The Possible Conspiracy of Appolonius the Nazarene of Tyana

Logarock

Shiloh7
reply to post by adjensen

 

However its the opposite for Jesus. He had a poor upbringing and being a carpenter's son was unlikely to have been educated. It is never reported that he wrote any down and we know the desciples mostly uneducated men who relied on charity to survive. We also know he is reputed to have taught in the Synagogue but, unless he was a married Rabbi, he could not have done so according to Jewish Law and he would have been arrested by the Temple police. Much of what we are told, simply doesn't make sense. A man who gives the Sermon on the Mount to huge crowds and feeds them from a couple of little baskets would have been the talk of the whole of Israel. Even his crucifixion is not recorded in Roman documents.

He was the talk of the whole of Israel. The people tried to set Him up as King. Several attempts to arrest Him were made but His popular following was so large that the authorities were afraid of the people. Clearing the Temple of the money changers was no small crime in the minds of those gaining from it and yet even after this event they were afraid to arrest Him. He openly taught in the temple for awhile.....which was simply unheard of and a cause of extreme consternation to the religious order and civil authorities. He and His followers took over the Temple area which may require some effort to warp the mind around just how badly this upset the Temple priests and Pharisees. It was outrageous. It was along the lies of Occupy Wall Street actually taking over the stock exchange.

edit on 31-1-2014 by Logarock because: n

And given all that fanfare and notoriety and treason against Roman rule [sic] one would think that every contemporary historian would have written volumes about Yeshua bin Miriam, yet, none of them did. Not one.

Isn't that curious?

Meanwhile, there were several contemporaneous reports of Apollonius's life. (CITATIONS) Yet, he is virtually unknown.

Curiouser and curiouser.

What do you think the explanation is for those facts?

reply to post by Gryphon66

Curiouser and curiouser.

Only for you. Christ was born to a Carpenter. Apollonius to affluence.
Christ worked with his father and and had to seek knowledge.
Apollonius was educated. Christ rejected the Kingship the people
were convinced was his right. Apollonius most likely as a fan of Christ
sought to gain Kingship, as he mimicked. Apollonius was nothing more
than a Robert Ford. And I believe one day, you will bend your knee of
your own free will. And it won't be to Apollonius.

reply to post by randyvs


You don't speak for anyone but yourself randyvs. So, when you try to "put me in my place" by saying things like "only for you" why don't you just say something along the lines of "I think you're a pain in the behind, Gryph" instead of implying that you speak from some authoritative position? That's your opinion.

So now Apollonius is not just "a bum in a suit" now but an educated guy? It looks like you may have been reading actual materials! What did you read, which source, did you find something new that we haven't discussed, etc. etc.??

You see, as opposed to the hateful person you apparently have decided I am, I not only enjoy lively debate but I enjoy learning new things. Last week, despite studying in the period 1st-4th centuries for years, I had NEVER encountered Apollonius or his story. That surprises me. Why *isn't* the story more well known?

But, I think you may have missed something back there. I'm not in the Apollonius camp. I think he's probably about as fictional as Jesus. A few more contemporary sources, but, for someone who supposedly rubbed elbows with Vespasian and Domitian ... there's just not much about him. So, my guess is, he's mostly "made up" although, allowances must be made that there may be a kernel of truth there somewhere. I do not believe he faught vampires, demons and satyrs with the power of his philosophy, though. Your apparent argument that you think I'm holding up Apo over Jesu is flawed; they're both made up as far as I can tell.

BUT GIVEN THAT (and this always seems to be something that some Christians miss) it's still interesting to discuss Apollonius AND Jesus for that matter. Jesus is your Lord and Savior and the Incarnation of the Triune God. Great! To me, Jesus is simply NOT that, but that doesn't take anything away from your belief. Why is a simple difference of opinion so threatening?

Answer that one for me, oh wise Pharaoh.

EDIT: Jesus is Jesse James? LOL. I guess I missed the part about his totin' a six shooter. Although, why not? It's just as reasonable as the rest of the mythology.

