings above.

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Gnostics simply and honestly held religious views, ideas, and doctrines that were significantly and fundamentally different from the ones which 'Catholicism' wished to force upon everyone.

AFAIK the pre-existing UNIVERSAL church was the loosely tethered collegiate of the pagan temples that had been sponsored by all Roman emperors before Constantine turned up on the scene. The Pontifex Maximus had the counsel of the "Sacred Assembly of Pagan Priests and Academics".

I see this 'Catholicism' as the imperial flavor of the new and strange religion that Constantine, shall we say, FOUND SOMEWHERE.

Having agreed that the gnostics preserved their own material, my long and exhaustive review and investigation of the gnostics texts which are called Gospels and Acts (See below), I must still support the claim that at least some if not many of these types of texts exhibit parody and satire.

In some of these texts the apostles travel hither and thither on bright clouds. I could give many examples. The Toledeth Yeshu fits in here as a 4th century satire against the Officially Publiished Canonical Story Book. In it Jesus and the Christian religion are not the product of the One True Monotheistic Cross your heart and Hope to Die GOD but is the product of a ROman Soldier raping Mary.

In the Greater Questions of Mary Jesus performs explicit sex with a woman he pulls out of his rib in the presence of Mary. When she loses consciousness over witnessing the explicit sex, Jesus berates her by saying "O ye of little faith". These texts have got to be satirical invectives against the imperially supported message of the Canonical Bilbo Jesus Baggins.

So my claim is that not all of the gnostic texts are parodies or satires, but many of the gnostic gospels and acts exhibit the signature of parody and satire, and do so because they were authored by the generation which witnessed the imperial publication of Good News in the Bullneck Bible.

Carry on. Here is a list of the gnostic gospels and acts that I have looked at ....

I have * the ones I think exhibit parody and satire ...

GNOSTIC GOSPELS
The Gospel of the Hebrews
The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of the Ebionites
The Gospel of the Egyptians
The Gospel of the Lord [by Marcion]
The Gospel of the Nazarenes
The Gospel of Mary [Magdalene]
The Gospel of James (Infancy) *
The Gospel of Judas *
The Gospel of Peter *
The Gospel of Truth
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas *
The Gospel of Philip *
The Book of Thomas the Contender
The Gospel of Bartholomew *
The Gospel of Gamaliel
The Gospel of Nicodemus *
The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew *
The Gospel of the Egyptians (Gnostic)
The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary *
The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles
An Arabic Infancy Gospel *
The Gospel of Barnabas *
The Gospel of the Magi *
Secret Gospel of Mark *
Toledeth Yeshu (“Life of Jesus”) *

GNOSTIC ACTS
The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles *
The Acts of Paul *
The Acts of Peter *
The Acts of Andrew and John *
The Acts of Andrew and Matthew |*
The Acts of Andrew *
The Acts of John *
The Acts of Peter and Andrew *
The Acts of Thomas *
The Act of Peter *
The Acts of John the Theologian *
The Acts of Mark
The Acts of Peter and Paul *
The Acts of Philip *
The Acts of Pilate *
The Acts of Polyeuctes
The Acts of Simon and Jude
The Acts of Thaddaeus
The Death of Pilate *
The History of John *
The History of Joseph the Carpenter
The Acts and Martyrdom of Andrew *
The Acts and Martyrdom of Matthew *
The Acts of Barnabas *
The Acts of Bartholomew *
The Acts of Timothy *
The Acts of Titus *
The Acts of Matthew *
The Acts of Linus (Peter and Paul) *
The Acts of Processus and Martianus *

We see that the orthodox branded most of these gnostic stories as heretical.

mountainman · 11-12-2012, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Mountainman, why do you believe the evidence that gnostic writings were NOT created by the imperial regime is more pursuasive than the argument that all the gospels were not created by the imperial regime?

