andrewcriddle

IMO the pictures normally understood as of Jesus curing a paralytic and Jesus and Peter walking on the water are difficult to interpret in a non-Christian sense.

There are also some written Christian graffiti in the church.

TON ChRIS MNHSKESTE SISEON TON TAPINON

TON ChN IN hUMEIN MN[H]SKESThE [....PR]OKLOU

(the bits in bold being nomina sacra for Christ and Christ Jesus)

Andrew Criddle

mountainman

The two figures could be Apollonius and Damis. They could be anyone, and that they indeed represent a christian motif is simply an assertion of artistic appreciation, and nothing to do with historical evidence IMO.

That the city ceased being a city at the seige in 256 is reasonable. That no individuals or small groups entered the city from the desert for shelter in any of the centuries after the seige is not reasonable. The graffiti could have been written after 312 CE, and the assertion that it was written prior to this date cannot be firmly established.

I have gathered up all the exceptional historical evidence by which it may be asserted (outside of the literature of Eusebius) that the tribe of christians was extant prior to Constantine. It is indexed at the following page, and I have attempted to answer this evidence at related pages.

http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_070.htm

I would be grateful for any comments, or further claims of historical evidence outside of Eusebius for anything christian prior to Constantine.



Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au

Roger Pearse

Is anyone buying this nonsense?

S.C.Carlson

It reminds me of the views of Jean Hardouin, S.J., (1646-1729), who argued that most of classical and patristic literature had actually been forged by 14th-cen. monks.

Stephen

mountainman

And also, more recently, of the view of Edwin Johnson in his "Antiqua Mater: A Study of Christian Origins" in which he writes:

"[the fourth century was] the great age of literary forgery,
the extent of which has yet to be exposed"

...[and]...

"not until the mass of inventions
labelled 'Eusebius' shall be exposed,
can the pretended references to Christians
in Pagan writers of the first three centuries
be recognized for the forgeries they are."




Pete Brown
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_007.htm

Roger Pearse

Hardouin's ideas do get repeated online sometimes, so are not quite dead.

All the best,

Roger Pearse