7 ms·

So this is just the very begining? Will they be able to decypher whole docs? I guess you wouldn't have written all that otherwise! Anyway, if there's religion

by narag 3y ago

So this is just the very begining? Will they be able to decypher whole docs? I guess you wouldn't have written all that otherwise! Anyway, if there's religion involved, I doubt any revelation will shake anything.

nataliste 3y ago
That's true of zealots, but growing the religion anywhere where literate people are will become exceptionally difficult if the myth of Jesus the Christ turns out to be, say, a cipher of the re-execution of Alexandros I, the son of Herod the Great and Mariamne I, with contemporary first-party proofs untouched by time. Sure, there'll be dinosaurs-are-just-a-test-of-faith types, but the explanation of Christianity as a naturalistic emergence with the "mysteries" of the religion given banal and explicit answers would likely make the revolutions in Biblical criticism in the 19th century (e.g. linguistic analysis revealing multiple authors with narrow dates) look like child's play in comparison. At any time in the last sixteen hundred years, if such evidence were uncovered, it would've been burned immediately and the monastic reading it likely consigned to perpetual silence, lest the word get out. But the hegemony of Christianity in the West is over.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  How does this theory reconcile the existence and growth of Scientology or Mormonism? Or hell, the recent rise of QAnon?
  - nataliste 3y ago
    As far as QAnon goes, this would be like discovering an unsecured laptop that actually belonged to the original Q and had something like IRC channel logs that they used when generating "what won't they believe" type ideas. As for Scientology and Mormonism, they don't have explicitly historical and rational claims to truth like the Catholic Church and some sects of Judaism do. Ask a fervent Catholic or Orthodox Jew why they believe what they do and they'll say "Because it's true." As far as I know (I don't spend significant time with Mormons or Scientologists), they don't make this type of claim to be historically validated by peak reason.
    - lazyasciiart 3y ago
      I know both fervent Catholics who do not feel the historical accuracy of the Bible is what makes their belief in God accurate, and Mormons who believe in the literal historical accuracy of their religion.
    - nyssos 3y ago
      > As far as I know [Mormons] don't make this type of claim to be historically validated by peak reason. Mormons absolutely believe that their religion is backed up by history: the book of Mormon is about and ostensibly by various descendants of Old Testament figures who migrated to the Americas, culminating in the burial of golden tablets with "Reformed Egyptian" writing in upstate New York. It's obviously fiction - but that doesn't seem to make much difference.
- telotortium 3y ago
  What makes you think "myth of Jesus the Christ turns out to be, say, a cipher of the re-execution of Alexandros I, the son of Herod the Great and Mariamne I" is at all likely? I read a theory once that Jesus Christ was a reinterpretation of Julius Caesar that was adopted by Romans after the former imperial cult fell out of favor. That seems farfetched, but more likely than this - at least it provides a better explanation of why Romans cared about Christianity. I'd love to have texts that spoke more about the origins of Christianity and Judaism, but it's far more likely that this trove will contain nothing of the sort - you could imagine a Roman aristocrat in Italy caring about this, but it doesn't seem especially likely.
  - nataliste 3y ago
