Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Yep, ain't it funny that you got the iconography of "two Mary's" approaching a tomb, and "Jesus" and "Peter" walking on water , but not a "cross" to be found anywhere.
Oops, better sidle carefully around that invisible elephants leg

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Reply
I had to chuckle at this one Pete, as centuries of expert "Bible Scholarship" likewise insisted that The Exodus had to have happened, because, after all there were these Jews, and there just couldn't and wouldn't be any Jews unless The Exodus accounts were factual history.
Now that same myopia afflicts the subject of Christian origins, we have evidence that "Christians" exist, therefore the old accounts of Christian origins must be swallowed hook line and sinker.
Just overlook the fact that these alleged tens of thousands of Christians managed to sojourn for near three centuries throughout the near east, leaving behind near on to nothing to evidence that they even actually existed; Makes the Jews claimed forty years of sojourning in The Wilderness pale in comparison.
Makes one wonder how these experts were ever able to resign The Exodus account to the realm of myth based on the lack of archaeological evidence, yet ignore that humongously greater glaring lack of evidence for the Christian history as it was presented to us by Eusebius.
Just where in the hell is the evidence for the existence of all of those great early Christian Churches, and of the hundreds of miracle working Christian saints that he claims were so active?
They should have left tens of thousands of archaeological evidences behind, just as did the cult of Asclepius and many others. But all that these defenders of the Eusebian account can come up with are two or maybe three disputiably "Christian" sites?
Something is bad wrong here, and it lies at the feet of those who choose to ignore the absence of all the evidence that ought to exist to support their opinions.
I say give 'em hell Pete, they may mock and ridicule you, but at the end of the day, they are the ones who are going to have to confront the fact that their favorite version of history proves to be bunk, of no more value than their former opinion on The Exodus fable.

Originally Posted by mountainman

Hey Shesh,

Better yet, these detractors need to explain why, if christianity was a real hush-hush wink-wink secret society that kept underground all those long centuries without any identifiable evidence by which archaeological observers might know that they actually existed, then why would we even expect the Dura outpost to have all these grotesquely blatant and manifestly outwardly christian symbolism plastered all around their living room for anyone to openly interpret and report to the pre-Nicene state Roman christian persecutors? Perhaps we are not dealing with a case of phanero christians, but the OP cannot have it both ways. If the OP is arguing the early christians were non-descript and unassuming, why did they paint the equivalent a big pink (christian) cross in their living room?

Originally Posted by spamandham

The women at the cross could just be part of the story - grieving women doesn't seem out of place.

But the business about Joseph of Arimathia (and the business about Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross) seems out of place to me.

The context seems to have been lost, which does suggest either a merging of stories, a significant evolution of a story, or perhaps just symbolism which is no longer clear.

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Actually almost everything in the fragment corresponds to something in the Gospel accounts of the burial of Jesus.

Compare the fragment with the Arabic version of Tatian's Diatessaron which combines the Gospels into a single narrative. Andrew Criddle

Originally Posted by jeffevnz

I might be misunderstanding, but I don't think spamandham was disputing that the fragment is textually dependent on the parallel Gospel language. His point is that the language might be part of some non-Christian story that happened to get included in the Gospels. He admits it's a contrived possibility, but considers it a plausible escape for pete's theory.

Originally Posted by patcleaver

Spin, I voted no because you have not made your case that Dura-Europos falsifies MM's hypotheses.

1. The good Sheppard was a common pagan theme.

2. I have no reason to think that walking on water was not a common pagan theme.

Originally Posted by patcleaver

3. I have no reason to think that women visiting a tomb was not a common pagan theme.

Originally Posted by patcleaver

I live in a Christian society, which has resulted in a bias that seems like common sense, so my initial reaction was that these images were Christian, but in fact, we have no evidence at all to think that these images were not pagan or Jewish in Dura-Europos in 250.

4. The only citation you gave us to show that the fragment was Christian was a book that claims that the fragment is part of the Diatessaron. That citation does not provide a translation of the fragment, and does not provide a translation of the Diatessaron that we can compare it to. Then you admit that it is no longer believed to be a fragment of the Diatessaron. Where is the evidence that this is a Christian document. Why do you think it is unlikely to be either a pagan document or a Jewish document. Can you show us where it unambiguously refers to Jesus of Nazareth.

Spin, the evidence you provided about Dura-Europos is inadequate to falsify MM’s hypotheses

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MM claims that the gJudas was produced after 325 either by Eusebius or by others in reaction to the canonical gospels that Eusebius produced. However, the C14 data indicates that the most likely date of production of the gJudas copy that we have is 290 with a standard deviation of 30 years, and thus, there is only a 16% chance that the copy of gJudas we have was produced after 325.

It is highly unlikely that we have the original copy of gJudas or a copy made immediately after the authorship of gJudas. The average age of authorship of popular books in a modern libraries is probably around 20 years. Thus, its reasonable to believe that gJudas was most probably authored around 270.

gJudas proves that its very unlikely that Eusebius invented the entire Christian story himself because it is very likely that at least gJudas existed before Constantine commissioned Eusebius to produce any christian works.

