What about Randel Helms?

1) From Mark Shea to Joseph Atwill, 2) Twelve Pieces of a Doherty Puzzle (it's Too Early to Dismiss Historicity), 3) What about Randel Helms?, 4) It did NOT take two more years until the next TF challenge ...

Randel Helms: Gospel of St Thomas (etc, etc, etc) is/are fiction, proving Christians are not reluctant to it, Gospel of St Mark is earliest and was written forty years after the events. In that time it passed through oral tradition, which PER DEFINITION means it was embellished with additions. See, for instance Dieudonné de Gozon, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, who according to tradition slew the dragon of Malpasso.

We are in the presence of some ideology here.

The "tradition" about Dieudonné de Gozon slaying the dragon of Malpasso did presumably NOT remain oral such up to when Mircea Eliade wrote on it. The latter claims the "genuine historical account" of that same Grand Master of Maltese Knights is innocent of dragons. (I checked on French Wiki: if the account of that particular GM was before a certain date without the dragon story, at least the dragon story was in existance before that date and already concerning a person later GM of the Knights of Malta.)

Concretely this means no doubt that Mircea has found two medieval accounts, one without and one with a dragon. To him, obviously, the one with the dragon has suffered an addition. By passing through tradition. Kent Hovind, alias Doctor Dino, might have something other to say about that matter. "Sure, there were dinosaurs after the Flood too, it is just that in the records they weren't called Dinosaurs, the word is pretty recent. They are usually called dragons."

Then we have the problem whether Christians were or were not involved in writing fictions about Jesus.

By naming Gospels of Thomas, Mary, Philip .... he is supposed to have proven "Christians" - as one homogenous group (rather than pseudo-Christian Gnostics distinct from Catholic Christians) - were not loth to add fictions about Jesus.

This is not valid proof.

Then he repeats the pretty consensus heavy (among Modern Academians) canard of Mark being first (as if 19th C/20th C scholars knew the order of writing of the Gospels better than Papias and Irenaeus!) AND of even he being late and only recording events as filtered THROUGH a tradition of forty years purely oral. This last point proves pretty much that Academic Tradition in Modern Times is a very Fixed Tradition. It does NOT support the idea that oral tradition in and of itself is unstable. And remember it is in high degree oral, from pulpit to students in benches.

His argument for this involves that there were already heretical traditions beside the orthodox ones.

But this is simply because there were people with heretical ideas that were not content with the orthodox tradition which did not support their ideas. Far from proving that oral tradition is of itself unstable, it proves that Christian Orthodoxy was from the very start under attack, not just open but also undercover.

Randel Helms then claims that Paul was ecstatic and saw visions, and noone felt a need to distinguish between these and the historical Jesus. Of course not, if everyone had reason to believe the historical person was in Heaven - after The Eleven saw the Ascension.

What exactly is Randel Helms' epistemological authority for all these allegations?

Norman Perrin has declared that his approach to the Gospels, Redaction Criticism, looks for "redaction of new material" by the evangelists. I write in a similar spirit.

OK, so if a text is younger it is more or less per definition based on an older one plus additions? Can never kind of happen it is shorter than the previous text on same matter or based on another line of transmission? That is the kind of prejudice a real historian (as opposed to a "Higher Critic") can very well do without.

Then we have his take on St Paul and on St John. He thinks the historical Jesus and the Jesus of their visions are clearly different, not at all the same person, no Resurrection and Ascension presumably. He takes as example the things St Paul says about the Gospel he preaches.

For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12) Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand; By which also you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures: And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures: And that he was seen by Cephas; and after that by the eleven. (I Corinthians 15:1-5)

Does this mean - as Randel Helms seems to think or pretend to think - that St Paul knows only of three ways of knowing Christ? Revelation (like his own several ones or St John's on Patmos), tradition (from those having received such revelations, no doubt) and the Scriptures?

Pretty obviously no. St Paul says for one thing that Christ "was seen by Cephas". And later in the same chapter, yes even the very next verses he enumerates other witnesses:

Then he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until this present, and some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. And last of all, he was seen also by me, as by one born out of due time.

OK, this means that of the witnesses only himself was - in that capacity - what Randel Helms is here calling a visionary. The rest were what one ordinarily calls eyewitnesses. He says their eywitness is enough, but that his visions and all of the Old Testament match this eyewitness. This would hardly be possible if his visions were just a product of his own imagination.

The preview is cut off when Randel states:

So we must understand that what Luke means by "eyewit-

I supply as probable continuation: nesses" are really visionaries like Paul. Or words of synonymous meaning.

Not at all. St Paul knew a fourth way of knowing Christ, that of the, precisely, eyewitnesses. People who, like St Thomas Didymus, had seen, conversed with and even touched (or at least closely inspected, but even, I think, by obedience, touched) Our Lord after he rose from the dead.

Randel Helms supposed St Paul to be pretty self-occupied if he did not consider it possible that St Paul made a distinction between how he knew himself and how Cephas knew the Resurrection. He did very clearly distinguish, by And as obviously, we do not only have St Paul referring to what Cephas saw, we also have Cephas accepting St Paul. We have an occasion on which it would have been in his interest not to. But St Peter humbled himself before the reproaches of St Paul. He does not go "hey, that guy was not there, what does he know?" - all of St Peter's attitude testifies that St Paul's vision closely matches what he knew and in general what was known by the original Apostles. Through non-visionary means of knowledge.

This chapter is addressed to some among the Corinthians who denied the resurrection: St. Paul, therefore, in order to cure this philosophical opinion, gives them his counsel and advice in this chapter; and lest he might be thought to preach up a new doctrine, in the beginning of his admonitions he informs them that he is preaching no other gospel than what he has always taught, and wherein they believe. (Estius)

Ver. 7. He was seen by James. The time is not mentioned in the gospels. (Witham)

Ver. 8. As by one born out of due time; not born at the ordinary term, meaning after Christ's ascension. He calls himself so out of humility, abortives being commonly imperfect and less than others. (Witham)

So, the main three ways of knowing Christ to St Paul were: eyewitnesses, tradition from those, seeing how it matches all of the Old Testament. His own way of knowing Christ through visions was an extension of the eyewitness way, not the basic mode. However, it was not different enough to disqualify him as an Apostle either.

After all, if the Apostles even after eating a fish breakfast in what could have theoretically been a vision could see they had all had the same one and there was plenty of fish left, St Paul on his side had been blinded by the first vision and then healed from blindness. None of them had a vision that could be "just a vision" or just a dream or just a hallucination. All of them had something to solidly back it up.

And they were not building communities just by saying that. They made miracles which only the supernatural could explain. St Luke saw St Paul raise a boy who had died and broken his neck.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Zeno of Verona
12-IV-2014

Quote from Haydock Comments:

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition.
1 CORINTHIANS - Chapter 15
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id176.html

Summaries and direct quotes of Randel Helms:

Randel Helms : Gospel Fictions (1988)
[preview skips p. 5 and breaks off after p. 14]
http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Fictions-Randel-Helms/dp/0879755725#reader_0879755725

Twelve Pieces of a Doherty Puzzle (it's Too Early to Dismiss Historicity)

1) From Mark Shea to Joseph Atwill, 2) Twelve Pieces of a Doherty Puzzle (it's Too Early to Dismiss Historicity), 3) What about Randel Helms?, 4) It did NOT take two more years until the next TF challenge ...

I have not read the book - just the twelve pieces of his puzzle.* I hope my answer is not too puzzling.

1) Lateness of Christian Testimony to Historical Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth cannot be found in Christian writings earlier than the Gospels, the first of which (Mark) was composed only toward the end of the first century CE.

I answer:

Admitting that the Gospel of St Matthew was first, it is indeed the earliest Christian piece of writing. I have heard it attributed by Orthodox Historians to variously one and seven years after the main events, as Passion, Death, Burial and Resurrection of Our Lord.

Obviously this would cause some problem for an Atheist.

If a man says that seven years ago there was an Earthquake and All Earth was for Three Hours in Darkness, either that is what happened, or the man will be considered as mad or joking.

I can see why an Atheist, who starts out believing the supernatural events in the Gospel did not happen, would conclude that St Matthew was pretty late.

That being so, is there any case for this, in face of early testimony for St Matthew's priority for any rational inquirer, I mean of course someone not starting out from Atheist prejudice? None as far as I know.

I was just looking at a video with Richard Carrier, in which he came to challenge the consensus that Christ is historical. His point is that Academic consensus can happen (even without intricate conspiracy theories as explanation) with a very bad basis in methodological assumptions, as well as through a consistent misapplication of the good or even not so bad there is in them, so as to make the resulty worse, plus being based on factual errors.

Earl Doherty - I hope you enjoy a good cup of Earl Grey while reading this - is here appealing to a consensus which I thinks suffers very much from these faults. There is simply not any claim from early concerned sources that Mark was both first and late. That claim is very recent in scholarship and arises only after there comes to be an organised disbelief in Christianity.

