J-D

Why should we say that? Do we have any reason to think it's true?

Doug Shaver

Are you trying to change the subject or evade the question? If they were true, they would be useful to historians but irrelevant as evidence for your theory, which presupposes their falsity.

Your theory alleges that they were forged with the intention that they be accepted as evidence of events that never actually occurred. That means the forgers had to have wanted them to look credible. They would have known that contradictions would undermine their credibility. Therefore, if they had been forgeries, they would have been consistent. Not identical, but consistent.

According to your theory, there was no primeval period and no heretics. If there was no Christianity before Eusebius, then there could not have been any heresies.

Quite true. Also quite irrelevant to my point about consistency.

mountainman

Dear Doug,

What do you think the purpose and function of the Eusebian canon tables to have been, if it were not a concordance of the consistencies between the four independent eyewitness accounts, which are to be tested in a court of law in the Roman empire, for the posterity of a greek speaking audience? The package had its acadmic niceties which compelled the audience to make the assumption that alot of work had already gone on by those wonderful forefathers of the early christian basilica cult, in sorting this business out.


There are various measures of integrity and consistency. The main one levelled around here ad nauseaum is the internal consistencies (or otherwise) between the gospels (for example). In parallel, we need to address the issues related to the external integrity of how these texts individually, and as a whole, fit into the larger picture of ancient history -- especially for example, other texts of the epoch, for example the apochryphal gospels.


Best wishes,


Pete

avi

Dear Pete,
I have read almost nothing, I am a very small empty slate, awaiting only chalk and a learned hand to manoeuvre it, thereby imprinting something noteworthy on my consciousness...However, ignorant though I am, I can appreciate your kindness in responding to the first of my three questions. May I humbly ask, Pete, whether you perceive the same contradiction--one rather modest in scope, and probably not terribly significant--which I have observed in your response to my questions?

You replied to my question soliciting information about a source to explain your concept that Nicea represented a gathering (of military minded lads, with no prior exposure to Christianity: men who exited the conference as "Bishops" of the newly constructed Christian church,) by citing some guy named Robin, who in turn, apparently, judging from the exerpt you supplied, cited Eusebius!!!

In other words, Pete, it appears to me that you are responding my inquiry by citing Eusebius, as an authority, yet, it is precisely Eusebius' account of Nicea which you have sought to disprove, having previously acknowledged that Eusebius' historical narratives represent little more than clumsy propaganda. I hope you will comment on my earlier question regarding Athanasius' writing, particularly his description of the books to be included in the new testament--a list which differs from the comparable suggestion by Eusebius, fifty years earlier, in 325CE... Athanasius was in attendance, at Nicea, as a young man, correct? And, he was trained by Lucius, or Alexander, "bishop" of Alexandria, before Nicea, right? So, there was at least one guy at Nicea, who was not simply some kind of military robot. Since he lived, taught, and wrote, long after Constantine, and was compelled to go into hiding himself, upon Constantine's death, during the reign of Constantine's first son, (a follower of Arius, arch enemy of Athanasius,) it seems to me improbable that Athanasius was a simple scribe carrying out Eusebius' plan.....

Thank you also, for addressing my second question Pete, concerning Constantine's rationale for creating a Church hierarchy, by explaining that the Roman army invented the concept of diocese well before Nicea:
Good, well, then, was this word taken over by the Christians BEFORE Nicea, or afterwards? Is there any extant, authenticated, documentary evidence (not Eusebius) explaining the Christian motivation in adopting a Roman military word to describe the governance of their religious organization?

With regard to my third question, perhaps rephrasing it will facilitate a response: Pete, I don't understand why Constantine invited so few Europeans to attend this conference in Nicea, if in fact, Constantine created the religion. How do you explain the disproportionality in nationality attending the Nicean conference? Shouldn't there have been a weighting in exactly the reverse proportion, if in fact, Constantine created the religion from nothing, and organized Nicea based upon military alliances, rather than previous Christian religious teaching/instruction? Alternatively, do you dispute the source of information regarding the nationality of the participants at Nicea? Will you grant me this, that the representation reported, concerning attendees' nationality at Nicea, is consistent more with a pre-existing christian religion, derived from a focus in Jerusalem, rather than one created out of thin air, by a western European Roman Emperor?