I have not read it, but my understanding is that gJudas clearly refers to Jesus of Nazareth. I do not know if gJudas claims that all the thological necessary beliefs of Christianity are true. If it could be established that gJudas defines Christianity and that there was a community of people before 325 who believed that gJudas was non-fiction, then we could show that Christianity existed before Eusebius.

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Is it irrational to research and argue for a theory that you think best fits the data, even if there seems to be contradictory data?

Originally Posted by patcleaver

Darwin published “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” in 1859. Charles Lyell published “Principles of Geology” in 1863 which claimed that the earth was millions of years old. Both theories were controversial and most Scientists did not immediately accept these theories . By 1869, there were huge amounts of fossil evidence proving evolution of the species, and huge amounts of geological evidence that the earth was very old which was necessary for evolution to be possible.

However, in 1869 the pre emanate scientist of the age, Lord Thomas Kelvin, published "Of Geological Dynamics", (1869) which falsely proved that the sun could not be more than 10,000 years old. From Newton’s laws, Lord Kelvin knew the weight of the sun and estimated its heat output and determined that it was impossible for any chemical reaction to produce enough energy to sustain the heat output of the sun for more than about 10,000 years. The scientists of the day immediately accepted Lord Kelvan’s assessment, and the consensus of science was that old earth geology and evolution were falsified and completely refuted.

Based on the geological data geologists accepted the ancient earth theory, and based on the geological data and fossil data, biologists accepted evolution, but other scientists rejected these theories as impossible.

Einstein published his hypotheses which came to be called the special theory of relativity in 1905, and his hypotheses was verified in 1919 by the bending of light around the sun. However nobody at that time connected this to the solar power generation problem. Sir Arthur Eddington in 1920, based on the difference of weights between hydrogen and helium, was the first to propose that the source of the sun’s energy was fusion. Eddington’s hypotheses explained how the sun could produce energy for billions of years, but he could not prove that fusion was even possible. Eddington had shown that old earth geology and evolution were possible, but nobody knew if they were likely or not. Hans Bethe in 1939 published a paper based on accelerator data and mathematical modeling that proved that the source of the energy of the sun was nuclear fusion, and Lord Kelvin’s claims of impossibility of evolution and ancient earth were refuted.

Between 1869 and 1920 the consensus of science was that an ancient earth and evolution were impossible. However, the geologists and biologists continued to search for evidence and argue for those theories because these theories explained the data in geology and biology better than any other theory.

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I do not think it is at all irrational or illegitimate for MM to investigate his hypotheses and argue for his hypotheses. In fact, I think his presentation of his hypotheses provides an excellent target for atheists and theists to try to disprove. If Bible Scholars can not even disprove MM’s hypotheses, it shows there is something seriously wrong with Bible studies. MM has admitted many times that his scenario is merely an hypotheses, and at least once he has admitted that it is not even more probable than not.

MM’s interprets Arius’ statement “There was time when He was not” as a claim by Arius that Jesus is fictional .I do not think that MM’s interpretation of Arius’ statement is reasonable. If you are going to assume the historicity that Arius made such as statement then you’re going to have to assume the historicity of the context in which it was said. I think that MM’s interpretation of that statement is embarrassingly wrong in view of the context of the documents where it is found.

MM should present his hypotheses with more wishy-washy terms. He does not seem to have enough scientific training to consistently use terms, such as, “probably” and “possibly” and “I propose” and “I speculate” to describe his hypotheses. I am especially annoyed that someone might read his posts, and in view of his absolute language, to think he is a crank because sometimes he seems to be claiming that his hypotheses is infallible instead of just being one among many possible explanations of the evidence. I think this wastes a lot of other peoples time on useless arguments.

Originally Posted by patcleaver

My biggest objection against MM is that he says way more than he needs to - all we usually need is a short blurb to remind us of his hypotheses and how it relates to the topic.

Another objection is that his presentations of his hypotheses are often far off the topic of the forum that they are presented in. I have the same problem with spin’s responses to MM’s posts – spin often goes far off topic to try to argue against some post by MM that is irrelevant to the topic and should just be ignored.

Originally Posted by patcleaver

Eusebius did not invent Christianity because Christianity was invented at the first Counsel of Constantinople 380-385.

Until the Nicene Creed of 381 was created and adopted, the core set of beliefs that Christian denominations use to define a Christian did not exist.

It is not reasonable to claim that anyone was a Christian before 381. There is no reason to believe that anyone believed all the things in the Nicene Creed of 381 until after the creed was written and people were forced to repeat it.

Originally Posted by patcleaver

Thanks, Andrew
Yes it does sound Christian.

I thought Aramathea was a fictional city.
"Kingdom of God" is another fictional place.

