On dating the Gnostic literature after 325 CE

[Charles Wilson]

We have only the victors side (The Emperors of the Christian State) of the story before us.

Not so fast, LC.

There is something momentous left in the record by some other people. By the time of the Roman Christian Takeover, some of this material is known but ignored, read but not corrected. Quoting the end of the Uzi Leibner book again (with a nod to Shulamit Elizur), we find this:

"Instead of a sound of weeping/ a Devine voice was heard in Malchijah (the fifth course)/"the youngsters gained victory in Antioch" /
The four heads of the Tiger (a symbol for the Greeks)/ were shattered by the youngsters of Immer (the sixteenth course)/ in the command of the guard (God)
To announce in the streets of Jabnit that the spear has slashed/ every Greek tongue."

Now, as far as I know, there was never a battle in Antioch between the Mishmarot Course Immer and any Greek forces. What did this Piyyutim celebrate? It obviously looks back a few centuries to a great victory BY IMMER. Would someone PLEASE look at this stuff!

Not so fast Charles

Antioch has a great significance for Constantine. There was a very important [supposedly] "church council" at Antioch immediately prior to the all-important Nicene Council. At this council Constantine supposedly gave a great Oration to the Saints. I am not sure whether they were Christian saints or simply pagan saints, but I would suspect and defend the latter alternative. Constantine's Oration is the very first Imperial PR Oratory Exercise on behalf of Christianity. It is a very interesting statement and it has been analysed by Robin Lane-Fox. My notes are here: http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/C ... ntioch.htm Fox makes the comment that there are some "frauds" in this oration ....

As mentioned by Fox evidence exists to suggest that after the council Constantine ordered for the torture of [pagan] magistrates and philosophers of Antioch so they admitted to religious fraud. This was the first major council after Constantine's military victory. He was the supreme commander of the Roman EMpire. The question is how much of a (malevolent) dictator was he?

Your quote is interesting .....

• "Instead of a sound of weeping/ a Devine voice was heard in Malchijah (the fifth course)/"the youngsters gained victory in Antioch" /
  The four heads of the Tiger (a symbol for the Greeks)/ were shattered by the youngsters of Immer (the sixteenth course)/ in the command of the guard (God)
  To announce in the streets of Jabnit that the spear has slashed/ every Greek tongue."

Constantine and his barbarian chieftains had celebrated their victory at Antioch c.325 CE. They shattered the Greek [pagan] religious traditions by prohibiting them and in place of them raising the Christian religion to the official religion of the Emperor, and the Empire. Are the barbarian forces of Constantine these "youngsters"? Looked at in retrospect, the Greek NT Bible was a political manifesto against the traditional pagan (largely Greek influenced religions. The old traditions were the gentiles, and they were about to be converted by the "Good News". Torture was part of the conversion process.

1. As I write this, I don't know how much to trim down. Mebbe someone will read a long repost but I try to keep things shorter.

2. There are several finessed points in the record after the destruction of the Temple and the rise of Christianity. The Hasmoneans are making claims to Rulership through the House of Eleazar and their KING is Jannaeus in Type. Jannaeus and his associates fought the Greeks to the death (See: Posts on Demetrius Eucerus as the Greek General who committed the Appalling Abomination.). This POLITICAL War is hidden in the NT. Jannaeus' hatred of the Pharisees is not hidden.

3. Antioch was the favorite of Octavian, dba Caesar Augustus, and is found in Acts 6. "Nikolas, Hero of Antioch", refers to Octavian in the Inverted List of Caesars in Acts 6. "Vhat kind of name ist Nickolas, hmmm?" I dunno at this point.

4. There was a list which is formulated from the List in 1 Chronicles 24 of the Mishmarot Service Groups and they are assigned cities in Galilee. The List existed before the establishment of the city of Tiberias and it is vitally important to learn if this List existed at the creation of the NT in the early 100s (100 to approx. 120/125) [[EDIT: This point is slightly garbled. Tiberias was founded in 18. Maybe more later...]] . Leibner states that the Conflagration in Judaea left Galilee untouched. Hence, a Puzzle: The Priesthood is saved and given cities to live in Galilee. By whom? Why? Weitzman has posited a Group of Scribes focused on Aramaic translations who "evidently" slowly became Christianized. It ended as well.

