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120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

And you should copy and paste from GMark exactly what is fictional and detail how you know that it is. Thanks.
 
As to what the Arians believed,  Ulfilas includes the Creed of Ulfilas:
I, Ulfila, bishop and confessor, have always so believed, and in this, the one true faith, I make the journey to my Lord; I believe in one God the Father, the only unbegotten and invisible, and in his only-begotten son, our Lord and God, the designer and maker of all creation, having none other like him (so that one alone among all beings is God the Father, who is also the God of our God); and in one Holy Spirit, the illuminating and sanctifying power, as Christ said after his resurrection to his apostles: "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49) and again "But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts 1:8); being neither God (the Father) nor our God (Christ), but the minister of Christ... subject and obedient in all things to the Son; and the Son, subject and obedient in all things to God who is his Father... (whom) he ordained in the Holy Spirit through his Christ.
So they believed in a hierarchy instead of Trinity coequality: Father > Son > Holy Spirit, with the Father having created the Son and the Son having created our Universe.

To many of us, Arianism and Trinitarianism may seem much alike, but to Trinitarian theologians, Arianism was a terrible evil, one that should be stamped out.
 
As to what the Arians believed,  Ulfilas includes the Creed of Ulfilas:
I, Ulfila, bishop and confessor, have always so believed, and in this, the one true faith, I make the journey to my Lord; I believe in one God the Father, the only unbegotten and invisible, and in his only-begotten son, our Lord and God, the designer and maker of all creation, having none other like him (so that one alone among all beings is God the Father, who is also the God of our God); and in one Holy Spirit, the illuminating and sanctifying power, as Christ said after his resurrection to his apostles: "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49) and again "But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts 1:8); being neither God (the Father) nor our God (Christ), but the minister of Christ... subject and obedient in all things to the Son; and the Son, subject and obedient in all things to God who is his Father... (whom) he ordained in the Holy Spirit through his Christ.
So they believed in a hierarchy instead of Trinity coequality: Father > Son > Holy Spirit, with the Father having created the Son and the Son having created our Universe.

To many of us, Arianism and Trinitarianism may seem much alike, but to Trinitarian theologians, Arianism was a terrible evil, one that should be stamped out.
And vice versa. To an Arian, trinitarian theology sounds a lot like the shirk of Islam; dividing up that which should be seen as the inviolable unity of God. Where, in the other direction, trinitarians believed that in denying the equal divinity of Christ, Arians were defying a part of God himself and were in peril of falling outside of his salvific grace. How can you accept into your heart a God whom you reject a major aspect? Houses divided against themselves, etc.

There was an ethnoreligious undercurrent to the whole thing, with some Christians coming from the strictly monotheistic background of 1st c. Judaism, and others coming from the pluralistic intellectual environment of the Greeks. The whole notion of (ineffable) father/(incarnate) son/holy spirit makes more intuitive sense to you if you already believe as did the Greeks that everyone is a composite of mind/body/spirit.
 
You are proving that there were really no early Christian Church bookburnings, with your phony quotes.

If there was really any evidence for the bookburnings, from legitimate sources of the time, you would have quoted from them. You have not quoted from them because they don't exist.



 Book burning
Christian burnings

And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.[2]

Individual Christian converts in 35 or 40 AD, spontaneously burning their books on divination, has little to do with this topic. It has nothing to do with the Church banning pagan or heresy books. The divination books were about incantations and sorcery and dark magic rituals, which gained a bad reputation because they sometimes used dangerous substances and caused injuries to the participants.


After the First Council of Nicea (325 AD), Roman emperor Constantine the Great issued an edict against nontrinitarian Arians which included a prescription for systematic book-burning:

"In addition, if any . . .

No he did not issue any such edict ordering any bookburnings. You're quoting from a modern author only. There is no legitimate source for the quote you're giving here.

And all the allegations farther down (about the early Church, before 1000 or so) are just more propaganda from modern authors only, not based on original sources near the time of the alleged events.