2) Lateness of non-Christian Testimony to Historical Jesus

There is no non-Christian reference to Jesus earlier than the second century. The two references in Flavius Josephus (end of first century) are unreliable and can be dismissed in their entirety as later Christian insertions.

I have already answered this

Critiques of Testimonium Flavianum
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2010/11/critiques-of-testimonium-flavianum.html

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Challenged Again on Testimonium Flavianum
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2012/12/challenged-again-on-testimonium.html

It seems I get a challenge on TF every two years. My earlier answers are from 2010 and 2012.

Btw, I was only dealing with one TF, one of the passages. However, Earl Doherty is now speaking of two Testimonia Flaviana. Which is the other one?

3) Ethereality of Early Epistle Mentions

The early epistles such as Paul and Hebrews, speak of their Christ Jesus (Messiah Savior [sic!]) as a spiritual, heavenly being, one revealed by God through scripture, and do not equate him with a recent historical man.

I answer

The charge really boils down to ED only accepting as historical an account of anyone which does not identify that someone as spiritual in any way or Heavenly or as revealed before his arrival by Scripture. And of course a real person can neither be a Christ nor a Saviour, according to ED! Will the Antichrist also be doubted as being a real person because he can be described as Hellish, as well as being revealed before his arrival by Scripture?

This is of course a great refutation of people calling Jesus from Nazareth historical but not admitting these claims, but no refutation at all of Christianity.

Note that the trait "+ spiritual" does not here equal "- bodily." And "+ heavenly" does not equal "- historical."

Romans: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, [2] Which he had promised before, by his prophets, in the holy scriptures, [3] Concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh

I Corinthians: Is Christ divided? Was Paul then crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul? and Then he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until this present, and some are fallen asleep.

II Corinthians: And Christ died for all; that they also who live, may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again.

Galatians: Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead and For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh: I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me. I cast not away the grace of God. For if justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain.

Ephesians: Which he wrought in Christ, raising him up from the dead, and setting him on his right hand in the heavenly places.

Note that if the "setting on his right hand" is indeed "in heavenly places" this does not belittle that the "raising him up from the dead" is something observed on earth. As in I Corinthians.

Philippians: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.

Someone may object that Krishna is also supposed to have taken the shape of a man. Now, I do not doubt Krishna was a man. Whoever of the two was God, both were men. But in the case of Christ it is better attested. The Mahabharata poet cannot be certainly identified. We cannot say if he lived a thousand or two thousand years after the events. Krishna seems to have lived before the Flood of Noah. Mahabharata may in Indian culture be ascribed an uninterrupted existence since the events, but they cannot point to a Chronology like ours with all generations from Adam to Christ. Paul can be identified as having died under Nero and as having stoned - indirectly, by keeping the coats of those who did the stoning - a man who had bee among the original disciples of Christ. Paul and Luke were nearly contemporary with Christ. The Mahabharata poet can have been as little contemporary with Krishna and Arjuna as Luke with ... I'd rather say Abraham than Adam, for chronological precision and realism.

However, unlike Christ, Krishna never proved his divinity by rising from the dead. Nor was his ascension into heavenly places ever visible to 11 pairs of eyes (22 eyes, like the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet) as an ascension from earth and disappearance high up among the clouds.

Colossians: And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he may hold the primacy: Because in him, it hath well pleased the Father, that all fullness should dwell; And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven.

If you have not died, you cannot be firstborn from the dead. And heavenly things are not dying unless they are also earthly.

I Thessalonians: And to wait for his Son from heaven (whom he raised up from the dead,) Jesus, who hath delivered us from the wrath to come.

II Thessalonians (this time about Antichrist) For the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way. And then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth; and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, him, Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying: That all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity.

St Paul is really claiming that Antichrist is not just an evil spirit, but also - once he comes forth - a man, able to show off. A magician. A purely metaphysical Antichrist would hardly have powers of seduction.

I Timothy: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times.

II Timothy: Who hath delivered us and called us by his holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the times of the world. But is now made manifest by the illumination of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath destroyed death, and hath brought to light life and incorruption by the gospel:

However much Earl Doherty may feel "destroyed death" strikes a mythical tone, the words about "made manifest" and the contrast between them and the heavenly reward preexisting since "before the times of the world" simply will not square with St Paul talking of an only heavenly and only mystical Christ Jesus.

Titus: Not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men, who turn themselves away from the truth.

St Paul implies very much here that he is not in the position of one inventing fables or making himself a human interpreter of what was previously only known among the spirits. He is not Hesiod. He is not Numa Pompilius. He is not a Shaman. Instead of being the Mystic, he is saying the Jews are.

For the grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men;

Pretty comprehensible words if a person touching him with a handkerchief could heal a blind or a lame person or raise someone from the dead with the handkerchief, as is claimed in Acts. Totally incomprehensible otherwise. If he had been mad enough to make such claims without backing them up - who would have believed him?

Philemon: one epistle, at long last, in which there is only a reference to what Christ expects from Paul in Heaven. And likewise no reference to appearing or to Christ's adversary being a real man. Is this what Earl Doherty means?

Hebrews (ascribed variously to St Paul or St Barnabas): God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, In these days hath spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world.

Since the rest of chapter one is very solidly rooted in Heaven, I remind Earl Doherty that "plus heavenly" does not mean "minus bodily". Then I observe that as the prophets were historical persons and perceived by everyone as being such, by implication this means people had actually heard Jesus Christ speak.

4) Platonism and Semiticism of Cosmology

Paul and other early writers place the death and resurrection of their Christ in the supernatural/mythical world based on Platonic and Semitic cosmology, and derive their information about these events, as well as other features of their heavenly Christ from scripture.

I answer

There is a Red Herring here. OT Scripture is not invoked as describing a merely cosmological person and as only source of information. It is invoked as giving information matching the one known from the history of Christ as he was alive.

And if the real cosmology is Platonic and Semitic to the extent that it is so in the epistles of St Paul, then I cannot see how setting events in this cosmology would invalidate the information about them as historic information.

Of course, if you start out with the theory that these cosmologies include one "supernatural/mythical world" distinct from the mundane one, you are in trouble. There is no trace of a supernatural world being the place where myths are set, except very rare ones about the relations of our mundane world to that supernatural one. Usually myths are set HERE.

5) Ancient World View Reflected in Paul

The ancients viewed the universe as finite and multi-layered: matter below, spirit above. The higher world of the heavens was regarded as the superior, genuine reality, where spiritual processes and heavenly counterparts to earthly things were located. Paul's Christ operates within this system.

I answer

Sure they did. Prove them wrong.

Besides, even if they were wrong, their placing the events in this wrongful setting would not making their descriptions non-historical.

Assume a flat earther were reporting about Christopher Columbus (there were noone such in position to be reporting, but assume there had been such). "In the year of Grace One Thousand Four Hundred and Ninety-Two, Christopher Columbus, misled by the demon to believe the earth is a globe, set out with three ships. By a very great Mercy of Providence, he did not reach the rim of the world, but stopped in an island which he called Hispaniola, and came back in March the next year, getting into Lisbon by a storm, and proving by the fact of bringing back selvatic men that he had indeed reached some land outside Christendom."

This would be - and we would know it - set in a cosmology which is false. This does not mean we would have any reason to doubt that Christopher Columbus made these voyages if we only had the words of Flat Earthers for them.

But to get back to some seriousness, I view the world as finite and as multilayered. Matter having a lower degree and spirit a higher degree of actuality and of causality. I think the ancients were simply right. Prove me wrong. If. You. Can.

6) Mystery Cults and Ahistoricity of their Saviours

The pagan "mystery cults" of the period worshipped savior (sic!) deities who had performed salvific acts. Under the influence of Platonism, these acts came to be interpreted by the cults as taking place in the supernatural/mythical world, not on earth or in history. The Pauline Christ was similarily regarded as undergoing death and resurrection in the heavenly realm. This new Christ also shared other mythological concepts current in the ancient world.

I answer

There is no trace of any Pagan Mystery Cult placing death in the heavenly realm. It is by definition deathless, for Hebrew, Pagan and Christian alike. Earl Doherty is inventing a background culture which he cannot prove was there.

7) Son = Logos = a Concept à la mode

The most prominent philosophical-religious concept of the period was 'the intermediary Son': an emanation of the ultimate transcendent God who served as a spiritual channel between God and humanity. Such intermediary concepts as the Greek Logos and Jewish personified Wisdom were models for Paul's heavenly Christ and Son, who took on an additional, sacrificial role under the inspiration of scripture.

I answer

Once more, this is perhaps good enough for an Atheist, for one believing such Son-ship must be non-factual and describe an un-real figment of erroneous imaginations.

This is not in any way an argument against Christianity.

If our religion is true, we would expect that not just Hebrews but also Pagans were somehow prepared to receive the truth when it came. Platonism is part of the preparation for the Gospel.

