Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Duvduv · 05-16-2013, 09:08 PM

I don't think that the forum is limited by anything that is politically correct, comfortable or conventional. That would make it far too stuffy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

With all due respect to mountainman and his opinion, and I count him as a friend, it must be recognized that his opinion is a very unconventional 'outlier' position among Biblical and historical scholarship.
Without getting into the arguments pro and con of his views, one must weigh the likelihood that thousands of other scholars have been in error in these matters.

It's up to the individual if they are convinced enough by his arguments to want to climb aboard his cart.
For the present I am content to just walk along and observe what holes it might fall into and in what direction it is headed.
Always interested in whatever interesting and supported information he has to offer, but not committed to his theory.

Toto · 05-16-2013, 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

The question is what would the forgery accomplish? Your answer is hey look over there! a bright, shiny forgery!

Both the Historia Augusta and Eusebius's Church history introduce fake sources and fake (forged) documents. The Letter of Jesus Christ to Agbar, the forged "TF", the letters of so-called early apologists to Roman Emperors and even the considered official responses in letters by those Roman Emperors to the hitherto unknown apologists.

Oh look at that bright shiny forgery over there.

It still doesn't show that Eusebius forged a completely imaginative work that invented a religion that did not exist before Constantine.

The conventional, secular view of Eusebius is that he was something of a spin doctor, that he either forged documents or enhanced them, or uncritically used forged material. That's pretty much normal for history - but it still doesn't give a motive for inventing a completely new religion - and not doing a better job of that invention.

Remember - you are not just arguing that Eusebius invented stuff, which is not controversial. You are arguing that there was a massive effort at forgery to create an entirely new religion with a fake history.

Quote:

However the key characteristic relating the two works IMO is the invention of fake sources which purposefully disagree and argue with the earlier fake sources. The following from livius.org on the "HA":

...
The parallel in "HE" is in the invention of the heretics (and pagans [eg Celsus]) who argue against orthodoxy in the centuries leading up to the Nicaean orthodoxy. The way I see the true history as developing is that when the orthodoxy of the centralised monotheistic state was being enforced there were naturally many great controversies and many heresies against it. But perhaps the greatest heresy was to be found in the authorship of popular books that related incredible narratives about Jesus and the Apostles, namely the whole host of gnostic acts and gnostic gospels.

Eusebius and those who in the following centuries preserved his work asserted in sources such as Irenaeus that these books were authored in the 2nd century, and not in the 4th century when the orthodoxy hit the fan. They invented pre-Nicaean heretics and retrojected the controversies over the so-called heretical gnostic gospels and acts into their pseudo-history.

This is so crazy it makes my head spin. The usual skeptical view of Christian history is that there was a riotous diversity early on, and then the orthodox came in and tried to pretend that their view was the original first century version, and all the other heresies were second century inventions inspired by Satan . . . but you want to say that the orthodox invented these heresies or made them seem earlier than they actually were? When a 4th century heresy would be even less convincing than a 2nd century heresy??

Quote:

The Historia Augusta is more of a novel and a fiction than a history and facts and it can be therefore classified as a pseudo-historical account. My argument is that the Church History is precisely of the same genre.

This is not an argument. It is an assertion.

Quote:

Extracted from livius.org on the "HA":

...

When the Historia Augusta is dated is a question not without its controversies, but one of the options being discussed is that it may have been written during the rule of Constantine, since it is dedicated in part to Constantine. Therefore it cannot be out of the question that the Church History and the "Historia Augusta" were both produced in the same imperially sponsored scriptorium, for the edification of the senatorial audience of the 4th century.

What exactly about Eusebius' Church History would be entertaining to a Roman Senator?

mountainman · 05-17-2013, 09:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by avi

What proportion of our extant three texts of Justin Martyr were written by him, rather than added by the monks working in an Italian monastery in 1364 CE?

Do you have any evidence that these monks (or, according to Harnack, one monk in particular) actually were in the habit (excuse the pun) of adding things to the texts they possessed? If so how often and to what degree did they do this? Is there any other text they preserved that you can point to that was handled the way you claim the Apologies were handled? Or was it only to the text of Justin that they added things? And just how much was added? What, specifically are the additions?

Detail of the 11th century copy of Annals, the gap between the 'i' and 's' is highlighted in the word 'Christianos'.

A gap is not an addition.

There has been the deletion of the "e" and the addition of the "I".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

The 'editor' likely thought he was fixing a mistake. 'Adjusting' one single letter to conform with the most common spelling is on a far different level than composing and inserting entire paragraphs into an ancient text.

The one single letter separates the nation of "Chrestians" from the nation of "Christians". I find it strange that both the Tacitus Annals and Pliny Trajan letter exchange both suddenly appear in the 15th century. But discussion of the integrity of the inquisitional church in the 15th century delays us from looking at the origin of the entire problem - the inquisitional 4th century church and its status as a forgery mill.

