stephan huller

Shesh

Read Walter Bauer's discussion of the Marcionite tradition at Edessa. Bauer was a brilliant man. He figured out all this stuff not me. You see scholarship isn't a complete waste of time. If people devote themselves to a topic often times they end up knowing more than people who just learned about something five minutes ago.

Strange.

Transient

Could someone summarise, in short, the earliest documents and where they were located that detail Mani's connection with "Jesus".
I would imagine that if there were numerous original documents dated to within a couple of generations of his death and widely spread over the middle east and asia then it would be unlikely that his history was later christianized.
If however we have only much later documents and/or they are not widely spread then it remains just a mere possiblity.

stephan huller

My son is literally trying to get me off the computer but here is an example of some of Bauer's beautiful formulation

http://jewishchristianlit.com/Resour...er/bauer01.htm

avi

Let us suppose, for sake of argument, that raving mad Mani called himself THE Paraclete, in the third century.

How do you suppose the Persians would have reacted, in such a scenario? Mani isn't living in Rome, is he? He is living in Babylon, under Persian control.

Do you imagine that the Royal house of the Persians, under whose largesse, Mani profited, would have welcomed Mani with open arms, had he made such a claim?

Or, alternatively, do you suppose that the Persian Royal house were uninformed about the implications of Mani's supposed assertion to have been the successor to JC, i.e. the third part of the triune God, the Holy Spirit, in the trinitarian doctrine?

I suspect that, contrarily, Mani could not have grown, could not have succeeded, could not have attained the stature that he did reach, without the political and economic support of the Persian Royal house, and I cannot imagine that support offered to someone professing to be the third component of the arch enemy, Roman, Trinitarian, three headed God.

It is just much, much simpler, from my point of view, to understand that Mani's success was derived from his SYNTHESIS of Buddhism plus elements of Zoroastrianism, combined with various flavours of Baptist oriented Judaic sectarian philosophy, including a sprinkling of Jesus oriented, good will towards all men, perspective.

That kind of non-confrontational, (anti-Marcion), non restrictive, non conformist ideology could have struck a chord of resonance in the besieged Persian kingdom, and found a harmonious reception, inviting growth. I simply cannot envision some whacko standing up in Babylon claiming before the masses, to represent the Christian "Holy Spirit", i.e. THE Paraclete, and expect to live more than about thirty seconds. How many decades had the Roman army been attacking the Persian army along the length of the Euphrates river?

avi

stephan huller

The only attested use of the term menachem (the root behind Mani)is that of a messianic title. Why should we prefer any alternative which has no attestation in Aramaic?

That would be like scholars 2000 years from now studying the word "asshole" and claiming in spite of all evidence to the contrary that it really meant a hole dug by a donkey

Toto

You are not supposed to swallow the whole lot. It is offered only to show the existence of beliefs.

The codex is dated to the 5th century by paleographic examination, which Pete rejects when it is convenient. It is a translation of earlier Syriac documents. It was not preserved by Christians.

How do you evaluate it? Does it make sense to think that it would incorporate an elaborate forged account of what Mani believed, when those beliefs in the 5th century clearly would not have given any edge to the Manichaean religion?

Toto

Once again, the earliest documents have been lost or destroyed. Most of the documents from the third century have not survived.

It is theoretically possible that the entire history of Mani was forged, but it seems highly unlikely, given the entire situation of Mani's background.

Please move on to another point.

stephan huller

I should have said that the only use of menachem that makes any sense is the messianic title. The other meaning is that of someone who comforts mourners. Even still as I mentioned before this is the same idea from whence the messianic title developed. It is impossible to argue that Mani could have identified himself by this title without being thought to have referenced the pre-existent messianic conception especially as the leader of a messianic movement

Transient

Forged is not the only thing possible.
If a group of religious people gradually change their beliefs, which is not that uncommon, then it might be natural for those in later years to write as tho the originator of that religion also believed those things.
It is not wise to dismiss such a possibility otherwise using the same method one should conclude that the those writing the gospels actually saw miracles before their very eyes with the obvious conclusion then that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, the creator of the universe.

Toto

Well, he did end up in prison.

Why do you keep trying to drag the Roman post-Nicaa trinity into this? Mani flourished before Nicea. Christianity was not an official religion of the Roman Empire at that time. The doctrine of the Trinity was still evolving. Mani was familiar with a variety of Christianity that was not Trinitarian in any case.

Look, you've got nothing. Pete just made a conjecture out of left field (as Americans put it) and it hasn't held up. You keep trying to imagine scenarios where it would make sense, but none of them work out - even with the expected uncertainty of events from the 3rd century.