. . . if any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death.
As soon as he is discovered in this offense, he shall be submitted for capital punishment....."[3]


Your source for this is the only place where this quote can be found. There is no source for the entire edict, or decree, by Constantine, or for finding this quote anywhere but at this one page. There is no other reference to it anywhere to confirm that such an edict existed.

I personally am willing to pay a $100 donation to this website if anyone can turn up the Constantine Decree against Arian which contains the above quoted text.

This Website you're citing needs to explain where this Constantine quote came from.

The page in question cites Athanasius, "Defence of the Nicene Definition" 39. This is the only source given for this Decree by Constantine against Arian.

But the Decree, or quote from it, is not there -- your citation claims it's on page 39. You can see below that there is a condemnation of the Arian teachings, but no order to destroy books.

Here is page 39 of this Athanasius document:

Page 39

32. But perhaps being refuted as touching the term Unoriginate also, they will say according to their evil nature, 'It behoved, as regards our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ also, to state from the Scriptures what is there written of Him, and not to introduce non-scriptural expressions.' Yes, it behoved, say I too; for the tokens of truth are more exact as drawn from Scripture, than from other sources [962] ; but the ill disposition and the versatile and crafty irreligion of Eusebius and his fellows, compelled the Bishops, as I said before, to publish more distinctly the terms which overthrew their irreligion; and what the Council did write has already been shewn to have an orthodox sense, while the Arians have been shewn to be corrupt in their phrases, and evil in their dispositions. The term Unoriginate, having its own sense, and admitting of a religious use, they nevertheless, according to their own idea, and as they will, use for the dishonour of the Saviour, all for the sake of contentiously maintaining, like giants [963] , their fight with God. But as they did not escape condemnation when they adduced these former phrases, so when they misconceive of the Unoriginated which in itself admits of being used well and religiously, they were detected, being disgraced before all, and their heresy everywhere proscribed. This then, as I could, have I related, by way of explaining what was formerly done in the Council; but I know that the contentious among Christ's foes will not be disposed to change even after hearing this, but will ever search about for other pretences, and for others again after those. For as the Prophet speaks, 'If the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots [964] ', then will they be willing to think religiously, who have been instructed in irreligion. Thou however, beloved, on receiving this, read it by thyself; and if thou approvest of it, read it also to the brethren who happen to be present, that they too on hearing it, may welcome the Council's zeal for the truth, and the exactness of its sense; and may condemn that of Christ's foes, the Arians, and the futile pretences, which for the sake of their irreligious heresy they have been at the pains to frame among themselves; because to God and the Father is due the glory, honour, and worship with His co-existent Son and Word, together with the All-holy and Life-giving Spirit, now and unto endless ages of ages. Amen.

https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp

The bolded text is the closest to anything in your quote above. There is no other source given for this Constantine Decree against Arian except the above Athanasius document, which presumably referred to the Decree. But it does not.

If there is a real source for this Decree by Constantine, condemning Arianism and ordering his books to be destroyed, then so be it. But the above quote does not have a source from any document that we can check.

Unless there is a real source for it, giving the whole document, like we have for the Athanasius document, https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp , there is no way to verify that this quote is authentic.

E.g., the following gives the complete text of Constantine's Edict of Milan: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/edict-milan.asp

There are several sites giving this Edict, but there doesn't seem to be any giving the Decree against Arian, if there was such a Decree. If so, it doesn't seem to exist now. There is no verification that your above quote is authentic. It claims to be from the Athanasius document, but it is not. It is probably fraudulent, unless there's a real source provided for it. Your cited website does not say where it is taken from, other than falsely attributing it to Athanasius, as though he quotes from it in his document, which he does not.


According to Elaine Pagels, "In AD 367, Athanasius, the zealous bishop of Alexandria... issued an Easter letter in which he demanded that Egyptian monks destroy all such unacceptable writings, except for those he specifically listed as 'acceptable' even 'canonical'—a list that constitutes the present 'New Testament'".[4]


Pagels is lying (about destroying the writings). There is no source for this. You must demand the source, then look it up and read the original document yourself. You cannot trust a modern debunker-crusader to quote it accurately. There is no excuse why your debunker-guru should not give you the original source for you to check. You do not have to trust this kind of modern source only, claiming an earlier source but not providing it.