The imperial regime had the gnostic gospels and acts on a HIT LIST. The list became known as the INDEX LIBRORUM PROHIBITORUM. They could not control the authorship and distribution of unofficial stories about Jesus even though they were pumping out the Bible fifty fold. The totalitarian regime banned the gnostic books and executed their preservers. The provenance of the canonical books goes back to the imperial scriptoria. The provenance of the non canonical books is often burial in the earth and manuscript discoveries in remote areas - remote from the Christian regime controlled Alexandria of c.324 CE onwards.

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Again, what internal evidence (either in terms of content, context or Greek language) do you believe exists which suggests the gospels were all written by a central scriptorium authority?

The best evidence IMO is not internal but external evidence. This means were treat the canonical books as objects and ask when did these objects get attested as existing in antiquity. Outside of Eusebius, and aside from the palaeographical assessments of papyri fragments, all the external evidence appears to point to an explosion in the 4th century.

If you were to attempt to reconstruct the political climate and the list of extannt literature available in Rome c.312 CE then many of the motifs found inside the canonical stories are already present, even setting aside for one moment the all important Greek LXX.

The Persian religious leader Mani, who had written a Gospel and epistles to his apostlkes who had established churches (monasteries) in the Roman Empire, and who was captured and crucified in the Persian captial city is a leading example of the known 4th century political climate.

The Platonist Plotinus had received imperial sponsorship in the 3rd century and had twelve student apostles who all revered and preserved the canon of books of Plato, and who taught about a philosophical trinity - ONE SPIRIT SOUL was very topical and well represented in the writings of Porphyry *which Constantine burnt.

mountainman · 11-12-2012, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Mountainman, isn't it also fair to suggest that we cannot even know whether the first versions of the four gospels in the fourth century were as dissimilar as they are now, and how much were even altered as time passed over the years. I suppose you could argue that they may have been more similar than the current versions, especially if a GMark was the boilerplate. Of course this would stretch the dating of the paleography of fragments and codices quite a bit more. What do you think?

The codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus and Sinaticus seem to be dated to the middle or end of the 4th century, and AFAIK the short version of gMark is represented in these things.

As far as I can see there is no unambiguous evidence or reason why the canonical text could not have been finalized later in the 4th or even 5th centuries.

I think the early dating via palaeography of fragments from Oxyrynchus no more than wishful thinking, and that these fragments were desposited on the Oxy tips during the mid 4th century when the city of Oxy experienced a massive population explosion.

Sheshbazzar · 11-12-2012, 10:01 PM

Christianity has demonstrated that its adherents are fully capable of holding to and believing some quite preposterous things.
Regardless of the intent of whomever may have composed these Gnostic texts for whatever reasons, it is still likely that there were simple and unsophisticated Christians that accepted these stories and their preposterous miracle claims at face value.
If they accepted the Gospel tale of the resurrection and ascension, they might as well swallow any of the other Christian reported miracle tales.
Jebus on a tortilla, some still do.

Chili · 11-12-2012, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

We see that the orthodox branded most of these gnostic stories as heretical.

But Pete, to be gnostic is to have noetic vision, which is a gift that not many people have and the Gnostics sure as hell did not, . . . as a gnostic never will as much as use one word wrong because that already defiles himself.

So Gnosticism is an elite club and a dangerous abomination as 99 % of them still did not have clue but could recite the words and phrases that a gnostic had. So really it is the -ism what is wrong as a social club to stray the flock.

The same thing we see here now with mythicism that never will win the argument because there is not even one gnostic there. It is just an -ism and that is all it is and that is why to be a gnostic one must be a Catholic first.

Now I also understand that you cannot accept that as a given, but that does not matter much to them. They know how it is done and have lots of evidence to show you that they do, and from there not much more needs to be said.

So Catholicism is a sinners club at best, and the stream of consciousness must first exist to make the sinner known and that is what all that piety is about. It has nothing to do with righteousness but the create a standard from which deviation is the unexpected norm.

