mountainman

Well, not absolutely alone. There is a Spanish researcher
listed here .... Fernando Conde Torrens' "Simon Opera Magna" (2005)

Was the Augustus-Diodorus factory authenticating historical events
three centuries removed from itself, with a newly invented historiographic
method such as that coined by Eusebius, or did the Augustus-Diodorus
factory use the standard Hellenic historiographic forms of Tacitus et al?

Which major social/religious controversy marks the event of the
implementation of the fictive Julius Caesar over the top of the historical
memory of the empire absent Julius? Which Roman emperor was convinced
that "the fabrication of Caesar is a fiction of men composed through
wickedness"?


There is definitely not an excess of archeological citations by which
it may be demonstrated christianity existed in the prenicene epoch.
People have pointed me to books here before, which presumeably
have therein some scientific citation, an inscription or a particular
sarcophagus, or maybe a bit of artwork. I have not yet secured
a copy of these books, but the citation should be public knowledge.

Dont you agree? If things are hidden away, bring them to light.
I am aware of the Alexandros Grafitti, but reject it as a citation
for a number of reasons: 1) It is a scratching that could have been
done at any age; 2) It is not necessarily "christian", but presumed
to be so.


If you have such a citation, throw it at me.

Gamera

Off the top of my head, I'd say any mss by Alexander's "contemporaries" is very young, and not from Alexanders time at all. Indeed, I beleive such manuscript post date the early mss of Christianity.

Toto, perhaps you can identify the mss that mention Alexander and provide their dates. I think you'll find they are half a millennia after Alexander and hence of little value in proving Alexander's existence..

Gamera

[QUOTE=spin;4082245]What you call "pendantic" is clearly his superior scholarship in numismatics. He utterly destroyed your argument by showing it assumes a conclusion.

The evidence, examined, unravels.

How old are the mss? How old is the bust? How do we know it's his bust? All questions, once engaged, decontruct Pericles.

The mss mentioning Jesus are closer in time to Jesus than the mss mentioning Pericles are in connection to Pericles. Same is true of Socrates and Alexander. That's the problem you keep avoiding because it destroys you're position. Again, I have no doubt Pericles existed. But by the same token and standard, I have no doubt Jesus existed.

It's clear to me you assume Jesus' nonhistoricity and Pericles' historicity, and cherry pick "evidence" accordingly. I think a lot of other people see the same process in your post.

Gamera

It's a fair question. I'd answer by saying that he is alleged to have started a new religion based involving such themes as the Lord's supper, a sacrificial crucifixion, loving ones neighbor, and overturning Judaic laws.

I beleive that we have very good evidence that such a religion came into existence right about the time of his death and swept across the known world, don't you?

Gamera

Exactly. I have no doubt Alexander existed, as did Pericles and Socrates. And using the same standard, it's clear Jesus existed.

To efface Jesus from history requires a standard that if applied to Alexander, effaces him from history, which of course is the subversive point of this thread.

spin

You haven't got close to dealing with the historical side of the issue. You still can't look at the material you have there to play with for what it is: anonymous undated unprovenanced testimony which offers no way for you to connect the it with any known past. Pissing around pretending you can put this historical figure or that into the same position is merely delusional on your part. You can't put together any witnesses for the time or place of the reputed Jesus events. You can provide no hard evidence for the events. You must at least be able to connect the testimony you have to the period somehow, but you simply can't. In fact, you have no way to separate your witnesses and their testimony from those of the same ilk that are known to be bogus. If you can't see the basic failure of your source material, I'd certainly recommend nobody consider your legal services.

There is no effacing of Jesus from history, as no-one has put him into the history for him to be erased from.

Your navel might make an interesting focal point for your attention, but it doesn't augur well for the substance of anything you might hope to communicate.


spin

Doug Shaver

The allegation that a man known as Jesus of Nazareth started that religion was not made until the religion had been in existence for almost a century -- at least, and as far as we know. The earliest Christian writings that we know about do not credit any man for any of those ideas.

We do not know, without begging the question, whether Christianity came into existence ca. 30 CE. We know that it was in existence by around 40 CE, but not how long it had existed before then. As for sweeping across the known world, that took a couple more centuries to happen.

ynquirer

Good questions.

In the century that followed the end of the Punic Wars Rome bled in civil confrontations. Basically, it was a strife for power as between the aristocratic and the democratic parties. As the civil conflict evolved, it became a test for the Republic. This had been based, for the last five centuries, on the assumption that no man, however good, was as good and trustworthy as to deserve being appointed a long-life dictator - which is what the emperors actually were. Augustus put an end to the contest by self appointing such a man.

