youngalexander

Agreed, there is a great deal of conjecture about.

Thanx for the link. Yes, Jesus as youthful wonderworker is the first iconographic manifestation of the HJ, and as the authors say the later emphasis on Peter is likely a tranference having to do with 4thC church politics. This an excellent source of images, even tho it is restricted to 4th & 5th C sarcophagi.

However, I am more interested in 3rd C archeology because it shows the transition as HJ iconography slowly begins to kick in from about 250CE.

mountainman

You'll find that the dominant grouping of citations
involves iconography from the "Hebrew Bible", for
example see "Jonas Marbles" -- for this period.

IMO these are Jewish, but presumed "christian".
Here are my notes:

The following is quoted from the The Cleveland Museum in reference to a series
of statuettes known as the Jonah Marbles. They are believed to be sourced
from Asia Minor, probably Phrygia (Central Turkey), 3rd century c. 270-280, and are
described by the museum - for some unknown reason - as early christian.
Here is what the Museum writes ...

The Symbolism of the Jonah Marbles
The sculptures conform to a language of symbols developed by early Christians. The Good Shepherd represents Christ as the savior of his Christian flock. The four figures of Jonah depict incidents from the biblical story. Swallowed by a "great fish" for his disobedience to God, Jonah spent three days within the beast's stomach. After repenting, he was disgorged unharmed. Jonah Swallowed and Jonah Cast Up were understood by early Christians to represent the death and resurrection of Christ. The gourd vine under which Jonah rests was another symbol of the resurrection. The image of Jonah resting developed from pagan mythological figures who, after sleeping, arose to everlasting life in paradise. The figure of Jonah Praying with arms extended in the "orant" position may represent either his repentance within the whale's belly or his thankfulness after his deliverance.

The christian presumption enters without being summoned.
Jonah is a figure in the pre-christian Hebrew bible.
Examine the figurines carefully.
There is no "christian copyright symbol".

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

The point is an examination, on a stone by stone basis
if needs be, of any and all evidence related to the
historicity (or otherwise) of the HJ, the Gospels and
Christianity itself before the fourth century.

I have been referred to a number of books in multiple
threads here over the last year or so, in which various
respondents have found the authors making citations to
various categories of archaeological evidence
admitted to the field of ancient history which support
the theory that there was an HJ, gospels and "Christianity"
before the fourth century.

I have researched these books, and from them have
gleaned a list of over 60 separate citations that form
set of such evidence. The Prosenes inscription is just
one of this set.

The point is that this entire set of citations are of the
same dubious nature as the Prosenes inscription, and
that when one actually examines the postulate of HJ,
gospels or indeed "Christianity" before the 4th century
one finds no support for it.

Peter Kirby sometime back quipped we are dealing
with "the unexamined postulate of an HJ".

Well, all I am doing is examining the postulate in accordance
with the academic methods required in ancient history and
archaeology. These methods require evidence.

I have accumulated 60 odd bits.
There are all Prosene-like.
This is problematic for mainstream.
This is my point.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

mountainman

Hi YA,

Irony has its place

But would you kindly expand on your use of the
term agreed you have employed above?

Do you agree that the Prosenes inscription
is not necessarily christian, or something
else?

Additionally, while we're after the loose ends, do
you understand my previous reference to the
use of "Hebrew text narratives" (eg: Jonah)
in the imagery of achaeological relics, statues,
art, mosaics, etc, etc, etc? [ie: the postulate
that there may be a need to distinguish "Jewish"
and "Early Christian" evidence].

From The World of Late Antiquity by
Peter Brown (perhaps a little old but the
pictures are abundant of the art, etc) at
p.106 we find Plate 76:

The general summary of the evidence
with respect to monumental and other
archaeological evidence for the totally
unambiguous presence of Christianity
is an explosion in the fourth century.

Scientific analysis in many other fields
of research has learnt to detect the
signature of chaos as distinct from
the signature of continuity.

The turbulence of the Arian controversy
requires objective human analysis.
Hopefully this not a contradiction of terms.


Best wishes YA,


Pete Brown

youngalexander

Yes, but on the balance of probabilities it seems the best explanation for the evidence.

You are implying that the overwhelming OT content of early biblical Christian iconography is really an indication that it is Jewish rather than Christian.

There are probably a number of problems with this, but two major ones I can think of are;
1. Ownership of the site. The reason that the Callistus funerary art was executed and survived was because the property was in private hands, but controlled by the 'church' authorities - probably Bishop Zephyrinus. Only Christians were buried there.