Many of the cities given to the Priests were abandoned through the following 2 centuries. Some Jewish Schools were stopped after more than 200 years "as if cut with a knife...".

5. The Mishmarot Group Malchijah may be an interpretable clue in the Piyyut given above. "Malchijah" - "Yahu is King" - are among those who return to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Nehemiah 3: 11 (RSV):

[11] Malchi'jah the son of Harim and Hasshub the son of Pa'hath-mo'ab repaired another section and the Tower of the Ovens.

So there is a start to unpack the Symbolism here. "Immer" is the basis of the NT Literary Story and this is about where I end today. Too many "In-Your-Face" problems. The Romans destroyed the Religion and culture of the Jews, but perhaps more importantly, of the Hasmoneans. The Pharisees are deadly parasites and their death is welcomed - by SOME group anyway. Galilee is "relatively" untouched and while the Greeks and assorted Pagans are completely eliminated, various Jewish Groups, among them some Aramaic Groups are allowed to survive.

Titus - because of Bernice or Tiberias Alexander? - allows some groups of Jews to live and Rabbinical Judaism is the Non-Messianic result. Zeus, Hermes and all the rest,are gone.
I don't know how far towards 325 I can get to. I know that the Story comes from Mishmarot and the Hasmoneans in a rewrite. Which survivors wrote it? It's not just "Constantine did this or that". He had the Imperial State Power and there are still enough questions about who was in control of the Religious Apparatus to last a few more centuries.

Not so fast...

CW

[Peter Kirby]

What is significant, to me, at least, is that you cavalierly stated "it isn't a thumb", as though that were the question I had raised.

Nope.

The issue is not (and that's why I explicitly rejected an implication that you had deliberately sought to conceal omission), your digit. It is the absence of a piece of text, text that unfortunately could not be observed, even if it had been present, in Codex Sinaiticus.

There could be many reasons why Codex Sinaiticus exhibits the absence of "the Nazarene", but what strikes me as a bit odd, is that you would ignore this point, and instead exclaim: "it wasn't my thumb", as though the question involved identification of which of your digits obscured the text, preventing our recognition of the absence of "the Nazarene".

The question here, concerns dating Gnostic literature. You came down rather hard on LC for a bit of overzealousness on his part. However, you seem to be quite relaxed about analyzing an issue, which you have introduced. Surely it warrants a comment more significant than, "it wasn't my thumb". No one cares about identification of the specific digit, concealing the absence.

The quote was:

It's not my thumb.

But yes, it is a thumb (or maybe it isn't and it's just a finger, I don't know). It's just not my thumb. I believe it belongs to one James Owens.

Maybe your focus on the thumb, represents your contempt for my having suggested that this idea, represents some sort of novelty, maybe the absence of "the Nazarene" appears in your eyes, as something utterly banal and insignificant.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you'll never know....

Actually, no, definitely not. And I should know....

I'm allowed to reply to one thing at a time, or even just to reply to one thing. And now I've done it again.

For the record, your idea may indeed be a great idea.

[Peter Kirby]

for I am certainly not an expert, one could note, that a thumb obscuring the salient portion of the text, represents nothing more than a simple oversight, in my view, and not a deliberate act of malevolence, yet PK's harsh criticism of similarly unfortunate errors

wtf, man... like what the legitimate fuck... what's it with you and this thumb??????? ... the thumb is now an "error" and "oversight"??????? wtf????????????

... the thumb is now an "error" and "oversight"???????

No, I explicitly wrote the contrary, that it was most probably the result of inattention, not an attempt to deliberately deceive, by obscuring the fact that "the Nazarene" isn't found in the original Greek text.

