Sheshbazzar

And this report by Justin is corroborated by what external non-Christian non-apologetic source aa?

'Justin says', so aa believes. Wow. Now that is simple isn't it?

Tell you what aa, Read Justin's 'Dialog with Trypho' and then tell me with a straight face that it is an accurate, verbatim account of the actual historical meeting and conversation that Justin had with a Jew named Trypho, and not a fabricated scene and conversation created as a vessel for Justin's Christian religious propaganda.

'Justin says', and of course it is absolutely unthinkable that Justin might have ever made anything up to suit the needs of propagating his religion ....right aa?
No Christian preacher would ever think of doing anything like that now would they?

I have lived with 'Christian witnessing' all of my life, have listened to hundreds of preachers concoct imaginary situations and conversations that never happened for their sermons, so I am quite familiar with the reek of Christian horse shit when I encounter it.

mountainman

But we can be certain that Justin's writings to Obama were not simply propagandist polemic from the imperial scriptorium of some future centralised monotheistic state religious cult because of the fact that Obama wrote back to Justin.

Voila! Long live the Bullshit!

The author of Acts tells us that the Christians were first called Christians at Antioch.
I am struggling to place this in some chronological context.
My bet is this momentous naming event occurred at the Council of Antioch.




εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Sheshbazzar

OK not expressed in fake percentages. In contrast to Justin's exaggerated religious propaganda claims, the archaeological, and non-apologetic evidences, strongly indicate that there were actually very few Christians in the first half of the 2nd century CE.

Sheshbazzar

Given that significant portions of Justin's theology was at odds with, and was heretical, by the standards enforced by the imperial scriptorium of the future centralised monotheistic state religious cult, and being recognized by that imperial cult as being earlier, and are, when closely examined, extremely damaging to the claims of said imperial cult, we can be quite certain that Justin's writings are authentic and were not forged in that imperial scriptorium.

Minimalist

It gets even more convenient if you bump up the date to 135 or so. Hadrian leveled the ruins and built a new city on top of them. At that point in time there literally was not "one stone on top of another."

aa5874

All of a sudden you seem not to understand what evidence is. The writings attributed to Justin make certain claims which I have shown.

You made a most blatant unsubstantiated claim that not even .001% of the popuplation were Christians and refuse to admit your error and is now accusing Justin Martyr of spreading propaganda when you yourself cannot present the number of Christians and the population in the time of Justin.


Again, I write what is found written in the writings attributed to Justin. I never claimed that there was not even .001% of the poulation were Christians.

Who in antiquity wrote what you claim? Who do you believe?
What about you? Would you claim that there was not even .001% of the population that that were Christians for propaganda purposes?

Is it unthinkable?

mountainman

The cult needed stepping stones to join the past to the present. The concept of the Holy Flaming Trinity was therefore not retrojected to the 1st century. They claimed that there were Christians like Justin who wrote massive apologies to the Roman Emperor and who received written responses from the Roman Emperor. The stepping stones started with the pagan gods but lead surely and certainly to the identification of the Jesus figure.

The fabrication of scores of fictitious sources (such as Justin and Irenaeus et al) and the inclusion of hundreds of forged documents (such as the letters of reply by Emperors) and the inclusion of other sources which disagreed with the already forged sources (such as the early heretics, and people like Celsus) is an exact match for the modus operandi that we find in the "Historia Augusta", a Latin "mockumentary" and pseudo-history of the Roman Emperors, which was dedicated to Constantine.

That such early sources were extremely damaging to the claims of said later imperial cult is incidental. They could not have cared less. The job was to legitimize the existence of Christian sources before the imperial cult. Irrespective of whether these sources were favourable or unfavourable the legitimization was substantiated.

Here is an extract from Celsus, the First Nietzsche: Resentment and the Case Against Christianity by Thomas F. Bertonneau furnished by lpetrich in the heresy thread .....


Who is going to believe that Eusebius could have written these things about the early Christians and about Jesus Him Fucking Self? Not too many people? Well I believe that Eusebius could have written these things as a simple ploy and appeal to the emotions of the reader in order to accomplish his primary objective, which was to establish the existence of the Christians in earlier centuries.

These people were unscrupulous and ruthless. Eusebius was "wretched" according to Julian.

IMO these people (Eusebius and his regime) did not give a flying fuck about the fabricated past because they were riding the massive revolutionary wave of the present conversion of the pagan Roman Empire to the centralised monotheistic state Christian cult.







εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

aa5874

There was NO stepping stone for the history of the Jesus cult in the writings attributed to Justin instead there was a Big Black Hole of 100 years

The history of the Jesus cult in the 2nd century was provided by IRENAEUS not Justin Martyr in "Church History" attributed to Eusebius.

Eusebius used Justin to claim that there were heretics called Simon Magus, Tatian, and Marcion.

Justin's writings could not help Eusebius because it has a Big Black Hole of about 100 years for the Jesus cult.

From c 33 CE-133 CE, Justin did not write about any ACTIVITIES of the Jesus cult.

Justin Martyr wrote NOTHING of Acts of the Apostles, Paul, the Pauline letters, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Hegesippus, Papias, Barnabas, Hermas, the non-Pauline Epistles, the Bishops of Rome from 67-180 CE.

Eusebius got virtually all the 100 years c 33 -133 CE from Irenaeus in "Against Heresies" the very Irenaeus who did NOT know when Jesus was crucified and who was the Emperor of Rome when Pilate was procurator of Judea.

Sheshbazzar

See Post #84 above. In case you haven't noticed, I dropped the .001% claim.

abandoned it as a poor choice of expression in view of your objections.

I think that should be pretty clear to anyone else by now.

No big deal to me, the point being made was that for propaganda purposes Justin exaggerated the size of the Christian religion in the early 1st century.
_ and also exaggerated the injustices and persecutions they encountered.

Going back to earlier discussions between us, We agree Justin and his writings are credible as being authentic 2nd century writings, that however does not entail that their content or claims are entirely credible.

It is not clear however whether you believe Justin's stated claim
Yeah, but that is not the question.
Do you unconditionally BELIEVE what is found written in the writings attributed to Justin?
In this case you quoted Justin, even bolded his claim. Do you believe that Justin's claim here, that "almost all the Samaritans" worshipped Simon Magnus as the first god, is accurate and factual?


.

Sheshbazzar

Orthodox Christianity would never submit to any idea that the Trinity was not integral element of the True and Catholic Faith from the beginning.
Much of the Trinitarian persuasion is founded upon triune tropes and sayings drawn from the OT.
The Catholic position was and is that the Trinity doctrine was always present and acknowledged throughout Scripture, and by men of faith.
It was only the officially Church endorsed title that was late.

The Catholic Church did not make Saint Justin into a non-Trinitarian, such a thing would be unthinkable.
In the Catholic view Saint Justin accepted the Holy Trinity, he was simply in error in not confessing Father, Son, and Spirit as being co-equal.