J-D

The canon tables do indeed show that somebody had put a lot of work into comparing the texts of the four canonical Gospels. I don't know why you think this had anything to do with a Roman court of law. I also don't see how you think that's relevant to this discussion. The canon tables do nothing to explain the inconsistencies between the four canonical Gospels.That's a good idea. If you ever do it, let us know.

Doug Shaver

I don't know. If you show me one, maybe I can think of something. The belief that Eusebius invented the canon table doesn't seem to be well supported by documentary evidence.

I do recall from my own reading of Eusebius that he affirmed the gospels' consistency and conjured up some explanations for the contradictions. He had to do this because, as he himself acknowledged, other people had noticed those contradictions. This is exactly what modern inerrantists do. They call them "apparent contradictions" and invent reasons for thinking they're not real contradictions.

Modern apologists have to do it because they had nothing to do with writing the gospels. Eusebius had to do it for the same reason.

According to your theory, the gospels were written by one man pretending to be four men who agreed with each other. To any sensible person not precommitted to the dogma of divine inspiration, it is patently obvious that the four gospels were not written by four men who agreed with each other. Eusebius was quite aware of this, and so he had to invent some reconciliations.

mountainman

Dear avi,

I have it that the fiction of the christians was fabricated between the years and 312 and 324 along with the christian history for the epoch leading up to the time that the forward-thinking Constantine assumed he would be the supreme being. At that time 324 CE when he became the supreme being, he attempted (successfully in retrospect) his fiction to be associated with a new state religion which he would dispense at a supreme summit meeting, which was Nicaea.

How was it received? We have the account of Eusebius. From that day forth a new history commenced, and we need to investigate it very carefully. The history of the epoch of Constantine is written about by christian historians at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries -- but nobody went back and comments on anything prior to the Council of Nicaea in terms of the history of christianity which was packaged by Eusebius c.324 CE and possibly revised while he was writing "Life of Constantine" c.337 CE.

As far as I am aware there was no substantial change to the canon after Eusebius and Constantine published the Constantine Bibles c.331 CE, if not earlier other than the dropping of "The Shepherd of Hermas". The church councils of the fourth century for some reason axed "The Shepherd".

The Decretum Gelasianum provides a list of both the canon and an Index of Apocrypha c.491 CE however it may have been as stated in this document, think some commentators, as early as the time of Pope Damasius (ie: 365 CE in Rome) and perhaps earlier.


If you think things are as simple as that I suggest you take a look at what Sir Isaac Newton writes concerning the morals and motives of Athansius and his followers. The Newton Project online has some very revealing articles.


Not that I am aware of. It appears that the word "diocece" and "vicar" appear to be simply taken over by the Constantinian regime. Here is what the British ancient historian Robin Lane-Fox wrote about this appropriation:

The footnotes night help with further substantiations.


Constantine brought his entire army to Nicaea dont you understand?
The events described inside the councils are events occurring within the eye of a vast military cyclone of destruction. Constantine had already utterly destroyed some of the most ancient and most revered temples in the eastern empire, and had ordered their priests to be executed. About the council of Nicaea was the entire force of Constantine's military machine. Would the attendees agree with Constantine, or would they be swayed by the words of Arius of Alexandria?

Finally avi, thanks for your questions which I have attempted to answer to the best of my knowledge (to date).


Best wishes,



Pete

mountainman

Dear J-D,

I wonder why that somebody did that work?

Constantine was the Pontifex Maximus, the head of the Roman Law system. We can read all about his legal dispensations from the Theodosian Codex. Roman Law and Order were important concerns for Constantine. Documents must have had great meaning (think of the Nicaean Creed signed by 318 people) for him. The four gospels were supposed to be examined as authentic documents -- attesting to the very true and ancient historical presence of an ancient historical jesus. This is the message of our history J-D, or am I mistaken?


Read again what I wrote. They are evidence to be taken into account during the assessment of the questions being addressed to an explantion of the consistencies (or otherwise). It is like it was all mapped out in advance.

