mountainman

In the early twentieth centuryGrenfell and Hunt employ local Egyptians at a few pence per day to gather up the fragments from over seventeen ancient rubbish dumps around Oxyrhynchus.



It was a Great Discovery !!

The fragments are then securely packed in biscuit tins and placed into a series of over 900 brief cases sized boxes and sent back to Oxford . Perhaps detailed academic analysis has made its way through at least 128 boxes to date.

The conjecture that the papyri fragments from the Oxy tips predate the extreme explosion of its population demographics is just not logical. Neither does it seem to be supported by the carbon dating process.

But the Great Discovery was the Use of Paleography

The early twentienth century academics were among the first to manage to convince themselves that the handwriting on some of these undated fragments of the canonical and the uncanonical texts looked "old". And while they might be right, who has asked anyone about the logically expected massive peak in the rubbish tips of Oxyrynchus during the mid 4th century? Has this issue ever been raised before? I suspect it may not have been.


The codex only rose to manufacturing prominence in the 4th century. There is a complex spectrum of arguments concerning the rise of this "high technology" in antiquity. This argument is nowhere as simple as you make it out to be. It sounds like the "Early Christians" might be put forward as the inventors of the codex if the paleographers are correct in their dating of codex papyri fragments. Did the Gnostics steal the codex technology from the orthodox canon preservers, or vice verse?


I am skeptical of the received tradition without evidence. You can call that pseudoskepticism or whatever you like. But until I see the evidence to the contrary, I think that Constantine's commissioning of the new testament satisfactorily explains all the evidence that is in our possession.

mountainman

Constantine's claims were supported by the Sword and Absolute Power

I am suggesting that the Constantinian party was not at all concerned about the public image of Constantine's new god, or the perceived authenticity of 4 conflicting gospels, etc, etc ----- these sorts of arguments would be left up to the new "Bishops". The Constantinian party had the army, and the supreme power of the empire, and taxation gold at their disposal.

To paraphrase this in French, they did not give a fuck about their invented religion - it was all about power, and the suppression, persecution and destruction of the power of the competing ancient religions and cults in favor of the One Preferred Jesus Cult. I am not suggesting that the fabrication of the christians was a flattery of existing religions and ethics, but rather a mockery of these things in the context of the pre-Nicaean 4th century.

Constantine commandeered the new "high technology" of the codex, and commissioned the creation of a book to end all books. I dont think it was a legitimate story he published in that series of books. It appears to be very likely that the "4th century mockumentary" - the "Historia Augusta" is also likely to have been published by the same Constantinian scriptoria. But everything has its use by date.

mountainman

The letter of Constantine discloses that Arius had the support of the masses in the east. The masses were not "Christian" - the masses were "Pagan".

Constantine as the Oppressor describes Arius's Political Support

He talked of one God.
He said "Either let us hold that, of which already we have been made possessors, or let it be done, just as we ourselves desire."
He said "We have the masses."
He was a warrior of insanity.
He was an Ares
He fashioned the finest things for the masses
He asked to celebrate services to God in Alexandria
He asked to celebrate the lawful and indispensable services to God in Alexandria
He hastened to destroy his friends

He claimed the masses acted with him.
He never admited where in the world he was
He claimed all the Libyan populace was supporting him
He was a source of aid for people
He had august consuls

He hastened to disturb the whole world by his impieties.
He claimed there were a multitude of persons wandering about him
He had supporters that were asserted to have given themselves to be eaten by wolves and by lions.
He had supporters that were each oppressed by additional payment of ten capitation taxes and by the expenses of these
He had supporters that sweated unless they ran as speedily as possible to the salvation-bringing Church,
He had supporters that were condemned for wicked complicity
He had associates that were threatened by local and state authorities
He had associates that were threatened to speedily flee his association
He had associates that were to accept in exchange the uncorrupted faith [of the church]

mountainman

My position is that for every book identified as a 4th century forgery in the name of Lucian, the hypothesis that any specific book of Lucian is a forgery becomes more critical. I quoted 14 such spurious books from the Introduction by A.M. Harmon, 1913.

Let's see, 14 out of 82 books have been identified as forgeries in the name of Lucian. What's that as a percentage? About 17 % of Lucian's work is already known to have been forged. That's not a really good track record you know.


Harmon additionally writes .....

In other words, there was a controversy of the legitimacy of the author known as Lucian in the 4th century, and his works were added to a list of the books of the heretics.

QUESTION (a) What is the mainstream evidence for Peregrinus being a genuine work of "Lucian" ????

ANSWER (a): Received tradition.

QUESTION (b): Does the mainstream position on Lucian rely upon the authority of received tradition?

ANSWER (b): YES

spin

To clarify the issue of what is a forgery amongst the works of Lucian, of the works of Lucian

• 7 are clearly not written by him;
• 4 are probably not by him;
• 4 are merely doubtful; and
• 4 are not securely his.

Of the seven clearly not written by Lucian, one was in fact written by Libanius and wrongly attributed to Lucian. Another was probably by Philostratus, again wrongly attributed. One was a pseudo-platonic work, misattributed. One was perhaps from the 9th c., another from 10th-12th c., with no indication of how they were attached to Lucian and there are two without any information at all, though probably stylistic indications said they weren't Lucianic. How many of them were forgeries in the meaningful sense of the word, ie deliberately palmed off as someone else's when they weren't from that person? No-one can say meaningfully. The notion of "forgeries in the name of Lucian hand over fist in the 4th century" is simply baseless in all its aspects.

The situation with Lucian is not analogous with that of the christian documents in general. There was no Lucianic hegemony to directly or indirectly manipulate materials in favor of Lucian. There is no sign of any co-opting of Lucian's writings for any ulterior purposes. That non-Lucianic works crept into the canon is no sign for us to assume anything suspicious about those references to christians in Lucian's Peregrinus. There is no benefit to be gained for christianity by these sparse references. They merely show the christians to be poor dolts who could be manipulated by an expert like Peregrinus.


spin

avi

As we discussed, in another thread, however, there is no "tau" present:

"Chresianon", not Chrestian, as you have written.

chi, rho, eta, sigma iota alpha nu omicron nu.

avi

spin

It's as easy to think it's wrong as to think that the iota is connected to the sigma by a ligature.

Doug Shaver

It could have happened, so it must have happened.

Gee, where have I heard that argument before? Sure sounds familiar.

stephan huller

Question from Toto- What is the basis to Pete's rejection of Peregrinus as a forgery?

Answer - Because it disproves his idiotic theory

avi

yes, I am wrong.

I had misunderstood, thinking that the symbol, you have identified as iota sigma, represented "eta".

The letter tau is now clear to me. I had thought that was a sigma. Well, I got the iota right, one out of ten isn't too bad......


avi