Chili · 11-12-2012, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Christianity has demonstrated that its adherents are fully capable of holding to and believing some quite preposterous things.
Regardless of the intent of whomever may have composed these Gnostic texts for whatever reasons, it is still likely that there were simple and unsophisticated Christians that accepted these stories and their preposterous miracle claims at face value.
If they accepted the Gospel tale of the resurrection and ascension, they might as well swallow any of the other Christian reported miracle tales.
Jebus on a tortilla, some still do.

Not sure what your hang-up is about Jesus as he is just like a dirty rag to be left behind.

Duvduv · 11-13-2012, 08:07 AM

So Mountainman, you believe that even the paleography dating of fragments and codices are tentative and not engraved in stone at all, so that the distinctive features of the gospels that render them different from one another may only reflect changes that occurred in them long after they were originally composed by what you believe to have been a first-draft centralized scriptorium in Rome or Constantinople.

However, I assume you agree that there is no evidence that this was the case, or for reasons why later changes would have even been made among a set of texts already composed by a central authority.

I am not sure why you do not think internal evidence in the texts themselves should be easily noticeable since had they originally been written by the same people or under the same authority they would display evidence of this in the language of the texts.

Finally, why do you believe so many gnostic texts had to have actually been parodies? And of those that were not, why do you think anyone simply adopted the official line of the imperial authority for any texts that they knew would not be accepted by that authority since it was that authority of the empire which authorized official texts?

sotto voce · 11-13-2012, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

a central authority.

One that agreed with those who wanted to make a deity of Moses.

mountainman · 11-13-2012, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

So Mountainman, you believe that even the paleography dating of fragments and codices are tentative and not engraved in stone at all, so that the distinctive features of the gospels that render them different from one another may only reflect changes that occurred in them long after they were originally composed by what you believe to have been a first-draft centralized scriptorium in Rome or Constantinople.

However, I assume you agree that there is no evidence that this was the case, or for reasons why later changes would have even been made among a set of texts already composed by a central authority.

Well for example the Constantine Bibles (which many think are before us in the evidence of Vaticanus, Sinaticus, Alexandrinus, etc) appear to have run with the Shepherd of Hermas and the short version of gMark. The usual dogma is that the canon was finalised sometime c.350-360 CE because of a letter in the name of the very very orthodox Athanasius, who was supplying Bible Codices for the Emperor Constantius, as Eusebius had supplied Bullneck.

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I am not sure why you do not think internal evidence in the texts themselves should be easily noticeable since had they originally been written by the same people or under the same authority they would display evidence of this in the language of the texts.

The plan was to produce written Greek texts that had supposedly been transmitted by the eyewitnesses to the fleshy life of Bilbo Jesus Baggins across the intervening centuries into the hands of the impecable Eusebius.

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Finally, why do you believe so many gnostic texts had to have actually been parodies?

Because of their content and the invectives in the subject matter.

In the Gnostic Gospels .....

"To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition" (Woody Allen)
.
In the Gospel of Peter, Jesus is lead from the tomb by two giant figures whose heads reach to the sky. Jesus's head is described as being higher than the sky; while the cross , not content with immobility and silence, follows along behind Jesus at a walk, and speaks its own talk. It says "Yeah !"

In the Gospel of Philip, "Jesus came to crucify the world", but exactly where did Jesus often kiss Mary? On her forehead? on her cheek? on her lips? The manuscript has been damaged at that precise spot. Jesus could have often kissed Mary anywhere.

In the Gospel of Judas, Judas is presented as one of twelve "daimons". None of the twelve "daimons" can look at Jesus in the eyes. Jesus is presented as a "Head Daimion" or sorceror.

In The Gospel of Mary , Mary is presented in having exclusive knowledge not given to Peter. As a result, Peter is peeved. "Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us?"