Gryphon66

Logarock

Shiloh7
reply to post by adjensen

 

However its the opposite for Jesus. He had a poor upbringing and being a carpenter's son was unlikely to have been educated. It is never reported that he wrote any down and we know the desciples mostly uneducated men who relied on charity to survive. We also know he is reputed to have taught in the Synagogue but, unless he was a married Rabbi, he could not have done so according to Jewish Law and he would have been arrested by the Temple police. Much of what we are told, simply doesn't make sense. A man who gives the Sermon on the Mount to huge crowds and feeds them from a couple of little baskets would have been the talk of the whole of Israel. Even his crucifixion is not recorded in Roman documents.

He was the talk of the whole of Israel. The people tried to set Him up as King. Several attempts to arrest Him were made but His popular following was so large that the authorities were afraid of the people. Clearing the Temple of the money changers was no small crime in the minds of those gaining from it and yet even after this event they were afraid to arrest Him. He openly taught in the temple for awhile.....which was simply unheard of and a cause of extreme consternation to the religious order and civil authorities. He and His followers took over the Temple area which may require some effort to warp the mind around just how badly this upset the Temple priests and Pharisees. It was outrageous. It was along the lies of Occupy Wall Street actually taking over the stock exchange.

edit on 31-1-2014 by Logarock because: n

And given all that fanfare and notoriety and treason against Roman rule [sic] one would think that every contemporary historian would have written volumes about Yeshua bin Miriam, yet, none of them did. Not one.

Isn't that curious?

Meanwhile, there were several contemporaneous reports of Apollonius's life. (CITATIONS) Yet, he is virtually unknown.

Curiouser and curiouser.

What do you think the explanation is for those facts?

edit on 11Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:31:12 -060014p112014166 by Gryphon66 because: Thought a citation of claim was needed.

The Romans had no fear of Him and knew well all about Him. In fact He was good friends with some a high ranking Roman soldier, the commander of the garrison. The Romans didn't get involved with Jewish religious affairs even allowing the Jews to keep their own temple guards. Jesus never challenges the Romans in any way.

And no I don't find it curious at all that none of the "contemporary historians" of His era wrote nothing about Him. Considering the lengths the Jews effort to cover the whole thing up, even going so far as to pay off the guards at the tomb, they probably expunged any reference to Jesus that may have been known to exist in the decades following His crucifixion.

Gryphon66

Logarock

Gryphon66
reply to post by randyvs

 

And lo! Thus are revealed the universal cop-outs for a believer faced with facts. "You're dumb. You're mean. You're stinky."

I have no hate friend, not for you, for religion nor for Jesus. I don't know you, religion is mere fantasy, and Jesus is a fictional character. Why would I hate any of that? Well, I might hate the insane effects and violence of religion ...

(Actually, I would have liked Jesus, had he really existed. He hung out with sinners, eating and drinking with them, talked about love, and promised a better life for everyone, etc. Nothing like his followers.)

You may not believe this or maybe don't want to, but when some of us saw and read the OP in this thread we knew it was just a matter of time before it devolved into what you have just demonstrated.

For all the effort I have never read anything on ATS that has demonstrated that Jesus was a fictional character. Oh great attempts have been made but none of them come close to even meeting the academic requirements of proof. Simple postulations parading around as academic work that when frustrated turn in to ad hoc slinging of unsupportable speculation.

I really don't understand what you're on about, or what your post has to do with Apollonius ... or what my post in response to another member has to do with you, for that matter. What I just "demonstrated" was a response to a personal accusation, in the public forum, of something I wasn't doing. It's very nearly an impolite attack to call someone else's postings HATE FILLED when they certainly are not.

If you disagree with my opinion of Jesus, so be it! You have a right to your opinion, and I have a right to mine. At least I own it as MY OPINION as opposed to some, apparently yourself included as well as randyvs, who can't view contrasting opinions without going ballistic or casting off insults. The reality of Jesus is a direct component of this thread of discussion, so it doesn't exactly take prophetic powers to see that the issue would reasonably come up in this discussion. This is Conspiracies in Religion and there is no requirement to accept the reality of the Judeo-Christian God as a "given" here.

