mountainman

When I finally took up dear Mr. Gibson's offer to make
a post about my thesis in the ANCIEN-L list, my response
to Chris Weimer's summary, as follows, was rejected,
presumably for thanking Weimer for his ad-hominems.

Notably, noone has remarked on the 60 or more
inscription and payri citations presented in the
thesis. Noone is concerned about the state of
the evidence in this issue, which has been
reviewed extensively.

Additionally, Weimer misrepresents my thesis in
his summary point 3 below. See my response.



Thanks for the ad-hominems Weimer.
But try and deal with the evidence.



Actually, the tax-exempt Bishop Cyril of Alexandria
discloses that Julian was convinced that "the fabrication
of the Galilaeans was a fiction of men composed by wickedness."


The claim is that all earlier references to Christianity
are either forgeries of extant authors (eg: Porphyry, Origen),
forgeries of fictitious authors (eg: Tertullian, Ireaeus, Celsus, etc)
or interpolations of the patristic literature (eg: the TF, Pliny,
Suetonius, Tacitus, Marcus Aurelius, Galen, etc).


Paleography is handwriting analysis and the dating of papyri
based on this "art", and the authority ascribed to such
assessments of the early 20th century, are overdue for revision.

Our thesis is that the forgery of the new testament corpus
would have included the lavish display of forged documents,
for example at Nicaea, in ancient scripts, such as the Hadrian
script. The paleographers are correctly assessing the ancient
scripts exhibited in some papyri, but no paleographer is capable
of detecting a 4th century forgery of a 2nd century script.



Have you actually read the thesis Weimer?
Perhaps I have cited upward of 60 individual
inscrptions AND/OR papyri. Which of those
60 citations, which I claim to be not unambigously
christian, do you assert to be otherwise?

You may not like the 60 plus citations.
But you will nevertheless deal with them
and not your own conjectures.





Your selection of the term "LIES" gives
your position away Weimer. It is in fact
the same term that Cyril reserves to describe
the opinions of Emperor Julian.


We have Cyril's Contra Julian, we do not have Julian.
Cyril, according to the thesis, quite clearly outlined,
is a political CENSOR of the written opinion of Julian.


I dont expect people to immediately accept this thesis,
but I do expect people to address the review of the
evidence, external to the Eusebian tendered literature
tradition, that there does not appear to be any citation
by which we can determine unambiguously that Christianity
actually existed in the Pre-Nicene Epoch,

Deal with the evidence.
Not the messenger.



P.R.F. Brown
THESIS.pdf

~M~

where are the ad homs?

Toto

There's a reply here. from Jim Webster. And he didn't even mention this scholar adding some heretics to the mix.

I think this is the ad hominem:

dog-on

Maybe Constantine would have simply bitch-slapped any who opposed his imperial will...

Did Constantine allow a free press? I would like to have seen the editorials.

Clivedurdle

There is no reason for the gospels and new testament to have been written new by Eusebius - all was required was judicious editing. There is a strong argument for a new emperor religion building on pre existing waffly mixed up ideas with a wahhabist type sect calling everyone else heretics eventually winning in the West but the older woollier traditions continuing in the Eastern and Coptic - and by eighth century Chinese - churches.

And actually I doubt if Constantine was that interested in it - he thought they might be useful but did not understand the Pandora's box he had opened.

mountainman

Yes, he had them executed (eg: his son Crispus, his wife,
a number of Hellenic Priests, Arius, etc, etc) as though he
were setting examples. He was a mocker, not a flatterer.


Its pretty clear that he WAS THE MEDIA.
He controlled it as a malevolent despot.

NO FREE PRESS. Constantine understood control
of the media. We have no other "historians" other
than "Ecclesiastical Historians" writing during the time
that Constantine ruled.




Pete

mountainman

And here is my rejected response to Jim Webster:



At the basis of most forgery is money and financial gain.
To attempt literary criticism of forged material entails a peril.



Which Jewish authors specifically after 325 CE?
We know the Talmud compilers of c.200 CE never
actually mentioned christianity.




We must not forget that Constantine personally offered
large amounts of GOLD for "barbarians" to convert to his
new religion. He was not afraid to buy conversions.



P.R.F. Brown

mountainman

There is no real reason for the gospels and the
new testament to not have been written new
by Eusebius. Is there? It's in our postulates.
Nowhere else. The evidence cannot readily
decide as far as I can determine - because
there appears to be none external to Eusebius.

Do posters in this forum have the physical ability
to actually examine the postulate of fourth century
invention? I mean "entertain the notion".

Really when all is said and done, what's a few
centuries between friends?


One bible was worth a legion.
It was a racket. Constantine
had a military mind. Large amounts
of money changed hands in his rule.

He is described as "a brigand".
He walked in and took what he wanted.
He published what he wanted.
He did what he wanted.
He was "The Boss".

He created the new box of
christianity by literary fraud.

Ever since then Christianity has been
persecuting and has been intolerant
of things non-christian. The history
of persecution and intolerance during
the fourth century as described by
Vlasis Rassias, Demolish Them!
is the natural fruit of the tree which
was planted by Constantine.

Constantine has yet to be perceived
for his fraudulent misrepresentation
of ancient history.

Julian writes that Constantine could not discover
among the gods the model of his own career, but
had found Jesus out of a life of pleasure and incontinence.

Into the mouth of Jesus, Julian puts these words:

"He that is a seducer, he that is a murderer,
he that is sacrilegious and infamous,
let him approach without fear!
For with this water will I wash him
and will straightway make him clean.
And though he should be guilty
of those same sins a second time,
let him but smite his breast and beat his head
and I will make him clean again."

--- Julian's Caesares aka Kronia

mountainman

For any interested parties, here is a response accepted
in the ANCIENT-L discussion forum, in regard to a question
about a summary form of my thesis argument:


Did Pre-Nicene Christianity (x) Exist?
the Argument to Ahistoricity (2007)

There are two ways to "prove" ahistoricity: [1]

(1) If you can demonstrate that there is both
(a) insufficient evidence to believe x and

[a great amount of papyrii and epigraphy is cited]

(b) sufficient evidence to disbelieve x,
then it is reasonable to disbelieve x.
This is the "Argument from Silence."

[For example, the Testimonium Flavianum is cited;
and other interpolations]

(2) If you can demonstrate that all the evidence
can be far better accounted for by a theory (y)

[Theory (y) = "Constantine invented christianity
in the fourth century"]

other than historicity (theory x),
then it is reasonable to believe y and,
consequently, to disbelieve x. This is
the "Argument to the Best Explanation."


[1] Adapted from Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and
the Argument to Ahistoricity (2002) by Richard Carrier

I hope this servies to answer the question.
Best wishes.


P.R.F. Brown