Littlejohn

For Pete:

I suggest you to memorize the above. It will be useful when we would return to the topic.


All best

Littlejohn

.

mountainman

JHS Referee Report "BROWN ON CONSTANTINE’S INVENTION". Peer Review

Dan Brown (and most everyone else) follows Eusebius.

My scholarship according to the JHS referee report is sounder.
Constantine was the man behind the invention of the emperor cult
called christianity in the early fourth century (IMO).

Therefore, do not immediately dismiss the possibility.




That would be a very interesting bit of information.
If Momigliano points at this document it will be of interest.
Thank you!

Best wishes,


Pete

Littlejohn

Before I continue on my historic "escursus", it is absolutely necessary to take note of a clear evidence (each, however, may have contrary view on)

Established that Jesus of Nazareth was really a historical figure, it remains to be determined either the stories in the canonical gospels or not reflect the true human history of Jesus. Reading the same, there is no difficulty discern in obvious enormity and inconsistencies: logical, historical and geographical. All this should lead us to say "d'abord" (on the first) that the Gospels are purely historic forgery. The reality is significantly different from this view.

As I have already had occasion to clarify, the archetypes or prototypes of the current canonical gospels, were written between 140-150 AD, when the same Catholic worship saw the "light", sponsored by the power of that time: namely that imperial and that of the Senate (at that time absolutely in harmony with one another, as had happened a few times in the history of the Roman Empire!)

Of course, before then there was any material (yet much, also), both written and oral, which concerned the person of Jesus, his family, his followers and all the events they were interpreters (those that appear today in evangelical literature and patristic, represent only a fraction of them!).

The reason why it was decided to collect such material and integrate it, according to the views of fathers "founding", was twofold: first, provide their faithful and to those "potenziali" (probables in the future), a version of "evangelical" events absolutely different from what was then commonly known about Jesus and the other characters who orbited around his figure, in a way of make it appears that already widespread as a false "rumor", a falsehood, in order to accredit as genuine version that of the founding fathers: that actually false! ..

The other reason which prompted the writing of the canonical gospels, was to establish a doctrine that, obviously, the fragmented material previously collected it had not. Or rather, this material actually supported a previous doctrine: that gnostic, the original doctrine of Jesus the nazarene!

However, this doctrine not absolutely one fitted to the purposes of the fathers counterfeiters and sponsoring power (even economically also, with 200,000 sesterzi!), because it was an esoteric doctrine, for "started" faithfuls, which was reserved only for a relatively small number of followers, while what you needed was a doctrine of a cult "catholicum" (universal), i.e. a cult that could collect the interest also, and above all, by the most simple and illiterate society of that time as, for example, the enormous mass of the dispossessed poors (not-possessing) and of slaves to the service, almost totally, of the patrician class and patrician-Senate class of Rome of that time. Another target absolutely not negligible, was formed by the inhabitants of provinces extra-Italic submissives by the Empire.

The sponsoring power of the Catholicism, expected, as an objective return from across the enterprise, a decided decrease in acts of rebellion by both the slaves (which with their rebellion forced the owners to execute them, with a tangible loss in economic terms), and by the various populations of the provinces of the empire. These rebellions (see, for example, that Jewish) forced the Roman power to undertake costly campaigns of punitive raids.

If the catholic-christian "message" had been acquired from the crowd, then there was to be expected a significant reduction in the rebellions throughout the empire. This and OTHER NOT justify the rapid expansion throughout the empire of worship just founded!... Without the active cooperation of the various forces, beginning with that imperial, everything would not have happened NEVER!

We must not let themselves be fooled by the statements made today by Catholic apologists who, to refute such a claim, they insinuated the pseudo-logic according to which everything would not be compatible with the various persecutions of Christians by the Roman power! All this is false and completely in line with the millennial trend of clerical representatives to deceive the people! The episode of the notorious "Martyrs of Lyone," whicht I will talk later, will help us to understand the truth behind the lies of the clergy!

Precisely because the "target" of the new cult consisted of simple people, superstitious and totally "plagiate" (psychologically submissive) by the representatives of the various religious cult pagans of that time, the new cult "catholicum" also had to submit "blatant" elements of pagan mythology, as well as that Jewish and gnostic, which formed the starting basis for this incredible operation "sincretica"! (sorry, I don't found an english word for its traslation: see Google!)