In the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Child Jesus as a malevolent trickster wizard. Death and destruction follow the child jesus. A child disperses water that Jesus has collected, Jesus then curses him, which causes the child's body to wither into a corpse, found in the Greek text A, and Latin versions. The Greek text B doesn't mention Jesus cursing the boy, and simply says that the child "went on, and after a little he fell and gave up the ghost," Another child dies when Jesus curses him when he apparently accidentally bumps into him When Joseph and Mary's neighbors complain, they are miraculously struck blind by Jesus. Jesus then starts receiving lessons, but arrogantly tries to teach the teacher instead.

In the Infancy Gospel of James, the Child Jesus is born in a cave with its Mithraic overtones.

In The Gospel of Nicodemus, the story is presented as being authored by two zombies who, while wandering around Jerusalem after the mass resurrection following Jesus's resurrection, are apprehended by the authorities, and are given pens and paper. The two resurrected scribes, known as Leucius & Karinus, independently record the Descent and Ascension, Jesus meets Adam. At the end, after finding that the accounts were word for word identical they provide a copy for Pilate, and a copy for the Jews, the two scribes disappear with a flash of light.

In the Gospel of Gamaliel Pilate weeps over the shroud.

The Gospel of Bartholomew "deliberately imitates the Lucan Acts"

In the Gnostic Acts of the Apostles .....

"Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini [ed. and Constantine] are just as good at rhetoric.
......... but if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance." (Mel Brooks)
.
In the Acts of Andrew, Andrew prays and there is an earthquake. Andrew mentions banishing the demons from Nicaea. "At the gate of Nicomedia he met a dead man borne on a bier, and his old father supported by slaves, hardly able to walk, and his old mother with hair torn, bewailing. 'How has it happened ?' he asked. 'He was alone in his chamber and seven dogs rushed on him and killed him.' Andrew sighed and said: 'This is an ambush of the demons I banished from Nicaea.'" Who was banished from Nicaea?

In the Acts of Andrew and Matthew, the apostles Cast lots for world dominion (just like the Roman soldiers in the story of the crucifixion). Jesus is the captain of a water taxi to the "Land of the Cannibals" in order to rescue the apostle Matthew. Welcome aboard! Meanwhile, trapped in the "Land of the Cannibals" after drinking certain substances, Matthew, despite the fact that many are being eaten daily, closes his eyes to everything going on around him. Help was on the way.

The Acts of John is seen as docetic. Jesus does not leave footprints in the sand. John cannot seem to touch Jesus' physical body. John commands a legion of bed bugs. Jesus was constantly changing shape, appearing sometimes as a small boy, sometimes as a beautiful man; sometimes bald-headed with a long beard, sometimes as a youth with a pubescent beard. .... Sometimes when I meant to touch him [Jesus], I met with a material and solid body; but at other times when I felt him, his substance was immaterial and incorporeal, as if it did not exist at all ... And I often wished, as I walked with him, to see his footprint, whether it appeared on the ground (for I saw him as it were raised up from the earth), and I never saw it.

In the Acts of John the Theologian, the Jews write a book to the Emperor Domitian, comlaining about a "new and strange nation". As a result, Domitian flies into a rage an persecutes the "New and Strange Nation of Christians. This term "new and strange nation" is a recognised Eusebian trope. The author of this text thus wrote after Eusebius had coined the phrase.

In The Acts of Paul, the author uses Aesops Fables in the Baptised Lion Affair. Paul baptises a talking lion in the wilderness. When thrown to the lions at the conclusion Paul is saved from certain death by the christian lion in the arena. (One good turn deserves another!)

In the Acts of Peter, Peter resurrects smoked fish, makes dogs talk, and wins a very exiting miracle contest with Simon Magus.

In the (Syriac) Act of Peter, Peter heals the multitudes on his front porch, but forgets to heal his own daughter (because it is expedient not to heal her).

