The self-evident emergence of Christianity

[Secret Alias]

It's too bad you didn't apply your energies to something more useful - like proving the world is flat.

[Leucius Charinus]

Or proving the world is Marcionite? Or Mohican

[Secret Alias]

I am interested in what Marcionism is. The idea that Christianity didn't exist before Constantine is a non-starter. Search for zeroes as Nietzsche would say. It's nonsense. Utter nonsense.

[Secret Alias]

The Diatessaron fragment from Dura Europa is your kryptonite.

[mlinssen]

Thanks for your thoughts on all these issues. I will certainly add them to my notes on Thomas. I have been trying to think of any known author in the ancient world who could possibly fit the bill. The only author I can think of atm - and this is obviously just a wild guess - is Apollonius of Tyana. We know this dude wrote highly influential books which were destroyed by Constantine's raising of the temples of Asclepius (where they were preserved). One fragment is preserved by Eusebius and it runs like this:

Several fragments of it have been preserved, [See Zeller, Phil d Griech, v 127]
the most important of which is to be found in Eusebius,
[Præparat. Evangel., iv 12-13; ed Dindorf (Leipzig 1867), i 176, 177]
and is to this effect:

“ ‘Tis best to make no sacrifice to God at all,
no lighting of a fire,
no calling Him by any name
that men employ for things to sense.

For God is over all, the first;
and only after Him do come the other Gods.
For He doth stand in need of naught
e’en from the Gods,
much less from us small men -
naught that the earth brings forth,
nor any life she nurseth,
or even any thing the stainless air contains.

The only fitting sacrifice to God
is man’s best reason,
and not the word
that comes from out his mouth.

“We men should ask the best of beings
through the best thing in us,
for what is good -
mean by means of mind,
for mind needs no material things
to make its prayer.
So then, to God, the mighty One,
who’s over all,
no sacrifice should ever be lit up.”

Noack [Psyche, I ii.5.] tells us that scholarship
is convinced of the genuineness of this fragment.
This book, as we have seen, was widely circulated
and held in the highest respect, and it said that
its rules were engraved on brazen pillars
at Byzantium. [Noack, ibid.]

As I said this is only a wild guess made in the absence of firm evidence. Can this be ruled out?

I will give further thought to what you have written above. Thanks.

Ah, that I understand - an interesting quest, but one that o wouldn't start before having read Thomas inside out and formed my own strong opinion!
The little piece above contains more occurrences of the word god than Thomas, however. Take my index, I'd suggest the English-Coptic one over the reverse, and so the bean counting there

If you'd be helped by it I can send the word version to you so the data is easier to manipulate

Yet Thomas is someone who lives by no rules whatsoever, who doesn't fit any mould, who can't be squeezed into any box. By definition, I think, someone like that lives "in between" and wouldn't have written any or many other works: this one really suffices to express it all.
What you may be looking for is less radical writing where someone questions virtues, rules, stoics, philosophy, religion. Questions like why we should obey the state of it is us who pays their salary; essential stuff like that

[mlinssen]

The elephant in the room as far as I am concerned is that the date of the NHL is post-Nicene and thus after or during the epoch of Constantine's sole rule (325-337 CE). Few scholars make an issue of this. That is after the NT and LXX Bible codex became a massive political instrument in the empire.

Yes some tracts could be older - much older. But some could be reactions to the NT LXX

I can easily blow a massive hole into your theory by demonstrating that the Greek Oxyrhynchus fragments, dated to 50-150 CE, are copies of the Coptic

In fact, I have. The Commentary please, logia 0-7, 24-32, 36-39.
They're located in the chapters Relation to previous logia

[Leucius Charinus]

The elephant in the room as far as I am concerned is that the date of the NHL is post-Nicene and thus after or during the epoch of Constantine's sole rule (325-337 CE). Few scholars make an issue of this. That is after the NT and LXX Bible codex became a massive political instrument in the empire.

Yes some tracts could be older - much older. But some could be reactions to the NT LXX

I can easily blow a massive hole into your theory by demonstrating that the Greek Oxyrhynchus fragments, dated to 50-150 CE, are copies of the Coptic

In fact, I have. The Commentary please, logia 0-7, 24-32, 36-39.
They're located in the chapters Relation to previous logia

I have already allowed gThomas to be an exception to this "theoretical rule", and provided several reasons. But as far as I know P.Oxy.654, P.Oxy.655 and P.Oxy.1 are not necessarily from 50-150 CE.