In brief, the new worship, to meet the needs of the founders, was to be as easy as possible, "exsoteric", which can be easily assimilated by all scholars as well as illiterate. That is why the Gnostic cult "jesuan" was rejected, while on the other hand were reprocessed "exsotericament" its caracteristic elements, what that gave rise to a lively reaction by the Gnostics, which originated the irreconcilable conflict between the " orthodox "Catholics and the Gnostics.

The same thing happened with the Jews, especially those in the Diaspora, who challenged fathers counterfeiters that they plundered and tampered with their Bible, in order to bring up those improbable of biblical prophecies about the Jesus of the Gnostics (later, fraudulently, of the Catholics). Since the birth of Catholic worship has had of the significant ante-facts, the reaction of the Jews (especially on the part of Rabbis) was mainly against those ante-facts, which must be located chronologically between 85 and 95 AD. This reaction was relative to the so-called "Council of Jamnia", occurred in the early 90 AD.

"Thanks" to Constantine I, in the fourth century the Orthodox prevailed, gaining an unexpected power, which allowed them to throw themselves violently against gnostic and against all other religious expressions that were not Catholic (pagans, Jews, and whatever manichei ), in order to worship only triumph of the Orthodox (don't know the plural!). (*)

Returning to the original theme, ie the need to determine whether the Gospels are false or not, it must be said that this literature has several aspects. First of all, must be cleaned from all that there is doctrinaire, this being a pure invention of the "founding" fathers. As I said, Jesus was a gnostic teacher (and more, also!), which had NOTHING to do with the "christianism-catholicism", also because this phenomenon manifested itself more than 50 years after his death!

The "residual" material must be carefully evaluated, to determine whether it is found true, false or partially false (ie tampered with, compared to the original). For an example of this, we can make use the episode of the "indemoniato" (demon possessed) of Gerase. There are in it a forgery and two glaring improbability. The falsehood is a "geographic" type.

In the Gospels is narrated that the "2000" pigs (sic!), "infected" by the evil spirit went out from "indemoniato", thanks to Jesus, went racing to throw in Lake Tiberias, from the high a cliff. Well, for tens of kilometres in that stretch of coast lake there is not a cliff, as small, even to pay one million of dollars!. The coast slopes gently up the beach, which forced the alleged 2000 pigs to throw in the water from the "bagnasciuga"!(**) (not by chance that the "smart" editors of the Bible of King James chose Gherghesa, a locality situated about 30 km further north, compared to "natural" locality, where there were actually of rocks from which to throw himself. In this case, as everyone can imagine, we can not speak more than gospel of Mark, or Matthew or Luke, but simply gospel of "King James"!

The first of improbability is that the gerasen cemetery, where the incident of the "indemoniato" took place, was located about 50 km from the shore of Lake Tiberias, since this was approximately the distance which separated Gerasa from the lake. You can imagine the spectacle of 2000 pigs run "belly on earth" for 50 km and then throw himself from a cliff absolutely not-existent?

The second improbability is the fact that the reconstructed gospel of Marcione of ONE pork speaks only and no mention is made of his race nor the fact that it had thrown himself in the waters of Lake! This is a circumstance that should lead to a serious reflection about the fact that the gospel of Marcione, by reason of absurdity and falsity introduced in the Synoptic Gospels, into which was introduced the indemoniato's episode, was definitely written before those canonries.

The various themes touched on in this long post, will be taken up later and more specifically treated.

------------
Notes:

(*) - Wasn't an original operation, but copied sound plant from Jews of the seventh century BC around, when the Jewish King Josiah and his High Priest Hilkya (or Chelkya) reformed radically the Judaism of the origins, essentially polytheistic, transforming practically it in a monotheistic religion, along the lines of what was made, about 8 centuries before, from Akhenaten and priests of ATON cult (see ADON-ai of the Jews) in Egypt. Even then there were destruction of temples and persecution extended to all those who wished not to align new course monotheistic.(speaking of Josiah)

(**) - that part of beach continuously watered by backwash


Littlejohn.

__________________________

Declaration: all the material posted by Littlejohn in this forum of Infidels.org and in others forums must be deemed in all respects copyright©

..

