tanya

Fine, then, it should be child's play to produce a quote from Dr. Lieu's book, proving that I quoted Dr. Lieu out of context, as you claimed. Dr. Garner has nothing to do with this issue, so far as I can understand. The book I quoted, which you challenged, claiming I had not read, was authored by Dr. Lieu, not Ian Garner.

Where is the physical evidence to support this idea, that Mani was some kind of apostle traveling about Persia and the Tarim Basin, spreading the good news about Jesus?

stephan huller

I have only just met you tanya and I am already suspecting Pete's wife has gotten into posting at this forum. So it is that I have learned over the last week that (a) you doubt that Christ should be translated 'anointed one' and (b) that despite all the evidence Mani really didn't believe in Jesus or see himself as his prophesied Paraclete. I don't even know what to say.

mountainman

We can all read the explicit text of AA and it says this happened after an interval of three hundred years and more. What does this mean? If Jesus ascended through the cloudbank c.33 CE and Mani started writing c.240 CE, then that is an interval of 200 years or more.

A second independent source from the 4th century repeats this anachronism. You have never explained it. You shout and bluster and sweep it under the carpet. Why dont you address the question for a change?

Again, the "more than 300 years" anachronism is highlighted by other academics and scholars. It is not my idea.

mountainman

Also you appear to remain oblivious to the lack of credibility given to the source text "The Acts of Archelaus". This text is the product of 4th century orthodox heresiologists and its history of Mani is known to be false. The author "Hegemonius" (what a bullshit name) has deliberated lied about the history of Mani and presents some utterly bullshit accounts. Modern academics know this. Why are you citing sewerage in support of your Marcion Marcion Marcian position?

But then again you'll go to any lengths to talk about Marcion.
And you think I am monotonous about Constantine?
FFS

stephan huller

mountainman,

I am establishing that Paraclete is rooted in the Hebrew and Aramaic messianic concept of menachem. Do you have anything to add? I am certain that you have nothing to say other than your repetitious nonsense about the number 300 appearing ONCE in the text. The other time the right number is given.

Why don't you find another forum to frequent? You have nothing to add to this or any other thread. All you succeed in doing is getting people so tired of listening to your nonsense that they stop coming here. I wish there was some way to count your mere presence in a thread as harassment. Your whole tactic is annoy people to the point they (a) put you on ignore and then spam their thread with your foolishness or (b) get people in trouble with the moderators.

IT is so frustrating to deal with a ====== ===== like you. This is the original passage from the Acts of Archelaus:

How can you continue to promote such nonsense! Given the fact that a 'nearly three hundred years' appears in the same paragraph as the 'three hundred years or more' it is obvious that the latter is a scribal error. Even if the text was a fake the author would presumably be smart enough to get his story straight. You can't just will texts to disappear like most of us wish you would from this forum.

mountainman

This same "more than three hundred year" anachronistic dating of Mani is repeated in Ephrem Syrus, Against Mani: "MANI, WHO THEY SAY IS THE PARACLETE THAT COMES AFTER 300 YEARS." Mitchell/Burkett, eds, vol. 2, xcv11 xcix). Ephrem otherwise shows no knowledge of the AA.

This represents a second independent anachronism.
I am asking you to provide an explanation for these.
You can't just will texts to disappear ....

stephan huller

You have plagiarized this from a book - http://books.google.com/books?id=JQd...ETE%22&f=false

The authors reasonably do not see this as any reason to doubt that Mani lived when he is supposed to have lived. These documents were written almost two thousand years ago. It is a miracle they survived. Countless did not. I do not believe that we have the original Acts of Archelaus. It is a barbarous Latin copy of a Greek copy of a Syriac original. None of this casts doubt on the fact that Mani lived and was a believer in Jesus.

stephan huller

Toto, please remove this typical mountainman gibberish from the thread. This has nothing to do with the OP which is whether or not we can find more references to the Marcionite use of the term Paraclete in Patristic writings. As always mountainman is attempting to disprove that Mani existed, or that the references to Mani are too inaccurately transmitted to have any value. None of this should be under discussion here as it off topic.

mountainman

I read the book. I cited from the book.


The authors remarked on the TWO SEPARATE INDEPENDENT ANACHRONISTIC references. They did not attempt to explain them or provide an explanation for them.

OTOH because you are using this text in an attempt to establish other points I have asked you if you are able to explain these two anachronisms. You dont appear interested in doing so. Let's just leave the sleeping dogs asleep. Please carry on - I will refrain from unintentionally disturbing your terribly important train of thinking in this thread.

tanya

This is an atheist web site. In order to be taken seriously, one needs to furnish some actual information.

Repeating, over and over again, that Mani "was a believer in Jesus", doesn't prove it.

Maybe he did have faith in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. I don't claim to know one way or the other.

I do claim that Mani lived in Persian occupied Mesopotamia, and I also claim, without evidence, that Christians, spreading pro-Roman ANYTHING in Persian occupied Babylon were unlikely to meet with great success, in the days when Mani lived.

Intuitively, for Mani's religion, or Mani's cult if you prefer, to have spread, as Dr. Lieu explained, without military conquest, it seems logical, at least to me, to presume that Mani's religious ideology, had nothing to do with either the Roman empire, or Roman Christian practices, and a fairly substantial association with Zoroastrianism, the official state religion of the area under Persian control.

Do we not have sufficient illustration of what happens to "deviant" religious practices, in life under the Muslims and Christians from the fourth to the 17th centuries, inclusive, to be able to estimate what would have happened to Mani's enormous entourage, had he deviated significantly FROM Zoroastrianism, TOWARDS Christianity, and the Roman Empire?

Mani, and his huge group of followers, would have been persecuted, and ultimately, destroyed, had they not enjoyed the patronage of the Persian leadership of Babylon. Then the question is this: where is the evidence that Mani presented Roman Christian ideas and practices to the Persians and yet survived to preach another day?