In the Acts of Peter and Andrew, the apostles travel hither and tither by means of a "bright cloud". (Beam me up Scotty!) The apostles call on a powerful Christian Arch-Angel to suspend a woman by her hair at the city gates while they pass unmolested out of town. Peter successfully passes a camel through the eye of a needle, twice.

In the Acts of Peter and Paul, the Jews hear that Paul plans to come to Rome and petition Nero to prevent this. Another version of Peter vs Simon Magus miracle contest is recounted, this time with Paul present, and enacted in front of the Roman Emperor Nero. Paul is presented as "bald", and attracts his bald shipmaster, Dioscorus, as a follower after delivering his son from death. Nero kills the bald Dioscorus instead of Paul. The Jews rejoice.

In the (Syriac) Acts of Philip, is Philip literate, not knowing either Greek or Aramaic? Philip commands a Christian angel to bind the Jew Ananias to the top of the mast by his big toes in a raging storm on account of his blaspheming in a sotto voice. "And the 495 men on the ship feared". Philip is a man of power and action, who battles armies with the cross: "When Philip crossed himself the ruler fell backward and all his troops." Ananias sets out presumeably to convert the Jews, as coerced by Philip. Impatient at his angelic qualities, the Jews kick Ananias to death and bury him in their synogogue. Philip resurrects Ananias, and commandeers a sick ox to assist retrieving the dead Jew from the synogogue. The commandeered sick ox runs on his mission, dragging his owner through the streets of Carthage. The ox and Ananias prostrate themselves before Philip. The city worshipped Philip. "Three thousand Gentiles and fifteen hundred Jews believed; the unbelievers left the city, and before sunset an angel slew forty of the Jewish priests for shedding innocent blood: and all who saw it confessed and worshipped. " People were impressed with the aggressive Christian angel slaying of forty priests. On the basis of this aggressive blood-thirsty revenge killings by the christian angel, people were converted to christianity.

In Acts of Pilate, when the Jews complain that Jesus healed people on Sunday, Pilate informs the Jews that Jesus "healed the lame and the bent, the withered and the blind and the paralytic, the dumb and them that were possessed, by the power of Asclepius", the 4th century Graeco-Roman healing god, whose most ancient and highly revered temples (and libraries) Constantine had just destroyed.

In the Acts of Thomas, the apostles are again "casting lots for the clothes of the nations", but Thomas refuses to abide by the lot he drew.for the journey to Indian. He does not want to go to India. He says: "'I am an Hebrew man; how can I go amongst the Indians and preach the truth?'" Jesus appears and directly commands Thomas to go to India, but Thomas directly refuses to obey. The next day, at the local markets, Jesus sells Thomas as a slave to an Indian merchant. The price for Thomas paid to Jesus was three litrae of silver unstamped. Jesus actually writes a deed of sale, saying: "I, Jesus, the son of Joseph the carpenter, acknowledge that I have sold my slave, Judas by name, unto thee Abbanes, a merchant of Gundaphorus, king of the Indians." Once in India, Thomas mispresents himself to the Indian King as a master builder. The Indian king gives Thomas a great deal of money to build a new palace. Thomas gives the money to the poor. Eventually, when the Indian King realises that Thomas is not a master builder and has lost all his money, "he rubbed his face with his hands, and shook his head for a long space. "

In the Acts of Titus, Paul fasts for seven days and causes the Temple of Apollo to be destroyed. (This matter of temple destruction by the Christians becomes a political reality immediately Constantine became supreme c.324 CE)

In the NHC 6.1 Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, are there 11, 12 or 13 apostles? The text discloses that eleven apostles prostrated themselves (twice) on the ground in front of Lithargoel, in the oriental fashion of worship, made popular in Constantine's era. If Lithargoel is taken to be Jesus, an indentification made by every single academic commentator to date (alternatively, Lithargoel may be identified as a physician/priest of Asclepius) then Jesus cites the Bagavad Gita, in making reference to the "City of Nine Gates". Also if Jesus carries a codex in his left hand, that is similar to (not the same) as the codex carried by Peter, what is the codex that Jesus carried, and did the Christians instruct Martial on codex technology?