Littlejohn

In addition to:

Precisely on the ground to prevent possible new punitive campaigns with all that it counted, as mentioned above, approximately 15 years or so after the end of the first Jewish war, gave rise to worship so-called "Jewish-Christian", whose target was only the environment of "messianistica" (relative to messiah) Palestinian rebellion, which in previous decades had procured to the Empire many trouble. This cult was born in the city of Antioch, Syria. It revolved around the artificially made charismatic figure of the hasmonean John of Gamala (or "ben Yehuda"), one of the children (perhaps the first) of the famous messianistico rebel Judas the Galilean. John was the TRUE alleged Christ made crucify by the Romans at the time of the procurator P. Pilate (but, most likely, at the time of his immediate successor, the procurator Marcellus)

After the second and most destructive war between Jews and Romans, in 132-135, it was thought to create a new cult, starting from that "Jewish-Christian" of Antioch: the cult CATHOLIC-CHRISTIAN! (worship "chatolicum", that is universal, unlike that of Antioch who was "local", as created expressly for Jews, or the rebellious part of them)

This happened in Rome, in the period from 140 to 150. In this new cult, the figure of John of Gamala (the "Christ" crucified) was replaced by that of Jesus the nazarene: a gnostic teacher, magician and taumaturgo(*) healer (from which the nickname "Ihesous"), who had founded several gnostic sects and that had gained much notoriety in the Roman Empire of that time. However, this new charismatic figure kept features that were part of the first and true "Christ", namely John of Gamala

(*) - a miracle-worker

Littlejohn

.

Huon

The name "John of Gamala" is linked with Luigi Cascioli.

Littlejohn

Hello Pete!

I have not yet understood if you are convinced or not that Jesus was, in reality, a fictional figure, built on the basis of mythological elements available at time of writing of the Gospels.

This thesis, namely that of invention of the character "gesuano", had a certain reputation in the first half of the nineteenth century, but towards the end of that century nobody or almost was more interested in it. In the last century hardly anyone was interested in that argument, given the important archaeological finds (the texts as Ossirinco, many of which dated in the second century and therefore very first of the emperor Constantine), who have completely made lost interest the thesis of the construction of fictional figure of Jesus of Nazareth.

Thanks to the courageous tenacity of the rabbis of the past, when they risked hard by the reaction "inquisitoria" (relative to inquisition) of the catholics, today we have traces VERY important about Jesus and his mother in rabbinic literature. If that of Jesus, his mother and his "apostles" was a pure invention of Constantine or who for him, why the rabbis should have, in turn, build up a lie to give credibility to those of Catholics? All this makes no sense ...

And again: in the literature of Mandeans, whose ancient predecessors as early as the end of the first century had moved beyond the boundaries of the Roman Empire (ie that of Parthians) are eloquent traces of Jesus, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene (them indicated with "Miryai"), Elizabeth, etc.. Why the ancient Subiai / Mandeans (in Palestine "nasurei") had to invent to turn the figure of Jesus? ... All this makes no sense.

It is one thing to state that the evangelists and others who have falsified and distorted the real profile of evangelical personalities and of their real historical events, another account to affirme the not-real historical existence of these characters ... I hope that you yourself will make well account of it!

Did I already said that there was actually an emperor whose decision-making capacity (and not only for power that he embodied also) was decisive for the construction of the New Testament canon, but this WAS NOT Emperor Constantine I, as in the fourth century AD the Catholic Church already had a solid tradition and structure, well stabilized, which will come more stabilized with Constantine.

More than Dan Brown, for closer to the truth was Tony Bushby. Of him I read only a generous review and an interesting interview that was made some time after the publication of his book "The Bible Fraud". All this, however, was for me more than enough for lead me to intuition of truth: thanks, of course, also to all others data from various sources, which I have been able to collect. Abelard Reuchlin, instead, he was very useful for me to understand the events that immediately preceded the birth of Catholic worship, around 140-150. (the data that I managed to recover from his extensive reviews, they allow me as possible as to establish that my intuitions about the dynamic that led to the birth of Catholicism were corrects)


All best

Littlejohn

.

mountainman

The thesis that Constantine invented Christianity in the fourth century implies that Jesus is a fictional literary character assembled by imperial resources in the fourth centutry. The Jesus and the 12 disciples story is a fiction story. I am tending to become convinced that the thesis explains all the available evidence. This includes the apochrypha, Nag Hammadi and Pachomius and the entire Arian controversy, the Nestorian controversy and the Origenist controversy.
Do you mean Oxyrynchus? and the papyrii find of which ZERO (ie: none at all) have been dated by C14. The datings for the papyrii fragments are all via HANDWRITING ANALYSIS (some ppl use the term
paleaography). I have independently reviewed all archaeological finds in my thesis.

