mountainman

The point is to discover the historical truth by means of examining the evidence. Many categories of evidence are admitted to the field of ancient history in addition to textual evidence. The corroboration or its absence, between the textual and the non textual evidence will be one critical feature to an investigation where the investigator is on all sides presented with source texts that may have been corrupted and/or forged.



IMO It is not possible to state (with any certainty) that any given source in the saga of "Christian Origins" is not corrupted and/or not forged. The question therefore must be approached on a relative basis, by categorizing the authors into groups. It may then be possible to state that the Christian heresiologists appear to have openly indulged in the fabrication of polemical pseudo-historical narratives about the heretics.

It is possible of course that the gnostic heretics themselves openly indulged in the fabrication of polemical pseudo-historical narratives about the canonical Jesus and his Apostles and Their Mission on Planet Earth.

The texts of the canonical authors appear to have enjoyed some success in their representation and in their pedigreed preservation "in high places" since at least the 4th century. On the other hand, since the Nicaean epoch, the texts of the non canonical authors were invariably misprepresented and burnt, by those preserving the canonical texts. The evidence indicates that the greatest misrepresentations were perpetrated by the Christian heresiologists on the Gnostic heretics.

Conversely, the texts of the Gnostic heretics, such as the Nag Hammadi Codices and gJudas etc, which have been buried in the Earth for over one and a half thousand years, are self-represented as "time capsules" in which we know for an absolute fact there has been no tampering in their transmission to the present (we cannot say this about Josephus's Antiquities or "Eusebius's Church History" for example.)

Duvduv

Mountainman, you are making a very interesting point, i.e. that the very fact that texts were ALWAYS in the hands and possession of the biased official empire and church by definition taints their reliability in any regard, whereas the texts found buried in the desert have greater reliability.

What do you think can be directly or indirectly learned from Nag Hammadi about the heresiologists' work and the handling of the canonical texts or even the writings of the heresiologists/historians??

aa5874

So what is the historical truth and evidence that Eusebius wrote the TF and the Roman Church invented Christianity in the 4th century?

The evidence from antiquity appears to support the theory that Christianity predated the 4th century and that the TF was probably forged AFTER Eusebius was already dead.

The Roman Church INVENTED a bogus history of the Church with its succession of bishops and Canon but Not the Jesus cult.

mountainman

Common sense tells us that unless a "time capsule" has been opened in the interim, the contents are usually guaranteed to have been the product of a certain and specific intelligently coordinated burial. The NHC were certainly such a discovery, and are generally dated to the mid 4th century. OTOH we also have Sinaticus, Vaticanus, etc from the 4th century. Therefore we have exemplar texts from both sides of the 4th century war of codices.



Asking this question, which nearly everyone does, leads IMO to nowhere. We already know a great deal about the well connected centralised monotheistic state heresiological department in the 4th century. They openly lied and fabricated pseudo-historical narratives to suit themselves. They had the high moral ground, and the imperially sponsored basilicas. See for example the assessment of the integrity of the orthodox heresiologists - Hegemonius, Ephrem and Augustine - on the history of the Manichaean religion.

The questions that need to be asked of the NHC concern the identity and the history of the Gnostic heretics who authored these texts, in both Coptic and in an original Greek form, perhaps at Alexandria. These things are time capsules from an era where you were considered to be antichristian heretic if you refused to confess that Jesus had appeared in the flesh. Therefore the most likley hypothesis IMO is that the NHC represent a Coptic translation of an original Greek collection of tractates, considered to be valuable by the "Gnostic Underground".

mountainman

Can you find the name of "Jesus" ( Ἰησοῦς ) in the Greek sources before Vaticanus?

What I dont understand is this. The name of Jesus (Ἰησοῦς) was EVERYWHERE round and about represent in its "holy holy" encrypted form. This looks like this:

ΙΣ [this is supposed to have an over bar across it).


Why dont we see this symbol ΙΣ for Jesus plastered across at least a small number of tombstones for "Early Christians" in the ROman Empire of the 1st and 2nd and 3rd centuries? It's not really all that much to remember even if you were illiterate. It's like a slogan for Jesus. Why dont we see this in the graffiti or in the inscriptions?

FOO was certainly here. Why was ΙΣ not here also?

aa5874

I can show you Lucian's "Death of Peregrine".

Lucian is a 2nd century Non-apologetic source that will state that there were people called Christians in Palestine who worshiped a crucified man.

Lucian's Death of Peregrine It is CLEAR that there were Christians BEFORE the 4th century based on the Non-apologetic writer called Lucian of Samosata.

mountainman

What is the date of the earliest manuscript?



The source called "Lucian" is far from being a "CLEAR SOURCE" due to the numbers of forged documents attributed to this author.