The Biggest Lie in the Study of Earliest Christianity

[Secret Alias]

I thank you for the summary but surely debates - especially debates about Greek philosophy and the Bible - can be and were repeated over the course of 2000 years. Husbands and wives have the same sorts of disputes. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. But that doesn't mean that the same husband and wife, father and daughter actually reincarnated over and over again each time. The idea that the debate was like debates in medieval works isn't surprising as the interest in Greek philosophy and the Bible would have continued. I don't read Arabic but my teacher does and told me that there is absolute certainty among Samaritan scholars that Abu'l Fath is citing from a great number of sources. His language betrays this access to literary sources in no uncertain terms. Again I thank you for the summary but there is a pattern in your argumentation which I find odd. You say something is like something else therefore it is something else. But like and is are not necessarily - and in most cases not interchangeable.

[Secret Alias]

On Abu'l Fath's consistent use of source material cf. Alan David Crown, Reinhard Pummer, Abraham Tal, A Companion to Samaritan Studies (1993), p. 8. https://books.google.com/books?id=_iMnz ... es&f=false It's not an invented history. He may not always understand what his sources are telling him (and says something to this effect I believe in this section we are discussing). But he is using sources.

[Secret Alias]

More discussions noting Abu'l Fath's use of source material - https://books.google.com/books?id=E8ZJA ... es&f=false

[andrewcriddle]

I thank you for the summary but surely debates - especially debates about Greek philosophy and the Bible - can be and were repeated over the course of 2000 years. Husbands and wives have the same sorts of disputes. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. But that doesn't mean that the same husband and wife, father and daughter actually reincarnated over and over again each time. The idea that the debate was like debates in medieval works isn't surprising as the interest in Greek philosophy and the Bible would have continued. I don't read Arabic but my teacher does and told me that there is absolute certainty among Samaritan scholars that Abu'l Fath is citing from a great number of sources. His language betrays this access to literary sources in no uncertain terms. Again I thank you for the summary but there is a pattern in your argumentation which I find odd. You say something is like something else therefore it is something else. But like and is are not necessarily - and in most cases not interchangeable.

This type of argument develops through time. The earliest form in Aristotle is that everything comes into being from a previous substrate i.e. matter could only come into being from some sort of pre-matter.

Faced with the difficulty in establishing the premise of this argument (which basically begs the question) Avicenna developed arguments from the conditions required for possible existence. Abu'l Fath is describing an argument of this sort. He is probably using a source but it is unlikely to be a pre-Islamic source.

Andrew Criddle

[Secret Alias]

... because you don't like what it says. He's summarizing a text which dates to the time of Commodus. That's the obvious answer. You can't just say that something isn't what it says it is merely because you don't like the implications of what it is saying. I mean you can - and have - made arguments like this. But you need more than that.

[Secret Alias]

Surely Plotinus's 'against the gnostics' (or whatever it is called by other scholars) is another example of Greek philosophy and Christianity butting heads with one another. Celsus is another (albeit we don't get much of the substance of his philosophical attack against Christianity). That work that is cited by Eusebius as 'Maximus' and which resurfaces in De Recta in Deum Fide is another. In fact that's very closely related. From Eusebius about writers active at the time of Commodus:

Numerous memorials of the faithful zeal of the ancient ecclesiastical men of that time are still preserved by many. Of these we would note particularly the writings of Heraclitus On the Apostle, and those of Maximus on the question so much discussed among heretics, the Origin of Evil, and on the Creation of Matter. Also those of Candidus on the Hexæmeron, and of Apion on the same subject; likewise of Sextus on the Resurrection, and another treatise of Arabianus, and writings of a multitude of others, in regard to whom, because we have no data, it is impossible to state in our work when they lived, or to give any account of their history. And works of many others have come down to us whose names we are unable to give, orthodox and ecclesiastical, as their interpretations of the Divine Scriptures show, but unknown to us, because their names are not stated in their writings.

On this Maximus cf Ramelli - https://books.google.com/books?id=YfGZA ... us&f=false

[Secret Alias]

And remember the testimony in Abu'l Fath is put within a historical chronology. He gives a specific year and note the reference here:

The debate between them dragged on, with argument and polemic . The situation reached the stage where the possibility of the Creator's "Speaking" was denied. And the Mission of the Messengers is (implicitly) denied by whoever denies that the trustworthy Message has been uttered. Perhaps more of the discourse of this question ought to have been given here (by me). But I have related it as I found it, and as much as I could cope with. The situation became such that Commodus took umbrage, and said, "These people have perverted our faith, and have maliciously watered down what our sect regards as traditional, and they have acted in a hostile manner towards us.” So, he stretched out his hands, and many of their wise men were burnt to death;

Come on Andrew this is a stupid objection on your part. Abu'l Fath has before him exactly what he says he has before him - a text purportedly dated to the time of Commodus with a philosophical debate about the monarchy that leads to a holocaust for the Samaritan people.

