Of all the lost texts, the one I’d like to read most is Porphyry’s “Against the Christians.” It was a massive 15 volume work refuting every aspect of Christianity from both a historical and philosophical perspective. Porphyry even had access to sources we don't have anymore like histories of the Phoenicians (he was from Tyre himself). Its arguments were so searing that multiple Christian emperors had it banned and every copy burned. Even mentioning his arguments was banned, so stuff Christians wrote in an attempt to “refute” it didn’t survive either. We only have a few fragments via quotations, and even from what little we know, he prefigured a lot of what was later independently verified by biblical scholars, e.g. the Book of Daniel NOT being written in the 6th century BC but rather being written in the 180s BC under the reign of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
>>18223435Celsus. I can only imagine how hard he dunks on christkeks.
Cicero's Hortensius
>>18223435That does sound great, but I'd really love to have Marcion's Antithesis, Gospel of Marcion, and the Apostolikon. The endless seething that Marcion caused the early church is funny.Based on the reconstructions that we do have, from piecing as much as possible together from the church seething about Marcion in their writings, it really seems like most Christians ended up following a lot of the same functional ideas, even though they have a wildly different divinity.Marcion's entire belief stepped away from the Old Testament laws, by saying that Jesus' death was the bargaining chip between Yhwh and the previously unknown "The Father". Christians run to Paul, to say that Jesus' death freed them from the Old Testament laws, even though Jesus was always pushing for following the Old Testament laws. And then the obvious things like Marcion's ideas about Jesus and "The Father" making way more sense than the trinity nonsense.Christians don't realize it, but they secretly want to be Marcionite Christians, and it'd be super fun to mock them with it.
>>18223435Byron's memoirs
the rest of the Epic Cycle (we only have 2 out of 8 parts and they're all the Homer writings in fragmented order)
>>18223435Not sure if this was the kind of answer you were looking for, but I would consider the 1973 Military Personnel Records Center fire to be one of the greatest losses of historical records of the 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Personnel_Records_Center_fire?wprov=sfla1The MPRC stores the personnel filed of every US veteran, living or dead. If you have any relatives who were discharged from the military more than 61 years ago, you really should request their file. Military personnel files are priceless historic and genealogical records, and can be fascinating to read.The file will contain info on a person's life prior to joining the military, where they were stationed, details about any combat they were in, disciplinary actions if they fucked up, citations for any commendations or awards they got, what job they had and their commanding officer's opinion of their performance and character, what STDs they got treated for, and so on.US military files become public record 61 years after someone is discharged, so at this point, we'd be able to request the records of pretty much any American who fought in WWI, WWII, or Korea.But the fire destroyed 80% of the records of Army vets discharged between 1912 and 1960. And 75% of the records Air Force vets discharged between 1947 and 1964 (with names alphabetically after Hubbard, James E.).So for the vast majority of American Army and Air Force veterans who fought in WWI, WWII, and Korea, they'll be details about their lives we'll never know because the written record of it went up in fucking flames. If there was anything they never told people about their war prior to dying, then that knowledge died with them.
>>18223510>Jesus was always pushing for following the Old Testament lawsIn spirit, not to the letter of the law. He was adamantly against legalism and literalism.
>>18223885Cool stuff anon thanks for sharing
>>18223885Why did the Jews want to destroy these?
>>18223435Lucian sounds like me. Most of them are fucking sophists
>>18223989Being real, the FBI suspected it was arson and investigated the staff because they thought maybe some of the interns were anti-war hippie that wanted to burn Vietnam War veterans records. But the cause of the fire is still unknown to this day because nobody discovered the fire until it was already roaring, and it burned so hot it destroyed all the evidence. We don't know if it was hippies, a rabbi, faulty wiring, somebody tossing a cigarette, nothing.>Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had named anyone. And the sixth floor was so completely destroyed that it was impossible to investigate fully. The center of the building, where investigators determined the fire began, was buried under multiple tons of concrete and 2 to 3 feet of wet charred rubble from burned records. So eventually, the FBI concluded that the stew of ingredients that led to the disaster was impossible to unblend. The investigation was formally closed in September 1973.https://www.wired.com/story/the-night-17-million-precious-military-records-went-up-in-smoke/The fire spread quickly because of how bad the building's fire protection was. There weren't any fire sprinklers because at the time archivists thought water damage was a greater threat than fire damage. The building was 728 feet long and 282 feet wide, and each floor was just one long hallway. Just thousands of cardboard boxes filled with paper in rows and rows with no fire walls between them. And staff had reported fire hazards before like faulty wiring or people tossing cigarette butts in bathroom trash cans. Nobody did shit to prevent a fire from happening.Oh, and even though 20% to 25% of the records survived, those records are often still partially burnt. Or they have really bad water damage and mold because the fire department had to continuously spray fire into the top floor for days until the fire was finally put out.
>>18224111Makes you understand how records from the past got lost. Just one little snafu and everything goes to shit.
>>18223435Agreed on Porphyry's Against the Christians. Other texts:>Primary source texts on Alexander the Great, especially Callisthenes and Nearchus' works>Thebes Cycle
>>18223704I’d also like to read the lost histories of emperor Claudius. I think if we were to find it today, it would be a far bigger discovery than the Dead Sea scrolls.
All the codices and Quipu burned in Mesoamerica and the Andes
>>18224111My Vietnam Vet Dad has said for years the government torched their own records fwiw.
>>18223940Complete retard cope to read Deuteronomy and come away thinking the spirit of it wasn't legalism, literalism and tribalism. And anyway, Christ is supposed to have followed the law perfectly in order to be an acceptable sacrifice isn't he? He's shown breaking it like when he prevents the stoning of the prostitute. That's not revealing some deeper spiritual dimension to the Mosaic law that the Pharisees had buried, it's changing the law.
>>18226314Why would the government do it?