P.Oxy.654 is traditionally to the middle or late of the 3rd century.
P.Oxy.655 is traditionally dated to the 3rd century.
P.Oxy.1 originally dated by Grenfell and Hunt between 150 and 300

Dating method = paleography in isolation. The upper bounds for these dates may well be in the 4th century.

Also when does the Coptic language first appear anyway? AFAIK it was historically spoken by the Copts of Egypt, starting from the third-century CE in Roman Egypt.

[davidmartin]

Also when does the Coptic language first appear anyway? AFAIK it was historically spoken by the Copts of Egypt, starting from the third-century CE in Roman Egypt

Coptic is just the Egyptian language written in mostly the Greek alphabet before that it was the same language written in native Egyptian characters
Often Greek words got borrowed as well but not the grammar or syntax but that's normal enough
I think the 3rd century is about the time Egyptian written in Coptic became widespread and a century or two prior maybe for the first attempts at this and less common usage in that period. I have a book of magical texts (that turned out to be a dud for useful information) some of those are dated pretty early. Not all the NHL texts probably were first written in Greek maybe most but not all. I read an article on the Thunder poem that suggests it was native Egyptian based on the poetry rhyming and punning in that language

[mlinssen]

Also when does the Coptic language first appear anyway? AFAIK it was historically spoken by the Copts of Egypt, starting from the third-century CE in Roman Egypt

Coptic is just the Egyptian language written in mostly the Greek alphabet before that it was the same language written in native Egyptian characters
Often Greek words got borrowed as well but not the grammar or syntax but that's normal enough
I think the 3rd century is about the time Egyptian written in Coptic became widespread and a century or two prior maybe for the first attempts at this and less common usage in that period. I have a book of magical texts (that turned out to be a dud for useful information) some of those are dated pretty early. Not all the NHL texts probably were first written in Greek maybe most but not all. I read an article on the Thunder poem that suggests it was native Egyptian based on the poetry rhyming and punning in that language

Layton is most responsible for dating Coptic as late as possible, and I don't need to state the likely reasons for that. But like David says, it is unlikely that there was nothing and suddenly there was everything. In Egypt there was a writing system for the priests, and one for the people. Demotic was one of the latter ones, and Alexander brought in the Greek in 3rd-4th BCE

It is extremely unlikely that 6 to 7 centuries passed before that started to decisively influence the Greek writing system

But once again, the dating game is sketchy and what can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt is textual precedence. As such, the strong man parable is decisive in its Coptic origin, as are the parable of the wine skins with the two masters piece dislocated elsewhere.
The Parable of the lamp is another one, and so on - not to forget the parable of the colostrum that got mistaken for leaven

I'm afraid that your theory has fallen through, Leucius. You have a lot of material that is worthwhile and still relevant, but you'd need to address the fact that all of the NHL says Chrestos instead of Christos, that Thomas precedes the canonicals, and that Philip narrates about how Chrestianity turned into Christianity

And those are the only two texts that I've analysed so far... and there are 50 more to go

Follow the texts Pete, they tell the least tainted truth; that certainly holds true for the NHL - not for its biased translations, but for the MSS themselves

[Leucius Charinus]

I am interested in what Marcionism is.

I am interested in what the political history of the Christian revolution of the 4th century (325-381 CE) was.

The idea that Christianity didn't exist before Constantine is a non-starter.

At least I sent the idea in 2007 to JHL for peer review.
Not bad for an old surfer.

More recently (2021) I have responded to Carrier in:

Defending a 4th century "terminus ad quem" for Christian Origins
https://www.academia.edu/60176264/Carri ... an_Origins

This defense of a 4th century terminus ad quem for Christian origins is not a hypothesis that Christianity was invented out of whole cloth in the 4th century. It represents a study showing that there is insufficient citable historical evidence to comprehensively refute such a latest possible date. The 1st century mainstream theory relies on the existence of theoretical manuscripts and on giving the church industry the benefit of any doubt.

There is no need for that any more.