Liars have a fine history in christianity. After all, the church was founded by liars. It must then follow that it is populated by them. After all, likes attract. Flavius Josephus; The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3: the so called Testimonium Flavianum ~ "The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations." – (Catholic Encyclopedia) St Jerome P.L., XXVI, 98; XXIV, 855 "It is usual for the sacred historian to conform himself to the generally accepted opinion of the masses in his time.' Bishop Eusebius,12th Book chapter 32 Evangelical Preparation ~ "How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived." Bishop Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius, vol.I, pp.381-382 ~ "It is an act of virtue to deceive and lie, when by such means the interests of the church might be promoted." Bishop Eusebius: Ecclesiastical HistoryEcclesiastical History, Vol. 8, chapter 2 ~ "We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity." Pope Leo X, Catholic Encyclopedia vol.IX, p163 ~ "How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us." John Chrysostom, 5th century theologian, bishop of Constantinople; Treatise On The Priesthood, Book 1 ~ Do you see the advantage of deceit? ... For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind ... And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived." Manichean bishop Faustus: "Many things have been inserted by our ancestors in the speeches of our Lord which, though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially since – as already it has been often proved – these things were written not by Christ, nor [by] his apostles, but a long while after their assumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with themselves, who made up their tale out of reports and opinions merely, and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the apostles of the Lord or on those who were supposed to follow the apostles, they maliciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits according to them." Ignatius Loyola; zealot for papal authority (1491-1556), "We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides." Martin Luther; Cited by his secretary, in a letter in Max Lenz, ed., Briefwechsel Landgraf Phillips des Grossmüthigen von Hessen mit Bucer, vol. I. ~ "What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church ... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them." The Donation of Constantine ~ 'Without doubt a forgery...' Catholic Encyclopedia Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 9th Century ~ I have read the chronology of Justus of Tiberias (an historian rival to Josephus) ... and being under the Jewish prejudices, as indeed he was himself also a Jew by birth, he makes not one mention of Jesus, of what happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did.' Joseph Wheless (1930) ~ 'The forgery of pious documents of every imaginable character was among the most constant and zealous activities of the holy propagandists of the Christian Faith, from the beginning to the critical era when forgeries were no longer possible or profitable.' Arthur Drews, The Legend of St Peter, p63 "In reality, the Neronian persecution never occurred. It is a fiction of the Church, invented for its greater glory." Dr James Donaldson; History of Early Christian Literature, Edinburgh edition ~ "Like all the rest of the Christians of his time, Eusebius was utterly unethical in his estimates of evidence, and where he, as it were, translated the language of others into his own, not using their words but his own assumption of their meaning, he is almost invariably wrong. Every statement which he makes himself is unreliable". T.W. Doane; Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions (1882) ~ "Besides forging, lying, and deceiving the people for the cause of Christ, the church fathers destroyed all evidence against themselves and their religion they could find." J. L. Houlden; Jesus - A Question of Identity, p11 It may then come as something of a surprise, almost an embarrassment, to recognise that the earliest statements about Jesus are in the form of belief rather than history in the modern sense ... theology takes precedence over history in the Christian story.' Virgin Birth Fraud The Hebrew original says: 'Hinneh ha-almah harah ve-yeldeth ben ve-karath shem-o immanuel.' Honestly translated, the verse reads: 'Behold, the young woman has conceived — and bears a son and calls his name Immanuel.' Fraudulently entered into the bible (Matthew 1.23) ~ 'Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.'
?? Really?? Investigation reveals that the church was founded by men. God and Jesus were just dragged along for the ride.
Church was founded by the apostals whom Jesus told to start his first church. The book of Acts even talks about the first Church. Then again, you only care about criticising Christianity and keep yourself shut from the light, of coarse you have no knowledge of who actually founded the Church, because you don't know about the book of Acts. Nice try convincing us that the Church was founded by liers,- it didn't work. However, yup. It sure is infested with them now.
