Your excerpts from non-canonical gospels no more prove the historical existence of Jesus that the canonical ones because they are Gnostic books, and the Gnostics read these stories as allegory. You won't seem to believe me on this and so there's nothing I can do to convince you. But just the fact that every single Gnostic gospel tells us a different story of Jesus should tell you that none of them can be relied on to give us historical truth.
As to Iranaeus 'not being a forger', it is widely accepted among scholars (and possibly even Christian ones) that Iranaeus forged the letters from Paul, particularly 1 Timothy, that attack Gnostics. Polycarp doesn't mention John, so we only have the old holy forger's word for it.
I would also like to quote Joseph Whelas, who says in this Forgery in Christianity, that the first and second centuries were so rampant with forgery that the phrase, “pious fraud” was coined to describe it. He writes about the second century Literalist Christian 'holy forgery mill' thus, referring to his research from the Catholic Encyclopaedia:
Furthermore, the Catholic Encyclopaedia is also implying that the Gnostics were truthful in regard to the fictitious and allegorical nature of their texts.Enterprising spirits responded to this natural craving by pretended gospels full of romantic fables, and fantastic and striking details; their fabrications were eagerly read and accepted as true by the common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curosity. Both Catholics and Gnostics were concerned with writing these fictions. The former had no motive other than that of PIOUS FRAUD.
Mangasarian states in The Truth About Jesus:
Even according to Eusebius, no stranger to spinning the odd fable himself, the third century Bishop of Corinth Dionysus lashed out against forgers who had mutilated not only his letters but the gospels themselves.The church historian Mosheim writes that, “The Christian Fathers deemed it a pious act to employ deception and fraud”... Again, he says: “The greatest and most pious teachers were nearly all of them infected with this leprosy”. ...Another historian, Milman, writes: “Pious fraud was admitted and avowed by the early missionaries of Jesus”. Bishop Ellicot, speaking of the times immediately following the alleged crucifixion of Jesus writes: “It was an age of literary frauds.” Dr Giles declares that, “There can be no doubt that the great numbers of books were written with no other purpose other than to deceive.” It is the opinion of Dr Robertson Smith that, “There was an enormous floating mass of spurious literature created to suit party views.”
The Protestant Encyclopedia Biblica states: “Almost every one of the Apostles had a Gospel fathered upon him by one early sect or another.”“When my fellow Christians invited me to write letters to them, I did so. These the devil’s apostles have filled with tares, taking away some things and adding others ... Small wonder then if some have even dared to tamper with the word of the Lord himself, when the conspired to mutilate my own humble efforts.”
There is no non-canonical evidence of a John the Apostle, (or any of them, for that matter) and the Gospel of John was thus named solely because Iranaeus claimed he had a childhood memory of being told that the gospel was written by the disciple John. However, according to the Gnostics, it was written by the Gnostic master Cerinthus at the end of the first century, to whom the book of Revelations has also been attributed: .
The Catholic Encyclopaedia says:
I'm not saying here that John was definitely written by Cerinthus - although it may have been. The whole of this post has just been to show you the extent of the forging that went on at the highest echelons of the Church from the second century onwards, and that those things that you think are set in stone are actually far from it.“"Additional light has been thrown on the character of Caius's dialogue against Proclus by Gwynne's publication of some fragments from the work of Hippolytus "Contra Caium" (Hermathena, VI, p. 397 sq.); from these it seems clear that Caius maintained that the Apocalypse of John was a work of the Gnostic Cerinthus."
Monk, from your last post I can see that you've somehow got the impression that I'm basing my understanding of the non-historicity of Jesus on the stories in the Gnostic gospels. I don't know why you've misunderstood this because I say in just about every post that they are fictional and allegorical - so how could they prove anything factual?
No, I'm basing my understanding of the non-historicity of Jesus on the fact there is absolutely no evidence for his existence, and no evidence for even anyone saying he existed until more than 100 years after his supposed birth date.
Meanwhile, we can attest to Gnostics in Judaea long before 1CE whose beliefs very much coincided with the spiritual teachings contained in the canonical gospels.
So that's why I suggest that the Gnostics came first, and Literal Christianity built on it later.