Of course, "errors" or an "oversight" do not need to be deliberate, so mentioning that it was not done "deliberately" or meant to "deceive" does not mean that you "explicitly wrote the contrary," nor does it even mean that you implicitly wrote to the contrary, for that matter. What you explicitly wrote is that it "represents nothing more than a simple oversight" and that it is comparable to "similarly unfortunate errors" by LC.

It is definitely not an "error." It is not even an "oversight," as you seem to acknowledge in the second quote above (but not in the first).

It is thus completely irrelevant to the point you go on to make about "PK's harsh criticism of similarly unfortunate errors."

And it does not "deceive," although it does (quite literally) "obscure" (the text below the person's finger or thumb).

But it does not obscure "the fact that 'the Nazarene' isn't found in the original Greek text." That would require the addition of a not-so-circumspect person looking at the photo. This is especially true (even though this whole thing is a little ridiculous, I must admit) when you compare a manuscript with "the Nazarene" (such as Vaticanus) to this one without (Sinaiticus) and look at which letters actually are obscured.

Original Facebook photo posted by James Owens:



Sinaiticus photo, finger or thumb location outlined in red, "the Nazarene" omission marked with a blue star.



Vaticanus photo, "the Nazarene" bracketed by blue stars.



Accuracy is important.

[Peter Kirby]

In this whole vein, the psychological research that evidence-based criticism of an (irrational) belief tends to make people more confident in the (irrational) belief comes to mind. Not only does one have the opportunity to rationalize the belief with excuses to overcome the evidence-based criticism, but one also grows contempt for criticism of that belief in general and a stronger attachment to the belief. Evidence against strengthens belief for.

We can see some of that contempt here (even though slevin doesn't accept LC's beliefs) with the defense of LC, not because he is right, not because the criticism doesn't proceed from genuine evidence, but because it is "harsh" the way he is shown to make errors. We can, of course, see the fact itself, that LC's reflection on LC's beliefs are not leading to improved reliability of LC's beliefs, from the way that LC treats evidence. It is this fact that I was drawing attention to when being so "harsh" by noting that (a) LC doesn't do very good, thorough research into the evidence for or against his particular ideas and (b) LC generally gets the disconfirming evidence pointed out to him by others (which is itself an issue) and then quickly dismisses it (which is a worse issue).

LC has deluded himself on several matters, and I have no confidence that anyone is able to save him from his delusions. The attempt is indeed likely just to make him hold to them even more than he did before.

https://books.google.com/books?id=n9JPTX2AW6QC


http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas ... _backfire/

In the end, truth will out. Won’t it?

Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.

“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... advocates/

In all three cases, Gal and Zucker found that doubt turns people into stronger advocates. More subtly, their study shows that this effect is stronger if someone’s identity is threatened, if the belief is important to them, and if they think that others will listen. It all fits with a pattern of behaviour where people evangelise to strengthen their own faltering beliefs.

Their study also casts the acts of advocates in a different light. They might be outwardly trying to change the minds of other people but their actions could be equally about bolstering their own beliefs.

Hence the question, why do I even bother with any of this.

[Leucius Charinus]

LC has deluded himself on several matters ....

Care to provide some bullet points?



LC

[Peter Kirby]

LC has deluded himself on several matters ....

Care to provide some bullet points?

I don't have boundless energy and unlimited time, so no, not really. I can't say that I do.

Substitute "persuaded" for "deluded" if you're offended. At that point, you can write the bullet points.

Perhaps the most basic "persuasion" that you have is that you are actually investigating the subject in a careful, methodical manner in a way that would tend to lead you to investigate and accept those hypotheses that are reliably true. That you are somehow being a considerate researcher and coming up with (and comparing) multiple reasonable explanations of the data. Despite this portrait of yourself that you present to the world, the approach that you take revolves around a single hypothesis (with various modifications, the one that struck your fancy a long time ago now, regarding your re-dating of dozens of texts to the fourth century, after Constantine's rise to power and the Council of Nicaea). That single hypothesis, which is your focus and touchpoint, informs your investigation and what you admit or do not admit as evidence--whether you admit it or not. It's one of the most embarrassing examples of completely idiosyncratic "confirmation bias" that I have ever witnessed. Normally there is affirmation from a social context encouraging the confirmation bias, but here you've somehow managed to sustain it almost entirely solo for about a decade. That's impressive.

