spin

This passage has already been looked at and you are misinterpreting it here. Archives exist for a reason.

Here once again is the fuller context for Julian's statement:

But these are rather your own doings; for nowhere did either Jesus or Paul hand down to you such commands. The reason for this is that they never even hoped that you would one day attain to such power as you have; for they were content if they could delude maidservants and slaves, and through them the women, and men like Cornelius and Sergius. But if you can show me that one of these men is mentioned by the well-known writers of that time,----these events happened in the reign of Tiberius or Claudius,----then you may consider that I speak falsely about all matters.

Julian cites names from Acts, Cornelius and Sergius, and asks if anyone can show him a mention of these men. Note as well that Julian imputes hopes on both Jesus and Paul, showing that he understood them to have been real people. Jesus and Paul were "content if they could delude maidservants and slaves, and through them the women, and men like Cornelius and Sergius." They targeted insignificant people and if you don't believe Julian, try to find those Romans, Cornelius and Sergius, mentioned in well-known writers. I bet you can't.

The text is abundantly clear. Julian treats Jesus and Paul as he does Moses and Plato. What he knows of each comes from texts he knew, the pentateuch, the dialogues, the gospels and the epistles. He knew the reputed time of christian events, as he mentions the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius. To say it clearly he also says:

Yet Jesus, who won over the least worthy of you, has been known by name for but little more than three hundred years

Julian obviously thought Jesus existed 300 years previously. R.I.P. mountainman's Grand Constantinian Conspiracy.


spin

No Robots

Some conspiracy theories are like cowards: they die a thousand deaths.

aa5874

Julian gets all information from Biblical texts, Julian has no corroborated information that Jesus lived. How can Julian claim that Jesus exist and also claim that Christianity is a fabrication.

You definitely need to read 'Against the Galileans'. Julian makes a mockery of Christianity and the God of the Jews. You are completely in error.

I will show that Julian refered to Jesus and Paul, when he mentioned the reign of Tiberius and Caudius.

Look at Luke 3;1, 'Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being govenor of Judaea.....
Luke 3:21....it came to pass that Jesus that Jesus being baptized.....'

It stands to reason that Julian could not find any writer, outside of the Bible, who wrote anything about Jesus during the reign of Tiberius Caesar.

Look at Acts 11:28-30, 'And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world, which came to pass in the days in the days of Claudius Caesar.
Then the disciples.....determined to send relief (v30) ....and sent it to the elders by Barnabus and Saul'

Again Julian cannot find any writer, outside the Bible, that can corroborate anything about Saul/Paul.

As I have shown you, Julian's knowledge of Biblical characters are through Biblical texts, which he appears to have studied well. The names Sergius, Cornelius, Jesus and Saul/Paul can only be found in the Bible and Julian challenges anyone to prove him false.

No-one can prove him false, even until today. The Galileans are a fabrication.

spin

Utter drivel. You persist in not reading the text. Julian, as I have now pointed out twice asks you to find Sergius and Cornelius in well-known writers (ie they would be prominent people), for, if you could, you'd show that his claim that Jesus and Paul aimed low in their followers was wrong. Please read the text. The grammar is simple.

The belief system of the Galileans perhaps, not the Galileans, otherwise no-one would know what he was talking about.

Now, this stuff you have written doesn't change the fact that Julian clearly understood christianity to have been around for centuries before the time of Constantine, which is the issue that I was dealing with, ie Julian is no help in the outlandish claim that christianity was thrown together a few decades before Julian was born.


spin

mountainman

The logic of the situation is that there exists a mainstream inference
which has been (since Nicaea in 325 CE) drawn from the manuscript
tradition of the christian "BIBLE" issued by the DESK of Constantine's
Minister of Propaganda (ie: Eusebius). The inference drawn from this
propaganda, issued under a brutal dictatorship of supression and
persecution by the abavenamed supreme imperial mafia thug, is that
the new and strange Roman religion existed before Constantine.

It is this presupposed inference which makes you say "the fact
that Julian clearly understood christianity to have been around
for centuries".

It is not an historical fact that Julian thought this way.
What is an historical fact is that the only reason you are
nit-picking grammar and style is because Cyril wrote a
refutation of Julian, because his work was turning many
people away from "the one true new and strange Roman
religion" ---- the original would have made good reading.

I am personally still very optimistic that an ancient ms will
one day surface (probably via the arabic) of Julian's 3 books.