Even more. To Plotinus who rejected Christianity, the Mind was not Son of the One or the Good. His concept of Logos is not a concept in which a Father to Son relation has any role. Instead, to Plotinus, the Mind is inferior to the One, because it is self aware. Because one can affirm something about it. This Platonic idea is incompatible with Christianity and pretty much the model for the Arian heresy. And the Gospels could not be proven to support it, believe me, Arius tried really, really bad.

Or, do NOT believe me. Read Newman's well documented History of the Arians of the IV Century.

8) Gospels and Acts Unreliable from One Source

All the Gospels derive their basic story of Jesus of Nazareth from one source: the Gospel of Mark, the first one composed. Subsequent evangelists reworked Mark in their own interests and added new material. None of the evangelists show any concern for creating genuine history. The Acts of the Apostles as an account of the beginnings of the Christian apostolic movement is historically unreliable, a second century piece of legend-making.

I answer

It is modern scholarship which is unreliable and derives its "information" from one logical source: the refusal to believe the truth of it.

So far from studying the question and rejecting the truth because the evidence is against it, they reject the truth first and judge the evidence by improbable conjectures about it, calculated to support that rejection.

9) Gospels Symbolic Not Historic

The Gospels were not written as historical accounts, but present a symbolic representation of a Galilean kingdom-preaching sect, combined with a fictional passion story set on earth, presumably meant to allegorise the heavenly Christ's death and resurrection in the supernatural realm. They are constructed through the process of "midrasch," a Jewish method of reworking old biblical passages and tales to reflect new beliefs. The story of Jesus' trial and crucifixion is a pastiche of verses from scripture, and has nothing to do with "history remembered."

I answer

First off, this completely contradicts the previous charge. Saying a text is an unreliable factual account and saying it is not meant as a factual account at all are two incompatible charges against its factual reliability.

It is like claiming at once that a text is Lord of the Rings by Tolkien and that it is The Vatican's Holocaust by Avro Manhattan. It cannot be both at the same time.

Second, the heavenly Christ cannot have died unless he became an earthly Christ. Death is not in heaven. As previously already said.

10) Does "Q" Give you any Cue?

"Q" is a lost sayings collection extracted from Matthew and Luke, and made no reference to a death and resurection, or soteriological role for its Jesus. It can be shown to have no Jesus figure at its roots, some of which roots were ultimately non-Jewish. The Q community preached the imminent coming of the kingdom of God and the arrival of the heavenly Son of Man as an End-time judge, and its traditions were eventually assigned to an invented founder who was combined with the spiritual Christ Jesus of the Pauline type in the Gospel of Mark. The case for the existence of Q is much superior to any alternative explanation for the common material in Matthew and Luke.

I answer

Especially if you start OUT with excluding a Historical Jesus as the real source, right?

Again, we are dealing with a charge contradicting a previous one. One source only and one source plus another one are not compatible.

Also, in order to explain a Community well known from its beginnings, like most other ones, he now invents (or the Academics that he follows invent) a lost community of which we have no trace except the changes they wrought by fusion with the known community which is supposed to have changed from a never asserted more primitive state. In terms of logic this is an atrocity.

11) Christ is So Complex He Cannot Have Been a Real Person!

The initial variety of sects and beliefs about a spiritual heavenly Christ and Son of God, some with a revealer role, others with a sacrificial one, shows that this broad movement began in many different places, a multiplicity of largely independent and spontaneous developments based on the Jewish scriptures and other religious expressions of the time, not as a response to a single individual or point of origin.

I answer

Usually persons are considered as mythological props because they are too flat to be real persons. Here we have the opposite charge!

Mercurius is often these days considered a pure myth because his only remaining role (openly on earth, as opposed to "in the consciousness" of people as "messenger of the gods") is to have been a magician. And an author of the books attributed to Hermes Trismegistos. Obviously a magician like Hermes Trismegistus cannot have written Hermes Trismegistus. That is so obviously a flat and unreal personality with only one role to play. So he is a myth. Then one goes on to say "but the books of Hermes Trismegistus have some kind of author" and modern Academia has hey presto invented a new character which has only one role to play. Which means he should be regarded as mythical, on the same criterium they apply to Hermes Trismegistus.

BUT here we have a Man (not to mention that this Man is God Himself) treated as a mere myth, because He is too complex to be a real person!

12) Letting Gnostic Gospels Prove the Orthodox Ones were Not Meant Literally - I Presume.

Well into the second century, many Christian documents lack or reject the notion of a past human man as an element of their faith. The type of Christ belief which became later orthodoxy developed only through the course of the second century to eventually gain dominance toward its end. Only gradually did the Jesus of Nazareth portrayed in the Gospels come to be accepted as historical and his 'life story' real.

I answer

The Gnostic pseudo-Gospels like the one inscribed with the name of St Thomas are indeed from this kind of timescale. I e later than the real and Canonic Gospels.

However, it is a big mistake to speak of early Christianity and Similar Stuff as One Movement rather than as Many Communities. Any text which explicitly rejects Historic Existence of Christ as Jesus from Nazareth is not from the Church but from the Gnostics. The Gnostics are another Community. Another Community is Not the Same One.

And the fact that there was a very definitely organised Church or Communion of Churches is very apparent from the Epistles I just cited from. Precisely as it is from Acts. Or from Martyrologium Romanum. Or from St Irenaeus. Or from St Ignatius of Antioch. Or from Didaché. That latter piece of writing mentions the fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays. This was not done by Gnostics, as far as we know. It was and is done by Catholics (at least Four times a Year, plus Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, plus Abstinence on Fridays, and that is the Latin Rite which has alleviated the fasting discipline). We can pretty safely conclude Catholics are the same Community as that of the Didaché.

And as Communities do usually know something baout the way they were founded - a certain Civic Community knows uit was founded by a Declaration of Independence and a Bill of Rights to justify it, both from 1776 - we can conclude It also knows how It was founded. It is not something which reasonable people cannot accept. BUT Earl Doherty is rather in the category of Naturalist Pseudo-Philosophers, and therefore we cannot know if he will accept it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Zeno of Verona
12-IV-2014

* From: Earl Doherty : Jesus, Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Neither-God-Case-Mythical/dp/0968925928#reader_B00772ZH8Y

From Mark Shea to Joseph Atwill

1) From Mark Shea to Joseph Atwill, 2) Twelve Pieces of a Doherty Puzzle (it's Too Early to Dismiss Historicity), 3) What about Randel Helms?, 4) It did NOT take two more years until the next TF challenge ...

Let us take Mark Shea first, and let me say that I totally agree on the principle outlined in the passage I put in bold letters:

Conspiracies do happen. The murder of Caesar was a conspiracy. So was the murder of Jesus. And Lincoln. The Holocaust was a conspiracy. 9/11 was a conspiracy–but not one involving Bush or Mossad. So, for a little while, was Watergate.

But here’s the thing: we know all about them. Why? Because conspiracies to commit big crimes are inherently unstable. They unravel and the whole thing gets exposed. Bad people are mainly about Looking Out for Numero Uno. When things go sour, they run to their lawyers, head for the border or get caught in complicated lies. What we never see is massive conspiracies which, of necessity, have to involve hundreds or even thousands of co-conspirators, lasting for years and years and years with nobody being the wiser.

The sort of person who insists Jesus never existed is somebody who simply does not know what they are talking about, like believers in moon landing hoaxes, or the NASA plot to cover up geocentrism, or Holocaust Deniers.

WELL, as for Moon Landing Hoax going sour, we have all the Moontruthers. Footages of how the footage with Armstrong juming on a Moon with six times less graviation (or similar footage) was shot - or the guy who was summoning Armstrong to admit he was a liar.

If Moon Landing was a hoax, it went sour.

We do not know if the man who told Armstrong that was subsequently shut up. For instance in a padded cell. But that is very clearly what conspirators would have some likelihood to want to do. I do not know if they have the assurance to do that.

Spreading out hysteria about conspiracy theorists are so much less risky moves.

Or NASA efforts to cover up Geocentrism ... well, I asked them for information which would possibly prove Geocentrism (or my version of it) wrong, they did not give it. They have however issued a few parodies. Like the Moon Landing Sketch linked to in Mark Shea's article. They have also handed out a few assurances about Biblical Geocentrism being absolutely wrong. But which happen to lack proof. At least of the kind I require.

So, if it is a conspiracy (I do not say it is except in the sense that people in power with convictions in power will try to marginalise challenges to such convictions pretty routinely, and that if they prefer doing so by solid evidence, such is perhaps not available against Geocentrism), it has also in a way blown up in their face.

If prisoners conspired to get former gaolors punished for worse crimes than actually comitted and to get a good piece of land, both Intifada's and Faurisson could be said to be that conspiracy blowing up in their faces. And if 9/11 involved Bush and Mossad, some pieces of evidence might be blowing up in their faces too. Like Jews being unhurt, because absent for their religious holiday that day. Or like architects disputing a hit on the top would topple a tower like that.

