Brodie vs Carrier on historicity of NT Paul

[Leucius Charinus]

http://www.readex.com/blog/chairman-goes-swim

"Why would anyone glorify someone who was responsible for the murders of millions?"

Oh...ah...I forgot. It was Chairman Mao. That's COMPLETELY different from making up History and stuff. Those people in those days 2000 years ago were barbarians who didn't know to pick your butt and your nose with different fingers. We are SOOOOOO much more sophesti...saphistica...smarter than they were.

Stalin had a few bad days too. You think it's easy killing 13,000,000 Ukrainians while you are trying to build Socialism? I bet you would be more understanding if you had to walk a mile in his shoes!! I mean, you don't see any airbrushed photos of any Roman Court standing next to Caesar, do you?!?? That ought to prove something right there but YOU WON'T LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE WILL YOU?

Good points Charles! BTW as you probably know the Roman Emperors used "damnatio memoriae" as the airbrushing technique of antiquity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae





LC

[Charles Wilson]

I mean, you don't see any airbrushed photos of any Roman Court standing next to Caesar, do you?!?? That ought to prove something right there but YOU WON'T LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE WILL YOU?

Good points Charles! BTW as you probably know the Roman Emperors used "damnatio memoriae" as the airbrushing technique of antiquity.

LC-

AS you may or may not know, I believe that the "character" that became "The Holy Spirit" - that disembodied god with no conceivable attributes - was Domitian, who underwent Damnatio shortly after his death.

CW

[Leucius Charinus]

I mean, you don't see any airbrushed photos of any Roman Court standing next to Caesar, do you?!?? That ought to prove something right there but YOU WON'T LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE WILL YOU?

Good points Charles! BTW as you probably know the Roman Emperors used "damnatio memoriae" as the airbrushing technique of antiquity.

AS you may or may not know, I believe that the "character" that became "The Holy Spirit" - that disembodied god with no conceivable attributes - was Domitian, who underwent Damnatio shortly after his death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domitian

• Domitian
  
  Latin: Titus Flavius Caesar Domitianus Augustus;[2] 24 October 51 – 18 September 96) was Roman emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.
  
  Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War. This situation continued under the rule of his father Vespasian, who became emperor in 69 following the civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors. While Titus held a great many offices under the rule of his father, Domitian was left with honours but no responsibilities. Vespasian died in 79 and was succeeded by Titus, whose own reign came to an unexpected end when he was struck by a fatal illness in 81. The following day Domitian was declared Emperor by the Praetorian Guard, commencing a reign that lasted fifteen years – longer than any man who had ruled since Tiberius

I am not so sure about the evidence underpinning the claim that Domitian was morphed into the "Holy Spirit".

Is it just parallels in dates or do you have some other evidence in support?

Domitian was certainly the subject of a very funny (well I think there is humour in it) non canonical story.

http://www.gnosis.org/library/actjnthe.htm
Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian
Translated by Alexander Walker. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 8.
Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe.

• Extract:
  
  And when Vespasian was dead, his son Domitian, having got possession of the kingdom. along with his other wrongful acts, set himself also to make a persecution against the righteous men. For, having learned that the city was filled with Jews, remembering the orders given by his father about them, he purposed casting them all out of the city of the Romans.
  
  And some of the Jews took courage, and gave Domitian a book, in which was written as follows:--
  
  
  • O Domitian, Caesar and king of all the world, as many of us as are Jews entreat thee, as suppliants we beseech of thy power not to banish us from thy divine and benignant countenance; for we are obedient to thee, and the customs, and laws, and practices, and policy, doing wrong in nothing, but being of the same mind with the Romans. But there is a new and strange nation, neither agreeing with other nations nor consenting to the religious observances of the Jews, uncircumcised, inhuman, lawless, subverting whole houses, proclaiming a man as God, all assembling together (1) under a strange name, that of Christian. These men reject God, paying no heed to the law given by Him, and proclaim to be the Son of God a man born of ourselves, Jesus by name, whose parents and brothers and all his family have been connected with the Hebrews; whom on account of his great blasphemy and his wicked fooleries we gave up to the cross. And they add another blasphemous lie to their first one: him that was nailed up and buried, they glorify as having risen from the dead; and, more than this, they falsely assert that he has been taken up by (2) clouds into the heavens.
    
    
  At all this the king, being affected with rage. ordered the senate to publish a decree that they should put to death all who confessed themselves to be Christians. Those, then, who were found in the time of his rage, and who reaped the fruit of patience, and were crowned in the triumphant contest against the works of the devil, received the repose of incorruption.

The Jews write a book to the Emperor Domitian, complaining about a "New and strange nation".

This term is a recognised Eusebian trope. The author of this text probably wrote after Eusebius had coined the phrase.




LC