"Joseph good righteous" sounds like a fictional name.
We never heard of this "disciple of Jesus"

from http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/victorian/gender/salome.html

In Christian mythology, Salome was the daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee in Palestine. Her infamy comes from causing St. John the Baptist's execution. The saint had condemned the marriage of Herodias and Herod Antipas, as Herodias was the divorced wife of Antipas's half brother Philip. Incensed, Herod imprisoned John, but feared to have the well-known prophet killed. Herodias, however, was not mollified by John's incarceration and pressed her daughter Salome to "seduce" her stepfather Herod with a dance, making him promise to give her whatever she wished. At her mother's behest, Salome thus asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Unwillingly, Herod did her bidding, and Salome brought the platter to her mother.

Originally Posted by patcleaver

from http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?...s&word=Zebedee

ZEBEDEE [SMITH] (my gift) (Greek form of Zabdi) a fisherman of Galilee, the father of the apostles James the Great and John (Matthew 4:21) and the husband of Salome. (Matthew 27:56; Mark 15:40) He probably lived either at Bethsaida or in its immediate neighborhood. It has been inferred from the mention of his "hired servants," (Mark 1:20) and from the acquaintance between the apostle John and Annas the high priest, (John 18:15) that the family of Zebedee were in easy circumstances. comp. (John 19:27) although not above manual labor. (Matthew 4:21) He appears only twice in the Gospel narrative, namely, in (Matthew 4:21,22; Mark 1:19,20) where he is seen in his boat with his two sons mending their nets.

from http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=salome

SALOME [SMITH] (peaceful). 1. The wife of Zebedee, (Matthew 27:56; Mark 15:40) and probably sister of Mary the mother of Jesus, to whom reference is made in (John 19:25) The only events recorded of Salome are that she preferred a request on behalf of her two sons for seats of honor in the kingdom of heaven, (Matthew 20:20) that she attended at the crucifixion of Jesus, (Mark 15:40) and that she visited his sepulchre. (Mark 16:1) She is mentioned by name on only the two latter occasions. 2. The daughter of Herodias by her first husband, Herod Philip. (Matthew 14:6) She married in the first the tetrarch of Trachonitis her paternal uncle, sad secondly Aristobulus, the king of Chalcis.

Salome [EBD] (perfect) (2.) "The daughter of Herodias," not named in the New Testament. On the occasion of the birthday festival held by Herod Antipas, who had married her mother Herodias, in the fortress of Machaerus, she "came in and danced, and pleased Herod" (Mark 6:14-29). John the Baptist, at that time a prisoner in the dungeons underneath the castle, was at her request beheaded by order of Herod, and his head given to the damsel in a charger, "and the damsel gave it to her mother," whose revengeful spirit was thus gratified. "A luxurious feast of the period" (says Farrar, Life of Christ) "was not regarded as complete unless it closed with some gross pantomimic representation; and doubtless Herod had adopted the evil fashion of his day. But he had not anticipated for his guests the rare luxury of seeing a princess, his own niece, a grand-daughter of Herod the Great and of Mariamne, a descendant, therefore, of Simon the high priest and the great line of Maccabean princes, a princess who afterwards became the wife of a tetrarch [Philip, tetrarch of Trachonitis] and the mother of a king, honouring them by degrading herself into a scenic dancer."

Originally Posted by mountainman

Dear jeffevnz,

As you might read somewhere above in this discussion I have asked the question as to whether the name Jesus is actually written in full on this fragment of greek text. Or, as is usually the case, we are dealing with an abbreviated name (for example, the equivalent of just JS.

I suggest that we determine the answer to this question because if the answer is the latter option, an abbreviation, then that abbreviation does not necessarily resolve to Jesus. For example, throughout the LXX (ie: since somewhere around the year 250 BCE in the greek) the same JS is written by the scribes to be resolved as Joshua.

I hope you can see the predicament here. If we are dealing with the abbreviated form (and I think that we may be - but I am prepared to be shown wrong on this specific fact) then it is far more likely that the fragment is non christian, that the name of the subject is not Jesus but Joshua, and that this is related to the Hebrew Bible, or rather the greek preservation of the Hebrew bible, and thus, arguably, nothing to do with canonical christianity as such.



Best wishes,


Pete

Originally Posted by mountainman

Dear Spin,

What shall we do with the greek LXX scribal practice of denoting the name of Joshua with this very same IH (iota eta)? Do we find any stories in greek about a person called Joshua? Are these stories in any way "christian"? I thought they were originally Hebrew stories about this Joshua. I would like someone to step forward and refute the possibility that the subject at that reference in question (the IH (iota eta) abbreviated name) of the fragment was not in fact one person known as Jesus, but rather another person known as Joshua.


Best wishes,


Pete

Originally Posted by J-D

On the other hand, you have no reason to think that women visiting a tomb was a common pagan theme.

Originally Posted by J-D

Jesus is simply the Greek for the Hebrew Joshua. In Hebrew the vowels of the name are not written, so Joshua and Jeshua are indistinguishable.