mountainman

An Index of FRAUDULENT MISREPRESENTATION concerning "christian" history by century.

What and when in reality was the holy christian writ? And who was Lithargoel?

Forgery has been present in all ancient dynasties and was of course a well paid and respected profession just as it is today.

Aside from the bold assertions of Constantine, who claimed a number of BCE Roman poets predicted the coming of christianity, the known and acknowledged citations with respect to forged documents which relate to either the historical origins of Christianity or, later the "christianisation of history", could not have been written earlier than the second century, for the first century remains absolutely silent to the scrutiny of ancient historians.

What are these known historical forgeries? They are the purposeful and fraudulent misrepresentation of the populace by the publisher(s) in regard to ancient historical truth. C14 dating is used in this index and will remain the sole authority and arbitur of any and all assumptions of chronology. The earliest C14 citation in regard to the New Testament literature is dated to 290 CE (plus or minus 60 years; gJudas). The second C14 new testament citation to the existence of christian literature is 348 CE (plus or minus 60 years; gTh - Nag Hammadi).

Therefore this list purposefully abridges the second and third centuries with the strength of Eusebius, and starts with the acknowledged forgeries of the fourth century. Ancient historical truth in the following instances has been set aside by the following forgeries.

This list was gathered together from a number of sites (eg: http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/lying.htm ) in short order. What items can be added to this list? How many items in total can be listed? What documents and/or artefacts have been tendered in support of christian history which today by scholarship are known to be forgeries?

4th century

4.0 PAULINE LETTERS FORGERIES
In the beginning there were 13 letters? How many are now classified as forgeries?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Laodiceans

4.1 DECREES
'Thundering Legion' Decree of Marcus Aurelius – In this fabricated letter from the emperor to the Senate, Marcus is said to have forbidden persecution of Christians because, in a battle with the Quadi in 174, prayers from Christian soldiers brought on a thunderstorm which rescued the Romans from thirst and dispersed the barbarian opponents. The emperor is said to have accorded the Twelfth Legion the suffix fulminata or fulminea, that is, 'thundering.' Tertullian (c.160 - c.230), north African theologian, made up this nonsense; the twelfth legion had had the suffix legio fulminata from the time of Augustus.

The stoic Marcus Aurelius had nothing but contempt for the Christians.

4.2 IMPERIAL CORRESPONDENCE
'Letters' of Emperor Antoninus Pius to the Greeks – More fakery, this time from the pen of fourth century Bishop Eusebius (Ecclesiastic History, IV, 13). He has the pious second century pagan forbid 'tumults against the Christians.'

4.3 The Clementines – These fancies, twenty books of 'curious religious romance' (Catholic Encyclopedia), masquerade as the work of first century pontiff Clement I. Written in the fourth century, their purpose was to bolster Rome's claim to be the primary see: here we have the 'Epistle of Clement to James' which originated the notion that St. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome.

4.4 Correspondence between Seneca and Paul - a fourth century invention of first century letters. They alluded to fires in Rome and to the persecution of Jews and Christians.

4.5 'Testimonium Flavianum' - The infamous 'passing reference' to Jesus Christ supposedly written by the first century Jewish historian Josephus (he adopted the family name of the imperial house).

4.6 THE HISTORIA AUGUSTA: nuff said. The ultimate mystery in historiography (quote AM)

4.7 Constantine's BCE Roman Poets cited in his "Oration to the Saints"

4.8 Report of Pilate to Caesar – Pilate's conversion to Christianity – and even the debauched Emperor Tiberius a closet-Christian! Another gem from the pen of Tertullian! ‘All these things Pilate did to Christ; and now in fact a Christian in his own convictions, he sent word of Him to the reigning Caesar, who was at the time Tiberius. Yes, and even the Caesars would have believed on Christ, if either the Caesars had not been necessary for the world, or if Christians could have been Caesars.’ (Tertullian Apol. xxi and Anti-Nicene Fathers, iii, 35)

4.9 Letter of Jesus to the King of Edessa
Nothing less than the handwritten note of the godman himself! This fabrication was supposedly delivered by the apostle Thaddeus, together with a self-portrait by the artist – Jesus Christ (he wiped his face with the canvass)! Actually, the text is borrowed from the 'concordance' of Tatian, compiled in the second century, and known as the 'Diatessaron'. The forgery is almost certainly the work of Eusebius, Christian propagandist of the fourth century. He was the first to mention the letter and claimed to have personally 'translated' it from Syriac (Ecclesiastical History I, xii).