    >What makes you think "myth of Jesus the Christ turns out to be, say, a cipher of the re-execution of Alexandros I, the son of Herod the Great and Mariamne I" is at all likely? It's not just Nicholas of Damascus that would reveal such information. Gaius Asinius Pollio, a multifaceted Roman figure known for his connections with literary giants like Virgil and Horace as well as Augustus himself, mentored Alexander, the son of Herod the Great. The Roman world in the first century was wide. Anyway, as to why I think it's possible, I think it's the most simple explanation as to how it emerged. According to what we have (i.e. Josephus) Alexander had the support of the public but was disliked by Herod's loyalists due to his opposing qualities and lineage from the Hasmonean dynasty. Herod the Great, notorious for his brutal tactics, killed off male members of the Hasmonean dynasty and married the last Hasmonean princess to solidify his rule. He exhibited suspicion towards his wife Mariamne who was also killed eventually, along with their son Alexander. I posit that Alexander was not actually executed, being a popular favorite and the son of the tyrant who might regret his decision and punish accordingly. Instead, he laid low until Herod's death, aiming to rightfully claim the throne, but was instead executed to maintain Roman rule over Judea with the consent of the Sanhedrin. After the First Roman-Jewish War, continued supporters of Alexander coded secret histories into what became the apocryphal and synoptic gospels. Episodes like the massacre of the innocents coming from the Hasmonean male purge, "Jesus" being found in His Father's temple coming from Alexander visiting the building site of the Second Temple erected by his father, Herod. There are plenty of other episodes that seem to neatly correspond to and dispel underlying "mysteries" in the synoptic gospels for anyone actually looking for them. The survival of works by Asinius Pollio or Nicholas of Damascus in particular in the Herculaneum library could confirm or refute this theory. Their writings, likely popular in aristocratic households due to Nicholas and Gaius Asinius Pollio's favor with the Julians, would very much be pertinent to a Roman aristocrat in 79AD. But I don't need to prove it via circumstantial and inferential evidence--that's why I'm excited. We could actually uncover period documentation by the actual participants rather than the heresay of the following generations living under the shadow of Roman retribution.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  Demographics refutes your last point. “by Constantine's Christianity“ is also an interesting reference, although he was just a politician realizing half of the population had adopted a revolutionizing family structure.
  - nataliste 3y ago
    >Demographics refutes your last point. By all means, please explain.
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/04/07/why-people-with-no-religion-are-projected-to-decline-as-a-share-of-the-worlds-population/#:~:text=These%20projections%2C%20which%20take%20into,roughly%2016%25%20as%20of%202015 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/04/07/why-peopl....
      - nataliste 3y ago
        >These projections, which take into account demographic factors such as fertility, age composition and life expectancy, forecast that people with no religion will make up about 13% of the world’s population in 2060, down from roughly 16% as of 2015. That's certainly a trend, but it's in relative terms, not absolute terms. The study also did not break the demographics down by religion, nor does it represent hegemony. They don't control the government or the educational institutions. Even further, the notion that religiosity in the West will be Christian is unproven. Regardless, the kind of active suppression of contradictory evidence to religious narratives that was historically present from the early middle ages to the early modern period is no longer extant. The Church can put any discovered texts on a Novus Index Librorum Prohibitorum all they want, but that's not going to stop academia or the Internet from mining it. Also, I can speak from personal experience with a traditionalist Catholic father, none of his many kids are Catholic. Having kids doesn't mean successfully keeping them religious.
        3y ago