[Peter Kirby]

Perhaps you'd just like the examples from this thread.

Evidence-based criticism:

I haven't read this whole discussion yet, but would you regard early-dated papyri of Irenaeus' Adversus Haereses as evidence against your thesis?

Evidence dismissed:

However in defence of these papyri not falsifying the hypothesis it might be argued that the margin for a later dating of these two papyri could easily be extended to c.325 CE without too many complaints from the palaeographers. The first has an upper estimate of 250 CE, the second an upper estimate of 324 CE. The hypothesis requires a date of around 325 CE. Thanks for your question.

Evidence-based criticism:

Let us look at the beginning of your argument regarding the "Gospel of Peter", the first of over 100 works you wish to redate. if you can make a convincing case for this one, then we may examine the second text. You write, "Eusebius cites Origen, Justin Martyr and Serapion as mentioning this text although in the case of Justin, MR James comments that “the evidence is not demonstrative”. Eusebius has an unknown Serapion report that he walked into a Gnostic library and “borrowed” a copy of this text."

The three references in Eusebius is probably strong enough to consider that the Gospel Of Peter was a Second Century work. The fact that M.R. James commented that the evidence for a single reference "is not demonstrative," does not mean that the three references are not demonstrative. The "Unknown Serapion" Serapion is almost certainly the Patriarch of Antioch. Eusebius refers to him three different times also. According to Wikipedia, ["Serapion" - viewed July 30, 2014] "Eusebius quotes (vi.12.2) from a pamphlet Serapion wrote concerning the Docetic Gospel of Peter, in which Serapion presents an argument to the Christian community of Rhossus in Syria against this gospel and condemns it." Also it says, "Eusebius also alludes to a number of personal letters Serapion wrote to Pontius, Caricus, and others about this Gospel of Peter." Thus Eusebius was aware of at least four different sources which he considered came from the Second Century that mentions the Gospel of Peter.
Besides this, we have Origen in his "Commentary on Matthew" saying "But some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or “The Book of James, that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife." Thus, beside Eusebius, we have a work by Origen, entirely independent of Eusebius vouching for the early existence of the Gospel of Peter.

Eusebius describes a docetist Gospel of Peter. The archaeological evidence also supports the existence of a docetist Gospel of Peter.

Under the scenario proposed, of a post Nicea Gospel of Peter, we have to assume that Origen made up a reference to the Gospel of Peter and Eusebius made up four fake references. Then we have to suppose that people later made up this Gospel of Peter document that Origen and Eusebius claim to know about.

It seems so much simpler and more reasonable to assume that some dosectic version of the Gospel of Peter, such as the one we now have was written around 150 C.E. at around the same time as the other gospels and developed popularity along with them. In simplifying the orthodox canon in the Fourth century, Constantine and his advisers (including Eusebius) decided to attack the text as heretical. To paraphrase Irenaeus, as there were only four emperors when Constantine became Emperor. there could only be four gospels, and the Gospel of Peter, despite it being exactly equal to the other four gospels in nonsense, got arbitrarily cut out of the canon.

Evidence dismissed:

The basic assumption is that the orthodox heresiologists had the means, motive and opportunity to falsely represent the history of the heretics - their ideological enemies. The means was to fake references in the books of Origen and Eusebius so that posterity would infer that the battle between orthodoxy and heresy had been running for many centuries prior to the arrival of orthodoxy and the widespread publication of the canonical Greek Bibles.