Now, in Augustus’ endeavor a major help came from using Alexander the Great’s and Julius Caesar’s examples as precedents. Alexander was believed to be a divine person. Augustus had Julius Caesar be proclaimed a god. No Roman would have self appointed a living god anew, for this was a sure indication that such a man wished to restore the monarchy - this was the charge against Julius Caesar, as written history tell us, and the cause of his assassination. Yet, a precedent construed on the myth of a man exceedingly good, who had been sacrificed in behalf of the common good, so that the blood-price for the Republic had been paid, would afford a much safer approach to the establishment of the Roman Empire.

And as regard the “new” method invented by Eusebius, why do you suppose it was new? Couldn’t it be that Constantine and Eusebius just replicated what they thought Augustus and Diodorus had done three and a half centuries before?

If you endorse a conspiracy theory of history, you perhaps ought to consider the possibility that history works that way across the board, not just in the particular spot you have a stake in.

No, I can’t agree. Paleography is a 18th-century science. Hardly Eusebius had any command of it. Paleography tells us whether a given handwriting - as graffiti as well as stone-carved inscriptions unavoidably are - belongs in a century or in another.

Regardless, the Catacombs consist of many miles of underground galleries, not only with graffiti, but also with carved inscriptions in tombs (see here), paintings, etc. Most of them have been dated to the tird century though a few so are to the late second. Inscriptions about “martyrs” and “saints,” likewise a sarcophagus containing the resurrection of Lazarus (see here), are necessarily Christian.

Nowhere can be found such a monument as this of Alexandrian or his Successors’ origin. If Constantine could forge it, then Augustus could have forged all evidence of Julius Caesar.

I find this a most interesting reference. Thank you very much, indeed.

ynquirer

Alexander as meaning "a man who protects" or "a protector" is as suspect as Yeshua/Joshua as meaning "a man who saves" or "a savior."

Thanks in any case.

mountainman

Was Augustus described as "a brigand" or
"a ward irresponsible for his own actions"? [Victor]

Was Diodorus described as "wretched" [Julian]

Did they perpetuate an empire-wide imperially sponsored
new and strange Roman religious order, and create a new
city to be associated with that religion?

I think there was a far more relevant, recent and pressing precedent.
Exactly 100 years before Nicaea, with Ardashir, king of kings, who created
the monotheistic theocracy of Iran, and destroyed the existent knowledge
of the ancient Parthian civilisation. The Sassasians and Persians had,like
the Romans, full-time armies, which required logistics, taxation, food, etc.

I do not view this as a conspiracy theory, because of history.
Time and time again the weilding of absolute power has its signature.
Constantine had absolute power at Nicaea when he took the rich east.
He built hundreds of basilicas, and plundered hundreds of "pagan temples".
It was like a makeover. Nothing like that happened with Augustus and
Diodorus, according to the archeology, on such a scale.


Another name for paleography is "handwriting analysis".
Pass me that papyrii fragment.
On it are characters in the Hadrian script.
Hadrian lets see --- say 125 CE.
Therefore the date of the fragment is 125 CE.

Does not take into account that the Hadrian script
was used in the fourth century. Eusebius, and any
medium rated academic in the empire could tell the
difference between OLD writings and NEW writings,
by their SCRIPT. Forgery of old styles was common
place in the empire, such as the pseudo-Pythagorean
writings. It was all the ancient had, so dismiss out of
hand the idea that Eusebius did not have an excellent
command of ancient scripts. You do know he was a
librarian, etc, etc?


Necessarily Vatican, but disputably not prenicene.
I will not accept a vatican tour guide report as evidence.
I require some scientific citation, as would anyone in this forum.

But did he build basilicas to Julius over the top of Hellenic temples,
after plundering the gold and jewells and art and scupture? And
did his son's perpetuate the belief, and persecution of people
who did not believe in Julius Caesar. Did Augustus edict the
destruction of writings which he considered pernicious?
Were neopythagorean philosophers executed by Augustus?

It's a pleasure. I see that you are also in Spain.
I have written to PRF. Torrens about getting an english translation
of an abstract, or perhaps a summary of his research, and methods,
and conclusions. His work is wholly on the net in Spanish. He is
very busy as an acadmician and does not have the time to translate
his works to english.

Are you able to offer a translation or a restatement of this professor's
thesis, out of the spanish available on his website? On of the critical
questions would be in regard to these "signatures" of Eusebius which
he claims to be evidencing in his analysis.