All these represent invectives against the utterly HUMORLESS canonical story.

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And of those that were not, why do you think anyone simply adopted the official line of the imperial authority for any texts that they knew would not be accepted by that authority since it was that authority of the empire which authorized official texts?

We have inscriptions by city councils to Hermes from the 3rd centrury, and in the NHC we have discussions between Hermes and Asclepius. These were the two major players c.325 CE which had to contend against the imperial support of the Bilbo Jesus Baggins character from the canonical stories that the Emperor had just published far and wide.

This generation was caught between a rock and a hard place. There is no doubt that many rich landholders had very auspicious dreams around the years 324/325 CE and converted to Christianity. There is no doubt that entire towns petitioned Constantine that they were all 100% christian. And there is no doubt that Constantine had to legislate against clever pagans who were trying their darndest to become tax-exempt Bishops of Constantine because there was a great rush to jump on the imperial bandwaggon. The alternatives were not good.

By the middle of the 4th century the writings of Ammianus attest to the very first Christian auto de fe at which many people were brought in from Antioch and Alexandria to Scytholopis for torture and execution on account of their supposedly inappropriate religious beliefs. The majesty of the most high Lord God Caesar was at stake. Nobody was permitted to LAUGH OUT LOUD at the canonical story of Baby Bilbo Jesus Baggins. It was SERIOUS ROMAN BUSINESS and has remained that way since the 4th century when it was imposed from above on the empire run by a totalitarian regime and its succession of war chiefs following Bullneck.

In the very beginning, it is as if Moses (in the Greek LXX story which need have not been widespread in the empire at all - rather that it was a product of the Platonist Origen in the 3rd century CE) had broken the first tablet containing the Official Laws of God on his way down the mountain. It contained the very first commandment.

The very first commandment was THOU SHALT NOT LAUGH.

It all kinda makes sense this way. LOL.

Duvduv · 11-13-2012, 05:41 PM

I am digesting your post, however if it was the regime that came up with the Jesus story then why would alternative writers attempt writings that both adopt the regime story AND offer new writings UNLESS. a canon was not actually yet established in the fourth century but even later.

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11-12-2012, 10:01 PM	#394
Sheshbazzar Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: On the path of knowledge Posts: 8,889	Christianity has demonstrated that its adherents are fully capable of holding to and believing some quite preposterous things. Regardless of the intent of whomever may have composed these Gnostic texts for whatever reasons, it is still likely that there were simple and unsophisticated Christians that accepted these stories and their preposterous miracle claims at face value. If they accepted the Gospel tale of the resurrection and ascension, they might as well swallow any of the other Christian reported miracle tales. Jebus on a tortilla, some still do.

11-13-2012, 08:07 AM	#397
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	So Mountainman, you believe that even the paleography dating of fragments and codices are tentative and not engraved in stone at all, so that the distinctive features of the gospels that render them different from one another may only reflect changes that occurred in them long after they were originally composed by what you believe to have been a first-draft centralized scriptorium in Rome or Constantinople. However, I assume you agree that there is no evidence that this was the case, or for reasons why later changes would have even been made among a set of texts already composed by a central authority. I am not sure why you do not think internal evidence in the texts themselves should be easily noticeable since had they originally been written by the same people or under the same authority they would display evidence of this in the language of the texts. Finally, why do you believe so many gnostic texts had to have actually been parodies? And of those that were not, why do you think anyone simply adopted the official line of the imperial authority for any texts that they knew would not be accepted by that authority since it was that authority of the empire which authorized official texts?

11-13-2012, 05:41 PM	#400
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	I am digesting your post, however if it was the regime that came up with the Jesus story then why would alternative writers attempt writings that both adopt the regime story AND offer new writings UNLESS. a canon was not actually yet established in the fourth century but even later.

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