mountainman

Dear J-D,

Rich pagans vied between one another to become christian bishops, such were the benefits and tax-exemptions up for grabs, and Constantine had to actually legislate for this to calm down. The christian religion was brand spanking new in the ominous year of 324/325 CE. Noone knew the remotest thing about it, since it was a fabrication of old parts cobbled together under sponsorship of the technologist Constantine. The greek academics, lead by Arius knew it was fabricated, and the words of Arius may be interpretted in this sense, without too much problem at all.

These five dogmatic assertions of the ascetic (perhaps priest) Arius were important enough to have been recorded as part of the earliest extant copies of the preceedings of the Council of Nicaea. I have pointed you at the relevant texts. Have you read them?

The fact of the matter is that on the original Nicaean Oath, and it is more legally appropriate to term the thing an oath, ceryainly not a creed, for a number of reasons, the words of Arius are clearly and irrefuteably presented as part of a legal disclaimer clause:

Arius was expelled, most fortunately in my humble opinion. If he was not expelled he may have been executed, and if he was executed at that time, we may not have any apochryphal new testament literature in our possession.

Arius may be able to perceived as the father of the new testament apochryphal literature, at that time when we human people are capable of the psychological hurdle of viewing the new testament apochryphal acts as a burlesque and a satire of Constantinianism. Arius satirised Constantine's invention, and for that the christians (lead by Constantine) regarded him as particularly seditious, and it was politically expedient to have Arius poisoned, which eventually happened. What does anyone have to say about Constantine's "Dear Arius" Letter of 333 CE?

In support of the claim that we may be able to argue that Arius could be considered the father of the new testament apochryphal literature I would like to explore the possibility that Arius of Alexandria and the author known as Leucius the disciple of the devil .


Here are some notes on the Leucian Acts, which are the set of documents defined as The Acts of John, The Acts of Peter, The Acts of Paul, The Acts of Andrew, and The Acts of Thomas:

I would like to also add that IMO the Nag Hammadi document NHC 6.1, the Hellenic burlesque entitled "The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles" could have been authored by Arius of Alexandria, perhaps aka Leucius Charinus to protect his identity from the innocent. Notably, the "Songs of Arius", very popular with the common people of the day, went missing.


Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

1. Please StOp ShOuTiNg. It's not nEcEsSaRy.

2. As I pointed out above, if the symbols were on living-room walls, then they weren't public.

3. Even if these people were Jewish, it does not automatically follow that they were not Christian, as I have mentioned previously.

4. Your reference to a 'recognised' sect of the Jewish religion is not clear. You have not explained what sort of recognition you think this was, or who you suppose extended it, or what the basis for this conclusion is.

5. (And most importantly) if the Dura site was used by people who were explicitly distinguishing themselves from Christians, it necessarily follows that there were Christians at that time.

6. Your personal religious prejudices are not germane.

J-D

None of what you have to say in this post constitutes any reason for thinking that women visiting a tomb was a common pagan theme.Not by me, certainly. But that is irrelevant to the point I was making.Since I am not attempting to make the point you suppose, the request for a 'sample' is irrelevant.

avi

This is an illustration of the falsification of Pete's theory.

Spin had intended to write:
"...has been REFUTED by..." or, "...has been REPUDIATED by...", or "...has been proven incorrect by...", but NOT "falsified".

English may not represent "Spin's" native language, hence, his error in writing "falsification" is understandable, though, no less incorrect.

So, is this just nit-picking about English?

Hmm. MOST of this thread is similarly focused on WORDS, not on analysis of DATA. Arius' life was terminated abruptly, after a decade in hiding, because of WORDS. Many of the insults and invective hurled at Pete seem to me to represent problems with WORDS, rather than data. The fragments, even if color coded, are not persuasive. The Dura excavation is tainted. I don't dispute the improbability of Pete's hypothesis being correct, but I disagree with those, including myself, a month ago, who imagine that the EVIDENCE refutes him.

mountainman

Dear J-D,

Are you able to state with any authority that pagan women were legally prohibited from visiting tombs in antiquity? Thank you for the citation. Examine the ancient greek Law Codes of Gortyn, Crete, and you may find that women had the equal right to own property, and visit tombs, etc. In fact, if we are to be reasonable about it, if a woman in this greek antiquity happened to own property, and that property happened to have a tomb on it, are you claiming for some reason that it would be impossible for that woman, if she were not a christian, to approach the tomb? Or impossible to have an artist in antiquity depicting such a scene?


Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

No, I am not suggesting that they were the same person. I am suggesting that they were two people who shared a name with each other (and also with many other people). If one finds a Greek text referring to Jesus and a Hebrew text referring to Joshua, they may well be referring to two different people (with the same name), but they may also be referring to the same person. More information is needed to be sure. One can't conclude reliably that they must be different people just because of the linguistic difference. In exactly the same way, if one finds a French text referring to Emperor Charles and a German text referring to Emperor Karl, one can't conclude reliably that they must be two different emperors just because of the linguistic difference. The references might be to different emperors, but they also might be to the same emperor.I was consciously (and I think legitimately) omitting that detail. I was aware that the rough breathing marker could be used in classical Greek to symbolise an 'h' sound, but only at the beginning of words, and hence not the 'h' in Joshua or Jeshua.They're not indistinguishable in Hebrew, but they can end up the same when translated into Greek.

And to answer your earlier question, yes, there is no 'sh' phoneme in Greek.

J-D

Why, what do you think?

(Please don't try the Socratic method. You're just not right for the part.)

mountainman

Dear J-D,

There was nothing wrong with the pagan academic academy and its know thyself inscribed on the lintern.

Best wishes,


Pete

Sheshbazzar

There were pagan "chrEstians" , Gentile "dogs" who snatched the scraps from under the table of Messianic Jews, The Jewish sect of The Nazarenes.
It was these, that readily assumed the "name" "christian" however, these never actually joined themselves to The Jewish Sect of the Nazarenes, preferring rather to create a new Gentile dispensation, and a different "Gospel to the Gentile's" under the pseudonym of "Paul" in opposition to that Gospel which The Jewish Nazarene believers had heard, recieved, and kept, from the beginning.
The Jewish sect of The Nazarenes was first, and recieved their Gospel directly from the Source, and held it unspotted by these Gentile innovations for over twelve centuries, they were not "Christians" and never did become "Christians", They remained identifiably of Jewish religion, living peaceably and in observance of Jewish Law and custom.
Must go. more latter.

spin

Falsification and falsifiability are essential terms when dealing with theories. It is funny that someone who doesn't know about such an important theoretical tool as this one championed by Karl_Popper (try starting here) should deem to try to teach a linguist about language when plainly not in a position to do so.

It's not a problem of English: you seem to be able to use the language somewhat. You should talk about things you know about, rather than blundering in public as you have done. Try not to guess what someone's intentions are in the future and try to deal with the issues.

When you stop waxing lyrical you might come back to the topic.

In what respect is the relevant Dura excavation data here tainted? Was the diatessaron fragment not found where the excavators indicated? Were the frescoes recovered not found where they claimed them to be? Do you want to accuse the archaeologists of faking their data? What's wrong with the data we have for the task of falsifying this theory that christianity, the gospel religion, was invented by Eusebius and co as a whole, ie that Jesus and the cultus based on the crucifixion of Jesus did not exist before the time of Eusebius?

Does the fragment from Dura not contain enough information to indicate that traces of all the gospels were present on it? that it conveys enough data about the gospel religion to show that the claim that Eusebius invented the religion has been falsified? Do the motifs found on the walls when taken in conjunction with each other and the font embody enough of the same religion also to falsify the claim?

It is quite hard to falsify the claims of the theory proposed by mountainman, given that no facts have been put forward to support them. If a theory cannot potentially be falsified it has no value. I have I think found a means to falsify it and to most people here the data that I have put forward has falsified the theory. [And next time when you want to take someone to task about something, try to know a little about the subject.]


spin