(Pagels cites Athanasius's Paschal letter (letter 39) for 367 AD, which prescribes a canon but does not explicitly order monks to destroy excluded works.[5][original research?]) Heretical texts do not turn up as palimpsests, scraped clean and overwritten, as do many texts of Classical antiquity. According to author Rebecca Knuth, multitudes of early Christian texts have been as thoroughly "destroyed" as if they had been publicly burnt.[6]
Burning of the Library of Alexandria
Main article: Destruction of the Library of Alexandria

The stories surrounding the loss of the great Library of Alexandria include:

Emperor Aurelian's (270–275 AD) sack of Alexandria in 272 AD, which badly damaged the section of the city which housed part of the library.
Supposedly (but incorrectly) the religious riots aimed against pagan temples and their rituals in 391 AD, sanctioned by decree of Emperor Theodosius I and led by Coptic Pope Theophilus.[7]

"Much of its downfall was gradual, often bureaucratic, and by comparison to our cultural imaginings, somewhat petty."[8] (Compare: El-Abbadi, M. (1990). The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria. Mayenne, France: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, for tales of survival of the collection, in part, into the era of the Caliphate.)
Burning of Nestorian books

Activity by Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444) brought fire to almost all the writings of Nestorius (386-450) shortly after 435.[9]

Nestorius and his doctrine were condemned, but there's no legitimate source for claims that his writings were burned.

The above footnote says nothing to justify anything about bringing "fire" to these or any other writings. It is an extremely long Wall of Text which might have something relevant buried deep in it somewhere, but unless you can find it, there's no basis for citing this as evidence of any Christian bookburnings. It's mostly modern text, not from an ancient source, but it cites something from the 13th century, which is not a good source for 5th-century Church persecution of heretics, even if there is something about it from the 13th century source.

The reliance on non-sources such as this is virtual proof that there is no legitimate evidence for bookburnings by the early Church, up to 1000 AD. Somewhere after 800 or 900 and beyond, some such events began to happen. But there are no cases of anything destroyed which originated in the earlier centuries, near the origin of the Christ cults, and casting any doubt on the Gospel accounts. The bookburnings which finally happened were about heresies or dissident movements arising after 1000 AD, not about the early Church period.


'The writings of Nestorius were originally very numerous',[10] however, they were not part of the Nestorian or Oriental theological curriculum until the mid-sixth century, unlike those of his teacher Theodore of Mopsuestia, and those of Diodorus of Tarsus, even then they were not key texts, so relatively few survive intact, cf. Baum, Wilhelm and Dietmar W. Winkler. 2003. The Church of the East: A Concise History. London: Routledge.
Burning of Arian books

According to the Chronicle of Fredegar, Recared, King of the Visigoths (reigned 586–601) and first Catholic king of Spain, following his conversion to Catholicism in 587, ordered that all Arian books should be collected and burned; and all the books of Arian theology were reduced to ashes, along with the house in which they had been purposely collected.[11][12] Which facts demonstrate that Constantine's edict on Arian works was not rigorously observed, as Arian writings or the theology based on them survived to be burned much later in Spain.

There's no legitimate source given for this. The 2 notes are from a modern author, citing no ancient source, and from Gibbon, who does not say anything about this, though he too is not early enough and would have to give us his earlier source in order for it to be legitimate.


Burning of Jewish manuscripts in 1244

In 1244, as an outcome of the Disputation of Paris, twenty-four carriage loads of Talmuds and other Jewish religious manuscripts were set on fire[by whom?] in the streets of Paris.[13][14]

This and the following is irrelevant because it is past the early Church period. Bookburnings began somewhere during these centuries. No early writings were destroyed which were relevant to the 1st-century events, about the Jesus events, and the origin of the Christ cults and their spread.