There have been clearly conspirational attempts to cover up that I am "wrong" about "these conspiracy theories", as if either I were a clearly important person who is not allowed to be wrong (but still wrong on these items according to those who consider me so), or, a theory which would give my person less importance, as if the fact of my being wrong in this particular way were a kind of threat to the right answer remaining right in the eyes of the many who are no doubt better informed than I (in this assessment of my takes as mistakes).

I consider such a fact a sign of my takes or some of them being at least akin to a conspiracy blowing up in the faces of conspirators.

So, assuming Christianity were once a conspiracy by the Caesars against the people ... did it go sour? Did it blow up in their face?

Christianity was in fact not treated as such a thing in Antiquity. It was treated only as what clearly (and especially on Joseph Atwill's theory, but even without it) it was not: a conspiracy against Caesar, against public order, against peace. Something which is more likely to be accuate about certain aspects of Jewry without Christ, from Bar Kochba to Trotski. And this mistreatment of Christians cannot be truly said to have been a conspiracy blowing up in the face of its perpetrators. Noone was ever confessing "I faked the story of Jesus" and noone was pretending anyone had confessed it. Noone said "if I had known this, I wouldn't have lied about that." Noone looked embarrassed except on occasions like defecting from the faith and offering incense to Caesar's Genius.

Atwill brags about finding "ancient confessions" or "confessions from antiquity", but those are "only very indirect such", inside the Gospels, and only function as such to someone presuming (without evidence) they were written:

• a) after the Titus event in the Jewish War
• b) by someone very familiar with not just the Jewish War but also the other details of Titus' life.

Let us look closer at his claims. Now.

I do think there was a conspiracy in Antiquity concerning the active years of Christ. A conspiracy to hush up the Sun that went dark for three hours. A conspiracy to hush up Simon Magus getting beaten in Rome. And that the victory - but at first just survival - of Christianity (meaning its Orthodox form, Roman Catholicism) was when that conspiracy blew up in their faces. What says there was a conspiracy at all?

Well, the missing Roman Contemporary Historians for the years 31 - 90 AD.*

'What seems to have eluded many scholars is that the sequence of events and locations of Jesus ministry are more or less the same as the sequence of events and locations of the military campaign of [Emperor] Titus Flavius as described by Josephus'

Mr Atwill continued: 'This is clear evidence of a deliberately constructed pattern.

'The biography of Jesus is actually constructed, tip to stern, on prior stories, but especially on the biography of a Roman Caesar.' Joseph Atwill

Oh really? But this might be because Jesus Christ was giving a share of His Messianity to the Caesars. When Jews said "we have no King but Caesar", He made sure that Caesar Constantine would recognise Him as Emperor of Heaven. And because they had crucified Him as a blasphemer because He had said He would destroy and in three days again build up "This Temple". Meaning His Blessed Body.

Instead of Gospel Story being by Caesars deliberately constructed as copy of that Roman Caesar, we see the biography of that Roman Caesar as deliberately constructed along the lines of the Gospel story (or some of them, not all since he was a Pagan and in religious error), by God's Providence.

He adds: 'An educated Roman in the ruling class would probably have recognised the literary game being played.'

Atwill maintains he can demonstrate that 'the Roman Caesars left us a kind of puzzle literature that was meant to be solved by future generations, and that the solution to that puzzle is "We invented Jesus Christ and we're proud of it".'

No, his proofs show that God left the Roman Caesars a kind of puzzle to which eventually convert Constantine caught on.

'Although Christianity can be a comfort to some, it can also be very damaging and repressive, an insidious form of mind control that has led to blind acceptance of serfdom, poverty, and war throughout history.

'To this day, especially in the United States, it is used to create support for war in the Middle East.'

Funny then that as a Christian, not lukewarm but dedicated (I defend the Crusades like 1099 taking Jerusalem) I find the recent Wars in the Middle East were NOT conform to Christianity, either in relation of justice or in loyalties of alliance.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Marguérite Audoux
St Zeno of Verona
12-IV-2014

PS: Atwill is right there are conspiracies by the powers in place to hijack spirituality or religion of the people against their interests, but these are nowadays usually very clearly AGAINST Christianity, because they are against poor people who are married getting many children, they are against children staying with parents who are poor, they are against people getting married while poor and so on./HGL

American Bible scholar claims ancient 'confessions' prove story of Jesus Christ was entirely fabricated by Roman aristocrats
[That Bible Scholar being Joseph Atwill]
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451087/American-Bible-scholar-claims-ancient-confessions-prove-story-Jesus-Christ-entirely-fabricated-Roman-aristocrats.html

Links to another page which says very much the same thing:

Covert Messiah
http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11201273.htm

Which links to Atwill's blog, which also says much the same thing:

Caesar's Messiah / Joseph Atwill's Blog : Religion vs. Spirituality
http://caesarsmessiah.com/blog/2012/02/religion-vs-spirituality/

As I said on the radio show tonight, our spirituality has been hijacked, and a return to a truer spirituality could benefit us at this crucial time in history.

The good old joke (or, for those who do not take it as a joke: the bad old hoax) about Spirituality judging Orthodoxy. Jesus against the Pharisees (a theme he dons't believe happened, of course) was not about Spirituality judging Orthodoxy. It was more about Orthodoxy plus unconventional applications judging a revered Spirituality of Study and Compromise and Humanity which had gone wild, divorced from their God.

Latest Real Jesus Shakes Christianity to Its Very Foundations!
by Mark Shea Sunday, October 13, 2013 11:59 PM
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/latest-real-jesus-shakes-christianity-to-its-very-foundations

* As I previously wrote here:

1st C Historians, Wikipedia Category
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2011/04/1st-c-historians-wikipedia-category.html

Is Matthew 17:19 literally true?

Short answer, yes, but Christ's promise in that verse is not for everyone.

A somewhat lengthier discussion is this challenge on the site "God is imaginary":*

In Matthew 17:20 Jesus says:

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

If "nothing will be impossible to you", then if we ask to cure cancer tonight, cancer should disappear. Right? Yet nothing happens. Note that if we take the Bible less-than-literally here, the statement "nothing will be impossible to you" becomes "lots of things will be impossible to you," and that would mean that Jesus is lying.

Now, what does Haydock comment have to say?

ST. MATTHEW - Chapter 17:19** Jesus said to them: Because of your unbelief. *For amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, you shall say to this mountain: Remove from hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you.

Comment:

Ver. 19. If you have faith as a grain of mustard-seed. Christ insinuates to his apostles, as if they had not yet faith enough to work great miracles, which require a firm faith joined with a lively confidence in God. The mustard-seed is brought in with an allusion to its hot and active qualities. (Witham)

That is, a perfect faith; which, in its properties and its fruits, resembles the grain of mustard-seed in the parable. (Chap. xii.[xiii.?] 31.) (Challoner)

By faith is here understood, not that virtue by which we assent to all things that are to be believed of Christ, the first, of the theological virtues, in which the apostles were not deficient, but that confidence in the power and goodness of God, that he will on such an occasion exert these, his attributes, in favour of the supplicant. To have a true faith of this kind, and free from all presumption, is a great and high privilege, which the Holy Ghost breathes into such only as he pleases. (Jansenius)

Examples of this efficacious faith are given by St. Paul. (Hebrews chap. ii.[xi.?]) St. Gregory of Neo-Cæsarea is also related, by Eusebius and Ven. Bede, to have removed by the efficacy of his faith a rock, which obstructed the building of a church; thus literally fulfilling the promise of Jesus Christ. (Tirinus)

The faith of the apostles, especially of those that had not been present at the transfiguration, was not perfect and complete in all its parts, till after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, and the descent of the Holy Ghost. (Haydock)

St. Jerome understands by mountains, things the most difficult to be effected.

One simple example of the fact that the Apostles eventually had the faith to move mountains: 100 years after Spartacus and his followers were beaten in battle and crucified along the Via Appia or whereever it was, it was as impossible as anything to imagine slavery would disappear.

Yet slavery did disappear where Romans and Franks ruled one after another. And in the rest of the Occident.

Now for the whole context:**

14 *And when he was come to the multitude, there came to him a man falling down on his knees before him, saying: Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic, and suffereth much: for he falleth often into the fire, and often into the water.

15 And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

16 Then Jesus answered, and said: O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me.

17 And Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour.

18 Then came the disciples to Jesus secretly, and said: Why could not we cast him out?

19 Jesus said to them: Because of your unbelief. *For amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, you shall say to this mountain: Remove from hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you.

20 But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting.

In other words, everywhere an exorcist succeeds, there is an example of this promise in work. Ask Gabriele Amorth of his experience thereof.

This is no warrant for just any layman - the Apostles to whom Christ spoke were the first bishops of the Church - asking anything and waiting for it to happen and it will.