It's not just the "TF" but a mass of forgeries that appear in and around the epoch of Nicaea. Why there are so many PSEUDO-<Insert a name here> writings dated to the early 4th century?

Quote:

In any case, is this MS from the same monastery that preserved Justin's Apologies?

I don't know.

Pious forgeries litter the centuries of the advance of the Christians out of the Nicaean Council and Constantine's Twenty-Year Long Service Party.

So avi brings up a good point in highlighting the pitiful state of the manuscript tradition for Justin. The ms tradition for the Pliny letters used to cite attestation to Chrestians or Christians has similar problems. Roger Pearse has done some really good work documenting the ms traditions for various ancient mss and placing these in the public domain.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman · 05-17-2013, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Where's all the extra but complimentary Historia Augusta literature that's similar to the numerous writings from the EC fathers writers that, if the author of the AH was really doing under state supervision and support what Eusebius reputedly did under Constantine, we should have expected to also have been produced by him?

The Letter exchange between Paul and Seneca, the writings of Pseudo-Porphyry, pseudo-Justin, pseudo-Lucian, pseudo-<INSERT ANY NAME>.

I am not sure I understand your question. My claim is that modus operandi of using fake sources, forged documents and other fake sources arguing with the earlier fake sources (which is a novelty!) is common to both the Historia Augusta and the Historia Ecclesiastica.

Someone appears to have been flooding the 4th century high technology Greek and Latin codex market with entertaining pseudo-history.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman · 05-17-2013, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Incredibly, as far as I could tell, no one so far has been interested in discussing the implications of these important points made by MM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Yes, when I get some time I will.

(1) That the bulk of the fragments are derived from codices not rolls mitigates towards the 4th century.

(2) That the bulk of the fragments come from Oxyrynchus rubbish dumps many of which did not exist before the city's massive population explosion mitigates towards the mid 4th century.

(3) That the only C14 dating to have been performed on any manuscript related to the Christian canonical and non canonical texts mitigates to a date between 220 and 340 CE.

These are three general objections to the early palaeographical datings.

IN EUSEBIUS WE TRUST.

Take Big E out of the picture and we are left with Vaticanus, Alexandrianus, Sinaticus, Bezae, .....

Get the drift.

No one dares to take Eusebius out.
The implications are not pretty.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman · 05-17-2013, 10:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

With all due respect to mountainman and his opinion, and I count him as a friend, it must be recognized that his opinion is a very unconventional 'outlier' position among Biblical and historical scholarship.

Yes I do hold very unconventional outlier hypotheses, and I am glad to have friends like your self who feel comfortable in discussing the merits or otherwise of all such alternative hypotheses.

Quote:

Without getting into the arguments pro and con of his views, one must weigh the likelihood that thousands of other scholars have been in error in these matters.

My response to this is that there were not asking the right questions.

The "right" questions have been subject until recent times by state and national blasphemy laws.

All centralised monotheistic state religions and their holy writs are the works of regimes who had the supreme military control of their empire.

Quote:

It's up to the individual if they are convinced enough by his arguments to want to climb aboard his cart.

For the present I am content to just walk along and observe what holes it might fall into and in what direction it is headed.

Thanks for the equanimous attitude Shesh. We are all interested in walking down the road of learning all about Christian Origins, to some extent. My presence on the road is provisional - it's always been provisional. If someone can find unambiguous evidence that satisfies the hypothesis that the nation of Christians (not Chrestians) existed before the 4th century, then I shall turn the team around and take the cart back to the barn.

Quote:

Always interested in whatever interesting and supported information he has to offer, but not committed to his theory.

And such is the basis of objective discussion.

Best wishes Shesh.

Pete

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman · 05-17-2013, 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

However the key characteristic relating the two works IMO is the invention of fake sources which purposefully disagree and argue with the earlier fake sources. The following from livius.org on the "HA":

...
The parallel in "HE" is in the invention of the heretics (and pagans [eg Celsus]) who argue against orthodoxy in the centuries leading up to the Nicaean orthodoxy. The way I see the true history as developing is that when the orthodoxy of the centralised monotheistic state was being enforced there were naturally many great controversies and many heresies against it. But perhaps the greatest heresy was to be found in the authorship of popular books that related incredible narratives about Jesus and the Apostles, namely the whole host of gnostic acts and gnostic gospels.

Eusebius and those who in the following centuries preserved his work asserted in sources such as Irenaeus that these books were authored in the 2nd century, and not in the 4th century when the orthodoxy hit the fan. They invented pre-Nicaean heretics and retrojected the controversies over the so-called heretical gnostic gospels and acts into their pseudo-history.