Burning of Aztec and Mayan manuscripts in 1560s

During the conquest of the Americas and in the aftermath of the encounter between European and indigenous American civilizations, many books written by indigenous peoples were destroyed. There were many[quantify] books written by the Aztecs in existence at the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatán in the 16th century.[citation needed] However, most were destroyed by the Conquistadors and the Catholic priests, with the exception of the work of the priest Bartolome de la Casas. In particular, many books in Yucatán were ordered destroyed by Bishop Diego de Landa in July 1562. De Landa wrote: "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction." Ironically, most of the books that were destroyed by the Europeans were biased and based upon the Aztec people's version of the history of the region.[citation needed] The Aztecs had previously conquered the area and destroyed many of the Mayan books and documents.[citation needed]

And that's just from a single Wiki article, Lumpy. Spend some time looking into it yourself; as I said, plenty of early Christians actively bragged about how many pagan and heretical books they burned.

That's a lie for which you have no source from the period.


Some bragged about burning people. Do you think for a moment that they'd hesitate to burn anything that didn't reflect their own dogma, whatever that happened to be?

You should also read the Wiki article on the Nag Hammadi library. Those Gnostic manuscripts from the 3rd and 4th centuries were found buried in a sealed jar. Why do you think some priest or monk went to such effort to hide them, if they weren't in grave danger of being seized and destroyed?

Fear that they might be stolen or damaged or destroyed is not evidence that there were organized bookburnings taking place.

You've given no citation here quoting anything from the time of the alleged bookburnings.

Yes, after 1400 or so, there were some Church bookburnings. But none during the first few centuries. You've given nothing above showing any quotes from early when the alleged events happened. Except the one Constantine Decree, which apparently is fraudulent, unless you can show where this Decree is available for us to check.

Instead of compiling a list of examples which are all phony, why don't you give just one, based on writings from the time, showing that any books were destroyed.

All you can offer is the one quote from Acts when some of Paul's converts burned their books on divination. Other than that you have no evidence of such things from the early church period. Those quotes from modern authors are lies, about Athanasius and Constantine ordering books to be burned. You have no sources saying this which are dated from those times.

There are many documents and writings from them, and the Council of Nicea decrees, etc., and the canonical books listed by Athanasius. But there's nothing in all those documents ordering any writings to be destroyed. You've not quoted from any of them. Their writings are available, but you have not read them.

Find them and read them for yourself instead of just quoting from your modern debunker-guru-crusader-fanatics who are lying.

A wiki page is not good enough if it does not quote from the original document and we cannot check the quote to see if it's authentic, i.e., if it does not give you the reference to the relevant quote so you can read it yourself. Virtually all those writings are available online. There's no bookburning stuff in any of the original sources, but only modern church-debunker-pundits pretending to have original sources but not offering us those sources so we can read it firsthand.
 
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When are you going to copy and paste from GMark exactly what is fictional and detail how you know that it is?

Don’t worry, we know you never will, because you can’t. It’s not possible. You know that as well, which is why you’re desperately avoiding it.

So, we know you’re full of shit and you know you’re full of shit, so what’s the point? There, I just gave you an out, so that you can further ignore having to copy and paste anything from GMark. Not that you needed it. You knew you’d just keep ignoring it and wait until someone else posted something you could rail against, etc.

Don’t worry. None of you can ever back up your rhetoric.
 
'Legitimate' - another word Lumpy fails to grasp

If there was really any evidence for the bookburnings, from legitimate sources of the time, you would have quoted from them. You have not quoted from them because they don't exist.





Individual Christian converts in 35 or 40 AD, spontaneously burning their books on divination, has little to do with this topic. It has nothing to do with the Church banning pagan or heresy books. The divination books were about incantations and sorcery and dark magic rituals, which gained a bad reputation because they sometimes used dangerous substances and caused injuries to the participants.


After the First Council of Nicea (325 AD), Roman emperor Constantine the Great issued an edict against nontrinitarian Arians which included a prescription for systematic book-burning:

"In addition, if any . . .

No he did not issue any such edict ordering any bookburnings. You're quoting from a modern author only. There is no legitimate source for the quote you're giving here.

Ah, poor Lumpy...sounds like the garbage you were spewing against the Mormons/Joseph Smith.

