Transient

I do not think that if I was Eusebius under orders from Constantine that I would produce such a bad looking NT, full of odd things and differences.
There is just something about the books and letters which absolutely do not look like they were made up at the same time, let alone by one person.
In my mind there is almost no chance that these things were made up all at one time.
While this is not evidence in itself, in my mind it sinks the whole theory of the Constantine conspiracy, inventing Christianity from nothing theory.
What do you think?

judge

uh oh!

mountainman

As you know, I like a skeptical attitude Transient. Let's put the question back at you as to how long would it take in your mind to cook up these wonderfully edifying (27 was it?) extra new books? [the books of the Greek LXX were apparently already available]

Would twelve years with a scriptorium full of Greek literate educated and expendable slave scribes be a sufficient time period - in your mind - for making these things up out of extant bits and pieces of Greek literature from other codices and scrolls lying around the imperially sponsored libraries (or temples or monasteries) of Rome in the year of 312 CE?

Lots and lots of wonderful literature seemed to hit the streets in the early 4th century. Of course the Bible was in hot demand, and we can only imagine what it would have been like in the imperial scriptoria when the news came through from the boss, with instructions to Eusebius, to order from his professional team or teams, fifty copies of the entire bible. How good a job did the copyists do? Have a look at the textual discrepancies and variations between the three earliest Greek codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus.

But the place that I would recommend all research to commence is the taking of a long and hard look at the genre and the provenance of the 4th century "mockumentary" known as the Historia Augusta (History of the Emperors). This needs to be objectively compared against Eusebius's monumental work, the "Historia Ecclesiastica" (History of the Church)

Juststeve

I don't think Transient was saying that there wasn't enough time to make it up, he was saying that the finished product doesn't look like it was made up by one guy. To me the Greek Testament looks much more like a number of different takes on the same guy and the same series of events.

Steve

Toto

Transient: you are correct. This is just one of the problems in the Constantine invention theory.

You are relatively new here, but you or anyone interested might want to check out the links in the second post in this stickied thread on overdone topics.

Reading this history might explain why some posters here are so annoyed with Pete or have put him on ignore.

Transient

For me it's just a judgement call and I am going to forget the possibility that Constantine made it all up because I think the possibility is very remote after standing back and looking at the NT from a distance.
I think more progress for me will be made by excluding that possibility and moving on.
I will check the stickies out - thanks

Doug Shaver

What Toto said. You're not the first person in this forum to have noticed that.

Song of Erra

Pete, I'd like to engage your theory from a different angle.

I came up with a thought experiment not so long ago. It involves going back to the 1^st century in a time machine, seeing exactly how things began, how they progressed, and writing it all down. I then imagine myself arriving back in the 21^st century and setting out to prove what I saw. (I can't just say that I used a time machine, since I don't want to be locked up.) So what I do is get all the extant evidence in front of me, and try to connect the dots in the correct way. But here's the thing—it turns out that what actually happened isn't the best explanation of the evidence. The record is patchy and biased; a handful of things refuse to square with the paradigm, with the truth!... stray, inexplicable data. In light of that, how do I convince everyone that this is how it happened?

I think the answer is that it's not possible to do so; that sometimes the truth can be lost to the historical method. It's possible, for instance, that Constantine flexed his muscle in the way you imagine he did, but this isn't the most natural reading of the evidence. It could well be that the record is broken, and that a non-intuitive reading of it is correct—but this can't be verified. If the record is broken, then that's the end of the road, because ancient history is not in the “truth business”, but operates on the basis of available evidence.

I know you think the standard paradigm doesn't make sense of the “available evidence”, but it's important to allow a paradigm room to breathe. Conspiracy theorising always begins with the discovery of “holes” in the “official story”. The next fatal step is to replace the “faulty” paradigm with another, thinking “whatever the truth is, the official story's not it”, as if this justifies the substitute. It's a slippery slope. Often it's best to view a paradigm not as faulty, but only as a reflection of the faults of the record. Vast swathes of evidence rarely lend themselves to a neat and tidy explanation, so anomalies are to be expected.

A big problem with the “Constantinian invention” theory is that it tries to unify too much evidence. It behaves like a typical conspiracy theory by swelling to encompass all the positive evidence that would otherwise point somewhere else. It has little positive evidence of its own, so it requires on the one hand the subsuming of errant data, and on the other hand skepticism with a capital “S” in relation to anything that supports the “official story” (things like pre-4^th century Christian artefacts).

Now, even if you don't accept any of the above, it must still be acknowledged that history is about plausibility, and that some explanations are a priori unlikely. Miracles, as you know, can't ever be verified, because by definition they are the least likely thing to have occurred. The corollary to that, I think, is that conspiracy theories have an extraordinary burden of proof, on account of the rarity involved. The historical method doesn't provide a level playing field.

It's one thing to say “it's just a pet theory of mine; I don't expect others to accept it”, but quite another to treat it as a paradigm no different than the others—that is, of equal viability—since it plainly is of a different kind. Don't you concede that the cards are stacked against you by definition? Would you go further, and concede that what you propose requires concrete evidence, by definition? Your response to these thoughts is something I look forward to. (Anybody is welcome to comment, of course.)

(tl;dr: We can't have nice things because the historical method is mean.)

Transient

Well one good thing about Pete and his constantine theory is that at least someone has given it a dam good go and persisted with it. It is hard to go against the flow and he has done it well. Never should discourage people from trying new ideas as long as they don't mind a bit of flak if things don't seem to fit - Pete seems to have weathered it all remarkably well.
But for me I'm moving on. Next stop - did Eusibeus really alter very much at all - my first look is no because if he did try to change much then he also did a very lousy job of it. My impression is that he just stiched together a lot of fragments and made the best fir possible without changing much at all.
If he had been allowed or wanted to change much then he surely would have fixed the Jesus prophecy problems etc etc. He does not so I assume that what we have in the NT is largely unaltered by Eusibeus.

aa5874

Based on what I have read so far it does not appear to me that Constantine invented the Jesus story. Constantine or the Roman Church only needed to INVENT the HISTORY of the Jesus cult and claim that the Roman Church was the true Church based on "Peter" a supposed disciple of Jesus and the first bishop of the Church of Rome.

There are just too many OBVIOUS contradictions in the NT Jesus stories to have been INVENTED by a single person.

For, example the birth narratives in gMatthew and gLuke are most unlikely to be written by the same person. In gMatthew, the birth of Jesus is shrouded in complete secrecy. No knows where Jesus was born and when he was actually born, except the Magi but in gLuke the angels told the shepherds exactly where Jesus born and even described the baby Jesus' clothing and the very shepherds told people where Jesus was born.

Only the HISTORY of the Jesus cult needed to be INVENTED by Constantine or the Roman Church, and apparently that is what they did.

There is the INVENTION called "Church History" by Eusebius under the authority of the Roman Church and the Emperor Constantine.