Freethought & Rationalism Archive

ApostateAbe · 09-23-2009, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

spin, trivially, there is room for ad hoc explanations for almost any weird proposition in Biblical scholarship, and that is why we should be evaluating the evidence in terms of what is most probable, not in terms of what is possible, or not in terms finding ways for keeping a particular theory seem true.

There are post hoc reworking of literary works. Yours is meerely a very late one.

As you want to fight the issue, you should also be aware that
1. The Epistle of the Apostles presesnts both Cephas and Peter as two separate entities in a list.
2. Origen knows of two separate entities and builds an argument on the difference.
3. The Greek khfas would also render the name Caiaphas directly from the Hebrew KYP).
4. Paul is happy to use "Cephas" in 1 Cor and in most of Gal., but suddenly in Gal 2:7-8 providing the Petrine commission we find Peter, two verses which contradict the following commission given to the pillars.

Maybe it's good enough for you to forget about the maxim that "who controls the present controls the past". It's not difficult for ascendent groups to repackage the past in their own desired image. It is damnable to any analysis which forgets this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

And that would be putting an ad hoc on top of an ad hoc. The consilience of the evidence seems to be that Paul really did meet the apostle Peter. The same principle applies to Paul meeting James.

You simply write the story the way you perceive it should be rather than working from the earliest indications. As I said, post-modernism repudiates this simplistic approach, saying that one's hindsight doesn't help one understand the past: one is too busy making one's own narrative.

spin

spin, it is possible that Christians repackaged the past, as you said. And, like I said, it is an ad hoc on top of an ad hoc. That is not the way I think, nor should it be. We should be thinking in terms of the consilience of the evidence. The theory that has the most probable explanations for the most pieces of evidence line up in its favor is the theory that wins. We think of religious apologists and conspiracy theorists as nuts, but it pays to figure out what exactly makes them nutters. They, also, can debate the topic extensively, and they can "win" the argument--by taking any unlikely (but possible) explanation and piling on the ad hoc explanations endlessly. Their theory makes consistent sense, in their own minds. They, also, can propose that someone may have tampered with the evidence. But consistency is not so important. What is important is probability.

aa5874 · 09-23-2009, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

What is important is probability.

No, what is important is evidence or credible sources that can support your probability.

The claim that Jesus probably existed is useless or has no value without evidence from credible sources external of the sources under investigation.

Roger Pearse · 09-24-2009, 12:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eccles

It was Pagan Emperor Constantine I

Accusations against Constantine were devised in the 19th century as part of anti-Hapsburg propaganda. The Hapsburgs derived their ideological legitimacy from the concept of Christian Empire; thus to rubbish Constantine was to subvert the Austrian (and Russian) governments.

The legal and personal acts of Constantine show him as a consistent Christian believer, although personally a tough, brutal man, as all late emperors were.

Quote:

at the First Council of Nicea

The council was not about "founding Christianity".

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to make Christianity of official religion of the Roman Empire

Christianity did not become the state religion until Theodosius I, 50 years later.

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for political purposes.

Um, why should we presume his insincerity? We don't presume Elagabalus was insincere when he peddled the cult of El-Gabal.

Be sceptical. There is loads of twaddle out there. Opinion is one thing, and we are all entitled to have one; but getting the raw facts wrong helps no-one.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

mountainman · 09-24-2009, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by eccles

It was Pagan Emperor Constantine I

Accusations against Constantine were devised in the 19th century as part of anti-Hapsburg propaganda.

Accusations from Emperor Julian against Constantine are a little earlier than the 19th century.

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The legal and personal acts of Constantine show him as a consistent Christian believer, although personally a tough, brutal man, as all late emperors were.

He believed in the value of his own invention.

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Christianity did not become the state religion until Theodosius I, 50 years later.

BARNES diagrees.

Christianity became the state religion in 324 CE

On the assumption that Eusebius' report is reliable and accurate, it may be argued that in 324 Constantine established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, and that he carried through a systematic and coherent reformation, at least in the eastern provinces which he conquered in 324 as a professed Christian in a Christian crusade against the last of the persecutor.

Constantine's Prohibition of Pagan Sacrifice
T. D. Barnes, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 69-72

Quote:

for political purposes.

Um, why should we presume his insincerity?

He was a tough, brutal fascist military supremacist.
He is described as a robber and a bigand and a ward
irresponsible for his own actions. His thirty year rule
was described as "Neronian".

Why should we presume his sincerity?

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