This very normative Christian site seems to have no issue with this being real history:
https://www.christianity.com/church...-600/theodosius-issued-an-edict-11629680.html
These laws (Theodosian Codes 16.1.2 and 16.5.6) are significant for many reasons. They mark the first time the legal code coerced people to become Christians. They made orthodox catholic Christianity the official dogma of the church and suppressed the Arian factions. The laws established a pattern which would become more pronounced as Theodosius' reign progressed of using the apparatus of the state to suppress diversity of religious opinion.

Sourcing for that Wiki link:
http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.php/urkunde-33

Background on the Theodosian Code:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people...te-roman-and-byzantine-biographies/theodosius
The text of the Theodosian Code can be found in Theodosiani Libri XVI, 3 vols. in 2, edited by Theodor Mommsen and Paul M. Meyer (Berlin, 1905), and translated into English by Clyde Pharr, in The Theodosian Code (Princeton, N.J., 1952). See also Jill Harries and Ian Wood, eds., The Theodosian Code (Ithaca, N.Y., 1993), and John F. Matthews, Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code (New Haven, Conn., 2000). On the Emperor himself, Adolf Lippold's Theodosius der Grosse, und seine Zeit, 2d ed., enl. (Munich, 1980), is a thoroughly researched study of most aspects of Theodosius's policies. See also Wilhelm Ensslin, Die Religionspolitik des Kaisers Theodosius d. Gr (Munich, 1953), and Stephen Williams and Gerrard Friell, Theodosius: The Empire at Bay (New Haven, Conn., 1995).

A review of the history of the Theodosian Code:
https://journals.openedition.org/mefra/1754

A more significant available translation of the Theodosian Code:
http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/Theodosian-Code.html
 
Your examples are evidence that there were no early Church bookburnings.

You desperately want there to be documented cases of early Church bookburnings, but you can't give us one example. Which is good evidence that they don't exist.


If there was really any evidence for the bookburnings, from legitimate sources of the time, you would have quoted from them. You have not quoted from them because they don't exist.


Individual Christian converts in 35 or 40 AD, spontaneously burning their books on divination, has little to do with this topic. It has nothing to do with the Church banning pagan or heresy books. The divination books were about incantations and sorcery and dark magic rituals, which gained a bad reputation because they sometimes used dangerous substances and caused injuries to the participants.


No he did not issue any such edict ordering any bookburnings. You're quoting from a modern author only. There is no legitimate source for the quote you're giving here.
Ah, poor Lumpy...sounds like the garbage you were spewing against the Mormons/Joseph Smith.

This very normative Christian site seems to have no issue with this being real history:
https://www.christianity.com/church...-600/theodosius-issued-an-edict-11629680.html
These laws (Theodosian Codes 16.1.2 and 16.5.6) are significant for many reasons. They mark the first time the legal code coerced people to become Christians. They made orthodox catholic Christianity the official dogma of the church and suppressed the Arian factions. The laws established a pattern which would become more pronounced as Theodosius' reign progressed of using the apparatus of the state to suppress diversity of religious opinion.

Nothing here or below indicates that Theodosius ordered any bookburnings, or books to be destroyed, or libraries burned.

The first link below is just a repeat of the site already given, which contains the fraudulent Constantine quote, claiming Athanasius p. 39 as a source for it. But the entire Athanasius document is available and does not contain the dubious quote or Constantine Decree against Arianism.


Sourcing for that Wiki link:
http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.php/urkunde-33

Background on the Theodosian Code:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people...te-roman-and-byzantine-biographies/theodosius
The text of the Theodosian Code can be found in Theodosiani Libri XVI, 3 vols. in 2, edited by Theodor Mommsen and Paul M. Meyer (Berlin, 1905), and translated into English by Clyde Pharr, in The Theodosian Code (Princeton, N.J., 1952). See also Jill Harries and Ian Wood, eds., The Theodosian Code (Ithaca, N.Y., 1993), and John F. Matthews, Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code (New Haven, Conn., 2000). On the Emperor himself, Adolf Lippold's Theodosius der Grosse, und seine Zeit, 2d ed., enl. (Munich, 1980), is a thoroughly researched study of most aspects of Theodosius's policies. See also Wilhelm Ensslin, Die Religionspolitik des Kaisers Theodosius d. Gr (Munich, 1953), and Stephen Williams and Gerrard Friell, Theodosius: The Empire at Bay (New Haven, Conn., 1995).