But as Tirinus commented, one bishop had in fact done what Christ promised. St. Gregory of Neo-Cæsarea is also related, by Eusebius and Ven. Bede, to have removed by the efficacy of his faith a rock, which obstructed the building of a church; thus literally fulfilling the promise of Jesus Christ.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Quadragesima Sunday
or First Sunday of Lent
9-III-2014

* God is imaginary : Proof #1 - Try praying
http://godisimaginary.com/i1.htm

** Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition. ST. MATTHEW - Chapter 17
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id35.html

... And Why Not Mormonism (*grinning*)?

I came across Pearl of Great Price, not meaning the thing so called by Our Lord, namely state of Grace and pleasing God and getting to Heaven, but the text which Joseph Smith called so.

Wikisource : Pearl of Great Price/Moses
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pearl_of_Great_Price/Moses

Chapter 1[edit]*

1 The words of God, which he spake unto Moses at a time when Moses was caught up into an exceedingly high mountain,

2 And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence.

3 And God spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name; for I am without beginning of days or end of years; and is not this endless?

No, that is not God speaking to Moses in those words. Book of Moses in Pearl of Great Price portrays God as a babbler.

I could have added something like "for ... and is not this ..." because I am a babbler, but I refuse to take God for one!

It is not that God would not reason. It is rather that God when talking to men reasons so well that he has no need to point out a lot of things to make the argument understandable.

That is of course the ONE reason why I refuse to believe in Mormonism, which I do on other grounds just as with Mahometanism, just as with Hesiod's Theogony and its Muses or with Odinism. Among these, Odin might even beat the "god of Joseph Smith" when it comes to literary style (see Hávamál).

But the main one is that I draw a very thick and straight line between revelations as in messages purporting to be from Heaven and Revelation as in Heaven showing itself in action, like Christ's Resurrection or things. A revelation is tested by its agreement with Revelation as in Salvation History. Not the other way round.***

There is no hint whatsoever that Joseph Smith got the "Pearl of Great Price" in any way that connects it with Moses. Unlike how Jesus and we get the Pentateuch, for instance.

We get the Pentateuch as firmly from Moses as we get the Lord of the Rings from Tolkien. Joseph Smith got The Pearl of Great Price as little from Moses as Tolkien got Lord of the Rings from The Red Book of Westmarch.

And not only is the "God" of Pearl of Great Price wrong, its "Moses" is wrong also:

9 And the presence of God withdrew from Moses, that his glory was not upon Moses; and Moses was left unto himself. And as he was left unto himself, he fell unto the earth.

10 And it came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man; and he said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.

A phrase like "which thing I had never supposed" is basically Malory style or even Howard Pyle style for "who'd have thunk it?" And that in its turn is a very American turn of phrase. Of course it may well have had its precursors in the time of Malory or even Chaucer but to me it sounds like a sort or habitual introspection that became fashionable through Stoics Platonics and through the Christian habits of confession and examination of conscience but hardly entered into the daily habits of anyone at the court of Pharao whatever the Pharao was. It seems - according to recent attempts to harmonise the Exodus with Egyptian history that the Pharao in question was Amenamhet III (whom David Grohl has nicknamed "Mister Grumpy") and I suspect he was more surrounded by people who would remind us of old Arabs with white beards making comments that sound like lessons than by men expressing themselves like Chaucer. Besides, close by Amenamhet III the atmosphere may well have been a bit stifled, like living on a spy mission into enemy country or like living next to Stalin. Not really a school of spontaneity.

Someone I met over the internet reasoned "Moses can hardly have been humble if he called himself humble, considering that humility is a Christian vertue" ... but the thing is, whether he realised that God would accept his humility or not, he was from a place and an upbringing which did not habitually value humble people. It is not like a man these days calling himself "modest" (which would usually be self praise), it is like a man these days saying he has "a self-esteem issue" (which is generally speaking not self praise). When Moses said it he was basically telling God that if he was to speak to the Pharao he risked feeling very uncomfortable and even bungling it all by shutting up when he should not. Which is why God gave him his brother Aaron for help in that errand.**

And I would of course be as suspicious of a text purporting Moses used the roundabout modern phrase "self-esteem issue" rather than using the word humble for it as I am of a text where "Moses" in one breath speaks like a Sufi ("Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing,") and in the next ("which thing I never had supposed") like an English or French but certainly Christian gentleman with the curiosity of an explorer and the background of introspective expressions from centuries earlier - which were earlier than the English or French gentleman, but definitely later than Moses.

The fact that "Pearl of Great Price" includes visions and other supernatural stuff has really nothing to do with my disbelief.

And I suppose the guys who recognise Lord of the Rings as fantasy because they think Balrogs (i e demons taking physical shape and threatening with physical destruction) are impossible will miss Tolkien's real deliberate giveaway to make the very gullible think again. A thing like The Red Book of Westmarch (which Tolkien showed as little as Joseph Smith showed the gold plates he translated Book of Mormon from) is made to make the reader think about such a trivial matter as how did the text come from purported or implied observers to us. The guys who say "it is fantasy because it contains Balrogs" might miss that hint and therefore believe in the manuscript of one Adso from Melk.

I know one lady I was back then friends and sometimes in love with (she is now married to someone else) who actually thought it funny to realise that Adso from Melk is fiction and Name of the Rose is not a Medieval text, even if it is a text by a better Medieval Historian than most of its readers. She laughed at herself so heartily she cannot have been making a show to be ironic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Adaucus and the Town dwellers
who had him for chief, martyrs
under Galerius Maximinian
7-II-2014

* Wikisource, like wikipedia, is a wiki, ok, that means readers can edit it. Not meaning you should unless you see part of the text misrepresented, as in you know the text.

** In the real Pentateuch, of course, not in The Pearl of Great Price, Book of Moses.

*** I believed the Palmarian revelation until I found out a quote where Palmarian Catechism disagrees with the cosmology of ordinary Patristic understanding of Christianity (there are three dimensions, not eight!), I doubted about Christ's revelation to St Bridget as to crusade when I thought "heathens in Novgorod" referred to Russian Orthodox (even if schismatic, Christ would hardly call them heathen just for that) but have regained confidence in it since I noticed she lived a century after Alexander Nevski first defended Novgorod against Teutonic Order and then handed it over to very real Pagans - the Yellow Horde. Christ's words to St Bridget were of course a way of telling her and through her the Swedish King that Novgorod needed liberation from the Yellow Horde. He did not listen however. But notice that it is not my view of Catholic Orthodoxy that changes according to what I read in St Bridget's Extravagantes or in ... earlier ... a site by Palmar de Troya. It is my view of these revelations which changes according to as I notice a discrepancy with Catholic Orthodoxy either showing up (as with Palmar) or disappearing (as with St Bridget).

What's wrong with Wotanism

Apart from a very quick answer like "everything" or "it is Pagan", one can also mention it is being promoted by lies. Or even selfcontradictions.

However, unlike the practitioners of priestcraft in biblical religion, Wotanists did not and do not pretend to speak for God. The Gods speak to every man or woman directly through the evidence of Nature's Laws. The whole purpose of priestcraft is to allow the priest or the people he represents to control or have power over others. The power of the pulpit and of "Divine Right to Rule" rests on the words "God said," and a claim of superior access to God. Wotanists denounce the whole philosophy of one man having power of compulsion over others.

The quote is from the more or less openly Neo-Nazi site White Resister. Here is the link if you care to pursue it. Now, as a Swede and friend of an Icelander and as having studied Norse Mythology for pleasure since I was small, I can only categorise these words with the two letters BS.

Let us however not stay with such a summary categorisation but actually exercise ourselves in taking each proposition as seriously as if it had some connexion with fact. It has. Being opposed to fact is one connexion with it.

"However, unlike the practitioners of priestcraft in biblical religion, Wotanists did not and do not pretend to speak for God."

Except that old Odin pretended to BE "god", sort of, in a Marduk kind of way when he came to Uppsala and fooled the previous king, probably with hypnotic tricks. I have ugly fears about what he did to the previous king after getting the throne. That man's name was Gylfe.

Oden's rival about Fricca, Niord, and the latter's son, Odin's stepson, were also worshipped as gods, probably even during their lifetime. Only when Yngwe Frey left the throne to Fiolner, the latter visited Froda son of Hadding in Denmark (in the time of Caesar Augustus, though Saxo Grammaticus poses them maybe three or even five centuries earlier), got drunk, stumbled into a vat of hydromel, or mead as we also call it, and drowned. Fiolner has not come down to Norse tradition as a god, and I think you can see why.

"The Gods speak to every man or woman directly through the evidence of Nature's Laws."

Except of course to poor old Gylfe, to whom they spoke through some Samarian Magician or some Druid or some other magician who has come down to us through tradition as having been called Odin.

"The whole purpose of priestcraft is to allow the priest or the people he represents to control or have power over others."

No. That accusation was however levied against "priestcraft" by one Emperor, Frederick II the Stauffer, who was very eager to control people himself and saw the Catholic Church as represented by the Papacy as an obstacle. So much so that he did not always care to be even orthodox about Catholicism.

"The power of the pulpit and of "Divine Right to Rule" rests on the words "God said," and a claim of superior access to God."

