Casper

You know that the bible can't be defined, tested, falsified and then most importantly revised, so it can't be used as a scientific treatise, objective historical record or anything that normally could be changed.

So I try not to do that.

Huon

Sorry, my mistake. This Lucian of Antioch is not mentioned in the "ordinary" pages. With the full index for L, Lucian of Antioch is present. After all, he was almost nothing, just a martyr. Much less important than Saint Veronica.

gentleexit

All narrative histories are the product of selection. They have to be. They are stories. If Eusebius hadn't carefully selected and excluded then he wouldn't have had a story (as someone said, his is of the struggles of the Christian Nation). In Decline and Fall, Gibbon told a story. He disliked religion like most of his ilk. His story gives the fall of Rome as "the triumph of barbarism and religion" (sic). Selection doesn't make you a liar. You believe something and will promote those events that back it up.

And all story forms have motifs. In ancient histories, writers called on omens and oracles (look at Tacitus or Ammianus Marcellinus), nature marking events in great men's lives (guy dies, there was a comet etc). Using contemporary codes doesn't make someone a liar.

For me, older works attract because of their "otherness", emphases and rules that wouldn't be followed now. The sad thing is when people read the bible or Homer or ... out of context, out of time as if all tales have or should follow the rules of Time Magazine or the National Review.

BTW, Mountain Man's "magic Eusebius" theory is very of now. The lone nut Christian composing character after character, making work after work, with credible contradictions, dictions and emphases. A good entry for any book of conspiracy theories.