Evidence-based criticism:

I tend to think that this is even more problematical than claiming that the New Testament writings were created in the 4th Century. It makes some logical sense that Constantine's Gang would want to show their works were old, if they had just produced them. It doesn't make sense for them to portray their opponent's works as old, if, in fact, they too were brand new. If they were a reaction to the new New Testament, why not just say so and dismiss them as a new bunch of crazy copycats? Why give them the authority of being 150 to 200 years old.
One could imagine it being done in some bizarre case if it was just one or two texts, but we are talking about hundreds here. Why make almost all of them old instead of proclaiming the truth that they are new and valueless works?
I really cannot think of any parallel case like this in history. The closest thing that I can find is that during the Cold War, the Capitalist propaganda institutions would often portray the new communist governments as throwbacks to medieval times. They would often portray the Soviet Union as a continuation of Czarist institutions instead of a revolt against them. Even here, they never misdated Communist works to show them as older than they were.

Evidence dismissed (bizarrely):

The idea is that there was a massive controversy as a reaction to the appearance of the "Holy Bible" that the victors did not want to give any publicity to. They wanted to get rid of the political controversy because it was inconvenient for posterity. I don't think we can separate out the "Arian controversy" from this hypothetical post 325 CE literary reaction - and that Arius of Alexandria may have been one of the earliest Gnostic authors.

The victors wanted to present a harmonious acceptance of the Bible by the Roman Empire (325-381 CE), where suddenly everyone became Christian by the time of Theodosius. So they tried to bury the controversy. What controversy over the Bible? What books? What heretics? The bible is true etc ...

Evidence-based criticism:

We also have to consider the limited power of Constantine to reshape the past. We should remember that while he gave state funding to Christian institutions, he did allow freedom of religion. It was not until Theodosius in 380 that it became the mandatory official religion of Rome. No doubt the 90% of Romans who were still polytheists were upset that their new Emperor was a trio-theist with a new and bizarre cult, but other emperors had also preached bizarre cults and they were tolerated. For example Elagabalus (218-222)

Evidence dismissed (well, we can't prove there wasn't a lot more going on than was recorded - somehow evidence on Constantine is "surprisingly sparse" [compared to which other emperor? not most of them]):

Constantine's freedom of religion included the destruction of ancient and highly revered temples, book burning, death and torture to his opponents.
By the time of Theodosius it was the end game. What actually happened during Constantine's rule is debatable, because the evidence is surprisingly sparse.

Evidence-based criticism:

The attitude of most Romans of Constantine's day seems to be that Christianity was another crazy passing fanatical fad of another crazy Emperor. There may have been a need to prove that orthodox Christianity was old and ancient to make it more acceptable to the public, but no need to prove that gnostic teachings were.

Evidence dismissed (with unspecified "allowance" of interpolations in the very text used elsewhere by LC as evidence):

There may not have been such a need in the rule of Constantine, but I am allowing "Eusebius" to have been interpolated by his preservers in the later 4th and 5th and subsequent centuries.

Ironic acknowledgement that the whole case up to that point seemed to involve dismissing evidence against (page 4):

So far in this thread I have presented the citations of the literary evidence AGAINST the argument of the OP. That is I have tediously listed the evidence which people hold up as being sufficient to be comfortable with the assumption and hypothesis that at least some of the gnostic literature was authored before the bible was first widely and politically published for all to read in the Roman Empire. This evidence largely consists of a reliance that what the heresiologists wrote about the heretics was history and not pseudo-history.

Evidence-based criticism:

We can find jibes at Gnosticism even in the New Testament (1 Tim 6:20 if you accept it, 1 John as well, also the resurrection scenes of the Gospels where they confirm that Jesus has a body).

If this analysis is accepted, then Gnosticism is not purely a reaction to the New Testament (or what you are calling Constantine's Bible).

Evidence dismissed (more interpolations, no attempt to find out whether the claim used to dismiss the evidence might be true or not):

Gnostic content in the NT may have been introduced between 325 CE and closure of the canon in later 4th century.

Evidence dismissed again (no intervening reply):

The OP deals with the "Gnostic literature" which I have listed.
The gnostic literature may be typified by the non canonical gospels and acts, and it is the authors of these books who are being here called "gnostics".