A review of the history of the Theodosian Code:
https://journals.openedition.org/mefra/1754

A more significant available translation of the Theodosian Code:
http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/Theodosian-Code.html

The last link above is very good. It prescribes harsh punishment of those disobeying the Theodosius order, and harsh suppression and banning of meetings. But no books to be destroyed -- nada -- zilch.

You're proving my point. You're not giving any quotes about bookburnings, because they don't exist. All there is are modern quotes from debunker-guru-pundits who give Jobar and others talking points, without documentation from early sources which could verify them.

We all know there was the persecution of heretics, etc. But there were no bookburnings ordered. There's no evidence from the period saying this.

If any of the above contained statements ordering bookburnings, you would quote it for us. Or if you found any statements from the time that the Church burned books, you would quote it. If you find anything, post it here for us, like Jobar above posted his false quotes. Only quote us something from a document that exists, written near the time of the events, which we can check for ourselves to verify that the quote is not fraudulent.

Again, the only Church bookburning for which there is any evidence was a library at Antioch in about 360, when a mob went wild. They were attacking a pagan temple, in which a library had recently been added, and some Greek philosophy writings were probably lost. It was not the library, but the temple which was targeted. The Christian emperor Jovian did not order the temple to be burned, but the original source from this, with some credibility, is ambiguous about the details of what happened.

The Church destroyed many pagan temples and statues and persecuted heretics. But there are no documented cases of libraries or books targeted by them, or bookburnings ordered.
 
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351px-Constantine_burning_Arian_books.jpg

"Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. The burning of Arian books is illustrated below. Drawing on vellum. From MS CLXV, Biblioteca Capitolare, Vercelli, a compendium of canon law produced in northern Italy ca. 825."
 
 Library of Antioch
The Royal Library of Antioch was destroyed in 363 AD by the Christian Emperor Jovian, who "at the urging of his wife, burned the temple with all the books in it with his concubines laughing and setting the fire", which greatly displeased the citizens of the city as they could only watch angrily as the collection went up in smoke. Johannes Hahn in his work Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt (pp. 178–180) relates:

"Jovian ordered the destruction of the Traianeum, which Julian had converted to a library, because he wanted to gain the favor of the Antiochians. However, he failed completely: not only the pagans but also the Christians interpreted this as a barbaric act."[3]

The Royal Library of Antioch had been heavily stocked with "unholy" pagan literature by the aid of his non-Christian predecessor, Emperor Julian. This collection also included the pagan works of the library of George, Arian Bishop of Alexandria, hated by Christians and pagans alike, who was murdered by an Alexandrian pagan mob in 361.[4] The Emperor Julian then procured his library—replete with many classical texts—and added them to the library of Antioch.
 
And you should copy and paste from GMark exactly what is fictional and detail how you know that it is. Thanks.
 
View attachment 17665

"Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. The burning of Arian books is illustrated below. Drawing on vellum. From MS CLXV, Biblioteca Capitolare, Vercelli, a compendium of canon law produced in northern Italy ca. 825."

Your text above is modern, not from any early source.

This is a slight improvement over before. It looks like you're now admitting that the earlier Constantine Decree you quoted from the web page was fraudulent.

The above picture of Constantine, said to be from 825 AD, has Latin text which says nothing about bookburning. The translation given is:

"[of?] the synod of Nicaea [where the] number / of holy fathers [was] 318 [.] and all / subscribed."
"Constantine the emperor."
"Arian heretics condemned."

Not Arian books burned, but only the heretics condemned. We have to rely on the picture image, not the text, for the bookburning description.