Surely, your faith is not so fragile as to be challenged when people simply don't believe as you do. That's all that was happening in my post.

~~~~~~~~~

And again, let's try to get back on track with Apollonius! As I mentioned earlier, I've found references to several other "miracle-men" of the first century with the same name. What have you folks found? Is anyone else seriously pursuing the subject of the thread, or am I just barking up the tree?

This is what I am talking about and maybe the site owner. You are piling on. I didn't say anything to rate this rant.

I think folks get frustrated and want to pull their hair out when the "brainwashed sheep" don't gulp down stuff like this Apollonius and then get accused of having weak faith. Man what a tired old song and dance.

Logarock
*snip*


This is what I am talking about and maybe the site owner. You are piling on. I didn't say anything to rate this rant.

I think folks get frustrated and want to pull their hair out when the "brainwashed sheep" don't gulp down stuff like this Apollonius and then get accused of having weak faith. Man what a tired old song and dance.

What? What does the site owner have to do with what we're talking about. Why is any statement that's not Jesus-praising categorized as rants, hate-speech, attacks, etc??? What in the world are you talking about? How am I "piling on"??? I have been participating in this conversation since the beginning. If anyone could be said to be "piling on" its YOU. You came into a thread made NO ON-TOPIC contribution at all, and started trying to school me for some reason. But, I'm not a victim. I dont' see a participant in a conversation as a threat ...

... why do you?

No one's asking anyone to GULP anything down! We're having a discussion. That's what the site is for. The person who STARTED the thread seems to be a Christian and stated IN THE OP that they didn't accept the implications of the conspiracy. Didn't you read that? Or did you just chase one of your buddies to the thread and start defending Christian honor?

It doesn't need defending! We're discussing alternate viewpoints. This is not evangelizing.

What do you mean?

reply to post by Gryphon66

Answer that one for me, oh wise Pharaoh.

I'll be damned, you're actually gonna light'n up a lil bit.

But I am certainly not threatened and I'm sure you know,
Jesse James was really Jesus Christ.

randyvs
reply to post by Gryphon66

 

Answer that one for me, oh wise Pharaoh.

I'll be damned, you're actually gonna light'n up a lil bit.

But I am certainly not threatened and I'm sure you know,
Jesse James was really Jesus Christ.

Ha. Good one.

Now, if you're not threatened why do you retreat into claims that have nothing to do with the topic but instead address the other poster's way of speaking, making personal little insinuations that border on bad manners, ... why is it always a "defense of the Faith" instead of just a discussion. You believe in Jesus; I don't. I know that you think that makes you right and me wrong, but it doesn't. Jesus is a point of the conversation, as is Apollonius. Different views are what we're here to discuss.

Right?

reply to post by Gryphon66

Jesus is a point of the conversation, as is Apollonius. Different views are what we're here to discuss.

I don't see that we haven't done that!
Til next time Gryph.

/sigh Okay randyvs. Best.

So, here's my summary thus far of what I've learned.

Apollonius is one of several legendary miracle-workers from the first century CE. There are several different references to him, including statuary, several texts, and an "eye witness" account from one of his students. I have not yet been able to verify many of the claims made in Dr. Bernard's polemic ... specifically that there were temples built in Ap's honor across the Empire.

Based on this evidence, to my mind, Apollonius is a character not to be taken literally or objectively.

However, I must also say that while I do not believe that the Constantine's Council of Nicea "invented" Jesus Christ ... there's a really decent argument to be made that the Orthodox Religion that came out of the deliberations of the council is what formed the basis for the Roman Church and the Eastern Church and subsequently all variations of Christianity. I think that would make an interesting "conspiracy" topic, IF AND ONLY IF we could all deal with the information reasonably and leave our egos and bias at the "door."

I'll be watching the thread for any new on-topic developments. Thanks to everyone who participated; I've learned.

Gryphon66

Logarock
*snip*


This is what I am talking about and maybe the site owner. You are piling on. I didn't say anything to rate this rant.

I think folks get frustrated and want to pull their hair out when the "brainwashed sheep" don't gulp down stuff like this Apollonius and then get accused of having weak faith. Man what a tired old song and dance.

