StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Mon May 09, 2022 4:04 am
Thanks, LC, for your reply (Saturday) to my mention of Minim/heretics.
You're welcome SG.
Though Constantine may have caused a bump in heresy writings, the interaction of earlier minut (Hebrew, heresy) and the Birkat haMinim (blessing/condemnation of Minim [some texts add Notsrim]) and Greek texts on heresy are not properly dismissed.
In the OP I am essentially proposing a new historical paradigm for the authorship and date of composition of the Greek and Coptic NT Apocryphal (NTA) corpus (including the NHL). The alternative proposal is that these are largely a post-Nicene avalanche of books written by Neo-Platonist writers in reaction to the Constantine Bible. There wasn't a bump in heretical "Other Jesus Books", there was a mountain, which the church I believe has attempted to obscure and erase.
My explanation of the pre-Nicene Greek heresiological texts (Irenaeus et al), is that they were fabricated in the later 4th century by the Latin church under Damasus, in order to obscure the "book wars" during the rule of Constantine.
I repeat this in case you are assuming I am attempting to provide a theory for the composition and date of authorship of the NT canonical (NTC) literature. See especially point 5) in the OP:
5) All theories for the authorship of the NTC and the history of Christian origins may be entertained in relation to the transmission of the NTC to the 4th century, The proposal here is that no matter when the NTC was composed, whether Jesus is historical or mythical, when the NTC was published by Constantine, none of the books of the NTA had been authored.
Dura Europos is important.
I found an index of articles here:
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
As you must be aware I don't share the mainstream theories and opinions about Christian origins. This includes the often-repeated claim for the discovery of a Christian house-church at Dura Europos. I am inclined to argue that this was a Jewish house-church. I have set out my arguments for this proposition here:
The Runes of Christ at Dura Europos
https://www.academia.edu/38115589/The_R ... ra_Europos
Here I add to what Andrew and his link to (missed) Ben Smith on rabbinic references to, apparently, Houses of Ebionites/)Abidan and Houses of Nazarenes/Nitsraphi. I doubt Constantine and co. forged these.
The OP proposes that the new testament apocryphal writings were produced by elite Neo-Platonist philosophical writers and other literate pagans in reaction to the sudden and unexpected publication of the NT and LXX Bible codex as a political instrument in the Roman empire c.325 CE. Constantine may have received the NT canonical writings from the 1st, 2nd or 3rd centuries. I acknowledge that Dura Parchment 24 from the mid 3rd century deserves a reasonable explanation.
I discussed these, pages 92 and following in The Joseph of Tiberias Episode in Epiphanius: Studies in Jewish and Chistian Relations (1990):
Joseph_of_Tiberias.pdf
After I read these pages I read in your abstract
"That Epiphanius and Joseph met in Scythopolis between 355-360 CE appears reliably historical" I'd be interested to learn your source for this and, at the same time ask you a question. The question is whether you have read of the account in Ammianus Marcellinus (Book 19,CH 12) of what looks to be the first attested Christian state inquisition at Scythopolis c.359 CE. Here is an extract for this:
http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/res_gestae_19.htm
Also there, apparent polemic against evangelion. Dismissing Jewish writing misses the Jewish-Christian spectrum.
I don't see a Jewish-Christian spectrum in any of the NT Apocryphal writings which I believe can be explained using Hellenistic literature alone, although this is often responding to Jewish and Christian issues presented in the Greek NT canon and the Greek LXX which were both packaged together and circulated c.325 CE
Original ancient mss are rare; Qumran being an exception.
The Nag Hammadi Library I believe will become instrumental in understanding what went down in the Roman Empire when the NT canonical Jesus Story Book was published by the Emperor, and rightful Pontifex Maximus, Constantine.
But inscriptions may last longer. For instance the Marcionite inscription dated 318/319 south of Damascus--it refers to that "church" as a synagogue.
This is the Deir Ali Inscription - χρηστοu: "
JS the Good": The archaeological remains of a Marcionite synagogue/church include an inscription dated to 318 CE:
- "The meeting-house of the Marcionists, in the village of Lebaba, of the Lord and Saviour JS the Good - Erected by the forethought of Paul a presbyter, in the year 630 Seleucid era." [4] (318 CE)
[4] Philippe Le Bas and William Henry Waddington, Greek Inscriptions grecques et latines recueillies en Grèce et en Asie Mineure (1870), volume 3, inscription 2558.
Also maybe relevant: Graydon Snyder, Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine, 1985/1991; 2003 revised ed.
Thanks. I have conducted a review of the evidence presented by Snyder. I don't really find any of it to be - in some cases compelling, and/or in other cases unambiguously "Christian".
http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/Ante% ... Review.htm
Unfortunately I do not have any faith that the church industry deals fairly with relics and artefacts and other archaeological material.
Snyder: "The real founders of the science of early Christian archaeology came in the 19th century: Giuseppe Marchi (1795-1860) and Giovanni de Rossi (1822-1894)...[the latter] published between 1857 and 1861 the first volume of "Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae". Pope Pius IX moved beyond collecting by appointing in 1852 a commission - "Commissione de archaelogia sacra" - that would be responsible for all early Christian remains."
FWIW I have also checked "The Christians for Christians Inscriptions of Phrygia" and made a review of data presented by Elsa Gibson
http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_074.htm
New Testament archaeology is IMO an oxymoron. It's rarer than hen's teeth. Dura Parchment 24 from the mid 3rd century is the best pre-Nicene evidence I have examined. If you have other candidates for early Christian archaeology then chances are that I have already looked at them. The crucifix appears in the late 6th century. The C14 date for the Gospel of Judas appears to now hover over the 4th century. Hence I question the paradigm which has been received from the church industry of antiquity via the church industry of the middle ages.