Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Duvduv · 05-20-2013, 07:43 PM

Lucky for all of them that they didn't have to deal with the snooping around of the IRS!!

Toto · 05-20-2013, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

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.

Where's the Senate in this?

Quote:

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.

How does this fantasy square with

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_of_the_Roman_Empire

"The Senate remained the last stronghold of the traditional Roman religion in the face of the spreading Christianity"

mountainman · 05-20-2013, 08:34 PM

Hi Duvduv,

The conventional wisdom is to accept as non negotiable and TRUE the testimony of Eusebius and his "Church Fathers" such as Irenaeus, in respect of the history of the gnostic gospels and acts.

You can see that when I question this received (heresiological) tradition, even when I allow the received tradition of Eusbebius in respect of the canonical books to be true (i.e. to have existed from the 1st century), the response has invariably been either SILENCE or "this is so crazy".

My suggestion to view the Gnostic Gospels and Acts as a political literary reaction to the appearance of Constantine's Bible as the holy writ of the pagan Roman Empire seems to me to be a simple and common sense approach to the entire appearance of the non canonical books.

I am open to suggestions on how this idea may be discussed, but until now my observation is that the majority of the discussion members here either have very little interest in the non canonical books of the NT when compared to their interest in the canonical books OR they have very little interest in challenging the received tradition of how the authorship of the non canonical books are historically related to the publication of the Constantine Bible.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

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.

Duvduv · 05-21-2013, 03:19 PM

I did some reading on the fragments or scraps that are dated from the garbage dump outside of Oxyrhynchus found together with other material dated into the 4th century.

I notice on the lists that the Tanakh fragments are dated much later than those upon whom people rely for dating the NT fragments (Grenfell, Hunt, et al). I can see through the generalized dating of "250" or more likely "middle to end of the 3rd century" that they could just as easily be from the 4th century, closer to the dating of the Tanakh fragments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_Papyri

However, for the overall context and details I defer to the usual suspect considered a nemesis by some people on this Forum (the Prof. Moriarty no less!), our fellow poster, Mountainman. See his discussion at http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_071.htm

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05-20-2013, 07:43 PM	#51
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	Lucky for all of them that they didn't have to deal with the snooping around of the IRS!!

05-21-2013, 03:19 PM	#54
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	I did some reading on the fragments or scraps that are dated from the garbage dump outside of Oxyrhynchus found together with other material dated into the 4th century. I notice on the lists that the Tanakh fragments are dated much later than those upon whom people rely for dating the NT fragments (Grenfell, Hunt, et al). I can see through the generalized dating of "250" or more likely "middle to end of the 3rd century" that they could just as easily be from the 4th century, closer to the dating of the Tanakh fragments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_Papyri However, for the overall context and details I defer to the usual suspect considered a nemesis by some people on this Forum (the Prof. Moriarty no less!), our fellow poster, Mountainman. See his discussion at http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_071.htm

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