mountainman

Perhaps I represent a fundamentalist Non-Christian.
The Holy Gost was wrested from Philo.
The Resurrection was wrested from many old myths.
The recent Persecutions were wrested from the Manichaeans.

The miracles were wrested from Philostratus' Apollonius.
Eusebius quotes Apollonius "On Sacrifice" as an authority.
The Graeco-Egyptian was wrested from the Roman.

And the opposition was destroyed by edict and fire.
All this, my open claim in the field of ancient history,
to have occurred in the fourth century CE.

I have expectation that the progress of science
and technology will bear out these claims.

If you did not understand my irony J-D perhaps
you have over-rated my contribution here.

J-D

If you refer to my posts on the first page of this thread, I don't see how you can describe me as overrating your contribution here ... unless you're attempting irony again. It would be hard to have a lower estimation of the value of your contribution here than I do.

mountainman

Is it the messenger or the message
which disturbs you the most J-D?

J-D

Neither the messenger nor the message disturbs me, Pete.

Sequoia

Thanks for your answer.

How do you explain the numerous contradictions of the gospels if they were written by or under the direction of one mastermind?
Why was it necessary to write two differents accounts for the birth of JC?
What about Thomas gospel?
Was one gospel written by one author or several?
Did the authors knew Hebrew?
What about Marcion? He did not exist? He did not publish his texts? Or are they 4th century forgeries?
What about all sects before the 4th century? They did not exist? They had no texts?
Porphyry and Celsus texts are forgeries?
Constantine and co invented also the heresies (32 by Hippolytus)?

mountainman

Constantine had a keen military mastermind and understood four
independent eyewitnesses in a Roman court of law could not be
expected to tender four exactly matching statements, so the
stories were purposefully made inconsistent.

Constantine was lavishly spendthrift. We know for example that
his builiding projects of basilicas was the most expensive of any
building project undertaken of stone in antiquity. He did not lose
any military battles. His strategy, as I attempt to reconstruct it,
would have been to marshall hundreds of authors and texts into
the (fraudulent and false) foundations of christianity. His response
was to have create legions of texts -- all of which did not have
to show any great consistency, so long as they established the
historicity of the Pre-Nicene christian religion. This IMO is why
the Emperor Julian selects the word "Fabrication".


Two or three independent eyewitness accounts stood up better
in a Roman court of law that one or two. It was a mockery of law.

Notably, the birth of JC coincides with the birth of Apollonius
of Tyana, whom Constantine calumnifies via Eusebius, prior to
the destruction of temples that were associated with Apollonius,
and the execution of their priests at Antioch, before Nicaea.

It is likely that the NT was written to DELETE Apollonius and
at the same time to ADD the Constantinian Jesus to history.


I find it likely that the sayings were extant in the fourth century,
at which time, the phrase "Jesus said" was placed in front of each.
I dont think that we will find any reference to Jesus or to the
gospels or to christianity in the archaeological record before
the rise of Constantine.

Either or both. The so-called "Eusebian canon tables" might have
been designed to split a long list of events and sayings into four
independently inconsistent gospels.

Some scholars have commented that Eusebius commanded scribes.
Certainly, scribes like soldiers to Constantine, would have been
expendable. I do not think Constantine was a "balanced personality".


Araldo Momigliano once commented that Eusebius could
have been Jewish. Neverthless, some of the authors would
have known Hebrew, since for example, Origen's Hexapla,
which was probably used for the Hebrew Bible part of
the Constantine Bible, was available at their "raw materials".



I consider Marcion and the sects and the heretics ahistorical.
They did not exist before the fourth century.

Yes, but whereas Celsus and Marcion and the case of a
thousand bishops and apologists did not exist in the Pre-Nicene,
the philosopher Porphyry did exist.

I believe Constantine ordered Eusebius to forge additional works
in the name of Porphyry, Against the Christians, so that Constantine
could be justifiably enraged and then edict for the burning and the
edestruction of the writings of Porphyry.

Eunapius writes about Porphyry:

At any rate he left behind him many speculations
that conflict with the books that he had previously published;
with regard to which we can only suppose
that he changed his opinions as he grew older.

Yes. Fraudulent misrepresentation IMO.
See my thesis at this address.
Especially footnote [4]

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

From my thesis:

INVENTION 312-324 CE

Christianity and Paganism were created at the same time. One did not exist until the other had been created. The new intolerant top-down emperor cult brooked no religious opposition from any source, and created the hegemony of the term “pagan” as “Christianity’s religious other”. If we are to permit the papyri and the inscriptions speak for themselves, the word "pagani” first appears in Christian inscriptions from early 4th century, and in the Law Codes in Codex Theodosius 16.2.18 (c.370), coined by Christians -- of the towns and cities.