4.10 The Holy Cross Located by the Boss' mother.

5th century

5.1 The Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus - a 5th century disciple of Bishop Martin of Tours invented the lurid story of the Neronian persecution. The Jewish historian Josephus says nothing about any "persecution" under Nero, though he is not slow to describe him as "acting like a madman" who "slew his brother, and wife, and mother, from whom his barbarity spread itself to others that were most nearly related to him; and how, at last, he was so distracted that he became an actor in the scenes, and upon the theater." (Wars, 13.1) -- See also Drews ... "In reality, the Neronian persecution never occurred. It is a fiction of the Church, invented for its greater glory." (Arthur Drews, The Legend of St Peter, p63)

5.2 INDEX OF NON-CANONICAL TEXTS
The question of the non-canonical texts.

5th and 6th centuries

6.1 Manichean bishop (and opponent of Augustine) Faustus said:"Many things have been inserted by our ancestors in the speeches of our Lord which, though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially since – as already it has been often proved – these things were written not by Christ, nor [by] his apostles, but a long while after their assumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with themselves, who made up their tale out of reports and opinions merely, and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the apostles of the Lord or on those who were supposed to follow the apostles, they maliciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits according to them."


6.2 Codex Bobiensis ends Mark at verse 16:8, without any post-crucifixion appearances; it lacks both the 'short conclusion' (of Jesus sending followers to 'east and west') or the 'long conclusion' – the fabulous post-death apparitions, where Jesus promises his disciples that they will be immune to snake bites and poison.

8th century

8.1 The Donation of Constantine – 'Without doubt a forgery...' Catholic Encyclopedia A two-part document purporting to be from the first Christian emperor to Pope Sylvester I (314-35). In the 'Confessio' Constantine thanks Sylvester for his Christian instruction and baptism (and consequent cure of leprosy!) In his 'Donatio' Constantine confers on the pope and his successors primacy over all other bishops, including the eastern patriarchs, senatorial privileges for the clergy, imperial palaces and regalia, Rome itself and the western empire!! In truth, this monstrous eighth century forgery (peppered with anachronisms) was almost certainly written by the future Pope Paul I (757-67) while his equally ambitious brother Stephen II (752-57) sat on the papal throne.

9th century

9.1 The False Decretals – A riot of more than a hundred fake letters and decrees attributed to pontiffs from first century Clement (88-97) to seventh century Gregory I (590-604). Now attributed to 'Isodore Mercator', a ninth century master forger, almost certainly a papal aide. Like the Donation, the Decretals conferred rights and privileges on the papacy.

11th century

11.1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ademar_of_Chabannes

13th century

13.1 The Lentulus Letter For this pious fancy the forger created a fictitious predecessor to Pontius Pilate, governor of Judaea, calling him "Publius Lentulus". The forger has his creation write to the Roman Senate, reporting Christ's "raising of the dead". He describes Jesus as "the most beautiful of the sons of men." The letter was first printed in the "Life of Christ" by Ludolph the Carthusian (Cologne, 1474). It was probably composed in 13th/14th century, based on an earlier Greek forgery.

15th century

15.1 Poggio Bracciolini - Tacitus - Annals 15:44, 15th Century Forgery
See TACITUS AND BRACCIOLINI: THE ANNALS FORGED IN THE 15th CENTURY by JOHN WILSON ROSS (1818-1887)
Originally published anonymously in 1878.

15th and 16th centuries

16.1 Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the tireless zealot for papal authority – he was the founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) – even wrote: "We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides."

16.2 Martin Luther, in private correspondence, argued: "What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church ... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them." – Martin Luther (Cited by his secretary, in a letter in Max Lenz, ed., Briefwechsel Landgraf Phillips des Grossmüthigen von Hessen mit Bucer, vol. I.)

19th century

19.1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Shapira

19.2 Christian Forgeries/interpolations of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/revision.htm

20th century

20.1 http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/...0_19_arch.html
20.2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander_Letter

21st century

21.1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ossuary

21.2 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=e...+history&meta=

Clivedurdle

How can we decide if anything is trustworthy?

Roger Pearse

I would ask that people not rush in and correct the various crass errors of fact and judgement in MountainMan's post. He's hoping that we'll do his reference checking for him, after which he'll just issue a new version with the same theme but the obvious errors gone. Don't do it.