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Doug,

The canon tables may represent a type of "Q" document with about 600 odd atomic elements, and a method by which they are to be allocated to each of the four independent accounts. That is, if you were to examine all the bits and pieces of the four gospels as declared in the Eusebian canon tables, you could say there were 618 (approx) individual facts which are shared in varying proportions (or not as the case may be) between the four purported authors of the four gospels.

According to the assertion of Eusebius this marvelous presentation of the mathematical concordance, the combinations and the permutations of the new testament legal testiments, was prepared by one Ammonius. Do we know who Eusebius was referring? I had at one time presumed Eusebius was attempting to refer to the neopythagorean Ammonis Saccas, of whom there are clearly two in ancient history. The Eusebian christian Ammonius and the other more solid pythaorean founder. Messy business, as usual, Eusebius.



Almost. The gospels were written under the orders and the sponsorship of Constantine --- by one man who was ordered to pretend to be four men who agreed with each other.

Eusebius was in a difficult literary situation. He had been ordered to fabricate four independent accounts, not identical, with an 80% smattering of inconsistencies which would have been natural for different eye-witnesses. But how important was this issue at the time? How expedient was it for the sponsor of the work? What was Constantine's position?

Eusebius was not in a difficult political situation, since it was not up to him to have to assert the authority of the canon. Constantine saw that end of the business strategy as his, and he took the canon to the pagans in a big way and with the biggest stick that any Roman emperor ever weilded against the temples and shrines and monument and literature and civilisation of the Greeks. He utterly destroyed with one hand the ancient state religions, and with the other delivered via military authority the new testament canon and established the replacement basilica cult.

My thesis challenges the authenticity of the chronology of the new testament canon before the rise of Constantine and argues that the entire non canonical corpus of literature (how many is it 80 or 90 with Nag Hammadi, and how does the Nag Hammadi Codices fit in to the new testament apochrypha) was authored as a polemical seditious reaction (to the canon) by the remnants of the greek academics with the figure of Arius of Alexandria as the focus of resistance. If my thesis is true Arius of Alexandria (writing between 324 and 336 CE when he was finally poisoned by Constantine - thank Christ!) and Leucius Charinus are the same person. The C14 date on gThomas (Arius' satire in which the reluctant Thomas is set off by Jesus himself on an epic journey to convert all the Hindus and Buddhists of India to the new state religion of Galilaeanism) is 348 CE (+/- 60 years).


Best wishes,



Pete

mountainman

The Acts of Thomas
From "The Apocryphal New Testament"
M.R. James-Translation and Notes
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924

ACTS OF THE HOLY APOSTLE THOMAS

The First Act, when he went into India with Abbanes the merchant.


1. At that season all we the apostles were at Jerusalem, Simon which is called Peter and Andrew his brother, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the publican, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Canaanite, and Judas the brother of James: and we divided the regions of the world, that every one of us should go unto the region that fell to him and unto the nation whereunto the Lord sent him.

According to the lot, therefore, India fell unto Judas Thomas, which is also the twin: but he would not go, saying that by reason of the weakness of the flesh he could not travel, and 'I am an Hebrew man; how can I go amongst the Indians and preach the truth?' And as he thus reasoned and spake, the Saviour appeared unto him by night and saith to him: Fear not, Thomas, go thou unto India and preach the word there, for my grace is with thee. But he would not obey, saying: Whither thou wouldest send me, send me, but elsewhere, for unto the Indians I will not go.


We are looking at a greek satire, parody, burlesque of the fictional canonical Thomas who is given a brand new narrative in which to explore the meaning of the activities of the christian apostles. These are the first few phrases, and my claim is that, the signature of an invective via satire in the narrative of the Acts of Thomas continues all the way through it (with the exception if the insertion of the ancient gnostic text "The Hymn of the Pearl" which the author of the Acts of Thomas, perhaps regarded as Leutius Charinus, but whom I suspect of being Arius of Alexandria, being the gnostic that he was, embedded the text within the text for the sake of its preservation.)

Best wishes,


Pete