Evidence dismissed again (no reply intervening once again... and now contradicting several other remarks on the hypothesis):

Thanks for your opinion but the OP is not about "Gnosticism" it is about the "Gnostic literature"

Evidence-based criticism:

Dating the Gnostic literature after 325 CE also means dating all the anti-Gnostic literature after 325 CE.

I could also of course mention the texts dated after the New Testament but before 325 CE, which would then have to be considered pseudonymous and assigned another supposed historical context.

Evidence dismissed (forgeries against non-existent second century heretics, to hide the existence of the real fourth-century pagan parody-makers):

The position being argued here is that this supposed pre-Nicaean anti-gnostic literature of Irenaeus and Hippolytus represents interpolation and forgeries into the "Church History" made after, perhaps well after, Nicaea and the widespread publication of the NT Bible. The aim of the forgery was not just "to blacken the names of their opponents" but to erase the names and memory of their opponents who had caused the controversy by writing (post-Nicaean) Gnostic literature.

Criticism:

Go ahead and show that each piece of literature is indeed post Eusebius instead of claiming they are and making us show otherwise.

Criticism dismissed:

An hypothesis does not require any proof.

Criticism:

Pete you like to pretend that you are being objective re: your starting point for investigation.

It might even be an interesting exercise to start from this time period and work backwards on a more sure footing, discarding what doesn't come up with actual evidence.

But the truth is that you have a lot invested in the alternative hypotheses you mention and that you seem incapable of evaluating them in a disinterested manner.

This becomes evident whenever you come across any evidence that could depose your initial hypothesis - you quickly go to work undermining it if it contradicts it... but, on the other hand, you don't quickly go to work undermining evidence that doesn't contradict your initial hypothesis. As long as it shows something to be 326 CE possibly and not 324 CE (since you've got this fascination with this 325 date in relation to certain documents) then you don't really care. Hence the special treatment bit.

While you might be able to claim that your hypothesis is one of many physically possible options for interpreting the historical evidence, you cannot pretend that your fascination with this one alternative out of many alternatives, all similarly (un)likely, is anything other than your own favorite hobby horse (which phrase, though frequently applied and no doubt tiresome to you, is chosen because it fits).

Criticism dismissed:

There is the matter of Popperian falsifiability. There is no requirement that an hypothesis have direct evidence or proof, since it is provisionally accepted as true for the purpose of further research. However a hypothesis cannot long be entertained if there is hard evidence against the truth of the hypothesis which cannot otherwise be explained by a further re-evaluation of that evidence.

I do understand the principles of falsifiability.

Whoever taught you about "falsifiability" forgot the part that extremely ad hoc hypotheses, which add numerous provisos to allow the "hypothesis" to conform to the data (forgeries and interpolations and the incorrectness of paleographical dating of manuscripts being some of the ad hoc riders that have been added to the mid-fourth century noncanonical text hypothesis, which implies none of all that), belong to the realm of things you shouldn't treat as your hypothesis that is "accepted as true for the purpose of further research," if you're being completely critical and honest about all of it.

In the realm of hypothesis-formation, this is sometimes called "overfitting," and it will always tend to be a problem when the data being used to arrive at a hypothesis (and formulate its predictions) are the same data being used to test a hypothesis and see if the predictions hold true (and here, that's clearly the case). Any sufficiently complex hypothesis, trained against the data being used to test the hypothesis, will not be falsified. It's a trivial exercise, like plotting an N-degree polynomial curve through N+1 points.



Evidence-based criticism:

In other words, it isn't that we happen to have a manuscript which could have been compiled at any time. We know the Enneads was established in its current form by Plotinus. So we have (a) an original manuscript which had one ordering and then we have (b) Porphyry's explicit testimony that "Against Those That Affirm The Creator of the Kosmos and The Kosmos Itself to be Evil" existed in one place in Plotinus's original manuscript and then he put it ninth in the second book of the six volume Enneads. The point is clearly that we have in fact two attestations to Plotinus's original testimony - Plotinus's and Porphyry's. Now I don't know (nor do I care) how you deal with Porphyry's anti-Christian testimony. But it certainly testifies to the existence of Christians before Nicaea. I am equally certain that you will go to great lengths to disprove this universally acknowledged testimony but no one will be convinced by it except for your lap dog Tanya or whatever name he/she/it goes by now.

