stephan huller

You know what? I am so tired of your endless propaganda (without purpose because there is so much wrong with your theory - the 'cracks' have all joined together shattering its original appearance of cohesion) that I am actually going to write Peter an email. My brain literally cannot get around to considering yet another permutation of the original nonsense.

My email will read:

Dear Peter:

I know we rarely correspond outside of the 'blog' forum but I happen to have some guy who is convinced that the Gospel of Judas can only be dated to after Nicaea. I don't know why I care what he thinks. Perhaps it is a distraction from my own existence. Nevertheless he has asked me to ask you the following questions:

(1) Whether Jull has published his paper yet from the 2006 test..
(2) Whether Jull's published paper calibrates the 280 CE result.
(3) Whether he is aware the world is presently quoting the uncalibrated C14 results.
(4) How he views the scientific requirement of performing the calibration of the C14 result.

Sorry for annoying you will these trivialities. This man was just attempting to get around the results of your dating of the document.

Sincerely

Stephan

mountainman

This could cost you stephan.

Toto

Just to be sure you know, the Journal of Unification Studies is published by the Unification Church (aka Moonies.) Arthur appears to be on staff. Which shouldn't be held against him, but is worth noting.

His case for a hoax appears to be based on one grammatical error. The comment notes the anomaly of a hoaxer putting the effort into such an elaborate hoax and then allowing the document to be so mishandled.

mountainman

Thanks Toto - I did not know that.

Standard procedure.

Yes I agree, although I could not follow his argument over the grammar in completeness. My only reason for citing him is his highlighting the polemic against the temple priesthood with that quote from gJudas. He appears to think this is one part of the evidence of forgery (in addition to the grammar) because - probably - it is not expected.

My explanation, contraversial and novel as it is, is the pagan author directed the polemic against his own prohibited and diminishing pagan priesthood, in a satire directed against the new ruling state religion of Constantine, after Nicaea. It is after Nicaea that orthodoxy and heresy and prohibited cults and books were part of the empire-wide social and religious landscape.

A third issue that the author presents is genre. He says:

Which is of course precisely what I am suggesting. That is, they (the non canonical gospels and acts, etc) are the product of that later era - the 4th century Constantinian era. The substantial impact of the theological and ecclesiastic crises was post Nicaean, and not earlier. The major theological and ecclesiastic crisis has been called the "Arian controversy" and suspended the process of "canonization of the NT as a Holy Writ" for perhaps another 40 years (c.367 CE).

The new testament canonization process not only had to contend with which books would become canon, but it also had to contend with the heretics and other deviants preserving the prohibited and illegal and buried gnostic books of the new testament between these years of Nicaea and c.367 when closure is recorded.

The canon preservers wrote the history we have of the non canonical gospels.
They assert these texts were authored before Nicaea.
I think that these assertions are fabrications.
And that the C14 results are a reality check.

Toto

That is not precisely what you are "suggesting." Arthur claims that the concerns in gJudas reflect modern 20th and 21st century concerns - homosexuality and abortion.

mountainman

One expert on the Gospel of Judas says this:

"Gnostic texts use parody and satire quite frequently ...
making fun of traditional biblical beliefs"

[April Deconick]

The number of articles written on the Gospel of Judas since 2006 when National Geographic did an "Indiana Jones" on the publication and translation of this manuscript discovery has greatly increased, including reactions from the practicing faithful. Wasn't Rowan Williams one of the first? What did he say about the gJudas? There is alot of scatter in the opinion out there now. As you must be aware, I dont think it is a forgery. But its amazing what the distribution of reactions there has been to it in the last few years.


History of Academic Opinion on the Gnostic Gospels etc

gJudas is not alone. There are more than a score of "Gnostic Gospels" and even more "Gnostic Acts". I am "suggesting" we should be guided by scholarship and expert academic assessment of the "STATUS" of these "Hot Books", but that we should continue to keep an open mind.

There is no doubt that these "Forbidden and Heretical Books" were forbidden and deemed heretical for a very good reason.
What was that reason?

Could it be that these books were simply unauthorized polemical and satirical Greek literary reactions to Constantine's imperially bound Codex? That they were, at the time and the historical context of the Council of Nicaea and the attempted canonisation process, examples of politically incorrect authorship? But that the contraversial reception of the NT Canon, and the contraversial literary reaction from Alexandria Greek authors (ie: the NT Apocrypha) was suppressed and omitted from history, or rather inserted by references into the pre-Nicaean epoch via Irenaeus and Tertullian et al.

An Index of Summary Comments

Who was Leucius Charinus?

stephan huller

But you have to remember satire doesn't mean the same thing as 'acknowledging that Christianity never existed' before the fourth century. I could develop a satirical piece about a surfer-turned Biblical scholar but that wouldn't mean that I was arguing that Pete was a fictional character

mountainman

Getting around the Third Century c14 Dating of gJudas (280 CE +/- 60 years)

Aside from the fact that a post Nicaean authorship is not at variance with these above published results, we have the following logic to contend with ....


Basic Principles of Radiocarbon Dating at Arizona University show these steps:

Theory

(1) Pretreatment

(2) Measurement

(3) Correction

(4) Age Calculation - provides uncalibrated radiocarbon age in year BP (plus or minus error estimate)

(5) Radiocarbon Calibration
I could be entirely wrong about this, but it would appear to my untrained eye that the final step (5) "Radiocarbon Calibration" has not yet been published for gJudas discussed, and that the uncalibrated radiocarbon age determined by the result of step (4) is being held - perhaps incorrectly - as an interim authority on the subject.

mountainman

I can remember this - in fact I have repeated disclaimed this. Irrespective of the authenticity of the NT canon, after it was supported and widely published at Nicaea, it is quite reasonable to assume that only at that time was it ever taken seriously by the predominantly pagan academics of Alexandria. It is also reasonable to assume from the evidence of that time, that the NT canon was soundly satirized.

Why does Jesus head reach above the heavens? Why does Peter fit a camel through the eye of a needle? Why does Aesop's "The Mouse and the Lion" relate so well to "The Acts of Paul"? Why do the Apostles travel around in "Bright Clouds" from place to place? Why do the Apostles "cast lots for the nations"? Why are smoked fish resurrected? Why does the Temple of Apollo, and other temples, get destroyed by "Christian fasting"? ETC, ETC, ETC, ETC ..... (I could go on and on).

All this is easily explained by seeing the Gnostics as non christian satirists after Nicaea, reacting to the stories published by their "Pontifex Maximus" in imperial codex publications. There was a brief "war of the codices" until "canonization" c.367 CE, and the political environment permitted stabilization via the military machine.

The Gnostic works became "heretical" and "forbidden" and "illegal" and "hot property" - dependeing upon your position in the whole affair, and they had to be "hidden" or "buried" or made "apocrypha" ("hidden"). They were merged into the "Early Christian Story" by the orthodox, and moved out of sight until recent centuries, when manuscript discoveries are bringing them to the focus of attention once again. But what is their real story and history? Not as reported by the orthodox! They are imo post Nicaean literary reactions to the imposition of the NT canon on the Greek civilisation at Alexandria, authored between c.324/325 and c.336 CE. The C14 supports this interpretation.

stephan huller

You don't seem to understand what the word 'satire' means. None of this represents 'satire.' You seem to think 'satire' means 'stupid/unbelievable stories.'