2. There are Jewish catacombs in Rome contemporary with Callistus. Quite possibly the frescoes were executed by the same workshops. Their iconography is indeed similar as far as the decorative elements are concerned, but differs markedly in representation of OT themes. Similarly at Dura Europos where the 'House Church' was near a synagogue (and a mithraeum, Temple of Aphlad, etc.). They all may have used the same schools of local artists. Yet the narrative iconography is quite distinctive.

The Jonah Cycle, Noah & Ark, Daniel & Lions, Youths in Fiery Pit, etc., are all highly stylised and are clearly not meant to represent the original OT stories so much as a consistent message of deliverance.

Ante Pacem lists hundreds of frescoes, mosaics, sarcophagi, sculptures, buildings, inscriptions, graffiti and papyrus documentation - all dated pre 313 C.E.. If even one of these is valid, then your thesis is a dead duck!

It seems to me that anyone putting forward an orthodox HJ explanation of the 1st & 2nd C Christian literature is going to have to jump thru some rather difficult hoops in order to explain the 3rd C archaeology. In short, there may be an elephant in the room.

Why do you keep insisting that it is a TRex?

mountainman

YA, you must understand by now, that
also is my understanding of my position.

I have gleaned the citations from a number
of books to date. To be consistent I will
find Ante Pacem and log its citations.


Because of things like this..

One stone and one paper fragment at a time YA.
You know the drill by now, as do the lurkers.

Best wishes to all those who see themselves
as students of ancient history,



Pete Brown

youngalexander

Well, as you are aware, my training is in science where probability also plays a role. The probability of your position being validated is - minute!

The reason that I lurk, and sometimes post here, is my fascination with the long march of everyperson. A skeptical/scientific/historic methodology has been hard won by our species. We must press it for all it is worth and not fall prey to distractions.

mountainman

My training also includes science.
Here is a quick probabilistic calculation.

You know I have accumulated a set of perhaps 60 citations.
And you are thinking that one way to assess the probability
of my position is to weight the collective probability of a set
of perhaps 100 citations. (Hey, YA, lets say Ante Pacem provides
another 40 I have not yet seen - generous?)

The probability I am wrong increases quickly with every citation.
(I decline at this stage to derive the general probabilistic formula)

However, you are missing one very important point (IMO)



I think you are allocating without any evidence to each of these
citations a very small but positive figure of probability for their
"historicity as related to christianity". This is your default position,
which may or may not be actually the objective assessment.

OTOH my claim is that the probability that the Prosenes inscription
is christian is not in fact a very small positive figure, but in
fact is zero. When you add 100 zeros together, the probability
adds to zero.

That the Prosenes inscription is zero percent christian is not
an unreasobale claim IMO. That P.Oxy 3035 is zero percent
christian is also not an unreasonable claim IMO.

Do you follow this? Is it unscientific?
We have 98 more citations to assess.

And at the end of the road my claim is that
all of these citations are reasonably viewed
as "Prosenes-Like", having 000.000% probability
of being "christian" (not "chrestian"!).

An interesting journey JA for the everyperson
who see themselves as students of ancient history.

Best wishes,



Pete Brown

youngalexander

As you say Pete, the end of the road.

mountainman

FWIW I have sourced Ante Pacem.

However your response does not make it clear to me that
you understand my argument against your argument from
probabilisitic theory, thus a quick example.

Example One: Sum of many very small probabilities

Whenever you walk into a room in which there are other
people, because everyone has a birthday, there will be a
small chance that another will share your birthday. In fact
if there is only one person in the room that probability will
be 1 in 365 (ignoring the leap year birthdays).

How many people have to be in this room before the chance
has risen to 50%? The answer is between 23 and 24 I think.
And where more people are in that room, its a greater chance.

The chance that noone shares a birthday becomes rapidly
small over 30 odd, and converges on "unlikely" shortly thereafter
as the numbers increase.

I understand this. But you must understand this example deals
with a distribution of small positive probabilities (1 in 365).


Example Two: Sum of many very zero probabilities

Is zero. End of the story.


You need to argue that the Prosenes inscription has a small
probability of being "christian", and that this probability is not
zero. Perhaps you would like to set it at 1 chance in 365?

This setting of the probability is not based on evidence.
The setting is based on the conjecture that the inscription
might in fact be christian. Do you agree with this?

Best wishes,


Pete Brown