The power of Odinid dynasties (like the Ynglings, whose early carreer I outlined) rested among other things on a claim of descent from Odin. On the other hand it seems a lucky ruler could very easily claim or get granted such. East Anglian Royalty descends from "Odin's" son "Casere" = Julius Caesar or maybe Caesar Augustus or some even later one. In other words, though even their claim to descend in any sense from Caesar is pretty tenuous, that claim by itself was to the Pagans proof of descending from Odin. If that man was a Druid fleeing from Gaul to implant Druidism in a gullible region like Sweden and far from Rome, he might have grinned very heartily of knowing the Caesar he was fleeing from would later count as his son ... if he lived long enough to learn thereof, of course.

"Wotanists denounce the whole philosophy of one man having power of compulsion over others."

Wait, Wilberforce was an Odinist, right? And Queen Saint Bathilda, spouse of Clodevech II was of course not of Catholic religion, was she? I mean, the Catholic Church is famous for canonising Pagan clergy and statesmen, right? Not.

Wilberforce who abolished slavery was himself an Anglican. One of his sons was the Anglican bishop who opposed Huxley about Evolution. The other was a convert to Roman Catholicism. And Queen Saint Bathilda, who had abolished what was left of the Roman slavery of Antiquity, was a Roman Catholic all her life, since the baptismal font up to making it to Heaven. Neither of them was Odinist.

And ask the people loyal to King Alfred or to Brian Borumha whether the Odinist invaders where not somewhat slave hunting as well. While you are at it.

There is one other quote I find interesting in the article. David's famous third reason for not being a Christian:

Third, a Folkish religion must teach fertility, not "sex is sin" and woman-hatred (as Paul in Corinthians 7:1, John in Revelation 14:4 and Jesus in Matthew 5:28). I could continue, but the purpose is to promote my religion, not attack others.

He meant 1 Corinthians 7:1.

Now concerning the thing whereof you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.

A preference for the celibate state is in fact not hatred of the one sex and preference for the other. Elsewhere he says "a man who gives his daughter away in marriage does well, but if he does not give his daughter away in marriage he does better" (quoting from memory), meaning here that it is good for a woman not to touch a man. This other quote also clearly states that though marriage is second best, it is nevertheless good. So does first Corinthians 7 in the verses 2 - 5:

[2] But for fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. [3] Let the husband render the debt to his wife, and the wife also in like manner to the husband. [4] The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband. And in like manner the husband also hath not power of his own body, but the wife. [5] Defraud not one another, except, perhaps, by consent, for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer; and return together again, lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency.

Every man having his own wife refers not to every man without exception, but every man to whom "for fear of fornication" (or, possibly, similar reasons) applies.

Now, choosing celibacy for onself (as St Paul did) and stating that sex is a sin for someone having so chosen is very much not the same thing as stating simply that sex is a sin.

It is sex outside marriage or infertile sex within marriage which is a sin. Sex within marriage and without condoms or even worse things is tainted, it has a connexion to sin and is therefore a kind of impurity in its concrete exercise, but its basic act is considered by Christianity as JUST. Precisely as its purpose. It is thus also a just excuse of moments of what might otehrwise have been sinful lust.

So, yes, Revelation 14:4 exalts the privilege of celibacy and Matthew 5:28 forbids lusting after any woman not one's wife, but also lusting after one's own wife in such a way as to make lust rather then shared parenthood the purpose of the relation.

I cannot see how this attitude can possibly be considered incompatible with a religion that promotes the survival of a folk or a nation. Look at Ireland before recent apostasies (whether on part of clergy who would have been thrown out of orders and of monasteries pretty quickly before Vatican II or on part of laymen apostasising from the faith and promoting it by reference to those clergy), was the people with the monks and nuns really the one that had fewer children per family and higher percentage of bachelors and old maids than their neighbours in England and Wales? Were Italian families in Rome really smaller than German families in Berlin or Swedish families in ... Uppsala ! ... fifty years ago?

But there is an even funnier aspect to this charge.

Whenever "priestcraft" these days is accused of wanting to dominate people, it is usually precisely because "priestcraft" is telling people who are not opting for celibacy to be fruitful and multiply. The standard Pagan reply (perhaps outside Odinism or Wotanism) against Catholicism is requiring priests to stay out of the bedroom. We Catholics actually invite priests to the bedroom of newly wed couples, he has to bless the bed before they go on to use it.

Let us now work backwards a bit:

Second, a Folk preserving religion must follow a God of the whole Folk, not a personal God of personal advantage.

It seems that German Odinists and Modernist Protestants, both with a more Patriotic bent than a bent for Personal Salvation, were eighty years ago or even earlier starting to tell a lot of courples NOT to be fruitful and multiply. And not just doing it with mere verbal advice. Nazi Germany, certain states in US and in Canada - who had started even before Hitler. And Per Albin Hansson, a Social Democratic, democratically elected Prime Minister of Sweden, nominally acting on behalf of a King who no longer exercised political power, did so too. Lapps and Gipsies were sterilised by force well into the 70:s, so no thanks, people who want no personal relation to God but only a national relation to gods are - as was recently proven - a menace to fertility.

The first reason of David is a bit odd as well:

First, prior to biblical religion, the Aryan race was secure in its nations and existence, as well as dominant throughout the known world. Today, after nearly 2,000 years of biblical religion, including inquisitions, the dark ages, the slaughter and murder of millions in the name of Jesus, the Aryan race faces near certain extinction. The effects must now outweigh the "could have been's" and "would have been's.

I am reminded of The City of God. Pagans were accusing Christianity of having caused the downfall of Rome. St Augustine of Hippo gave the appropraiet answers. Now, I do not agree that the Aryan race is a real entity with a real claim on loyalty. Nor did Odinists think of it as such, since the Anglo-Saxon Christians of Alfred were obviously as Aryan (or properly speaking: as little Aryan, as little Gipsy) as the Danes of Guthrum. I do not agree it is facing extinction. I do agree it is facing humiliations as when Aaron Dugmore died for being white and I agree "it" (as in they) should be defended against such. But while I do agree the West used to be more powerful than recent years, I simply observe two things:

• 1) Christianity is what raised Spain to its power over an Empire without a setting sun. It is true that it crumbled from Napoleonic Wars down to the Spanish American war (but its agressors Napoleonic France and Massonic USA were as Aryan powers as itself), but it is the most powerful example of Western power, surpassing Rome.
  
  Now exactly as Rome had a past with defending the Hearth and the Capitolium against Brennus and Hannibal (a bit less successful with Brennus, though) before it became a world power across the Mediterranean, Spain has had a similar past defending Christianity against the Moors, from Covadonga to taking of Granada. And it never came anywhere West of the Azores without the attributes of Cross and Banner, Language and Sword.
  
  Its failure is due to agression from powers "wanting the Pope to dominate less" as they would have stated their purpose. Both Napoleon and McKinley were politically the opposite of say Dollfuss or Eamonn DeValera.
  
  
• 2) Whether for good or for evil or - most likely - for both taking turns, the West did dominate the rest. It is the reversal of this which fills David with dismay.
  
  

  the Aryan race was secure in its nations and existence, as well as dominant throughout the known world. Today, after nearly 2,000 years of biblical religion

  
  
  Dominant throughout the known world? Actually it was not, unless you like to call both Romans and Persians Aryans, subsuming them under one "racial" loyalty despite widely diverse loyalties in nearly every other respect. But what about the moral imlications of such a supposed domination?
  
  

  Wotanists denounce the whole philosophy of one man having power of compulsion over others.

  
  
  So one race can dominate another race and no single man or clique of men in the dominating race have power of compulsion over any man in the dominated?
  
  Or is it supposed to mean that being under power of compulsion by one single man who is on top of that a stranger is not OK, but being under power of compulsion of a clique of strangers is totally OK?

Oh boy ... if the Wotanists are looking for the genial mind that they lack, I feel I might be competent but I am very certain I am not willing. Or rather, I am incompetent for the purpose of serving their cause by being competent in having a mind if not as genial as I like to think at least less disingenious than that expressed by David Lane.

I mean, his third reason very clearly proves that Albigensianism (which taught not only that the marriage was sinful, but that infertile sex was preferrable to those unable to stay perfact celibates) cannot be a Folkish religion. And yet his first reason includes cursing the Inquisition for wiping out Albigensianism from the religious map of Southern France.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Romwald Abbot
7-II-2014

Updated the followin day./HGL

Are Unbelievers Hysterics?

Acharya wrote a letter to her list about the Blood Moons, and here is a quote:

In short, because of the lunar eclipses over the next couple of years, many Christians are "looking to the stars" for portents of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This purported return is to be accompanied by slaughter and bloodshed, so many nonbelievers will not go along happily with such a belief!

The slaughter and bloodshed in question is to be done on an army that is making war against Christians, so it is not really a question of such a belief per se triggering random acts of bloodshed and slaughter on our part.

