AI and the Vatican Archive

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
gmx
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Re: AI and the Vatican Archive

Post by gmx »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 6:15 am
Jax wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 5:43 am
Charles Wilson wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 6:01 am So you go to the end of the 53 miles, go through the secret door, get to the vault, get the combination, open the vault and someone sez, "Yeah, we had the original Mark held here but it was destroyed about 800 years ago. Sorry...Would you like to buy an 8 X 10 glossy photo of our current Marxist Pope instead?"

Wake me up when the Original Mark gets brought out for inspection.
Screw original Mark. Bring out original Paul, or at least the letters that Marcion had, and his Gospel.

And Papias. And Justus of Tiberias. And the histories of Claudius.

And the missing sections of Tacitus.
And Hegesippus. And Aristion. And Basilides.
If those documents existed and were so explosive / dangerous / damaging to the orthodoxy that they had to be held in the Vatican vault, isn't it more likely they would have been destroyed? What possible reason would they have to preserve a document that could prove so destructive? And if their existence were not destructive, there would be no reason to prevent access / hide them.

Unless of course Catholicism is running a Xenu-style higher levels scam, to the exclusion of all other denominations, and you need to be voted cardinal to learn that Jesus slept his way from Utah to Oklahoma.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: AI and the Vatican Archive

Post by Ben C. Smith »

gmx wrote: Tue May 15, 2018 12:10 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 6:15 amAnd Hegesippus. And Aristion. And Basilides.
If those documents existed and were so explosive / dangerous / damaging to the orthodoxy that they had to be held in the Vatican vault, isn't it more likely they would have been destroyed?
My comment had nothing to do with the contents of the Vatican Library. They were just a continued wish list of texts I would like to have access to. If they still exist somewhere, I doubt either their existence or their hiddenness has anything to do with a Catholic conspiracy.
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Secret Alias
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Re: AI and the Vatican Archive

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If they still exist somewhere, I doubt either their existence or their hiddenness has anything to do with a Catholic conspiracy.
True with regards to THESE texts. But the reason other gospels and versions of canonical texts disappeared was a deliberate effort to eradicate alternatives - albeit likely in the second and third and fourth centuries. And this makes the question of the destruction of the Marcionite churches, texts and traditions all the more interesting. ON WHAT or ON WHOSE authority were these texts destroyed? How did a rival Christian community just walk into another Christian community's 'meeting place' and trash their property? When you go through the math and examine all the legal necessities the state had to have been involved in the final effort to eradicate another group's property? Whether it be a legal decision to grant one Christian community's property to another based on some sort of legal argument or simply an Imperial decree, it all had to come down to the State wiping out sects like the Marcionites. There's no other way.
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Secret Alias
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Re: AI and the Vatican Archive

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I assume of course that the reason Marcionites formed the majority in Edessa and Osroene and surrounding areas was because of a mass migration out of the Roman Empire. I don't think that the tradition had a remarkable 'affinity' for this particular culture other than it was out of the control of the Roman government for the period when Marcionism thrived there. Later of course, this wasn't' true and the 'melkites' were ultimately victorious.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: AI and the Vatican Archive

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue May 15, 2018 7:50 am
If they still exist somewhere, I doubt either their existence or their hiddenness has anything to do with a Catholic conspiracy.
True with regards to THESE texts. But the reason other gospels and versions of canonical texts disappeared was a deliberate effort to eradicate alternatives - albeit likely in the second and third and fourth centuries.
In general I agree. Alternatives were either eradicated or absorbed with interpolations. But I bet Diocletian also contributed to the erasure of vast swaths of Christian texts.

At any rate, my point was about the modern (or even medieval) Catholic church, not the church from antiquity.
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Secret Alias
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Re: AI and the Vatican Archive

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Of course. I agree. But it is an interesting question. For instance how did the alternative Jewish and Samaritan texts that are mentioned in the literature 'disappear'? The question of to what degree various 'sects' were 'Jewish' I think determined to what degree they could defend their preferred texts. The same must have been true in Christianity. I read somewhere a study of the rights of Karaites in Egypt. It reinforced this assumption in my own mind - viz. that the 'State' determined that the sects were subject to chosen designate for 'that community.' When you think about it, isn't this what Irenaeus is really up to? By developing this fable about the origin of the Church which ultimately contextualizes 'the sects' as having 'fallen away' from 'the Church' it necessarily sets up Irenaeus or whomever he was working for as having 'authority' over the various sects. That's the real purpose of Adversus Haereses. It was a legal argument for Rome or whomever Irenaeus was working for, having authority over sects that sounded nothing like his church or form of Christianity. The Jews were making similar arguments to oversee their 'sects' and so to the Samaritans. Perhaps the same thing was going on various other communities too.
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Secret Alias
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Re: AI and the Vatican Archive

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In Edessa for instance we must imagine that the Marcionites (= 'the Christians') developed a counter history to explain the origins of the palutians (refugees). The identity of a certain Palut who formed the 'Palutians' is another example of orthodox fable making. The Aramaic term behind palutian simply means refugee.
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Ulan
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Re: AI and the Vatican Archive

Post by Ulan »

If we look at the laws from the late 4th century, destroying all rival texts was pretty much on the books. While the church after 600 slowly started moving towards the position that they are preservers of old texts, they were a rather destructive force in the time from 300-600, using the worldly power to that effect. Having the wrong books in your possession carried a death penalty in parts of that time. This was one of the reasons (though certainly not the only one) why pretty much all private libraries disappeared.
Secret Alias
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Re: AI and the Vatican Archive

Post by Secret Alias »

The last great private library we hear about is that associated with George the Patriarch of Alexandria in the fourth century.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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flatearther
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Re: AI and the Vatican Archive

Post by flatearther »

I’m sure they have an original Avesta with the full archons names and anthems.
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