spin

While mountainman is dithering about trying to explain away the Dura-Europos and Megiddo edifices, I may as well add that the catacombs in Rome, those called Santa Priscilla and San Callisto (to start with) have sections from the 3rd century. But then, you'll invent something outlandish to try to explain away the obvious, right?

I k now it's difficult to understand when you don't have much knowledge about languages, but there is tranlation done with knife and fork and there is translation done a little more accurately, but Tertullian wrote in the appropriate formal Latin of his time and was a good practitioner of the language.

We know others translated to Latin, Eusebius and the NT and OT c.400CE.
Lactantius worked for the new and strange ROman church, under
Constantine. That part appears reasonable certain. So what?

I've already mentioned Tertullian as well as Cyprian and the councils of Carthage.

It's extremely amusing that you say I don't seem to understand the issue.


I'll let you extract meaning from this.

To be exact, falsified and refuted.

Why don't you go and look at the tomb of Pope Gaius in the Catacombs of San Callisto on the Via Appia Antica.

Plainly, you're not happy to.


spin

mountainman

The evidence for this assertion is a quotation from whom?
Would it be Eusebius, or perhaps Jerome?



Pete Brown

S.C.Carlson

Would I also need a quotation to assert that Eusebius didn't write in Chinese?

mountainman

If the NT related literature included manuscripts written
in Chinese, and if someone claimed Eusebius did not write
in Chinese, I would expect there to be some evidence for
the claim.


Pete

S.C.Carlson

So then, would I also need a quotation to assert that Eusebius didn't write in Coptic, Syriac, or Gothic?

Johnny Skeptic

Christian objectivity? There is most certainly no such thing. Consider the following post that I made at the EofG forum:

The inconsistency is that although you claim that it is the quality of the evidence that is in the Bible that impresses you, you would reject the very same quality of evidence if the evidence did not appeal to your own emotional self-interest, proving that the deciding factor for you is your own emotional self-interest, NOT the evidence that you claim impresses you. Evidence that cannot be consistently applied is not evidence at all.

What you are actually proposing is the following:

100 eyewitnesses see John Smith commit a murder with a gun. The gun is registered to John Smith. The only fingerprints on the gun are John Smith's fingerprints. John Smith admits committing the murder. In a court trial the judge ought to disallow all of the evidence because it does not appeal to the self-interest of John Smith, but the judge should allow evidence of the very same quality if the evidence showed that John Smith did not commit the murder.

How utterly absurd can you get, rhutchin? You are not in the least bit interested in the QUALITY of evidence, only what the evidence PROMISES. Logic and reason are not ANY part of your belief system. Your belief system is built ENTIRELY upon emotional self-interest.

[I now add that obviously, Bible apologetics is rotten to the core.]

mountainman

Well we know he wrote, concerning the exchange of correspondence
between JC and KA, the following:

But there is no better way than to hear the epistles themselves which we have taken from the archives and have literally translated from the Syriac language.

Consequently we know that the Eusebian "WE" included Syriac.

As for the Coptic & Gothic, I am open to information.



Pete

S.C.Carlson

"We" is not "I," but nice of you to try to present some positive evidence for a change rather than demand everyone else to prove a negative.

Stephen

mountainman

The great and enlightening information concerning Dura-Europa
which in your mind provides some degree of reasonable evidence
that the "house-church" is evidence of pre-Nicaean christianity
you have asserted is held in the archives of the Yale University,
and to be specific, in the Divinity Dept. (ahem)

I have never seen the data cited or discussed or mentioned.
Neither on this forum or anywhere else.
If you are privy to this data, now is the time to present it.
Some time back, we had the post ...


What is Yale's evidence spin?
Does anyone know?



Pete Brown

spin

All you have to do is go and open a book...

So, the list of falsifications is getting longer.

While we are here, I'm still waiting for you to deal with Lactantius. You seem to ignore the fact that he was an official under the earlier regime, not just Constantine, and that he wrote about events within the memory of his readers, ie the persecution under Diocletian. Had your silly idea that Constantine got together with Eusebius and invented a religion been operative, they would not have been able to get away with fictive memories, ie ones that were invented about times people were still alive to have experienced. Ie, you need to show that you codswallop can ooze out of the immediate historical problem it imposes on itself.

You might like to consider also the 40 odd libelli found in Egypt from the era of the persecution of Decius, nicely dated to his first year. They don't mention christianity (which you'll be pleased to know), but they do prove the existence of a persecution under Decius. You will have to show that there were other groups who were persecuted in the same way as the christians have claimed, for, strangely enough, christian literature has bled heavily about the Decian persecution which spilt over into the reign of Galerius. You'll find the joy of Galerius's unhappy end in the exultant passage in Lactantius.

I think this silly idea can be shelved. It cannot explain the evidence. It just gets into convolutions trying to explain it. It is falsified by the existence of churches and catacombs from before the time of Eusebius. It has no response for the Latin tradition, other than, "umm, what Latin tradition?"

Magic bullets like Rome invented christianity or Eusebius invented christianity make as much sense as Bush inventing neo-con politics.


spin