Freethought & Rationalism Archive

arnoldo · 10-01-2011, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

This interesting inscription has been discussed by scholars before. See for example spiritual seed by Einar Thomassen.

Andrew Criddle

Googlebooks UK wouldn't let me see this page.

For Americans, this link might work:

The spiritual seed: the church of the "Valentinians" By Einar Thomassen p. 350

Search for via latina marble inscription valentinians

The following info from this book may also be of interest. . .

Quote:

Save for a very brief mention in Justin's Dialogue with Tryp (35:6), Ireneus' Against the Heresies, written in the 180s, is the oldest surving source about the Valentinians that can be dated with some degree of certainty.

stephan huller · 10-01-2011, 03:22 PM

I've got to go to the airport but people should think twice before using the term 'Jewish Christian.' This is the exact kind of thing which SHOULD be connected with the term. Again it all goes back to people not understanding how Jews think and believe.

mountainman · 10-01-2011, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

This interesting inscription has been discussed by scholars before. See for example spiritual seed by Einar Thomassen.

Andrew Criddle

Googlebooks UK wouldn't let me see this page.

For Americans, this link might work:

The spiritual seed: the church of the "Valentinians" By Einar Thomassen p. 350

Search for via latina marble inscription valentinians

According to the artilce:

Quote:

When analyzing the inscription, Snyder also noticed some similarities with funeral epigrams composed for non-Christians. In those inscriptions, the wedding imagery is used in a tragic way. [After Death: 8 Burial Alternatives Going Mainstream]

One example, written about 2,100 years ago, reads in part:

I am Theophila, short-lived daughter of Hecateus. The ghosts of the unmarried dead were courting me, a young maiden, for marriage, Hades outstripped the others and seized me, for he desired me, looking upon me as a Persephone more desirable than Persephone. And when he carved the letters on her tombstone, he wept for the girl Theophila from Sinope, her father Hecateus, who composed the wedding torches not for marriage but for Hades...

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

On the origins of the 'bridal chamber' metaphor within Judaism see The Jewish family: metaphor and memory By David Charles Kraemer Oxford University Press:

The origins of the "bridal chamber" metaphor within paganism are obviously also very important.

Quote:

Originally Posted by from the article continues

What the second-century Christian inscription does is turn this convention on its head. "They're playing with that... it's not decline, it's looking forward to a new life."

Snyder said that the mix of Christian and pagan traditions in the inscription is striking. He told LiveScience that he's studied early Christian paintings on the Via Latina that mix biblical themes, such as the story of Samson or the raising of Lazarus, along with figures from classical mythology, like that of Hercules.

"Those kinds of things I find particularly interesting, because they seem to suggest a period of time in which a Christian identity is flexible," Snyder said. "Is it just a simple either/or between pagan and Christian?" he asked. "Or is there really something rather like a spectrum? Or are you really sort of both in certain respects?"

This insciption is not unambiguously christian, and has far more probability of being pagan than anything, and those who claim this inscription is unambiguously christian are indulging in wishful thinking IMVHO.

mountainman · 10-01-2011, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

This inscription proves nothing about early Christianity other than it was rooted in Jewish customs and terminology

The inscription is in Greek. The title of the article reads:

"World's Earliest Christian Engraving Shows Surprising Pagan Elements"

Where do Jewish customs and terminology enter the picture at all?

mountainman · 10-01-2011, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Perhaps the greatest problem we have in understanding the early Christian movement is the uncertainty of so much of the materials' dating. Most of the dating we encounter depends on Eusebius. Even when we're told that the overwhelming consensus of scholars date material to such and such a time period, it is usually based on them ultimately trusting that Eusebius knew what he was talking about.

Hi Philosopher Jay,

I would like everyone to write the above paragraph into their exercise books or diary and read it out aloud once a day for three days. It represents an observation that needs to be highlighted and underlined. If anyone can find a fault with it please speak up and state the fault.

The 4th century advisor to the Emperor Constantine, Eusebius, is ALL WE HAVE and quite possibly ALL WE WILL EVER HAVE about the "Early Christians".

How may this fact be dealt with?

Quote:

A reconstruction of early Christian History independent of Eusebius is what is really desperately needed.

Little steps are needed.

World's Earliest Christian Engraving Shows Surprising Pagan Elements

Do we reject Eusebius a little bit at a time or all at once?

Using Little steps were can reject him a bit at a time. The logical place to start is to reject Eusebius not as an expert witness on the appearance of the canon-following orthodox christians, but rejecting Eusebius as an expert witness on the appearance of the Gnostic heretics - e.g. the so-called Valentianians - those theorized to attest to "the bridal chamber" in their epigraphic habits, exemplifed by the inscription underlying the OP.