Constantine, who considered himself the “thirteenth apostle”, and “the bishop of bishops”, invented a monotheistic religion in the fourth century. From his promotion in Britain (304-311 CE) he patiently consolidated his position and marshalled a supremely victorious army of provincial and barbarian troops. From his base in Rome (312-324), armed there with the technology of writing in the Greek and the Latin language, he patiently marshalled the production of army of fictions, which themselves would become supremely victorious in the realm of literature.

With a keen military mind, he mocked the contemporary models of literary integrity, authenticity and academic legitimacy by a variety of methods.

1) Constantine sponsored the wholesale forgery [3] of additional works in the names of genuine authors of antiquity, such as Pontius Pilate (c.-10), Lucian of Samosata (c.165), Julius Africanus (c.170), Origen (c.185), Mani the Prophet of Zoroastrianism (c.210) and particularly Porphyry (c.234), perhaps the leading academic of the Roman Empire at the turn of the fourth century. [4]

2) The original texts of other historians, writers and even Roman emperors were targeted for various degrees of interpolation, or the insertion of a phrase or a paragraph. These include the authors Flavius Josephus (c.37), Trajan (Marcus Nerva Traianus) (c.53), Tacitus (Cornelius) (c.56), Pliny the Younger (c.63), Suetonius (c.70), Marcus Aurelius (Antoninus) (c.121), and Galen (Claudius Galenus) (c.129).

3) Constantine sponsored the fabrication of legions of entirely fictitious authors and their inter-related texts too numerous to name other than in the footnotes. [5] By doing so, he fraudulently misrepresented the natural course of history by the fabrication of a pseudo-history that was to be associated with his new top-down-emperor-cult.

4) Before Nicaea, Constantine set unambiguous and political precedent. He arranged for the execution of leading priests at a number of ancient temples, and for the destruction of other shrines of worship. At Nicaea he burnt the written petitions of attendees whom he had supremely summoned – in their presence. After Nicaea he legislated for the destruction by fire of the writings of the Hellenic academic and philosopher Porphyry, for the destruction by fire of the writings of the Hellenic philosopher and logician Arius of Alexandria, and for the death by beheading of anyone caught concealing said writings.

One hundred years earlier the Persian King of Kings Ardashir had essentially done the same thing. He created the new nation of Iran with the army, and a new monotheism Zoroastrianism from a few old hymns, and he then burnt and destroyed all the ancient writings of the previously existent (Parthian) civilisation. Constantine was about to take the gold and the Greco- out of the Greco-Roman empire of the fourth century.

To the overall editorship of this massive fabrication he appointed his minister of religious and historical propaganda, the masterful rhetorician Eusebius Pamphilus of Caesarea, yet did Constantine retain an active and creative role. Eusebius describes his task as novel. He openly admits that he is the “first to enter upon the subject”, and “to attempt to traverse, as it were, a lonely and untrodden path”.

He described the religion as “new and strange”. Perhaps it is easier to contemplate the role of Eusebius as “yes boss” and “no boss”. Constantine’s career as a supreme imperial mafia thug commenced with the order to have the head of the ex-emperor Maxentius affixed to a pike and sent around the streets of Rome, and then to Africa as a stern warning: there was a new boss in Rome. What was really new? Only the nickname. This was thick-necked or bull-necked.


Extant Forged Authors

Here are the claims. Lucian of Samosata’s “Alexander the False Prophet” is a rhetorically charged polemic against a purported disciple of Apollonius of Tyana and was forged under instruction of Constantine. Lucian’s “The Life of Peregrin” and the writings and chronologies of Julius Africanus were “Christianised”. Origen who had written voluminous commentary about the Hebrew Bible, was forged with respect to all commentary about the new testament, which was yet to be written. The forgery of Origen resulted in separate controversies in the fourth century. Rufinus's Epilogue to
"Pamphilus the Martyr's Apology for Origen", otherwise known as "the Book Concerning the Adulteration of the Works of Origen." depicts this. The Christian Rufinus needs to quote a letter of Origen himself, attesting to the fact that heretics had been tampering with his writings even when he was alive. Eusebius asserts that not only was Mani, the Prophet of Zoroastrianism under Shapur I, a “Christian”, but that there were Christian bishops and in the Persian capital. Aside from these assertions by Eusebius, all later commentary occurs after the Council of Nicaea, and the claim is that all Christian references (eg: Ephrem the Syrian, Epiphanius, Hilary of Poitiers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine of Hippo, etc) to Mani are likewise fabricated.

Useful however to the early fourth century (and later) fabricators, were the current history of the persecution of Mani and his followers. Mani was martyred by the Persian religious establishment in 277 and 291 CE, persecution arose there with the murder of the apostle Sisin by Bahram II, and the slaughtering of many Manichaeans. In 296 CE, Diocletian decreed against the Manichaeans: "We order that their organizers and leaders be subject to the final penalties and condemned to the fire with their abominable scriptures.", resulting in numerous martyrs in Egypt and North Africa.” The fiction of “Christian persecutions” by Diocletian (and others) were based on historical truth being bent.