I cannot find one archaeological citation that is unambiguously "christian" until the 4th century. Here is a reference list of citations generally listed in books .... Early Christian
"Epigraphic Habit"



Which Rabbi evidence specifically?
What documents before 312 CE specifically?



Are you refering to the followers of Mani? The Iranian prophet who was executed c.272 CE in the Persian captial? And who, and whose followers were then persecuted in Iran and also in the Roman empire (eg: under Diocletion), by the express buring of the writings of the Manichaeans and the burning of the followers and families themselves?

That Mani was "CHRISTIAN" is another deceiptful assertion of EUSEBIUS without substance. Check the appearance of the stories about the "christian manichaeans" and they blossom after Eusebius under Jerome and Augustine and other theological romancers employed by the christian emperors of the later fourth century.

The new testament was conceived and assembled (IMO) in the fourth century. The new testament apochrypha (non canonical texts) were THEN written in OPPOSITION to the canon. The apochrypha are parodies of the canon. They were written by the greek academics against the primitive emperor cult christians.



If there is evidence that christianity existed before 312 CE what is that evidence and is it unambiguous?



There is also the thesis and book of Joe Atwill: Caesar's Messiah.

However, until someone can find the silver bullet with a christian date
on it before 312 CE, I will continue to defend the possibility that the
emperor Constantine created a new top-down emperor cult, and a host
of fraudulent pseudo-histories (inclusive of the historia augusta).

My thesis has it that the fraudulent nature of the NT stories were common knowledge, especially in the eastern greek speaking Roman empire c.325 CE. The christian historians of later centuries refer only to Arius of Alexander as the only "controversial opponent" to christianity, but they make him already a christian bishop, whereas in fact he was an ascetic Hellenic priest.

Constantine himself calls Arius an ascetic priest. I think Arius wrote some of the Apochrypha. Specifically TAOPATTA (The Acts of Peter and the 12 Apostles).

The century that followed saw emperor Julian write


And the next century (5th) saw the Bishop Cyril of Alexandria REFUTE and effectively burn the original writings of the emperor Julian. Also the writings of Nestorius of Constantinople.


That the new testament was FICTION (a belief recorded by Nestorius) was "a conspiracy of the greeks" according to Cyril. Cyril was a censor on the side of christianity. The christian censorship of historical truth.

I am only interested in historical truth.


Best wishes,


Pete

Littlejohn

Hi, Huon!

Yes, taht's right.

I know Cascioli and we had some exchange of letters.

John of Gamala was a truly historic character. Since her place was taken by the charismatic figure of Jesus of Nazareth, much more famous than the first, which was known only in the Palestinian environment, counterfeiters founders of Catholic worship sought to eliminate all traces of this character, as the new worship, the Catholic-Christian, unlike the "Judeo-Christian", provided Jesus as a crucified "messiah".

Despite the manic efforts made to erase all traces history of John of Gamala, his "shadow" falls more than ever on the hallucinanting falsehoods made up by fathers counterfeiters to support the validity of their fraudulent constructs sincretici. (relative to "sincretismo")(*)

From a careful reading material available today to erudition, you can derive significant traces of John of Gamala, made to disappear from history. In particular, as shown by comparing the Acts of the Apostles and what Josephus wrote. In addition proto-gospel of James provides us with distinct traces of this character.

The figure of John of Gamala was cited for the first time by a journalist-novelist of the nineteenth century, of which escapes me at the moment the name. Luigi Cascioli has not wrong in building its work around this mysterious but still real historical figure: namely that of John of Gamala. But Cascioli wrong when he says that what Jesus of Nazareth was a fictional character, invented to replace the image of John, since the latter was a fighter against the romans. (**)

I have already stated elsewhere that the Catholic cult, which had to be addressed at all of the submissive of the Empire, could not afford to celebrate the figure of a rebel "antiromano" (fighter against the romans), since it was the Roman power, whether imperial than senatorial, to sponsor the birth of Catholic worship. (the history of the centuries that followed does no more than confirm this "genetic" original link between the religious and secular power, as it still happens!)

"..No bishop, no king!" (king James)

From a historical point of view, both figures, that of Jesus of Nazareth and that of John of Gamala, were real. I tried to dissuade the Cascioli from continuing to support the thesis of Jesus "invented", since today is anachronistic yet support this thesis (and this certainly has caused isolation from the erudite worldwide). However, he did not want to go back, despite the mass of data that I had suggested, about the figure of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.