Evidence dismissed:

The original term gnostic is often derived from Plato and we can expect Plotinus to follow Plato.

One question is whether the chapter heading is referring to the "supposed Christian Gnostic authors" or to what the Platonists refer to as "gnostics".

You'd have to be a devout blinkered Christian to think the former.

Evidence-based criticism:

Patristic Polemical Works Against the Gnostics

Irenaeus of Lyon: (c. 140 – c. 202 AD)

Irenaeus (died c. 202) was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire (and now Lyons, France). His writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology. Irenaeus' best-known book is Adversus Haereses ("The Destruction and Overthrow of Falsely So-called Knowledge," c. 180). It is a detailed attack on Gnosticism and especially on the theology of the leading Gnostic Christian of his age, Valentinus. He thus unwittingly provided one of the best historical sources on Valentinian tradition.

http://gnosis.org/library/polem.htm

Evidence dismissed:

Thanks Mac but read the OP. I am testing out the hypothesis that the orthodox Christians of the 4th and later centuries falsely inserted references to the appearances and mentions of various heretical books into their own "Church History".

Page 11, all evidence to this point dismissed:

I have not yet received any comments related to the evidentiary basis of the mainstream chronology for the (christian) gnostic literature prior to the 4th century.

Criticism:

Your exclusion of the references to these texts on other sources is completely arbitrary.

Dismissed:

No it is most certainly not arbitrary. One of the key criteria of the historical method is that any given source may be forged or corrupt. I am totally within the limits of the historical method to treat as corrupt the literary sources preserved by one specific organisation.

Evidence-based criticism:

Papyri:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_Papyri
http://www.areopage.net/PDF/PapyriFromT ... nEgypt.pdf
188 P.Oxy. 3.405 II/III Oxyrhynchus Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 3.9, 2-3
213 P.Oxy. 41.2949 II/III Oxyrhynchus Gospel of Peter
214 P.Oxy. 4.654 III Oxyrhynchus Gospel of Thomas, Prologue and logoi 1-7
215 P.Oxy. 50.3525 III Oxyrhynchus Gospel of Mary
217 P.Oxy. 4.655 beg. III Oxyrhynchus Gospel of Thomas, logoi 24, 36-39
224 P.Ryl. 3.463 beg. III Oxyrhynchus Gospel of Mary
225 P.Oxy. 1.1 early III Oxyrhynchus Gospel of Thomas, logoi 26-33, 77a
226 P.Schøyen 1.21 III unknown Acts of Paul and Thecla

Let me guess. All the dates on the latter are wrong, and the identifications of the content of the inscriptions are insecure.

Oh, and yes, all the references to the Gnostics in the ante-Nicene literature were planted there by their enemies. Because that totally makes sense.

DISMISSSED:

According to "The Limits of Palaeographic Dating of Literary Papyri: Date/Provenance P.Bodmer II (P66): Brent Nongbri [2014]" an upper bound to all these dates should include the 4th century.

Is that a fact? The abstract (article here):

Palaeographic estimates of the date of P.Bodmer II the well-preserved Greek papyrus codex of the Gospel of John have ranged from the early second century to the first half of the third century. There are however equally convincing palaeographic parallels among papyri securely dated to as late as the fourth century. This article surveys the palaeographic evidence and argues that the range of possible dates assigned to P.Bodmer II on the basis of pa laeography needs to be broadened to include the fourth century. Furthermore a serious consideration of a date at the later end of that broadened spectrum of palaeographic possibilities helps to explain both the place of P.Bodmer lI in relation to other Bodmer papyri and several aspects of the codicology of P.Bodmer II.

Even if this writer, Brent Nongbri, were somehow right or reliable in all his conclusions or in these particular ones, I have not found where he or anyone else makes the sweeping claim attributed to him by LC, who needs every single one of the papyri listed above to be dated to the mid-fourth century or later.