Of course, if "unbelievers" (or the Atheist Community among them, perhaps supported by Jewish or Muslim communities or both) choose to go hysteric about what Christians believe and how that could act out - after nearly a Century of Evolutionist beliefs and Antichristian prejudice acting out very badly, then I cannot guarantee, nor can anybody else, that we Christians do not retaliate.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mairie du III / Paris
St Agnes of Rome
Virgin and Martyr
21-I-2014

Tim O'Neill makes an excellent case against the proposition That Constantine turned Jesus into the Son of God

Here* is his case:

While Christians reject the idea that Jesus was 'turned into a God' at any point as a matter of faith, non-Christian historians accept that 'Jesus' was a First Century Jewish preacher and healer who later became regarded as, somehow, God in human form. Where they differ from what Brown is implying through Teabing is when and how this occurred.

...

We have no shortage of writings from Christians of the Second, Third and Fourth Centuries AD and they regularly tell of their perception of who and what Jesus was. If Teabing, Langdon (and Brown) are correct, we should see a sharp break around 325 AD, with earlier writers referring to Jesus only as a mortal prophet and later ones adopting this 'pagan' idea of him being a god in human form. But we do not see this at all.

The evidence from all Christian writings prior to 325 AD, right back to the late First Century and within a generation or two of Jesus' own time, indicates clearly that the overwhelming majority of Christians regarded Jesus as God long before 325 AD, before the Council of Nicea and centuries before Constantine was even born. Non-Christian historians agree that the process of turning the mortal Jewish preacher, Yeshua bar Yosef, into the divine being 'Jesus Christ' was well underway as early as 90 AD and was more or less complete by the middle of the Second Century.

Anyone see the problem?

"We have no shortage of writings from Christians of the Second, Third and Fourth Centuries AD"

Ah? What about First Century AD?

He supports the kind of scholarship in which Second Epistle of St Peter was not by the Disciple Peter. But from Second Century. A scholarship that is a boon to "Arians" - people denying Divinity to Christ in the modern way rather than that of the historical Arius (who had no clue about that scholarship) - a boon to global flood deniers and a few other variants on the theme Christians who dare not be Christians fully.

But also a scholarship which is contradicted by - if not for Second Peter at least for the Gospels - authors from precisely as early as Second Century.

If Matthew was not written by St Matthew, John not by St John, both of whom were disciples of Jesus and known to be so, and if Luke and Mark were not written by men who were disciples to St Paul and St Peter, how did Papias come to think they had been written by those? How did Irenaeus of Lyons come to think so?

If Book of Mormon was not really written originally in Nephitic language encoded in Reformed Egyptian what-ever-kind of Egyptian characters (hieraglyphic, hieratic or demotic), there are clearly two points on which deception can have been practised, even if Mormons do not believe it was a deception. Point a, Joseph Smith can have been deluded by a demon (option only available to people believing there are such, but as a Christian I am not denying myself that option), point b Joseph Smith can have been a con man. Both are very clear possibilities. But Papias is not discovering the four gospels as Joseph Smith discovered the book of Mormon, he is claiming the Gospels were always accepted among the Christian community as of those persons. So Papias being either deceived by a demon or a deceiver himself is cleary ruled out.

Or assume Papias had been writing to give the impression the four Gospels had always been accepted since they were written by people who had met Jesus or had met those who had met him when in fact that was not the case but he had made them himself - how then could Papias have been accepted as telling the truth by the Christian community, since if they had just formed around Papias they would naturally have accepted Papias as their founder or second founder, which is clearly not the case, and since if they had been around without the four Gospels until Papias forged them, how could they have believed him when he was basically telling them what they had been reading for decades or in some cases even more than a century when in fact they had not read it unti Papias produced it? They could have concluded Papias was a good writer, they could have concluded Papias had done what Joseph Smith claimed to have done, namely restore lost gospels, but they could not possibly have concluded they had always been keeping them and Papias was just recording the fact. And if they had caught him saying that when it was not the case, they would not have concluded he had even rediscovered Gospels previously lost, since in that case they would have thought him dishonest.

But saying we lack Christian material from the First Century depends precisly in claiming that books purportedly from then were really from Second Century, it includes someone forging their collective memory in a totally implausible way. That is exactly why Bultmann is popular with Atheists and with Christians who do not really want to be Christians. They want to believe that ideas found in the books of the New Testament are really later than the death or cessation of effective control and influence in Christian community of their purported writers.

Not only do they not have the case O'Neill - one of them himself - has against Da Vinci Code. He says that if Dan Brown was right we would expect one literature from Ante-Nicene Fathers and we get another one and not at all that one. If he wanted to make such a case against Christianity, he would rather have to contend himelf with saying "we would expect one kind of literature from the First Century, but we do not have it" ... but that is not all. He would admit not to having the kind of literature from the First Christians he would expect if he were right either. And he would also have to admit that somehow or other a literature he did not expect from the First Christians had become attributed to them.

Of course he could claim that the First Christians were not expected to produce any literature at all ... but that leaves out the fact they came from a very literate people and that though most of the Twelve Apostles were comparatively illiterate as Galileans, one of them, St Matthew, was once identified as a Levi, thus as coming from the most literate families of all Judea, as literate as Flavius Josephus. He was also the one credited with the first and earliest Gospel.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Basil of Caesarea
2-I-2014

*History versus the Da Vinci Code
by Tim O'Neill
Chapter Fiftyfive
http://www.historyversusthedavincicode.com/chapterfiftyfive.htm

Dawkins's bad logic

A Muslim who believed Mohammed flew to Heaven on a winged horse asked Dawkins:

"How do you know I am wrong?"

Dawkins answered:

"Oh, come on, you are a man of the twentyfirst century!"

That is not logic. That is making the Century one lives in the Religion one believes in and everyone else has also to believe in. It is as illogical as saying "I am a man of Tuesdays" and attach especial importance to news read in newspapers or ideas thought about on exactly Tuesdays as opposed to other week days.

Only, since the Century unlike the Tuesdays is larger than one's own life, one is less likely to notice the bad logic.

Furthermore he expressed a hope that as Zeus and Thor were dead religions, so it will happen to the God of Abraham.

It did not occur to him that neither Epicurus nor Zenon, but only Jesus Christ actually killed old paganisms off all across Europe. It is like wanting to get rid of Yersin along with the Yersinia pestis. Or like getting rid of Pasteur along with Rabies.

And that attacks like his on the Christian God are only helping to revive in a spookish sort of way the old beliefs./HGL

Source: IRISHINFIDEL : Richard Dawkins Debates Flying Horses with Muslims
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBt2XPpJ25I

Is the Genesis "the Basis of the Whole Bible" or are there others?

1) Creation vs Evolution : Heard of Libby Anne? , 2) Did Libby Anne misunderstand at least Something about Young Earth Creationism? Or: Why don't they teach logic in these schools?! 3) Further Faulty Logic in Craig A. James's "refutation of a dialogue" 4) Stupid Word Game, Craig A. James? 5) Whose assumptions are best or least well proven? 6) Somewhere else : Is the Genesis "the Basis of the Whole Bible" or are there others? 7) Great Bishop of Geneva! : How is Chick erroneous about where we got the Bible from? 8) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... to Hitchens on Revelation, Decalogue and Evidence for Moses. 9) Correspondence de / of / van Hans-Georg Lundahl : Notifying Craig A. James of a refutation of his refutation ...


In a Theological and a Historical sense, yes, Genesis is basis for the whole Bible. It sets the scene.

However, if you want to know what is the basis for believing the Bible true, there are other parts that are easier to verify, unless you mean the Flood as such. Like Exodus, like victory over Sennacherib, most notably the Life, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Indeed, Genesis and Gospel stand together so that if either were false, the other would be false also. Christ says that "God created them man and woman from the beginning of Creation" ... if the timeline of evolutionists were true, this would be in an obvious sense false and discredit the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. On the other hand at the end of Genesis, when blessing the son Judah, Jacob gives a timelimit meaning the Messiah must already have come. "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah ... until the hero cometh, and the Nations shall fall unto him."

How so?

Judea lost its sovereignty, and especially its power to execute death penalties, after Herod the Great died. The Jews had not lost sovereignty as much as that during the Babylonian Captivity. Or immediately after. Jews that deny that Jesus is the real Messiah often say the prophecy refers to Cyrus of Persia. But during that period Daniel defends a woman falsely accused of adultery so she is not stoned. Susannah, by name (Daniel ch. 13). Meaning Jews could stone offenders against the Mosaic law. Also, many nations never came under Persia, such as Rome. Nearly all have come under Christ and all but the very smallest have had at least Christian minorities. And in the Persian epoch there is first a law against Jews, then another one that gives them right to slay attackers. By contrast, "Pilate therefore said to them: Take him you, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said to him: It is not lawful for us to put any man to death; ..." (John 18:31) meaning the sceptre had departed from Judah by then. Meaning that Messiah must already have come.