________________

Notes:

(*) - Sorry, I did not find the correct translation into English of this term. "Sincretismo" means to put together elements belonging to several different religions in order to build a new

(**) - to propose it as a figure favourable to the interests Romans, or otherwise not conflict with them, his image was severely distorted by counterfeiters founders of the Judeo-Christian worship of Antioch, by John appear as a messiah figure of mystical, spiritual, which was "sacrificed" on the cross to save Jews from their sins and not to save them from foreign domination. All this will be a sort of "leit motiv-" for the gnostic Jesus of Nazareth, which will replace the figure of John of Gamala in the fledgling Catholic-Christian religion.


All best

Littlejohn
.

Littlejohn

In some "marcionite" churches-synagogues, located in Cappadocia, have been found inscriptions as "Isu CHRESTOS", having been "Isu" (probably resulting from hebraic "Y'SHAY" as the Islamic "ISA") the way in which Christians speaking ancient Syrian (or "siriac") called Jesus (see Efraim the Syrian). This extraordinary testimony confirms also that the TRUE attribute (one of the many) with which Jesus was appealed, was "CHRESTOS" ("The Good") and NOT Christos (*), attribute with which it was pointed up John of Gamala, charismatic figure of church of the Antioch' s Jewish-Christians.

The Rabbis who wrote the Talmud, because in this SACRED text of the Jews there are many occurrences of citations concerning Jesus, his mother and other characters who moved on "stage" of New Testament. Not to neglect absolutely the "Toldoth Yeschu", a text of which the first testimonies, despite what is claimed by apologists counterfeiters, go back to fifth century AD (**). This text returns in a "parodistic" style a summary of Jesus' life. As it may seem incredible, this text is more reliable than the same Talmud, concerning the testimonies about Jesus.

Talmud was written around the second century AD: therefore, it constitutes "a document before EC 312"! ..

There are specific reasons that justify my assertion that the Catholicism-Christianity we know today one originated between 140-150. The thinking that Jesus has never existed because, APPARENTLY, there is no archaeological evidence regarding it (epigraphic or otherwise), is based simply on the fact that the pagans, especially those Romans, knew Jesus with a different name and totally different from that boast by founding fathers! Even also the founders of some gnostic sects, knew a Jesus significantly different from each other!

I don't understand....

And all the stories told about the Gnostics? .. All the "poison" poured over them by patristics, do not count anything ?.... The reality gnostic is credited at least to SECOND CENTURY! .. You think that Constantine has invented all this? .. To me the thing, frankly, it seems absurd ...

Humm....We have not to be.. (italian expression: "Non ci siamo")

It's absolutely unlikely that Arius has written the "Acts of Peter". Even if for you do not count this date, they laid in the first or at most the second half of the 2th century. The Acts of the Apostles were also written between the middle and the end of the second century.

..........to be continued

___________

Notes:

(*) - It's likely that in the last years of his life (one or two), Jesus, indeed, may have been called "Christos." We will see later why.

(**) - Some scholars believe that the material after "condensed" in "Toldoth Yeschu", belongs to the ages much earlier than fifth century (see Tertullian, "De Spectaculis"), if not the first century! Of course it was material transmitted orally. However, it is not ruled out the possibility that some of the material appeared in editions of the Talmud of the fourth century, before that one unleash the destructive reaction of Catholics, which led to the destruction of "tons" of written material: both of Jewish origin, both pagan origin, whether for gnostic, both of origin manichean, etc.. If that Jesus had been merely a literary invention, which aim to destroy these documents?... It's obvious that they told a story of Jesus quite different, accrediting so the his real historical existence! At the time NOBODY questioned the historical existence of Jesus, being availables, at that age, numerous testimonies about his figure. What was told by the various sources (gnostic, pagan, Jewish, manichean, etc.) was a story significantly different from that told by Catholics, the latter being a hallucinanting and heavy distortion of the real one!


All best

Littlejohn
.

Clivedurdle

Hi and welcome!

Have you read Ellegard who ties Jesus to the Teacher of Righteousness?

Pete does not argue that gnostics did not exist but that they were not xian.

Another interesting piece of this fascinating puzzle is at the Megiddo Prison with the inscription to the god Jesus Christ and fish.

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Israel+bey...e%209-Nov-2005

Have you read Doherty?