Holy shit MrRee! I was aware of this practice (I knew about the eusubius quote) but I didn't realise how rampant it was. It's depressing when you realise that for centuries (dark ages and beyond) the only faction of society that could read and write were the clergy so for the most part we only have their word for it when it comes to the history of the church (what did Mark Twain say? "Want to make a liar out of an honest man, have him write an autobiography"). If you consider that over the centuries the clergy have proven themselves to be murderers, theives, rapists, child molesters,--you name it-- you can see why they would think lieing was a minor sin. So how can we believe anything they say?
Are you saying that the ruling aristocracy didn't know how to read and write? Or do you consider the Dark Ages enveloped the whole world, instead of just Europe? If you change the latter statement to read: can you see how it exposes your tenuous position?
Believe it or not alot of the aristocricy were in fact illiterate. In any case they still would have left the keeping of records, especially pertaining to religion, up to the clergy. In any case I certainly wouldn't trust the politicians any more than the clergy since, for along time, the distinction was a facade. Yes the dark ages were specifically european but then, for a long time so was christianity. If you can direct me to christian manuscripts of the period from Arabia or the far east I'll be more than happy to look those over. Saying the Clergy-- the folks who brought you the crusades, the inquistion, the annihilation of various competeing sects, Imperialist conquest, genecide--were politically motivated is accurate but doesn't deny the fact that these were the same people who handed us down the scripture as it is today.
That isn't entirely true, is it? If the Gospels were written before the first century and if Christianity became a recognised religion in 313 (Edict of Milan), and if Paul installed Prince Linus of Britain as the first Bishop of Rome in AD58 (I've always wondered if Linus was of Roman blood), and if we now have the originals (or the earliest copies) and can compare them as they were handed down, can we see if there were any changes? I wouldn't say that it was strictly the clerics who bought forth the Crusades... Some folks blame the Templars (Masons) for waging the war. This may signify a link between Kings and kingdoms and the secret religious order which supposedly goes back to the religion of the Egyptians. The scriptures were all formulated before Islam / Mohammedism was founded. Did the Crusades end abruptly after the Templars supposedly found the treasure of Solomon's Temple? http://www.bookrags.com/history-the-crusades/ : http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/lecture25b.html : http://www.crisismagazine.com/april2002/cover.htm :
Do we in fact have any pre-council of Niccene manuscripts (before 350CE)? Scholars, for the most part, agree the gospels were written in the first century but for some reason it's hard to find any information on actual manuscripts.
If any exist they will probably be stored in the Vatican. The only other 'sources' which we may be able to rely upon will probably be the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostic Gospels of Nag Hammadi (the writings of the Essenes) and the Gospel of the Twelve, http://www.thenazareneway.com/legend_of_the_lost_gospel.htm , etc. Such is politics. The text starts here: http://www.thenazareneway.com/ght_section_1_lections_1_thru_10.htm
there isn't anything in the Dead Sea Scrolls about Jesus or the gospels. One interpreter thought he'd found a small portion of Mark but last I heard he's the only one who interpreted it that way. None of the gnostic gospels can tell us anything about what the original canical gospels looked like, they're different works completely. What's the Gospel of the Twelve?
I just clicked on the link. this is the first I ever heard of it. If it's true, how cool. An unadulterated first hand version of what he really said. One question though; 12? Shouldn't it be 12 minus Judas Iscariot?
Someone was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot (see Acts). The above says Judas of Iscariot was not an original of the 12. I mentioned the Dead Sea Scrolls because they supposedly date to about AD68, which would have put it around the Fall of Jersualem in AD66 and the Gospel of Mark (AD70?)
There are a cpl of theories that place Mark as early as 40AD, but most scholars agree on about 70 AD. Dude! I have to give you major props on this one; I challenged you to produce an ancient biblical manuscript from the far east--something I thought I already knew to be impossible--and you did it! I had just about given up on trying to come to any conclusions about christianity based on recorded history, for the same reason MrRee made this thread ie, in order to do so we'd have to trust the word of the catholic church (not likely). But if there really is a manuscript that sat out the last 2 millenia tucked away safely out of the reach of the politicians and propagandists . . . .
