https://lsa.umich.edu/history/people/emeritus/rvandam.html
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/17358
So Richard Carrier, Ph.D. ancient history - is very outspoken against Eusebius being a fraud.
I, myself, took a gander into Bishop Lightfoot's reliance on Eusebius - while at the same time admitting that Eusebius was not a reliable source.
Origen’s giveaway about the principle of double truth—literal stories are invented to save the ignorant masses, while educated elites know the real truth is within the allegory, and dare not expose this to the rank and file lest they lose faith and become damned—all exactly as Plutarch said how Osiris cult reasoned: Elements 13 and 14 (Ch. 4).
What is not realized is that Plutarch was promoted irrational geometric magnitude as Platonic philosophy - as math professor Luigi Borzacchini points out.
Between the 30s and 70s some Christian congregations gradually mythicize the story of their celestial Jesus Lord, just as other mystery cults had done for their gods, eventually representing him rhetorically and symbolically in overtly historical narratives, during which time much of the more esoteric truth of the matter is reserved in secret for upper levels of initiation (Elements 11-14, 44-48). Right in the middle of this process the Jewish War of 66–70 destroyed the original church in Jerusalem, leaving us with no evidence that any of the original apostles lived beyond it. Before that, persecutions from Jewish authorities and famines throughout the empire (and, if it really happened, the Neronian persecution of 64, which would have devastated the church in Rome) further exacerbated the effect, which was to leave a thirty-year dark age in the history of the church (from the 60s to the 90s), a whole generation in which we have no idea what happened or who was in charge (Element 22). In fact this ecclesial dark age probably spans fifty years (from the 60s to 110s), if 1 Clement was written in the 60s and not the 90s (see Chapter 8, §5), as then we have no record of anything going on until either Ignatius or Papias, both of whom could have written well later than the 110s (Chapter 8, §§6 and 7).
So it's more important to realize that Christianity is in fact a promotion of Platonic philosophy into the Roman Empire via Judaism as Egyptian philosophy.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/13425
The manner in which Osiris came to be historicized, moving from being just a cosmic god to being given a whole narrative biography set in Egypt during a specific historical period, complete with collections of wisdom sayings he supposedly uttered, is still an apt model, if not by any means an exact one. Which is to say, it establishes a proof of concept. It is in essence what all mythicists are saying happened to Jesus.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/SpiritualFAQ.html#origen
For example, Contra Celsum 5.23 simply describes exactly what I do: that the resurrection body resides as an invisible spirit within us even now, and at death it is this body that rises to new life, shedding the husk of our body of flesh and leaving it behind. Likewise, as I note in the book (n. 378, p. 231), Origen believed the new body of Jesus was so different from the buried body that it was actually invisible to all but the eye of faith (Contra Celsum 2.64-67), appearing thus as a luminous body distinct from the one buried, and this "new" body only presented the "appearance" of being the same body. For example, Origen says the resurrected body of Jesus "was not in fact wounded" as the Gospel of John relates, but only "appeared" to retain the wounds suffered on the cross (Contra Celsum 2.59-61). Origen then says Jesus rose in an "opposite body," using the word "antitype," which is the opposite of a stamp, i.e. when a stamp presses an image into wax, the wax image is the "antitype," not the original (antitupos). In other words, Origen appears to be saying the risen body of Jesus was only a copy of the body that was buried (Contra Celsum 2.61-62).
..............
In Paul's view, only God's spirit is immortal, and therefore there is no other spirit that can survive the death of the body. Hence for Paul there is nothing "like a soul" in the sense of a vessel of identity separable from the body. No such thing figures in any of his letters. Instead, he consistently imagines only two possibilities: life in Christ or death. And death in Paul is always equated with complete destruction (except, of course, for those who survive in Christ). Thus, since everything perishes with the body, including our individual pneumata, there is no "soul" (in the relevant sense) in Paul's worldview. This can be more readily understood against the background of Paul's time (summarized, for example, in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. "pneuma"). In antiquity the word for spirit, pneuma, was originally and in primary use a material element (from wind and breath to air and gas), employed most broadly as a term for all airs and gases, but often for a specific element more refined than air.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/15999
So the book is very pricey but it's based on his Ph.D. thesis that is online.
Wow this is just WEIRD!! Jesus writing letters to king Abgar - AFTER his resurrection? Bizarre.
Wow this is a WILD Jesus, post-resurrection, yang shen qigong master healing story!! haha.
Wow - stunning. This corroborates my previous posts about Bishop Lightfoot even admitting that Eusebius CREATED the New Testament Gospel stories....
and so Eusebius CREATES Jesus...
wow - I need to track down his book.
Yep I'm back at the U of MN "cavern" for old book storage, reading
Bishop Lightfoot's attack on W.R. Cassel's "Supernatural Religion."
Lightfoot readily admits that Eusebius was parsing through the writings
"of the Ancients" to decide what was authentic or not. Just based on
that simple fact alone the spurious nature of the Gospels is evident.
Yet Lightfoot argues:
"Of the Gospels the historian will only record anecdotes concerning them. On the other hand, in the case of the Apocalypse mere references and quotations will be mentioned, because they afford important data for arriving at a decision concerning its Canonical authority." (p. 39)That seems a back-handed strategy at best and at worse a strange way to treat supposedly sacred works. According to Lightfoot the sources for the 4 Gospels are, as per Eusebius:
"As regards these, he [Eusebius]contents himself with preserving any anecdotes which he may have found illustrating the circumstances under which they were written, e.g. the notices of St. Matthew and St. Mark in Papias, and of the Four Gospels in Irenaeus." (p. 46)Considering how much Lightfoot questions the authenticity of Ignatius and others, besides the fact the Eusebius openly was questioning his sources as being not authentic, the origin of the Gospels disappears into a cloud of smoke. There is much speculation about Papias and Irenaeus and Polycarp but that the Roman Church was fighting off the ascetic Gnostics is quite clear.
Thanks Achayra S.,
Hmm. I wonder how Origen castrated himself!! So ATTIS has a long lineage?
Wow - isn't THAT convenient!! haha.
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