For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

[KichigaiNeko]

[EGross]

[Confused Ape]

[EGross]

Let's say that you are one of the faithful. You are a true believer. You finally are recognized and get a promotion to work with the important people.

You are now told to forge stuff to make people believe.

One would think that somebody would have gone running back to their community, stood on a soap box and cried "Hey, everyone. They're just screwing with us!". But we don't seem to find any tattlers. Perhaps they only promoted the wicked among them who were in it for the power. Dunno.

[Confused Ape]

Let's say that you are one of the faithful. You are a true believer. You finally are recognized and get a promotion to work with the important people.

You are now told to forge stuff to make people believe.

One would think that somebody would have gone running back to their community, stood on a soap box and cried "Hey, everyone. They're just screwing with us!". But we don't seem to find any tattlers. Perhaps they only promoted the wicked among them who were in it for the power. Dunno.

It would also mean that only the important people in Eusebius's faction were allowed to read his Church History. There's still the problem of motive, though. Why go to so much trouble for so little gain? The faction would have been better off forging the Tacitus passage about Nero's spectacle after making sure they had the only copy of Annals Book XV.

If Humphreys really is wanting his visitors to look into things his motive regarding phantom Clement and Eusebius could be to ask us - "Eusebius was a notorious fabricator but does that automatically mean he fabricated everything he wrote about in his books?"

[Minimalist]

Two points you both need to consider are:

1- At a time when barely 10% of the population could read at all there was probably 1% that could read/comprehend advanced philosophical/historical/theological texts at all. The audience for what they were writing was limited. The vast bulk of the people were told what to do - and what to believe - orally.

2- On the morning of Oct. 27, 312 xtianity was a suspect doctrine recently the victim of Diocletian's persecution. By that afternoon they had backed the winning horse at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and were duly rewarded for their support by Constantine. All of this crap about Constantine seeing signs in the sky and having his troops write xtian bullshit slogans on their shields came from two xtian writers, Lactantius and the ubiquitous Eusebius.

The paperwork explosion of xtianity begins after 312. Whether or not Eusebius actually forged documents ( why bother?) or merely took oral traditions, edited them to suit his current need, and wrote down what he wished, is unknown and will probably never be known. But the idea that the earliest church was based on written documents founders on point #1. Few people could read, fewer still could write, and even fewer could read and write Greek AND Latin.

How much better for the world had Maxentius won the battle and gone on to exterminate those xtian fucks!

[Confused Ape]

Two points you both need to consider are:

1- At a time when barely 10% of the population could read at all there was probably 1% that could read/comprehend advanced philosophical/historical/theological texts at all. The audience for what they were writing was limited. The vast bulk of the people were told what to do - and what to believe - orally.

We are considering the fact that there was a specialised audience for the books and talking about the people who could read. 1% of everyone in the area covered by the Roman Empire was still a lot of people and there were a number of competing factions. If Faction A was trying to fool everyone else it's members would have to operate on the assumption that the other factions had men with the same level of expertise as themselves.

2- On the morning of Oct. 27, 312 xtianity was a suspect doctrine recently the victim of Diocletian's persecution. By that afternoon they had backed the winning horse at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and were duly rewarded for their support by Constantine.All of this crap about Constantine seeing signs in the sky and having his troops write xtian bullshit slogans on their shields came from two xtian writers, Lactantius and the ubiquitous Eusebius.

Which is just the kind of thing that an emperor sympathetic to Christianity would want to hear. Everyone loved stories about signs and wonders etc so he wouldn't have been very pleased if accounts of the battle hadn't assigned any to him.

The paperwork explosion of xtianity begins after 312.

Does that mean more people were able to read and write advanced stuff then or the 1% were extra busy?

Whether or not Eusebius actually forged documents ( why bother?) or merely took oral traditions, edited them to suit his current need, and wrote down what he wished, is unknown and will probably never be known.

Forging a few documents would be useful for fooling some of the 1% who could read if his faction was going to fool others. There's still the question of why Eusebius's faction should invent a bishop etc.,though, just to produce First Clement which doesn't say that Paul was beheaded and Peter crucified when Eusebius recorded this as being known in his time. What would be the point?

Somebody wrote First Clement at some time but it would be for a reason which had a point to it.

How much better for the world had Maxentius won the battle and gone on to exterminate those xtian fucks!

What became the Christian world would have remained pagan but the pagan Romans weren't exactly gentle hippie types. It could also have led to modern atheists being unable to believe in all the pagan deities and religions which the majority of the population still believe in.

[ThomM]

The claim that 1 percent of the Romans could read is not a supportable number. The number is likely to be at least 5 percent and may be closer to 10 percent of the Roman population.

This is supported by at least two things

1 - In the Roman Empire - religion was not the only source of writings - there were literary works, philosophy, and other casual writings mentioned

2 - The Roman Empire had a large network of Libraries - for the public to use. No reason to have them if no one could read.

Reading did fall off during the dark ages again in the world - down to below 5% of the population - but it was higher than that in the Golden age of Rome.

[Confused Ape]