Iskander

added link Pagans were in the habit of killing the worshipper of prohibited gods, burning books, demolishing religious buildings etc .In 186 BC the Roman inquisitors launched a holy crusade against the worshippers of Bacchus.


Vol 5 The history of Rome Livy XXXIX-16

http://oll.libertyfund.org,
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php...temid=99999999

mountainman

Chronological precedence: their intellectual priority date was earlier.


The Canonical Gospels appeared and circulated first.

Their heretical counterparts came second and were .....

"insipid and puerile amplifications" [Ernest Renan]

"excluded by their later and radical light" [John Dominic Crossan]

"severely conditoned responses to Jesus ... usually these authors deny his humanity" [Robert M. Grant]

"they exclude themselves" [M.R. James]

"The practice of Christian forgery has a long and distinguished history" [Bart Ehrman]

"The Leucian Acts are Hellenistic romances, which were written to appeal to the masses" [Watson E. Mills, Roger Aubrey Bullard]

"The key point ... [NT Apocrypha] have all been long ago considered and rejected by the Church.

"The names of apostles ... were used by obscure writers to palm off their productions; partly to embellish and add to ... partly to invent ... partly to support false doctrines; decidedly pernicious, ... nevertheless contain much that is interesting and curious ... they were given a place which they did not deserve." [Tischendorf]

"Gnostic texts use parody and satire quite frequently ... making fun of traditional biblical beliefs"[April Deconick]

"heretics ... who were chiefly Gnostics ... imitated the books of the New Testament" [Catholic Encyclopaedia]

"enterprising spirits ... pretended Gospels full of romantic fables and fantastic and striking details, their fabrications were eagerly read and largely accepted as true by common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity." "the heretical apocryphists, composed spurious Gospels in order to trace backward their beliefs and peculiarities to Christ Himself." [Catholic Encyclopaedia]

"the fabrication of spurious Acts of the Apostles was, in general, to give Apostolic support to heretical systems, especially those of the many sects which are comprised under the term Gnosticism. The Gnostic Acts of Peter, Andrew, John, Thomas, and perhaps Matthew, abound in extravagant and highly coloured marvels, and were interspersed by long pretended discourses of the Apostles which served as vehicles for the Gnostic predications. The originally Gnostic apocryphal Acts were gathered into collections which bore the name of the periodoi (Circuits) or praxeis (Acts) of the Apostles, and to which was attached the name of a Leucius Charinus, who may have formed the compilation." [Catholic Encyclopaedia]

mountainman

Hi Iskander,

The OP mentioned the 2nd century CE, not the 2nd century BCE.

In the 2nd century CE the pagans controlled the libraries - public, private and those associated with larger temple complexes. The Second Sophistic was in full swing - Attic Greek dominated Koine Greek. Even the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote literature. See "Meditations". OTOH the Christian Books were all written in Koine Greek and employed a standard encryption of "sacred names".

mountainman

Although the New Testament appears to be a COPY/PASTE job from the Greek LXX, there is a trap here in that we have no real guarantee (apart from the wonderful BCE legend of the Ptolemaic Seventy Scribes, found in the letter of Aristeas inserted into Josephus, and repeated by the 3rd century Anatolius via Eusebius) that the Greek LXX was a well circulated manuscript of the epoch BCE. Physical evidence of an "early" [BCE] Greek LXX is extremely scarce.

The common item of evidence tendered for BCE Christian origin discussion is the Toledot Yeshu

Iskander

The policy of burning books, killing heretics, demolishing religious buildings and erasing the memory of the dissenter was a long well established pagan tradition than continued into the 2nd century AD and was later adopted by the pagan Constantine when he decided to harness the invincible Christian religion to the service of the empire.

Paganism was defeated by Christianity because Christianity had more to offer to people.

MrMacSon

It seems certain there's been more than cut & paste to the genesis of the NT; and, that genesis, over more than two centuries, culminated in it being cemented as a major tomb in the time of Eusebius & Constantine

Current consensus is that Toledot Yeshu originates after the 2nd century CE and probably after the 6th C

mountainman

Any theory of Christian origins must include a special theory to account for the historical authorship of these so-called fake "gospels". The theory that they were rejected by Constantine, in preference with what we see in Codex Vaticanus etc, seems in line with the evidence. We may believe that the orthodox canon preservers expressed disdain and shock and horror about these "Fake gospels", but nothing could be done by either side until the situation was elevated to the political arena commencing c.325 CE in the Eastern empire.

The big questions are who authored them [the fake gospels], when, where and why.

As I mentioned above, they came second in appearance to planet earth.

Just as the authors of the canonical gospels took bits and pieces out of the Greek LXX, so did the authors of the "fake gospels" take bits and pieces out of the LXX and the Greek New Testament, cobbling them together in wonderful combinations and permutations, skilfully adding new material, often platforming Platonist philosophy.

The authorship of the core series of "fake gospels" seems to have ceased in the late 4th/5th century, at which time the genre of Christian hagiography took over the theme for centuries of well known Christian Bishops. I guess there are some exceptions, even "Life of Brian", but we need a special theory to explain their authorship and their preservation. Hence possible importance of the reference in Eusebius related to the preservation by a school (thus a library, private or communal) of the Docetae of the "Fake Gospel of Peter" with its walking talking Cross.

mountainman

Maybe Constantine thought of himself as a shepherd of men? He certainly must have liked the ideas found in The Shepherd of Hermas because it would appear that he published the Official Bible with this story in it.

mountainman

FFS don't you understand the concept of a priority date in literature?


Just as the pagans had temples and the temples had libraries, we must infer (considering the "evidence" in Eusebius) that the Christians had churches, church-houses and house-churches, and that these structures also had (Christian literature) libraries.


What conspiracy? The Constantine Bible was replicated many times and naturally became a standard version of orthodoxy (after "The Shepherd" and "Ignatius" were axed). The 'forcing' is merely a result of an official widespread publication. It's a lot like Mao's "Little Red Book".

The real question relates to the editorship job of this publication, and the closure of the canon in the later 4th century.

mountainman

Especially in the area of intolerance and persecution.