Mainstream (spin's) postulate:

It is your interpretation of things, using the postulate that
Eusebius could not possibly have written an entire twisted
and utterly wretched mass of fictitious literature, and that
Constantine could not possibly have fraudulently misrepresented
its antiquity (and fabrication) to the beloved citizens of his large
and powerful empire.

Yet contemporary historians describe Constantine as:
1) a brigand (ie: pirate on land) for the period 316-326 CE, and
2) an irresponsible ward for the period 326-337 CE.


If Eusebius was bullshit, mainstream has been up the creek
since the council of Nicaea, and you along with it. Julian was
writing at the time (via Cyril!) and he calls it a fiction of men
composed by wickedness. (Grammar and Style set aside)

Most contemporary historians agree that Constantine
took very very good care of his friends (just as we would expect
supreme imperial mafia thugs to do), so Eusebius was obviously
well looked after.

Constantine first bound the fabrication of the galilaeans
to the LXX and all that we will ever know about the history
of christianity physically crossed the desk of his minister
for propaganda (Eusebius).

Mainstream belief has its postulates.
Dont we have enough time to test them?
Or is this exercise unimportant?



Best wishes,


Pete

aa5874

You should read 'Against the Galileans' not just part of it.

Let me show passages in 'Against the Galileans' that show Julian believes the Gospels were fabricated.

.



I have never argued that christianity was not before Constantine, my posts are to refute your assertion that Julian believe that Jesus and Paul existed when this is obviously not valid. Julian refutes even the God of the Jews.

aa5874

I will show that Julian considers the Bible to be mythical in content.

Julian is a documented MJ, since the 4th century.

spin

You're still way confused there. Julian does believe that the gospels are filled with crap. He does not believe that Jesus or Paul did not exist.

Yup.

Well, why don't you say something useful about the passages I've cited, rather than pleading that he is pretending that Jesus existed for argument's sake. Does he pretend that Plato or Moses existed solely for argument's sake?? Of course not. He believes that they existed, just as he believes that Jesus did. Read what he says about Jesus and Paul. You need to deal with the text and not your prejudices.


spin

aa5874

The words of Julian, MJ since the 4th century.

spin

Don't you wish you would read the bloody text once in a while?

The particular subject referred to is the garden of Eden and all the traditions connected with it:

Compare with [the myths of the Hellenes] the Jewish doctrine, how the garden was planted by God and Adam was fashioned by Him, and next, for Adam, woman came to be. For God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone. Let us make him an help meet like, him." Yet so far was she from helping him at all that she deceived him, and was in part the cause of his and her own fall from their life of ease in the garden.

This is wholly fabulous. For is it probable that God did not know that the being he was creating as a help meet would prove to be not so much a blessing as a misfortune to him who received her? Again, what sort of language are we to say that the serpent used when he talked with Eve? Was it the language of human beings? And in what do such legends as these differ from the myths that were invented by the Hellenes? Moreover, is it not excessively strange that God should deny to the human beings whom he had fashioned the power to distinguish between good and evil? What could be more foolish than a being unable to distinguish good from bad? For it is evident that he would not avoid the latter, I mean things evil, nor would he strive after the former, I mean things good. And, in short, God refused to let man taste of wisdom, than which there could be nothing of more value for man. For that the power to distinguish between good and less good is the property of wisdom is evident surely even to the witless; so that the serpent was a benefactor rather than a destroyer of the human race. Furthermore, their God must be called envious. For when he saw that man had attained to a share of wisdom, that he might not, God said, taste of the tree of life, he cast him out of the garden, saying in so many words, "Behold, Adam has become as one of us, because he knows good from bad; and now let him not put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and thus live forever." Accordingly, unless every one of these legends is a myth that involves some secret interpretation, as I indeed believe, they are filled with many blasphemous sayings about God. For in the first place to be ignorant that she who was created as a help meet would be the cause of the fall; secondly to refuse the knowledge of good and bad, which knowledge alone seems to give coherence to the mind of man; and lastly to be jealous lest man should take of the tree of life and from mortal become immortal,---- this is to be grudging and envious overmuch.

Obviously when you don't read the context of the statement you won't understand what it's on about. Do you see what comes before Julian's statement of belief is the garden tradition, which he goes back to referencing the tree of life? Is it so hard to understand? No, I didn't think so.

As you continually refuse to read the text, aa5874, I'll leave you at this stage and perhaps someone more long-suffering will hold your hand.


spin