Here's an interesting note from the publishers of this image:

This file contains additional information such as Exif metadata which may have been added by the digital camera, scanner, or software program used to create or digitize it. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details such as the timestamp may not fully reflect those of the original file. The timestamp is only as accurate as the clock in the camera, and it may be completely wrong.

This suggests that the original image could get modified. How do we know that this image is the original one discovered and has not been tampered with or photo-shopped?

All the websites about this image are statements about reproduction rights, and about it being in the public domain. There's no explanation where the date c. 825 comes from.

When was this artwork first discovered? Who dated it? Nothing is explained. Who are the art scholars who examined it and determined the date?

If it's all totally authentic, and it dates from 825, it increases the chance that Constantine burned books, although the 500-year time lapse decreases the credibility of this claim. We should have something earlier than that.

There is plenty of earlier evidence of him ordering temples and statues destroyed, of him and Athanasius condemning Arius and his works, etc. Nothing secret about that. So why nothing about bookburning other than an art piece 500 years later which shows bookburning (maybe?) but says nothing about this in the text?

This is not good evidence that there were bookburnings back in 300-400. If it can be authenticated, and if there are any other items like this, preferably 200-300 years earlier, you'd have a case. And the case is still weak as long as there is no early text anywhere saying Constantine or Theodosius ordered the destruction of books.


What's the point, even if there were evidence of bookburnings?

There is another major problem with claims that Constantine and Theodosius burned books. Which is that the only books they targeted were ones which themselves were Christian and which promoted the early Christ beliefs based on the Gospel accounts. E.g., Arius was a total believer in the miracles of Jesus we find in the Gospel accounts, and he is by far the most condemned of the heretics during these centuries.

There were no books or heresies condemned which gave any alternate gospels or which contradicted the Gospel accounts of the Jesus events. They were all condemned because of their incorrect INTERPRETATION of those events, not any denial of them, as if they promoted a different alternate "gospel" of some kind which had to be suppressed for contradicting the Gospel accounts.

So the persecution of heresies, and possible suppression of their writings, doesn't mean any evidence has been lost which would undermine the "good news" events we find in the Gospel accounts, the miracle claims, the resurrection, etc. All those events are confirmed, or are accepted as given, by all the heretical doctrines which were circulating and possibly being suppressed. Including those in any literature which might have been destroyed. So, all that was destroyed, if anything, was just further evidence supporting the Jesus events in the Gospel accounts.

So, what are you on a crusade for, with your clamor about bookburnings? Are you passionately making the case that our evidence for the miracles of Jesus is even greater than we thought, because there was so much corroborating evidence for it that got destroyed?
 
This suggests that the original image could get modified. How do we know that this image is the original one discovered and has not been tampered with or photo-shopped?

Holy motherfucking shit, did you say that with a straight face, Lumpy?

You invented any entire method of literary analysis so you could insist that your favorite miracles were orally transmitted faithfully hy uninterested bystanders, until they were precisely recorded by unnamed authors at a time we can only guess at for reasons you can only pretend to know.

And you're critical of the authenticity of evidence that disputes things you have stated as indisputable facts...

That's just so precious, Lumpy. Wonderfully in character, gf course.

But you should copy and paste from GMark exactly what is fictional and detail how you know that it is. When you have time
 
You desperately want there to be documented cases of early Church bookburnings, but you can't give us one example. Which is good evidence that they don't exist.


Ah, poor Lumpy...sounds like the garbage you were spewing against the Mormons/Joseph Smith.

This very normative Christian site seems to have no issue with this being real history:
https://www.christianity.com/church...-600/theodosius-issued-an-edict-11629680.html

Nothing here or below indicates that Theodosius ordered any bookburnings, or books to be destroyed, or libraries burned.

The first link below is just a repeat of the site already given, which contains the fraudulent Constantine quote, claiming Athanasius p. 39 as a source for it. But the entire Athanasius document is available and does not contain the dubious quote or Constantine Decree against Arianism.

The Wiki link for 16.5.6 takes you back to this quote, with another source for the same information:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110819215807/http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.php/urkunde-33
In addition, if any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. As soon as he is discovered in this offense, he shall be submitted for capital punishment.

