Toto

That's possible, but what indication do you have that this is the case?

We reject these as supernatural elements. But people still look to the gospels as an indication of what the Christians who wrote them believed. In many cases it is possible to trace the evolution of belief through differences and changes in different manuscripts.

There is no apparent evolution of the claim that Mani was the Paraklete. It is in the earliest documents, and it is consistent. Furthermore it make sense, given Mani's upbringing among heretical Jewish-Christians.

mountainman

That citation is possibly itself a double edged sword, the author presenting "the Saviour" sitting in the temple around the time of Nicaea - three hundred years after the covenant between the founder of christianity and his earthly apostles - and making disparaging comments about the authenticity and authority of the Nicaean church, bending under imperial leadership, and about the bishops as "dry canals".


You must have missed my disclaimers about not being in possession of absolute and infallible knowledge.

Imagine that you and your internet friends were part of a post Nicaean Manichaean community which was dragged in front of Constantine to plead the case of special dispensation over and against Constantine's recent law "Religious privileges are reserved for Christians". Are you telling me that you would simply say No - Mani was not a follower of Constantine's Jesus".


I dont think so. Rather, would you not be inclined to exclaim the opposite - that " YES - Mani was indeed a follower of Constantine's Jesus"!


For the 4th or 5th time, the Cologne Mani-Codex is a post Nicaean manuscript and tells us the state of the Manichaean literature in the 5th century, not the 3rd century.

The entire (mainstream) premise, that this 5th century manuscript is an accurate reflection of the original 3rd century Syriac sources is at the end of the day, without evidence, a postulate, a hypothesis, an assumption.

I think you should be at least honest and open enough acknowledge this.

stephan huller

And just to play devils advocate - if the real Mani had nothing to do with Jesus or Christianity and was only reconciled later in history as such why doesn't Ephrem mention this anywhere in his writings? You'd think that would be a powerful argument against the fourth century Manichaeans ie that their leadership had completely abandoned Mani's original beliefs and practices.

Why would Ephrem spend countless pages attacking the Manichaean religion as it was in the fourth century when it would have been far more devasting to show that Mani said and did none of things the official documents now claimed?

I guess Pete wasn't available yet to help the inferior Ephrem develop his arguments

Toto

That does not justify dreaming up improbable ideas and claiming that they are probable.

This is a fantasy. Manichaeans were persecuted. Arians who did not believe in Constantine's Jesus were persecuted. If you wanted to avoid persecution, you joined the Catholic Church.

It is not 100% certain, but it is a reasonable hypothesis. It fits all the available evidence. Can you disprove it? Or does everyone else have to disprove your ideas?

Transient

Whether or not they were "supernatural" events is irrelevant because if there was a god then supernatural events could occur. One cannot just assume that a god does not exist - that is very faulty logic.

Transient

If you really wish to discredit Pete's theory then yes, you do need to have valid irrefutable evidence that he is wrong. But why bother, why the huge desire to prove him wrong, why not just accept it as another of many many possibilites?

Transient

Maybe by then the history of mani was already blurred and even he did not know the true Mani - after all it is just what we are doing with the christian history isn't it? :wave:

avi

And, what is our oldest extant manuscript of Ephrem?
avi

mountainman

You may think that the hypothesis that this 5th century manuscript is an accurate reflection of the original 3rd century Syriac sources is reasonable without evidence, but I do not, without evidence.

At the moment I am skeptical of the hypothesis that this 5th century manuscript is an accurate reflection of the original 3rd century Syriac sources. I have povided what I considered to be reasonable evidence and arguments against this mainstream hypothesis throughout this thread and will not repeat them again.



Perhaps we can move on to the second OP question ....

"Was Mani crucified" ?

stephan huller

I'm sorry I haven't heard an argument yet just the date of the surviving manuscript. Is it your contention that Ephrem is another fiction? By whom? Or is the sixth century manuscript all the proof we need?