SCIENTIFICALLY this leaves us with a chronology governed by C14 on gJudas and the Nag Hammadi Codices, and this chronology can be expressed as a compound probability density curve which appears conspicuously centered upon the epoch of the early 4th century.

If a reconstruction of early Gnostic Christian History independent of Eusebius is what is really desperately needed then I would take a long hard look at the C14 results. IMVHO the "Christian Gnostics" (absent the authority of Eusebius) suddenly appeared in the early 4th century. during the lifetime of Eusebius.

stephan huller · 10-01-2011, 06:38 PM

<edited>

Your typical nonsense has no place here. Why don't you just break into a church and write 'Constantine invented this' in the blank pages of all the Bibles in the pews. It might have a more lasting impact that your ten years here.

Quote:

The inscription is Greek ... Where do Jewish customs and terminology enter the picture at all?

This is so stupid I don't even know what to say, where to begin. The ideas contained in the inscription are Christian, but the ideas and terms come from Judaism/Aramaic. That's why I mentioned the bit about the EXISTING reference to the guest at a Jewish wedding being called 'sons of the bridal chamber.'

You obviously have no feel for the culture of Christianity. Read Ephrem the Syrian. The same references to 'bridal chamber,' 'fullness' etc appear BECAUSE THEY ARE NATURAL IN THAT LANGUAGE/CULTURE. I don't blame most people for not knowing this. But in your case you have only one purpose - to spread your idiotic propaganda. Disgraceful.

An example of an Aramaism in the Pauline corpus-

Quote:

Until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in - And this blindness will continue Rom 11.25

This is a Semiticism (cmp. Gen 48.19). It has nothing to do with gnosticism per se. It's just a figure of speech, an ordinary means of expression. Valentinianism may have developed from a Semitic culture, but there is nothing specifically 'gnostic' about the inscription unless as I said EVERY Semitic Christian is so classified.

mountainman · 10-01-2011, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

mountaingoat

Your typical nonsense has no place here. Why don't you just break into a church and write 'Constantine invented this' in the blank pages of all the Bibles in the pews.

Stephan

I nailed my thesis on the doors of the internet in 2007 along with the Referee Report from Journal of Hellenic Studies.

Quote:

THESIS: Constantine Invented Christianity in the Fourth Century. (pdf format; Sept 2007)

Referee Report from Journal of Hellenic Studies: JHL (Oct 2007), and response.

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It might have a more lasting impact that your ten years here.

Your chronology is as usual adrift.

Minimalist · 10-01-2011, 06:58 PM

Very interesting, Jay.

Thank you for posting it.

stephan huller · 10-01-2011, 07:08 PM

Quote:

To my bath, the brothers of the bridal chamber carry the torches,
[here] in our halls, they hunger for the banquets,
even while praising the Father and glorifying the Son.
There [with the Father and the Son] is the only spring and source of truth.

To my bath = "After seven dunks in the ritual bath, the bride-to-be had symbolically washed away her identity as a single woman in a Jewish ritual" - http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,2186833.story

the brothers of the bridal chamber = Mark 2:14-22,Luke 5:27-38 = derived from a standard Jewish expression for the wedding party http://books.google.com/books?id=UCV...jewish&f=false

in our halls, they hunger for the banquets = wedding banquet

mountainman · 10-01-2011, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Here from Live Science

Quote:

Scholars have identified what appears to be the world's earliest Christian inscription, dating to the second century. It is in the collection of the Capitoline Museums in Rome which could not release an image at press time.

Also shown, examples of other early Christian inscriptions, copied in 1880.

"The real founders of the science of early Christian archaeology came in the 19th century: Giuseppe Marchi (1795-1860) and Giovanni de Rossi (1822-1894)...[the latter] published between 1857 and 1861 the first volume of "Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae". Pope Pius IX moved beyond collecting by appointing in 1852 a commission - "Commissione de archaelogia sacra" - that would be responsible for all early Christian remains."

Three cheers for Pope Pius IX !!!

Has anyone looked at the image on the article which is captioned Plate V - Epitaphs from first half of third century?

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10-01-2011, 03:22 PM	#22
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	I've got to go to the airport but people should think twice before using the term 'Jewish Christian.' This is the exact kind of thing which SHOULD be connected with the term. Again it all goes back to people not understanding how Jews think and believe.

10-01-2011, 06:58 PM	#28
Minimalist Veteran Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Arizona Posts: 1,808	Very interesting, Jay. Thank you for posting it.

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