The forgery of additional works in the name of Porphyry (c.234), who was perhaps the leading academic of the Empire at the turn of the fourth century. [4], against the Christian religion, enabled Constantine to be justifiably enraged and to edict for the destruction of the writings of Porphyry (and incidentally, that “Porphyrian” Arius).


Extant Interpolated Authors

At least two dozen published authors in the field over the last two centuries have analysed its construction and context and have concluded and declared that the Testimonium Flavianum was added by a later hand. A number of these authors have accused Eusebius of the interpolation. Similarly, there have been an increasing number of writers concerned that the references to “Christians” and “Chrestus” in the writings of Tacitus, Trajan, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius are themselves interpolations by a later hand, and this is the claim of this thesis. The single reference for example in Marcus Aurelius (Med 11.3) is referred to by both translators Gregory Hays (2003) and Staniforth (1964) as an “ungrammatical marginal comment by a later reader”. Likewise, Galen’s references are also interpolated – in the fourth century or later.


MILITARY SUPREMACY 324 CE

Constantine’s military victory and supremacy in 324 opened up the eastern empire.

...[snip]...


Footnotes:

[3] Examples of forgery cited in antiquity include Josephus: "Alexander protested that this letter was forged by Diophantus, the king's secretary, a man without scruples and very clever at imitating any hand" ..[later we learn he was].. . "executed for forgery” (JW, 4). Suetonius writes that “the emperor Titus could compose speeches and verses in Greek or Latin with equal ease, and actually extemporised them on occasion. ... It often amused him to compete with his secretaries at shorthand writing, or so I have heard; and he claimed that he could imitate any handwriting in existence and might have been the most celebrated forger of all time.”. (Titus 3).

[4] Eunapius (re: Porphyry) - “At any rate he left behind him many speculations that conflict with the books that he had previously published; with regard to which we can only suppose that he changed his opinions as he grew older.”

[5] Celsus (c.178), Jesus of Nazareth (0) the author according to Eusebius of a letter in the Syriac language to the King of Edessa, Jude (0), Matthew (0), Barnabas (0), Simon Magus (0), Judas (0), Mark (0), Luke (0), John (0), Peter (0), Clement of Rome (18), Paul (20), Ignatius of Antioch (40), Aristides the Philosopher (70), Quadratus (70), Carpocrates of Alexandria (80), Aquila of Sinope (of Pontus) (90), Hegesippus (110), Marcion of Sinope (110), Polycarp (110), Papias (110), Valentinus (120), Apollinaris Claudius (120), Basilides (120), Diognetus (130), Epiphanes (130), Aristo of Pella (130), Marcion (130), Mathetes (130), Pinytus of Crete (130), Polycrates of Ephesus (130), Tatian (135), Apollonius (136), Ptolemy (140), Minucius Felix (140), Isidore (140), Agrippa Castor (140), Alexander (of Cappadocia,Jerusalem) (150), Excerpts of Theodotus (150), Heracleon (150), Justin Martyr (150), Ammonius Saccas II (155), Julius Cassianus (160), Apelles (160), Octavius of Minucius Felix (160), Dionysius of Corinth (165), Melito of Sardis (165), Irenaeus of Lyons (175), Athenagoras of Athens (175), Rhodon (175), Theophilus of Caesarea (175), Theophilus of Antioch (180), Bardesanes (180), Hippolytus of Rome (180), Clement of Alexandria (182), Maximus of Jerusalem (185), Victor I (189), Pantaenus (190), Anonymous Anti-Montanist (193), Tertullian (197), Serapion of Antioch (200), Paul of Samosata (200), Apollonius (200), Caius (200), Cyprian of Carthage (200), Cornelius (of Rome) (200), Dionysius (of Alexandria) the Great (200), Novatian (201), Hermias (210), Dionysius of Rome (210), Gregory Thaumaturgus (212), Malchion (of Antioch) (220), Anatolius of Laodicea in Syria (222), Victorinus (bishop) of Petau (240), Peter of Alexandria (250), Phileas (Bishop) of Thmuis (250), Pamphilus (250), Methodius (250), Miltiades (270).

J-D

Easier for you, obviously.

mountainman

There is an interesting paper by Bob Altemeyer
on the subject of "Authoritarianism".

Essentially the author find two classes:
authoritarian leaders and
authoritarian followers.

Constantine was the boss: supreme imperial mafia thug;
fully equipped with a large and deadly military machine.
Leader and inventor of miraculous victories.

Eusebius was an authoritarian follower:
"Yes Boss", "No Boss", "Three Bags Full Boss".

What do you think of that paper?

The key words are: authoritarian leaders, and authoritarian followers