Originally Posted by mountainman

Unfortunately I do not have this ability, and rely on the
discernment of meaning by as many translators that I find.
Until now, I had relied upon Wilmer Cave WRIGHT.

So, I thank you for Hoffman's translation of Cyril:




This seems to indicate (IMO quite strongly) that
"the Galilaeans" cannot be the inventors of the
stories of the Galilaeans.

It suggests that Julian discovered that the
stories of the Galileans are the inventions of
deceivers and tricksters.

Quite obviously Toto, these deceivers and tricksters
were not named by Cyril in his refutation of Julian,
however this does not alter the issue.

It suggests that Julian was convinced the NT was
invented by certain parties.


Dont you think this is relevant to NT studies?

Even if the parties are not yet known.




In this footnote, I think you'll find that Hoffman is following
Wilmer Wright, in thinking that Julian followed Epictetus'
designation for "christians" as "Galilaeans" however I think
that Wright is in error here over Epictetus.

See this thread:
Epictetus's non-reference to (christian) Galilaeans

My claim is that Epictetus is not referring whatsoever to "christians"
when he uses the term "Galilaeans", but is using the term as it
was used by Josephus, whom Epictetus follows, as meaning something
like "the lawless inhabitants and brigands of Galilee"

...[trimmed]...




My claim is that Julian was convinced the NT was invented
by certain parties, and that Julian was not lying.

Do you agree with my claim?
Or do you disagree with it?



I hope to proceed towards agreement with my claims
as stated above, or to have reasons for the objections
to these claims.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

Originally Posted by Gamera

I don't see how this gets you where you want to go.

Given Julian's antipathy to Christianity, it isn't strange that he would attribute their sacred narratives as a fabrication composed by brigands and other lowlifes. What better way to undermine a religion that was growing by leaps and bounds and which threatened his imperial rule than to delegitimate it by attacking its origins?

This was a rather tried and true approach of Christianity's detractors in the early years of its growth.

Originally Posted by Gamera

I don't see how this gets you where you want to go.

Given Julian's antipathy to Christianity, it isn't strange that he would attribute their sacred narratives as a fabrication composed by brigands and other lowlifes. What better way to undermine a religion that was growing by leaps and bounds and which threatened his imperial rule than to delegitimate it by attacking its origins?

Originally Posted by VoxRat

Why would it threaten his imperial rule? He was Constantine's nephew, for cryin' out loud. If all he was interested in was "his imperial rule", he could have just pretended to be a pious Christian, like countless politicians have done since then.

Seems like Julian was candid about his lack of love for Christianity first, and the threat to his imperial rule followed.

Originally Posted by mountainman

On the contrary if you read my thesis I have examined
every single archaeological citation which has been used
and discussed in modern journals as being "christian"
before the rise of Constantine. I have reviewed each
of these items of evidence, and I have reasoned,
either correctly or incorrectly, that this entire set of
evidence does not actually furnish us with unambiguous
reasons to accept the existence of either a "Jesus" or
a "Gospel" or a "Christian" in the period of history
spanning the late first century through to the turn
of the fourth century.

So on my side of the balance, by reasonable argument
from the "evidence in the field of ancient history" I am
able to argue the first step in an argument to the
ahistoricity of Pre-Nicene Christianity.

The logical implication of there being no unambiguous
ancient historical evidence for the existence of Pre-Nicene
christianity, is that it must be viewed as a postulate
in the theory of mainstream history, not as a fact.

We may postulate on the basis of Eusebius that there
was a Christianity prior to Constantine, but aside from
paleographic "assessment", there appears to me to be
no other evidence to support this postulate.

We may also postulate on the basis of no evidence,
that in fact the Eusebian derived (default) chronology
is perhaps just a fiction story, and that the reason
that we cannot locate any unambiguous evidence
for the existence of Christianity prior to Constantine
is simply that there is none to be found, because
the Christian Copyright Symbol actually had a
registered ancient history priority date in the
fourth century, not the first.

So there are the two sides of the balance from
my perspective.

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Moderators: we could use an enhancement to this forum software to allow us to ignore all threads started by MountainMan. I doubt that I am alone in finding it irritating to see yet another thread from this poster, exactly the same as all the others, getting exactly the same derisive responses.