What's the point of LC asking for evidence, when we already know that it will be dismissed?

[slevin]

Perhaps you'd just like the examples from this thread.
Evidence-based criticism:
theomise wrote:I haven't read this whole discussion yet, but would you regard early-dated papyri of Irenaeus' Adversus Haereses as evidence against your thesis?

Thanks for this, I confess to having not read the whole thread either, mea culpa.

I am keen to learn more about the claim that we possess some "early-dated papyri of Irenaeus' Adversus Haereses", so a web search came up with your site:

Some of the fragments presented by Roberts-Donaldson are suspect. Johannes Quasten writes, "The fragments which Ch. M. Pfaff published in 1715, allegedly from manuscripts in Turin, were proved to be forgeries by A. Harnack (TU 20,3. Leipzig, 1900)." (Patrology, v. 1, p. 293) I present my own collection of quotes from Eusebius, with the original Greek and the English translation in the Loeb Classical Library, as a reliable source for the fragments of Irenaeus. There is also a fragment of a letter sent by Irenaeus to Pope Victor preserved in Syriac that is generally accepted as authentic.

I frankly do not know of any Greek manuscripts, papyrus or otherwise, authored by Irenaeus, for any date. Can you suggest a link, or a place where a link can be searched?

Even though no complete version of Against Heresies in its original Greek exists, we possess the full ancient Latin version, probably of the third century, as well as thirty-three fragments of a Syrian version and a complete Armenian version of books 4 and 5.

Several points.
First, apologies to the forum, and to LC and PK, if this particular subtopic within the general question of dating the Gnostic literature, has already been discussed earlier in the thread, sorry to be so delinquent.....

Second, I have no idea, and no prejudice one way or the other ("ignorance is bliss"), regarding the dates involved; I am not sitting on the fence. I don't know which fences are available to sit upon.

Finally, I have no bloody idea, where in the world, theomise is coming up with this notion of "early dated papyri". Sounds like horse excrement to me. Sorry for being always a "doubting thomas", but I need to feel the wounds. WHERE ARE THESE DOCUMENTS, and do not convey some nonsense about some "full ancient Latin version"? That is absolute horseshit. According to whom is this "probably of the third century". What utter garbage. Where is the evidence?

WHO claims that the Latin version is authentic? On what basis? How do we know it is "full", and not "amplified"? Peter Kirby can declare that the Greek found in Eusebius, is authentic. I cannot, not without documentation regarding provenance of this Greek text, ostensibly from Eusebius, published in the Harvard library edition. Is it coming from Migne? How reliable is that?

I do not have a clue about the dates of gnostic literature, but I have a clue about misinformation. There is a LOT of that, on the internet, and in the library, as Peter himself has acknowledged,

proved to be forgeries by A. Harnack

[slevin]

Here is an example:

Dwight J. Bingham Irenaeus' Use of Matthew's Gospel in Adversus Haereses Peeters (1997)

What does appear to be attaining a high level of certainty, however, is the Latin translation of Irenaeus as an excellent representation of his Greek text.

If I claim that x is “an excellent representation of” y, then, does it not follow that I must possess both x and y, to offer such an opinion?

Where's this Greek text of Irenaeus? Is a citation found in the footnotes of Bingham's text?

[Peter Kirby]

Finally, I have no bloody idea, where in the world, theomise is coming up with this notion of "early dated papyri". Sounds like horse excrement to me. Sorry for being always a "doubting thomas", but I need to feel the wounds. WHERE ARE THESE DOCUMENTS, and do not convey some nonsense about some "full ancient Latin version"? That is absolute horseshit. According to whom is this "probably of the third century". What utter garbage. Where is the evidence?

slevin/bcedaifu/avi is once again no longer with us.

The 'documents' (Greek papyri of Irenaeus) are not hard to find. The earliest of them (P.Oxy. 3.405) is the first item in the list I posted earlier.