The Hadrianic Conspiracy
LAST WEEK, poliphilo led me into a tar pit, one from which I have yet to fully extricate myself. The act was innocent of any malice of course, and done with the best and sincerest intent I am sure, but History Hunters International is a tar pit nevertheless.
The author of the new material appearing on those pages is one John Bartram, an interesting figure of unknown authority and intent, one who I had the pleasure of encountering through Tony's LJ. I am still unsure what to make of this man.
Bartram calls what he does an “archaeological approach to history”, but this seems deceptive. To most people archeology implies the orderly and scientific study of antiquities, but there is nothing orderly to be found at History Hunters International. What is there is a mass of historical facts and fables thrown together, willy-nilly, and held in place with lashings of idle speculation and specious reasoning. From his latest post:
We must note in this history that there is no archaeology - and this includes texts - for Jesus Christ or Christians in the first century of this era. In this regard, we must note that no original, second-century text by Justin (Latin: Flavius Iustinus) exists, for the earliest appear centuries later and cannot be regarded as wholly reliable. Those of Josephus are later still and must be treated with caution.
First, we must note that Mr Bartram proceeds to cite Josephus at least twenty times on this page alone, not once offering an excuse for flaunting his own sound advice.
Second, we must also note that, although indeed there is no direct archaeological evidence of Justin, there are texts that are plausibly his or otherwise plausibly the work of some other second-century father of the early Christian church. Justin also appears in the works of other church fathers writing soon after his time, men such as Irenaeus, who on balance is far more damaging to this conspiracy theory than Justin Martyr.
Moreover, for Bartram to summarily dismiss Justin as he does, based solely on the dates of earliest extant manuscripts, seems disingenuous at best. The earliest manuscripts of Josephus date from the Middle Ages, no less, yet Bartram leans heavily upon those most unreliable histories throughout his website.
Justin makes Bartram's claim unsustainable. It is not possible that Christianity was somehow invented under the Emperor Hadrian if Justin professed a Christian faith before, during, and after Hadrian's reign. And if Justin is a forgery, in whole or in part, then that still does not dispose of the question. It is clear that Justin has read the Miracles of the Apostles, but not the Acts. He seems to quote from the Gospels, but the text he actually quotes, in all but two instances, is apparently from a harmony of the synoptic Gospels. He does not quote John at all. If this is a forgery, intended to lend its support to some supposed Hadrianic Christianity, it certainly raises more questions than it could possibly hope to settle.
The question of how Christianity arose is extremely complex and there is an enormous amount of scholarly debate on the subject. This question is far from settled, obviously, and in many respects may never be settled. To baldly claim that Christianity was invented during Hadrian's reign is frankly naive. Such a theory proposes to sweep away centuries of investigation and scholarship, on little more than Bartram's personal authority, and replace it with what, exactly? A conspiracy theory that hinges upon the arbitrary date of a single scrap of papyrus?