What? What does the site owner have to do with what we're talking about. Why is any statement that's not Jesus-praising categorized as rants, hate-speech, attacks, etc??? What in the world are you talking about? How am I "piling on"??? I have been participating in this conversation since the beginning. If anyone could be said to be "piling on" its YOU. You came into a thread made NO ON-TOPIC contribution at all, and started trying to school me for some reason. But, I'm not a victim. I dont' see a participant in a conversation as a threat ...

... why do you?

It very clear to anyone that reads back a few posts. You made some comments, I answered them and you just knee jerk all over the place.

I consider ignorant and uniformed postulations about Jesus, simply from an historical or even academic point, to be attacks if only the injury of the uninformed.

Gryphon66


However, I must also say that while I do not believe that the Constantine's Council of Nicea "invented" Jesus Christ ... there's a really decent argument to be made that the Orthodox Religion that came out of the deliberations of the council is what formed the basis for the Roman Church and the Eastern Church and subsequently all variations of Christianity. I think that would make an interesting "conspiracy" topic, IF AND ONLY IF we could all deal with the information reasonably and leave our egos and bias at the "door."

Ok so the Nicea Council didn't invent Jesus but influenced the basis of all variations of Christianity. Fine. Then none of the subsequent results of the council has anything to do with the historic record of the early church and the life of Jesus written well before the council. By that I simply mean that anyone can pick up Acts, Mathew, Mark, Paul and read it for themselves, take off the orthodox or otherwise glasses and read what it says for themselves. And you can thank anti orthodox people for that many who were burned at the stake or were killed otherwise. Any scriptures not included as official works are also available for viewing.

Logarock

Gryphon66

Logarock
*snip*


This is what I am talking about and maybe the site owner. You are piling on. I didn't say anything to rate this rant.

I think folks get frustrated and want to pull their hair out when the "brainwashed sheep" don't gulp down stuff like this Apollonius and then get accused of having weak faith. Man what a tired old song and dance.

What? What does the site owner have to do with what we're talking about. Why is any statement that's not Jesus-praising categorized as rants, hate-speech, attacks, etc??? What in the world are you talking about? How am I "piling on"??? I have been participating in this conversation since the beginning. If anyone could be said to be "piling on" its YOU. You came into a thread made NO ON-TOPIC contribution at all, and started trying to school me for some reason. But, I'm not a victim. I dont' see a participant in a conversation as a threat ...

... why do you?

It very clear to anyone that reads back a few posts. You made some comments, I answered them and you just knee jerk all over the place.

I consider ignorant and uniformed postulations about Jesus, simply from an historical or even academic point, to be attacks if only the injury of the uninformed.

You don't speak for everyone or anyone but yourself. You didn't answer anything put to you, and your posts merely weaseled around saying nothing of substance to either my claims, anyone else's claims or the topic of the thread. You only whined that you were being attacked, and when you are called on your self-victimizing, you passively aggressively attack again. No one here has said anything "uninformed" about Jesus, and no one commenting previously is ignorant. That's insulting on your part and shows exceptionally poor manners to barge into a thread, contribute nothing and start pushing things off topic with your egotistical posturing.

When someone disagrees with your opinion, you either accept it or offer evidence to the contrary. Babbling about the ignorance of others only calls into question your own.

Now, with all due respect, do you have anything to contribute about Apollonius, the listed articles, or the claims made heretofore?

reply to post by Gryphon66


I may. But just stand ready if you make anymore freshman sort of inaccurate comments or conclusions that just show you don't understand or don't want to include a wider information set that I will correct you or at least add the information.

Logarock

Gryphon66


However, I must also say that while I do not believe that the Constantine's Council of Nicea "invented" Jesus Christ ... there's a really decent argument to be made that the Orthodox Religion that came out of the deliberations of the council is what formed the basis for the Roman Church and the Eastern Church and subsequently all variations of Christianity. I think that would make an interesting "conspiracy" topic, IF AND ONLY IF we could all deal with the information reasonably and leave our egos and bias at the "door."

