Asha'man

Why do you continue to present such falsehoods to us? Doesn't that contradict a commandment or something?

Modern Archaeology has essentially revealed that most of the OT is pure fiction. From Abraham to the Exodus to the Kindoms of David and Solomon, it's all contradicted by actual archaeology. And, if you go back earlier than that, it's contradicted by just about every field of science known to man.

andrewcriddle

The critical passage is Stromateis VI chapter 11 a little before the passage you quoted earlier The idea is that 300 in scripture (which is represented in Greek by Tau T) by its shape represents the cross. While 18 IH in Greek represents Jesus' name.

This idea goes back to the Epistle of Barnabas about 125 CE. Clement adds stuff about the numerological significance of 300.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

Wasn't there an earlier thread about the evolution of the use of the cross in xianity?

Would that help with dating texts?

Could the idea of death on a cross be much later, second century, an addition to a pre existing fish based religion?

Roger Pearse

Does he say on what data such a statement could be based? Do we have any quantifiable figures for the numerical growth of Christianity in the first and second centuries? What other 'new religions' came into being in this period, and have statistical info available?

Sorry if that sounds like me jumping down your throat -- I know you're just summarising.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Toto

Stark spends a bit of time discussing the sources. The data is not hard, but he makes a reasonable case for his conclusions.

The "new religions" that he compares this to are the modern new religions that he studied as a sociologist of religion - primarily the Unification Church and the Mormons. He states as a social scientist that he assumes that there is a human phenomenon that he can study called "religion" and that there will be similarities among different religions in different times and places, because human psychology is essentially the same.

It's been a while since I read the book, so this summary might not be compete. If you reject the idea that there is any basis to the social sciences, you will of course not be impressed with his conclusions.

Roger Pearse

Many thanks for the note, which explains the basis well. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't feel very comfortable with this sort of syllogistic stuff. It all smells a bit of pseudo-science. Too many places for things to go wrong, even if the idea is not in principle daft.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

mens_sana

I'm glad you titled your post "Blatantly Incorrect Statements," for that is what your overstatement consists of also. Modern archaeology has not been able to show us anything from Creation through Exodus and does not support the account of Joshua's "Conquest." However, there is some evidence for the Kingdoms of David and Solomon and a good deal more evidence for the periods following. A fine compilation of various aspects of this evidence is found in Ziony Zevit's The Religions of Ancient Israel, Amihar Mazar's Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 10,000-586 B.C.E., and in William Dever's three books: What Did the Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know It?, Who Were the Early Israelites & Where Did They Come From?, and Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology & Folk Religion in Ancient Israel, all of which I have read, in case this raises a question for you. Israel Finkelstein is not the sum total of Syro-Palestinian archaeology.

mens_sana

I was quite impressed with Stark's study until recently. While there is nothing wrong with his comparisons to the LDS missionary-type growth, there is a problem with his picture of a relatively cohesive Christian movement. Bart Ehrman uses Walter Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (and updates it) to show that the first two centuries were hugely splintered — fully as much as contemporary Protestantism. Ehrman is supposed to have had a one-time dialogue with Stark about this, but it apparently has never been dealt with in enough detail to publish. However, the point is that this incredibly splintered Christianity could not have grown as the rate claimed for Stark's cohesive Christianity. Ehrman's explication of Bauer can be found in his Lost Christianities.