[Secret Alias]

Do you think a post-Islamic text would have the objections cited by Abu'l Fath:

The situation reached the stage where the possibility of the Creator's "Speaking" was denied. And the Mission of the Messengers is (implicitly) denied by whoever denies that the trustworthy Message has been uttered.

[Secret Alias]

I can find almost any Aristotlean argument recycled in both ancient and medieval sources. The argument which comes up before Abu'l Fath stops transcribing the text:

The situation reached the stage where the possibility of the Creator's "Speaking" was denied. And the Mission of the Messengers is (implicitly) denied by whoever denies that the trustworthy Message has been uttered

The reference is to God calling Moses from the burning bush and sending Aaron (= the mission of the messengers). This is very similar to things I remember reading in Celsus. Osborne makes the same point in his book on Clement of Alexandria:

https://books.google.com/books?id=TxU_w ... od&f=false

First of all, we look at the ten characteristics which troubled him (Clement of Alexandria):

1. A distinction between existence and essence (Maximus of Tyre).
2. God is asômaton-noêton. This is found in all Middle Platonic writers: Alcinous, Apuleius, Maximus of Tyre, Celsus, Numenius and the Chaldaic Oracles.
3. God is the supreme noêton with a move from this noêton to nous (Alcinous; Maximus of Tyre; Numenius; Chaldaic Oracles).
4. There are two divine intellects for Alcinous.39 Numenius goes further and speaks of three divine intellects.
5. Because he is bodiless and intellectual (asômaton-noêton), God remains inaccessible to sense-perception and is seen only by the purified mind (Maximus of Tyre; Celsus; Numenius).
6. This knowledge of God by the purified nous is confused and differs according to whether one acknowledges attributes in God (Alcinous; Apuleius) or whether one considers him as completely without attributes, indefinable and indivisible (Alcinous; Apuleius; Maximus of Tyre; Celsus; Numenius).
7. Considered in the first way, God can be reached by analogy (Alcinous; Maximus of Tyre; Celsus) and by the way of eminence (Alcinous; Maximus of Tyre; Celsus).45 When God is considered in the second way, as completely beyond attributes and definition, he is to be reached by the via negativa alone (Alcinous; Celsus; Numenius).46 Alcinous and Celsus join the three ways, while Maximus of Tyre joins the first two ways and Numenius follows the via negativa only. Maximus of Tyre joins to the argument of the via negativa the concept that God is not a particular thing but always the cause of this thing (Maximus of Tyre)
8. Because of these considerations, one can say that God is difficult to know (Apuleius; Maximus of Tyre; Celsus)48 either because he is beyond speech or language or because, like nous, he is the sun whose light brings blindness (Celsus). Alternatively, one can simply say that God remains entirely unknown (Numenius).
9. But the unknown god is still accessible or knowable by a special method (Maximus of Tyre; Celsus; Numenius; Chaldaic Oracles).
10. Some Middle Platonic writers (Maximus of Tyre and Celsus) admit the notion of intermediaries who are satellites to God.

[andrewcriddle]

And remember the testimony in Abu'l Fath is put within a historical chronology. He gives a specific year and note the reference here:

The debate between them dragged on, with argument and polemic . The situation reached the stage where the possibility of the Creator's "Speaking" was denied. And the Mission of the Messengers is (implicitly) denied by whoever denies that the trustworthy Message has been uttered. Perhaps more of the discourse of this question ought to have been given here (by me). But I have related it as I found it, and as much as I could cope with. The situation became such that Commodus took umbrage, and said, "These people have perverted our faith, and have maliciously watered down what our sect regards as traditional, and they have acted in a hostile manner towards us.” So, he stretched out his hands, and many of their wise men were burnt to death;

Come on Andrew this is a stupid objection on your part. Abu'l Fath has before him exactly what he says he has before him - a text purportedly dated to the time of Commodus with a philosophical debate about the monarchy that leads to a holocaust for the Samaritan people.

Abu'l Fath presents a solid philosophical argument in a slightly confused way (assuming an accurate translation into English). I agree he must be using a source written by someone better at philosophy than he was. My problem is that I don't think the source can in anything like its present form be pre-Islamic.

The links to Avicenna (Ibn Sina) are too close.
(Did you read https://www.academia.edu/21056037/The_E ... nd_Aquinas
? See also Thomas Aquinas responding to an Avicenna type argument. )

Andrew Criddle