la70119

She went to the tomb before dawn. She saw the empty tomb with a rolled away stone. She runs back to the house and bewails the presumed tomb robbery at Peter.

Peter's FIRST RUN wasn't 'til after this. Do you really expect me to believe they were up for 48 hours straight??? Surely the author of gJohn did NOT expect the reader to believe they stayed up for 48 hours straight, otherwise he would have EXPLICITLY said so.

Mind you, we're dealing with PURE FICTION. Just like the guarding of the tomb in gMatthew.

aa5874

Did you expect the author of gMatthew to claim that Mary was with child of a Holy Ghost.

Did you expect the author of Matthew to claim Jesus resurrected?


In fiction stories anything can be expected.

mountainman

The first Saint does not appear on planet Earth until the year c.360 CE, and is to be found within the writings ("Life of Anthony") of Athanasius. Momigliano claims Athanasius to be the inventor of christian hagiography.




This claim is reliant upon the historical integrity of Pliny, Letters 10.96; Trajan in Pliny, Letters 10.97. These letters of Pliny suddenly appeared in the 15th century and then were almost immediately "lost". There are no peeps from the sheeps before the 15th century about the existence of such a letter exchange.




Theodoret lied about the last words of Julian.

sotto voce

Quite. The comedy church, that by then had pretty well exterminated saints, couldn't have had 'Saints' much before then, because it didn't exist much before then. But, by the Renaissance, it had invented quite a few more. You're looking at the wrong end, as well as ignoring the material issue.

Esteemed Professor Norman Davies, in his acclaimed history of Europe, accepts this evidence, as do many more current historians, and when they acknowledge that Christianity was miraculously exempted from the spies and informers of the empire, I'll take note. But the Edict of Milan demonstrates that Christianity had been illegal.

Quote:

Theodoret lied about the last words of Julian.

Nobody here wrote that Julian said this. Take note instead of what has been written.

mountainman

There is still room for healthy skepticism about the authenticity of the Pliny/Trajan letter exchange evidence.


I'll take note of unambiguous evidence of Christianity before the 4th century when it is presented.


The Edict could also have represented an early PR exercise. I simply do not trust the integrity of the information furnished by the supremely victorious Constantinian heresiologists. It remains essentially uncorroborated.

Worse still, the 4th (and 5th) century orthodox heresiologists are known to have fabricated their own polemical, pseudo-historical narratives of heretics such as the Manichaeans, the Gnostics, the Arians, the Nestorians and most other heretics. They lied. If they have lied, I do not need to trust their information. The NT is most probably a fiction. War was a racket. It still is.

Duvduv

What was Giocondo's explanation of how he suddenly discovered the letters?All I see is that he published the manuscript with no explanation of where he allegedly found the letter. What evidence is there for its authenticity? If as a priest he found it in church archives, then where was it until then and why was it unknown?
Or is it simply his forgery? Where is the original manuscript?

Sheshbazzar

Hey man its 'Christianity!'

Be a 'good little fishy' now. You are not supposed to ask such questions, just swallaw the damn bait, hook, line, and sinker. :Cheeky:

sotto voce

There is always room for healthy skepticism. Especially for a claim that it was vested interests in worldly advantage that represented Christianity, that famously scorned such advantage. Anything but skepticism for such a potentially politically loaded view would be unhealthy, surely.

:cantgiveadamn:

That may very well have been true. It may have been that Christianity was legalised at precisely the point that it no longer existed as a force potent enough to embarrass the avarice of the patrician class. That's a common enough political phenomenon. But the fact is that it was said to be legalised, so it must have been illegal theretofore.

Nor do I. This was merely a question of the evil empire, having realised that 'the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church', realising that it would never be able to totally eradicate this embarrassment, having to paint its gates with Christian whitewash. So it had to decide on just one set of heresies, heresies that did not egregiously conflict with each other. And it 'heroically' anathematised glaring, buffoonish heresies, that it had quite possibly set up itself for this very purpose. And of course it thereafter milked the hero worship for all it was worth, as Catholics do to this day. So it banished some heresy, and it officiously defined other heresy, that lay diametrically opposed to Christianity, as orthodoxy. Christianity, an end to 'nasty, brutish and short' lives, free speech, democracy and pluralism, all had to wait for the Renaissance. Totally unnecessarily.

So let's be more circumspect when talking about vested interests.

andrewcriddle

I agree that these supposed last words are not authentic. Whether they are a pure fabrication is unclear.

See Theodoret/Ecclesiastical_History/Book_III/Chapter_20 for an interesting discussion.

Andrew Criddle

mountainman

If you cannot process, or give a damn, about the ancient historical evidence then you are not playing the game of ancient history, but some other game.






Let's be more circumspect about the appearance of vested interests in the 4th century.