Toto

Posts on April DeConick, gJudas, and satire have been split here

mountainman

Dear figure,

You fail to perceive that my thesis has it that the entire eastern empire full of Greek speaking academic priests, ascetics, mathematicians, logicians, etc INDEED found it perplexing and worthy of notice that a Roman emperor had invented a religion where a Jew was god and where the Jewish scriptures constituted the basis for the mythology.

As a result of this completely fraudulent fabrication, which they knew to be fiction, they authored the new testament apochryphal literature. However it was the very last thing that the great and ancient Hellenic civilisation ever did, before it was snuffed out by Roman christendom at the end of the fourth century. My claim, if you read the thesis, is that the tax-exempt Bishop Cyril of Alexandria, in the fifth century politically censored the common knowledge, much publicised by Julian in his work "Against the Galilaeans", that the new testament was a fiction of Constantine and Eusebius.


Consequently, if the record of the academic Greek speaking eastern empire about Constantine inventing a Jewish based religion from scratch could be censored by Cyril, the censorship of any Jewish record of Constantine inventing a Jewish based religion from scratch might be seen as a much smaller task at that time, in the fourth and fifth centuries of the CE. Having said that however, I remain hopeful that such evidence, indicating just this (ie: the fiction) will turn up in archaeological finds in the future on this planet.

We certainly do not have any one unambiguous citation from the Jewish writings before Constantine, mentioning the new testament and/or its famous cast of characters. Certainly many conjectures have been made, but this is not the same thing as evidence.

Whether or not the purges of Jewish literature by the christian regimes in later centuries is relevant, I will leave for others to comment upon.


Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear J-D,

There exists at least a third logical possibility, namely that the Dura fresco is pagan (ie: non-christian) and for the moment, that is the conclusion that I am drawing for the sake of the exercise at hand.

Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

I see no evidence there, only unsupported assertions.

J-D

Generalisations about the relative importance of theological disputes in ancient history are not evidence that any particular dispute--the one under discussion being the Arian controversy--was not a theological dispute. You contend that the Arian controversy was not a theological dispute, but you have given no evidence to support this. Whether or not theological disputes were important in ancient history, they existed. I see no reason to think that the Arian controversy was not one of them.

mountainman

Dear J-D,

I made a comparitive review of the field of whatever I could find available of current scholarship and opinion on a large set of the apochryphal texts, mainly the Apocyrphal Acts. I am fully aware that these gathered opinions do not support my position and that all of them contradict it with respect to the chronology of the entire new testamant corpus. This is not news. This has been the case since day one. However the task of understanding what the comparitive views of a number of authors looked like side by side I undertook so that I might know what the mainstream commentators are saying about all these very strange narratives called the apochrypha.

I must maintain my position that the mainstream has no evidence to support its own position before the fourth century, on the basis of evidence admissable to the field of ancient hstory. We are left at the moment with no critical evidence by which to refute either the one or the other.


Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

In the strict legal sense, that is not an offence.Why? I do hope you have not overlooked the key obstacle faced by any attempt to bring charges against either Constantine or Eusebius. They're dead. You're never going to get them to trial.I wonder whether you've ever read George Orwell's essay 'Notes on Nationalism'? You remind me of the people he discusses. But that's by the way.

As I now understand it, what you are saying when you describe the epistles attributed to Paul as 'forgeries' is that they describe as historical events which in fact never took place.

This is another of your allegations unsupported by evidence.

mountainman

Dear J-D,

As evidence I have tendered the following to support my contention that the Arian controversy was a political dispute over the genuineness and authenticity of the new testament canon, and the question about the very historical existence of your man Jesus of Rome:

1) a treatment of the words of Arius of Alexandria (NT is political fiction)
2) a treatment of the words of Emperor Julian (NT is political fiction)
3) a treatment of the words of Nestorius of Constantinople (theories of political fiction abounded in the empire)
4) a treatment of the Origenist controversy (Eusebius forged Origen's NT contributions)
5) a treatment of the anathemas and heresies mentioned in 4th century ecclesiatical councils (words of Arius).


Would people stand around on street corners in downtown Alexandria discussing the nuances of the philosphical theology of the trinity? Or is it more reasonable to think that people would stand around on street corners in downtown Alexandria talking about the fraud being perpetuated by the blow-in Emperor Constantine, who had just trashed all the ancient architecture which had been held in high esteem for generations, executed a few of the high priests so as to set an example, and then prohibited these same people, who were standing around on street corners in downtown Alexandria, from continuing with the public hospital system?

If someone were to go to to a mythical city of Old York today and start a contraversial theological discussion group that would be a total backwater and of utterly no consequence in the larger picture. However if someone were to go to Old York with a large army, and secure the city with that army, and then pull down the old statue of liberty and other monuments in the city, execute some of the leaders, shut down the public hospital system and then attempt to replace the entire legal system with a clearly fabricated set of laws embedded in an outlandish fairy-tale, I would expect that the survivors in this city of Old York, would be standing around talking about this despot, his brigandry, his irresponsible actions, and most of all, seeing that had to mythically endure under this corrupt, military supremacist regime, they would be talking about his fraud - which was ever with them, since they could not escape.

I hope this analogy does not offend anyone.


Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

I note that you did not answer these questions.It is not clear what you mean, in this context, by 'Christians'. (It is also not clear why you put the word in scare quotes.)It appears to me that I have failed to make myself clear to me.

As I tried to make clear in the post you're quoting, the statement 'Jesus existed' is not equivalent to the statement 'all the things mainstream Christianity says about Jesus are true' or (to use your words) 'the Gospels concerning Jesus are accurate description'. I do not believe that the Gospels concerning Jesus are accurate descriptions. It is, however, logically possible to believe that a person really existed in history, but that part of what has been recorded about that person are not historically accurate. This is exactly what I believe about Alexander the Great, for example, and about Charlemagne and Barbarossa. All of these are real historical figures who are also the subject of legends which are not historically accurate. Such a thing is possible, and the possibility cannot be dismissed without some grounds for doing so.

Of course, it's also possible that a character from legend is an entirely fictitious character. That possibility also can't be dismissed without some grounds for doing so. I'm not dismissing that possibility in this case. I am saying that the historical inaccuracy of at least part of the canonical Gospels (a point on which we appear to be in agreement) does not settle the question.I get the impression that what is important to you is the falsehood of mainstream Christian religious doctrine and that you're not interested in taking a position on the historical question of the origin of Christianity, which is fair enough. But Pete is taking a position on the historical question of the origin of Christianity, and we're discussing that on this thread.

mountainman

Dear J-D,

Dont under-estimate Scotland Yard, Hawaii Five O, the Canadian mounties or the Pink Panther. While Constantine and Eusebius lived and died, the same cannot be said with any degree of certainty about the historical and canonical Jesus. Moreover the thesis in the field of ancient history that the historical jesus was made out of nothing existing by Constantine and Eusebius in the fourth century, and no earlier, and that before the historical jesus was born he was not, (etc, just add the words of Arius) is emminently prosecutable.


Best wishes,


Pete