Just like you made vacuous claims against Joseph Smith and his 'miracle' stories, you now wave your hands around saying its 'dubious' and 'fraudulent' without anything to back it up with. The Chrisitanity.com website trusts this as reasonably historical. Universities publish references to it as part of history, but Lumpy knows best...its dubious because it violates the MHORC...:hysterical:

Lumpy style:
<HINT: If it is fraudulent, give me some argument besides your waving hands>

From the link I already provided regarding the history of the manuscripts:
https://journals.openedition.org/mefra/1754?lang=enLes
Although no intact manuscript of the whole Code survives (the structure of the first five books resting largely on the evidence of Alaric’s later Breviary and their titles repopulated from that source and the Justinian Code), the c. 2,700 entries that remain are estimated to comprise about three quarters of the original extent (c. 3,500 entries) and can, therefore, reasonably be taken to offer a representative picture of the chronological and geographical distribution of the complete collection.46 Using figures derived from the palingenesia provided by Tony Honoré,47 it is clear that for the period since the death of Theodosius the researchers employed by the Theodosian commission were able to provide as much, if not more, historic material from western sources than from eastern. The ratio for the period AD 395 to 428 is roughly 5: 4 (west: east).48 The balance only changes in the period from the initiation of the project (AD 429) to the launch of the Code itself (AD 437), in which the east accounts for forty-three texts, the west only twelve. However, when allowance is given for the fact that the western material ceases as early as AD 432, the real rates of collection are not as divergent as these figures suggest.49 In the same three-year period (429-432) the compilers drew on fifteen eastern laws, which, when compared to the twelve western, represents a reversal of the ratio for 395-428 of 5: 4 (east: west).

A source referencing one of the earliest copies from the 6th century:
http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=2835
The Breviarum AlariciOffsite Link (Breviary of AlaricOffsite Link, Breviarium Alaricianum or Lex Romana Visigothorum), written in southern France in the sixth century, is one of the earliest surviving manuscript codices of Roman law. The text was compiled by order of Alaric IIOffsite Link, King of the VisigothsOffsite Link, with the advice of his bishops and nobles, in 506, the twenty-second year of his reign.
 
And you should copy and paste from GMark exactly what is fictional and detail how you know that it is. Thanks.
 
Bible scholars routinely categorise parts of the text as either historical or ahistorical - probably did happen / probably didn't happen. The Lumpmeister, Mr LumPro, Lumpy was (generously) conceding that it's not unreasonable, from a scholarly point of view, to do this.

He wasn't volunteering or putting himself forward as a candidate willing to dissect GMark into absolutely true or absolutely false and post it here along with incontrovertible supporting evidence.

Why should he? He doesn't claim to have incontrovertible evidence. He isn't a devotee of the historical critical method is he?

And he didn't actually say there must be some falsehoods, so don't grill him for examples of something he couldnt find in any case.

All he basically said was...if a bible skeptic proposed that one specific part of the Gospel was believed to be historically false, then he isnt automatically dismissing that out of hand in the way a bible inerrantist (like me) would.
 
So do you believe that Genesis is a literal description of Creation, history as it is said to have happened, or a metaphor used for the purpose of teaching the virtue of obedience?
 
Bible scholars routinely categorise parts of the text as either historical or ahistorical - probably did happen / probably didn't happen. The Lumpmeister, Mr LumPro, Lumpy was (generously) conceding that it's not unreasonable, from a scholarly point of view, to do this.

He wasn't volunteering or putting himself forward as a candidate willing to dissect GMark into absolutely true or absolutely false and post it here along with incontrovertible supporting evidence.

Why should he? He doesn't claim to have incontrovertible evidence. He isn't a devotee of the historical critical method is he?

And he didn't actually say there must be some falsehoods, so don't grill him for examples of something he couldnt find in any case.

All he basically said was...if a bible skeptic proposed that one specific part of the Gospel was believed to be historically false, then he isnt automatically dismissing that out of hand in the way a bible inerrantist (like me) would.

How the fuck do you know?

Unless you're his sock puppet, you are in no position to make any such claims.
 
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