In that sense, Gospel cannot be true if Genesis is false, but also Genesis cannot be true if Gospel is false.

Each of them has its own supporting evidence from outside that circle.

If you want the victory over Sennacherib, denied by that despot, we know another account from Herodotus in which mice chew the bowstrings to pieces. Meaning of course that the real explanation was not known to Herodotus, since God sending an angel of death is much less surprising than mice doing that stuff. Supernatural things can be supernatural, like God sending angels, but natural things, like mice, are not supposed to do very weird and unnatural things, like chew up exactly just the bowstrings of a whole army. And if neither happened, Assyrians would have won (as Sennacherib boasted) and there would not have been any tale of mice and bowstrings. (C. S. Lewis said "mice don't behave that way", hat tip!)

If you want the Exodus, do not take the version in which Hebrews are Hyksos and real Moses either Ahmoses or Thutmoses. Rather, Exodus happened before Hyksos invasion and the drowning of Pharao's army was helping the Hyksos a lot at the invasion. You can consider Hyksos as possibly equal to Amalekites. (Hat tip to a Creationist and Egyptologist living currently in France and to another one called David Down).*

If you want the Genesis, at least there is pretty extensive evidence for the Flood.

And if you want the Gospel, which is the most important, there is the consideration "what happened to the body?" (Hat tip to Dale and Elaine Rhooton, Can We Know?).

Indeed so much that even if Gospel logically cannot be true unless Genesis is true, Gospel can be believed as true by somone not concluding that so is Genesis. I had been an evolutionist as a child and after becoming a Christian at age nine, I spent about a year trying to fit Evolutionism together with what Christ believed (and knew as God) of Genesis. I did not become a Creationist until that failed. Even later I was still a little Evolution geek who was interested in Evolutionistic explanations (like for language)** even as an unbeliever in that non-Christian worldview.

Now, here is a general discussion on how to deal with claims about the supernatural in the sources:

History vs Hume (part one of four, see links within)
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2013/01/history-vs-hume.html

Here is a discussion of contemporary evidence outside Bible:

The Question of Contemporary Evidence
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2011/03/question-of-contemporary-evidence.html

Here is against a claim that St Paul was bluffing when he said five hundred "most of whom are still alive" had seen Christ risen:

What a blooper, Dan Barker from Atheist League!
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-blooper-dan-barker-from-atheist.html

But we would not have the Gospel without the Church, so my next question is whether the Apostolic Church remained intact as the Catholic Church. This will get us to a new blog, one which I made against outrageous Protestant claims about Church History.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre - Paris X
University Library
St. Francis Borgia, S. J.
10-X-2013

* CMI : David Down : Searching for Moses
http://creation.com/searching-for-moses

I have linked to David Brown earlier:

Appendix A on : So, Dionysus was a Copy of Moses, may One Presume?
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2012/11/so-dionysus-was-copy-of-moses-may-one.html

** You may have heard of a theory in which the first articulated sound and also first word was a bilabial f, a targetted breathing out of air on embers in fire, and hence used also for "fire", "light a fire", "warmth", "human ingenuity", "life" and a few more things. Funny if this were true why today phonemes have typically no significance in themselmves, but each only in combination with others - in a purely arbitrary way! Language as we know it and as distinguished from animal communications by "double articulation" (message articulated into morphemes meaningful in themselves through a system of arbitrary morphosyntax - or system which says what says what about what - and each morpheme except the shortest articulated into sounds or phonetic traits meaningless in themselves unless combined) is a very good argument against evolution and for Genesis (or other supernatural accounts of man's origin).

"maybe Zeus does exist"?

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... mainly to Hemant Mehta, somewhere else : "maybe Zeus does exist"?

Here's a guy who poses the question, ironically:
Hemant Mehta on Friendly Atheist
The Atheist Voice : 15 things to NEVER say to an atheist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNjEbPfc2d0

Maybe Zeus did exist, or more than one of them.

When I looked at the Theogony the other day, I saw what I always see about it - Hesiod was no miraculous healer, he did not deliver the people from disaster by making them repent and thus avert God's wrath, he did not raise any dead or deliver anyone from captivity. AND he did not die as a martyr for what he professed to have heard from the Nine Muses. No absolute guarantee for honesty personally, such as martyrdom would be, and no guarantee he comes from God.

But after listening a bit to Rob Skiba and even Chuck Missler these days, I saw something else about it. The Nine Muses sang hymns to ... the list begins with "Zeus with the Egide" and ends with "Kronos of the crooked thoughts".

I have no problem believing that this basically reflects a situation some thousand years earlier in which Nimrod made himself son of Satan. I do believe Satan exists, and in that sense I do believe "Kronos of the crooked thoughts"* exists (and yes, apart from liar Satan is also destroyer, so in that sense I believe Apollo/Shiva exist too - it does not mean it is right to pray to them though ...)

But back to Nimrod (Rob Skiba would say "our old buddy Nimrod", it makes me feel a bit queezy, and is probably meant to do that) ... one line of research** in the Skiba connexion has it that Nimrod had got his hands on the vestment of Noah that Ham's son Kanaan stole from him - a vestment inherited from Adam. This fits in somehow with "Zeus with the goatskin shield" ... especially if Noah's vestment was lambskin and Nimrod later preferred another thing made of goatskin.

Nimrod also had very megalomaniac projects. If he wanted to conquer the sky ... he failed, and with many megalomaniac leaders once they fail there is a cover up story. When we get as late as Hesiod we find Nimrod reflected not just in Zeus with the Egide, but also in the Titans who tried to conquer his Olymp.

A bit later than Nimrod but earlier than Homer we also find a Zeus who has a tomb in Crete. I suppose the Saturnus who was his father was chased by him to Italy, where he had a son called Picus and a grandson called Latinus. And Latinus' daughter Lavinia married one Aeneas who came from Troy. Julius Caesar descend from that couple, thus from "Zeus'" brother Picus.

Even a bit later we find Greek society involved in the Trojan war. Agamemnon has his sceptre from Zeus.

When I look at what Leaf had to say about the Trojan war, it seems Agamemnon as well as Priam had his sceptre from some Hittite Nimrod-wannabe - Achaean Greece and Trojan Phrygia were both satrapies in the Hittite Empire.***

When I look at Classic Greek literature, the word Hittite is not as much as mentioned before you start getting Greek literature of Biblical type. Septuagint translation would have been earliest I presume.

So, if the historic Agamemnon had his sceptre from some Hittite "King of Kings" and the Agamemnon of the Iliad from Zeus, I think part of what happened is that Greeks had taken a clear dislike to the former Hittite overlords, and wanted to forget them. The role of world ruler was so infamous in mortal men, they preferred to transfer it to some deity. And they probably already worshipped Zeus - and Agamemnon may have descended from the one whose tomb was in Greece, in Crete (unless the "sons of Zeus" in diverse genealogies were simply self made men as Leaf presumes).

They decided to forget about the Hittite Empire, although it had been under its overlordship that their greatest heroes were living. Homer does not mention Hittites - Hesiod goes one further and identifies Zeus with a person who never was man and never ruled on earth, only over it.

So, in a sense, Zeus did exist: once as Nimrod, adopted son of Satan, once later as Zeus the son of one exiled Saturn (whom he exiled), once even later as a Hittite overlord giving Agamemnon a sceptre on behalf of Teshub - and later still as a poetic fancy gilding these not so great things. And at same time unifying them in a "purely celestial" thing. Not meaning purely spiritual.

And I am pretty certain (as was Hilaire Belloc) that Odin once lived in Sweden. Not a thing to brag about, but probably unfortunately true. A man who pulled a stunt like "I killed a monster and created the world of its carcass" before ignorant savages and got believed is not a real pride. Note that Nimrod probably used similar tactics in Babylon - meaning of course, that although it was great in inventions, their mentality when believing such things was that of ignorant savages. Even Greece seems to have been better in Homer's time than in Agamemnon's, 400 years earlier or so. Nimrod was probably strong enough to have killed some real monsters before the eyes of the Babylonians. Odin was old, and if asked could say "that was when I was younger" ... but he was probably asked no questions.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI, Georges Pompidou
St Jerome of Stridon
30-IX-2013

* Or "of the crooked mind": αγκυλομητης. Note that the Italian and Greek versions do not agree about what happened to the father of Zeus/Jupiter, and so the Italian Saturn need not have been Satan, but may have been an exiled Greek king who became an Italian king and a decent such.

** To put it more clearly: Rob Skiba is using what he thinks is the same Book of Jasher that the Bible mentions, but which might not be so. It is certain that it is not inspired, since it attributes the new languages to 70 demons rather than to God and thus gives demons more power than they have. But that there was a megalomaniac project for conquering the sky is not just the Book of Jasher, it is in Genesis, and so it is true.

*** In literature later than Walter Leaf, it is still certain Troy or Wilusha was loyal to Hittites, but not quite as sure the Achaeans of Greece were so. This footnote and some grammatical corrections were added in a later edit. 20-XII-2013.