This is so crazy it makes my head spin. The usual skeptical view of Christian history is that there was a riotous diversity early on, and then the orthodox came in and tried to pretend that their view was the original first century version, and all the other heresies were second century inventions inspired by Satan . . . but you want to say that the orthodox invented these heresies or made them seem earlier than they actually were? When a 4th century heresy would be even less convincing than a 2nd century heresy??

Using your own terminology above - there was a riotous diversity of pagans (none of which had read the bible) at Nicaea when the Constantine Bible was wheeled in on a cart. The pagans were shocked with the holy writ. The result was their manufacture of a riotous diversity of "Gospels and Acts and Revelations and Letters". These pagan people who did not want to join the new orthodoxy. These people the orthodox labelled as heretics.

These heretics were converted by the sword over the period 325-381 CE. They had already decided they were running with a centralised monotheistic state. They needed to conform the people to the holy writ. And they did.

When the orthodox victors wrote their history, they asserted that the conflict between the books of Constantine and the books of the Gnostic Gospels and Acts etc, had occurred prior to Nicaea, and that many of these "gnostic gospels and acts" were known to the "Early Christians".

This I find to be a false assertion by the victorious heresiologists.

I think that the pagans just reacted to the Constantine Bible by publishing the Gnostic Gospels and Acts. Action reaction, not over 3 centuries, but over a few years, say 325-336 CE.

The investigation of the non canonical gospels and acts suggests that it is not too far fetched to explore the hypothesis that all of this material, and this includes many of the Old Testament Apocrypha, appeared as a literary response to the political appearance of the Constantine Bible as the holy writ of the (riotous diverse) pagans.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Duvduv · 05-18-2013, 07:16 PM

Another very interesting point made by MM despite it being out of sync with conventional wisdom....

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

This is so crazy it makes my head spin. The usual skeptical view of Christian history is that there was a riotous diversity early on, and then the orthodox came in and tried to pretend that their view was the original first century version, and all the other heresies were second century inventions inspired by Satan . . . but you want to say that the orthodox invented these heresies or made them seem earlier than they actually were? When a 4th century heresy would be even less convincing than a 2nd century heresy??

Using your own terminology above - there was a riotous diversity of pagans (none of which had read the bible) at Nicaea when the Constantine Bible was wheeled in on a cart. The pagans were shocked with the holy writ. The result was their manufacture of a riotous diversity of "Gospels and Acts and Revelations and Letters". These pagan people who did not want to join the new orthodoxy. These people the orthodox labelled as heretics.

These heretics were converted by the sword over the period 325-381 CE. They had already decided they were running with a centralised monotheistic state. They needed to conform the people to the holy writ. And they did.

When the orthodox victors wrote their history, they asserted that the conflict between the books of Constantine and the books of the Gnostic Gospels and Acts etc, had occurred prior to Nicaea, and that many of these "gnostic gospels and acts" were known to the "Early Christians".

This I find to be a false assertion by the victorious heresiologists.

I think that the pagans just reacted to the Constantine Bible by publishing the Gnostic Gospels and Acts. Action reaction, not over 3 centuries, but over a few years, say 325-336 CE.

The investigation of the non canonical gospels and acts suggests that it is not too far fetched to explore the hypothesis that all of this material, and this includes many of the Old Testament Apocrypha, appeared as a literary response to the political appearance of the Constantine Bible as the holy writ of the (riotous diverse) pagans.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Duvduv · 05-20-2013, 04:31 PM

MM, if you are around to pursue this subject why not continue if you have time? It's very interesting. And for my adversaries - no, I haven't had a chance to look into the fragments yet.

mountainman · 05-20-2013, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Extracted from livius.org on the "HA":

...

When the Historia Augusta is dated is a question not without its controversies, but one of the options being discussed is that it may have been written during the rule of Constantine, since it is dedicated in part to Constantine. Therefore it cannot be out of the question that the Church History and the "Historia Augusta" were both produced in the same imperially sponsored scriptorium, for the edification of the senatorial audience of the 4th century.

What exactly about Eusebius' Church History would be entertaining to a Roman Senator?

The historical record reveals that when Constantine decided to support the Christian religion as the religion-of-his-choice for the centralised monotheistic state religion of the pagan empire, many rich landowners had opportune dreams to convert to the religion. Entire cities petitioned Constantine that they were 100% Christian. Such were the efforts of rich pagans trying to get on board the new religion as tax-exempt bishops of Constantine, that the emperor had to legislate against this practice.

Roman senators who wished to support the Lord God Caesar Constantine would support his important publications of propaganda. They would jump on the Emperor's bandwagon. And the more committed Constantine was to his own agenda, the faster (and the higher) the senators would jump.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

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05-20-2013, 04:31 PM	#49
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	MM, if you are around to pursue this subject why not continue if you have time? It's very interesting. And for my adversaries - no, I haven't had a chance to look into the fragments yet.

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