Ok so the Nicea Council didn't invent Jesus but influenced the basis of all variations of Christianity. Fine. Then none of the subsequent results of the council has anything to do with the historic record of the early church and the life of Jesus written well before the council. By that I simply mean that anyone can pick up Acts, Mathew, Mark, Paul and read it for themselves, take off the orthodox or otherwise glasses and read what it says for themselves. And you can thank anti orthodox people for that many who were burned at the stake or were killed otherwise. Any scriptures not included as official works are also available for viewing.

You can't use the Biblical texts to prove the validity of the Biblical texts. We ignorant and uniformed folk call that tautology. There have been plenty of proven forgeries in the "historic record of the early church" (See Bart Ehrman's fine article Here) to make any of the scraps of physical evidence suspect. Most manuscripts date to Fourth Century and later, which dovetails precisely with the Nicea thesis.

Do you have evidence to consider, or shall we agree that it is a matter of the facts versus your unsupported beliefs and leave it at that?

Logarock
reply to post by Gryphon66

 

I may. But just stand ready if you make anymore freshman sort of inaccurate comments or conclusions that just show you don't understand or don't want to include a wider information set that I will correct you or at least add the information.

You haven't posted anything to date here that isn't mere pomposity, and have demonstrated nothing that suggests your posts have the ability to correct even your own evident misunderstandings much less anything anyone here has written. Feel free to add factual information, but please, for the sake of thread drift, spare us your re-warmed unsupported statements of belief. Address the topic or our claims. Like for example the links we provided earlier in the thread. Did you read from the beginning, or did you just jump right in and start "correcting" what you inaccurately perceive as error due to your lack of understanding of what has been said here?

FlyersFan
Appolonius the Nazarene of Tyana. Never heard of him? You aren't alone. Not many people have.
Here is the ALLEGED story of Appolonius the Nazarene of Tyana.
If the story is true, it's the biggest conspiracy ever perp'd on humanity.

The alleged conspiracy -
Appolonius was born at the same time as Christ. Miracles were attributed to him during his lifetime.
"Jesus" was invented to CONTROL the people by a corrupt Constantine.
"Jesus" was invented and the Appolonius story suppressed in order to destroy the Essenes.
And "Jesus" was invented as a distraction for the people away from Appolonius.
The real 'great teacher' was Appolonius ... and the Jesus story incorporates parts of Appolonius' life teachings.
Appolonius was a social reformer and hero of revolution against despots.
The books telling of the life of Appolonius were (allegedly) suppressed and destroyed.

"Life of Apollonius of Tyana," written by Flavius Philostratus at the beginning of the third century A.D. is available via Amazon here . I'm not advertising it or trying to sell it, I'm showing that there is indeed a book that was written about Appolonius 1700 years ago. That doesn't mean the man was real, but it does mean the story was around waaaay back then ...

On its face it sounds like a conspiracy to distract from Christ. And it was written several hundred years after Jesus. And it is said to be a commissioned work of historical fiction.

Novel and biography are joined in this literary work with a historical core. Philostratus' life of the first century mystic from Tyana was written at the request of the empress Julia Domna. It portrays a man with supernatural powers, a Pythagorean who predicts the future, cures the sick, raises the dead, and himself prevails over death, ascending to heaven and later appearing to disciples to prove his immortality.

Here


One must ask why Julia wanted this work written. Its about as questionable as someone rewriting the life of George Washington, adding some fiction and giving him another name.

You come to the same conclusions I think most of us have reached as we reviewed the material. That's one reason I wanted you to at least go back and review what we'd said.

I have to disagree about the material being written "several hundred years after Jesus" per se. The testimony of Apollonius' disciple dates approximately to the time of the gospels (late first, early second century).