by narag 3y ago

nataliste 3y ago

That's true of zealots, but growing the religion anywhere where literate people are will become exceptionally difficult if the myth of Jesus the Christ turns out to be, say, a cipher of the re-execution of Alexandros I, the son of Herod the Great and Mariamne I, with contemporary first-party proofs untouched by time. Sure, there'll be dinosaurs-are-just-a-test-of-faith types, but the explanation of Christianity as a naturalistic emergence with the "mysteries" of the religion given banal and explicit answers would likely make the revolutions in Biblical criticism in the 19th century (e.g. linguistic analysis revealing multiple authors with narrow dates) look like child's play in comparison. At any time in the last sixteen hundred years, if such evidence were uncovered, it would've been burned immediately and the monastic reading it likely consigned to perpetual silence, lest the word get out. But the hegemony of Christianity in the West is over.

lazyasciiart 3y ago
How does this theory reconcile the existence and growth of Scientology or Mormonism? Or hell, the recent rise of QAnon?
- nataliste 3y ago
  As far as QAnon goes, this would be like discovering an unsecured laptop that actually belonged to the original Q and had something like IRC channel logs that they used when generating "what won't they believe" type ideas. As for Scientology and Mormonism, they don't have explicitly historical and rational claims to truth like the Catholic Church and some sects of Judaism do. Ask a fervent Catholic or Orthodox Jew why they believe what they do and they'll say "Because it's true." As far as I know (I don't spend significant time with Mormons or Scientologists), they don't make this type of claim to be historically validated by peak reason.
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
    I know both fervent Catholics who do not feel the historical accuracy of the Bible is what makes their belief in God accurate, and Mormons who believe in the literal historical accuracy of their religion.
  - nyssos 3y ago
    > As far as I know [Mormons] don't make this type of claim to be historically validated by peak reason. Mormons absolutely believe that their religion is backed up by history: the book of Mormon is about and ostensibly by various descendants of Old Testament figures who migrated to the Americas, culminating in the burial of golden tablets with "Reformed Egyptian" writing in upstate New York. It's obviously fiction - but that doesn't seem to make much difference.
telotortium 3y ago
What makes you think "myth of Jesus the Christ turns out to be, say, a cipher of the re-execution of Alexandros I, the son of Herod the Great and Mariamne I" is at all likely? I read a theory once that Jesus Christ was a reinterpretation of Julius Caesar that was adopted by Romans after the former imperial cult fell out of favor. That seems farfetched, but more likely than this - at least it provides a better explanation of why Romans cared about Christianity. I'd love to have texts that spoke more about the origins of Christianity and Judaism, but it's far more likely that this trove will contain nothing of the sort - you could imagine a Roman aristocrat in Italy caring about this, but it doesn't seem especially likely.
- nataliste 3y ago
  >What makes you think "myth of Jesus the Christ turns out to be, say, a cipher of the re-execution of Alexandros I, the son of Herod the Great and Mariamne I" is at all likely? It's not just Nicholas of Damascus that would reveal such information. Gaius Asinius Pollio, a multifaceted Roman figure known for his connections with literary giants like Virgil and Horace as well as Augustus himself, mentored Alexander, the son of Herod the Great. The Roman world in the first century was wide. Anyway, as to why I think it's possible, I think it's the most simple explanation as to how it emerged. According to what we have (i.e. Josephus) Alexander had the support of the public but was disliked by Herod's loyalists due to his opposing qualities and lineage from the Hasmonean dynasty. Herod the Great, notorious for his brutal tactics, killed off male members of the Hasmonean dynasty and married the last Hasmonean princess to solidify his rule. He exhibited suspicion towards his wife Mariamne who was also killed eventually, along with their son Alexander. I posit that Alexander was not actually executed, being a popular favorite and the son of the tyrant who might regret his decision and punish accordingly. Instead, he laid low until Herod's death, aiming to rightfully claim the throne, but was instead executed to maintain Roman rule over Judea with the consent of the Sanhedrin. After the First Roman-Jewish War, continued supporters of Alexander coded secret histories into what became the apocryphal and synoptic gospels. Episodes like the massacre of the innocents coming from the Hasmonean male purge, "Jesus" being found in His Father's temple coming from Alexander visiting the building site of the Second Temple erected by his father, Herod. There are plenty of other episodes that seem to neatly correspond to and dispel underlying "mysteries" in the synoptic gospels for anyone actually looking for them. The survival of works by Asinius Pollio or Nicholas of Damascus in particular in the Herculaneum library could confirm or refute this theory. Their writings, likely popular in aristocratic households due to Nicholas and Gaius Asinius Pollio's favor with the Julians, would very much be pertinent to a Roman aristocrat in 79AD. But I don't need to prove it via circumstantial and inferential evidence--that's why I'm excited. We could actually uncover period documentation by the actual participants rather than the heresay of the following generations living under the shadow of Roman retribution.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
Demographics refutes your last point. “by Constantine's Christianity“ is also an interesting reference, although he was just a politician realizing half of the population had adopted a revolutionizing family structure.
- nataliste 3y ago
  >Demographics refutes your last point. By all means, please explain.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/04/07/why-people-with-no-religion-are-projected-to-decline-as-a-share-of-the-worlds-population/#:~:text=These%20projections%2C%20which%20take%20into,roughly%2016%25%20as%20of%202015 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/04/07/why-peopl....
    - nataliste 3y ago
      >These projections, which take into account demographic factors such as fertility, age composition and life expectancy, forecast that people with no religion will make up about 13% of the world’s population in 2060, down from roughly 16% as of 2015. That's certainly a trend, but it's in relative terms, not absolute terms. The study also did not break the demographics down by religion, nor does it represent hegemony. They don't control the government or the educational institutions. Even further, the notion that religiosity in the West will be Christian is unproven. Regardless, the kind of active suppression of contradictory evidence to religious narratives that was historically present from the early middle ages to the early modern period is no longer extant. The Church can put any discovered texts on a Novus Index Librorum Prohibitorum all they want, but that's not going to stop academia or the Internet from mining it. Also, I can speak from personal experience with a traditionalist Catholic father, none of his many kids are Catholic. Having kids doesn't mean successfully keeping them religious.
      - 3y ago