Toto

Just note that the last link is to the recent find of a possible early church at Rihab. I have seen no indication that there is anything forged about it. Some of its history is speculative and aimed at the tourist trade (with no indication that Christians were behind this.)

But this is not something that should be in the same class as the James Ossuary, or Secret Mark.

mountainman

As a second step, after the known frauds are itemised and listed and cited, then the current set of accepted and non-fraudulent evidential citations to the (supposed) existence of christianity may be appended.

It will soon be seen via sheer weight of numbers that the planet has been subjected to a mass of fraudulent historical claims with respect to christianity and that two things are immediately apparent:

1) The ratio of the numbers of known forgeries presented in support of christian history compared to the remaining assumed-integrous citations is of an order something like 99 to 1. (See the list of assumed-integrous citations I have elsewhere posted).

2) That these remnant assumed integrous citations are in fact totally ambiguous with respect to their claims, that they in fact do not present any evidence to support the history of christianity prior to the fourth century that could not otherwise be explained in other ways.

At this stage people should ask your question again:
How can we decide if anything is trustworthy?
And the answer will be quite clear that, with respect
to the historical origins of christianity, we clearly
cannot find this trustworthy in any sense.,
since it is inextricably bound up with known fraud.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

What are these known historical forgeries? They are the purposeful and fraudulent misrepresentation of the populace by the publisher(s) in regard to ancient historical truth.

In each of the centuries I have listed but the tip of a huge iceburg of fraudulent mispresentation concerning the truth of ancient history by the custodians (and their employees) of the various christian traditions.

It took an hour to assemble. You and both know enough has been written by scholars on forgery by now to accumulate many hundreds of scholarly citations on the use of forgery by the "christian churches".

What was represented to the people in the fourth century.
What was represented to the people in the fifth century.
What was represented to the people in the sixth century.
What was represented to the people in the seventh century.
etc
etc [trimmed]
etc
What was represented to the people in the 20th century.
What was represented to the people in the 21st century.

Forgery and fraud. You cannot change these citations.

However, why put them on a shelf when trying to solve the riddle of christian origins in a strict historical sense? They are part of the evidence of history Roger whether you like that or not you'll deal with it.

Best wishes


Pete Brown

Huon

See :

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09721c.htm

The book of Ademar de Chabannes about Saint Martial is described in a page of Cath Encycl :
Old BS is still BS, but even Pius IX did not support it in 1853.

If you want more "tissues of fables" about locally venerated saints, there is much more.

Huon

Saint Denis of Paris is usually represented with his head in his hands because, according to the legend, after his execution the corpse rose again and carried the head for some distance.

Do not forget the Voyage of saint Brendan of Ardfert and Clonfert, Navigatio Brendani. One of his followers was saint Malo, who celebrated a mass on the back of a whale, created a (future) diocese in North Brittany, started again a new peregrinatio pro Christo, and died in Saintes (north of Bordeaux). The relics of this saint were preserved in Saintes, until the IXth century, then they were stolen by a breton monk who carried them to the town of Saint Malo...

mountainman, I understand that you are jealous, because such famous saints do not exist down under !

mountainman

Yes, and ...Pious frauds are frauds, for which one
must show no piety - and no pity



Precisely Huon ! Which is why any person of reasonable sense will see that for every "history of a christian saint" in every century between at least the fourth to the present twenty-first, there has been fraud. The numbers of citations are very very large at the saint level of analysis each century.


All these citations to known fraud are best discerned as resting on the table of evidence - the same table we now scan for "our evidence". Imagine a table with a scanty set of documents at one end, and at the other a huge mountain of citations to fraud. You get the picture?

See the quote from Momigliano above.
I agree with Momigliano.

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Huon! The veritable tip of an iceburg!

WIKI's list of saints:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_saints


Hey, we're working on it Huon. Perfection looks different from down here. The stats for the northern hemisphere look too good to be true, or, something is not being added up. Fraud is on the shelf, out of purview, or with the non Constantinian texts, in the too hard basket.

This is not a matter for textual critics but rather an inspector of fraud, and the evidentiary citations relevant to the inspector of fraud are just these we have been discussing. At the end of the day they are part of the ancient historical evidence which is emminently appropriate to be examined in the context of the earliest of christian histories.


Best wishes,


Pete