Apollonius was one of many "miracle-men" of the period. Most of what is written about him is fictional or at best, professional rhetoric. There is just quite simply a severe scarcity of physical evidence available on these types of figures.

reply to post by Gryphon66


Why Apollonius is of particular interest is to do with his teachings and the fact that he put together a set of teachings that were a gathering force that caught the public imagination but, that also had criticism of the early church fathers and the emporer, He basically left the Jews to enjoy their miserable God as best they ever will and had embodied teachings that the church Fathers and Constantine decided had to be changed and totally got rid of - as well as the public adoration of the man himself. Its his charisma which had lasted well after his death that kept him and his teachings 'alive' for people.

What's interesting is that Nicea didn't venture into Jewish Belief but simply put together another Testament to be added onto the Hebrew Bible which made the Hebrew Bible with its prophesies link into the life of Jesus and fortified it with Paul's letters. This they used as a vehicle to rule out completely reincarnation and other bits they disliked.

That one thing gave them the opportunity of control over the populace's mind, the fear of loosing something not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in fact virtually a new invention - a soul. By making the people think they had a soul they could be frightened into obeying the Church Father's and Emporer's rules if they though their soul would be forfit to hell. No Jew would ever tell other jews to pay their taxes to Rome except someone earning their living from Roman work. Which brings Jesus and his many adventures and sayings into question. Apollonius never told people to pay respect or money to the Roman Empire or the church Fathers, but nice ensured they did.

Its more about the teachings than the men themselves, except Apollonius travelled and studied all the cultures and beliefs of the countries he went to and the Far Eastern countries hold reincarnation as a corner stone of their religious beliefs. Its more likely as an educated man he wrote Revellation - which again we don't have the original manuscript showing exactly what he wrote, only a copy of a copy etc etc.

Gryphon66

Logarock

Gryphon66


However, I must also say that while I do not believe that the Constantine's Council of Nicea "invented" Jesus Christ ... there's a really decent argument to be made that the Orthodox Religion that came out of the deliberations of the council is what formed the basis for the Roman Church and the Eastern Church and subsequently all variations of Christianity. I think that would make an interesting "conspiracy" topic, IF AND ONLY IF we could all deal with the information reasonably and leave our egos and bias at the "door."

Ok so the Nicea Council didn't invent Jesus but influenced the basis of all variations of Christianity. Fine. Then none of the subsequent results of the council has anything to do with the historic record of the early church and the life of Jesus written well before the council. By that I simply mean that anyone can pick up Acts, Mathew, Mark, Paul and read it for themselves, take off the orthodox or otherwise glasses and read what it says for themselves. And you can thank anti orthodox people for that many who were burned at the stake or were killed otherwise. Any scriptures not included as official works are also available for viewing.

You can't use the Biblical texts to prove the validity of the Biblical texts. We ignorant and uniformed folk call that tautology. There have been plenty of proven forgeries in the "historic record of the early church" (See Bart Ehrman's fine article Here) to make any of the scraps of physical evidence suspect. Most manuscripts date to Fourth Century and later, which dovetails precisely with the Nicea thesis.

Do you have evidence to consider, or shall we agree that it is a matter of the facts versus your unsupported beliefs and leave it at that?

What you want to do is make a postulation without considering that it may be answered in the writings of one of Christ disciples. Restricting this information is not part of a whole discussion. Certainly for reasons that you won't apply to known works of fiction you still want to bring that fiction to bear on to eye witness testimony. That's called intellectual dishonesty. Intellectual dissonance.

You simply cant remove documents from the table of debate, bring in some outside information and subject the removed documents to the other. Further you want to remove documents that were at least subjected to a body, a council of learned scholars, but then ask that a commissioned fiction, subject to the fancy of the writer and his publisher, largely plagiarized, be given some standing as a challenge. Where I come from that called bull s#it.