Zeichman

Can you demonstrate that the earliest CHristians (that is, first century Christians) believed that that Jesus was divine or that the "real presence" was understood by them?

Aquitaine

Hi Z,

Well, my understanding is that NOBODY, on either end of this spectrum, can make absolute demonstrations about the beliefs of 'the earliest' christians. We can only look at what the later Christians were saying and doing, and try to make inferences. We often cannot believe everything that we read, either, because there has been a lot of (it might be that no one can say for sure how much...) subsequent adjusting of texts by all the differing factions of later periods of Christianity in order to support their positions in theological/political disputes.

With that in mind, I think we could say that there existed many opposing beliefs among these groups that we now place under a very general umbrella and call 'early Christians'.
Look at Paul, who would certainly be termed an 'early Christian'. Was he not finding already extant 'christian' communities--in fact communities that had ALREADY deviated or lost their way theologically and therefore needed reprimands and correction in the eyes of Paul? These are people who must have been approached by the apostles themselves (with Paul, we are talking about the very era of the apostles, are we not?) and yet, there are already theological disputes. However we might explain it, the opposing views DID exist, and early on.

Then we have the intriguing Gnostics, who seem to antedate Christianity, and yet there appears to have been some exchange of ideas between the two. Were early Christians influenced by Gnostics? Where did the Gnostics come from, where did they get their ideas? There seems to be a strong anti-Jewish element to Gnosticism.
I have the hunch that the gnostics are actually a direct outgrowth of Divus Iulius worshipers who had been under Antonian/Cleopatrian control, who subsequently went underground after Octavian/Augustus victory at Actium, had to hide their theology with cryptic symbolism to avoid his repression of all forms of Divus Iulius worship other than his own...
Obviously my ideas about this are an outgrowth of my undertanding of Carotta's.

I feel that the dominant paradigm shared by those who seek to understand early Christianity, makes very few references to Roman history and events leading-up to the appearance of 'Christianity' nor to the deeply religious nature of Roman politics at this time. All political propaganda would have utilized religious themes and terminology. 'Religion' was political propaganda: the two were one and the same...
The situation was extremely complex even at that time; In addition, we see all of this through a very warped lens of highly edited and censored material; this very material was probably subjected to many different 'cleansings' motivated by imperial politics, other cleansings motivated later by theological reasons of a later period, perhaps even again by the early medieval Church...

Zeichman

Not even that, there is no evidence from the Synoptic Gospels & Acts(aside from the arguments of Larry Hurtado) that Jesus was regarded as any part of a God: truine or a modal monarchian or otherwise, let alone the idea of real presence in the Eucharest. It doesn't seem that until the emergence of the Johannine community that we see what will become these views. Though Paul seems to have quite a high christology, I think it's fairly clear that he does not regard Christ as part of God ("God the Father and Lord Jesus Christ" Cf. the thanksgivings which open the uncontested epistles), but rather as a figure very close to Him.

Vorkosigan

I am NOT "convinced Christianity had a solid source in Judaism". Christianity is a Hellenistic phenomenon -- and so was Judaism of the period. It's wrong to make a dichotomy between the two. One flows into the other. Christianity in my view originated in the diaspora and then projected itself back into Palestine. But as a glance at Carotta's thesis will show, it is always easier to explain the origin of the text by simple reference to the Septuagint, than by bizarre transformations of Latin into Greek.

Amaleq13

If you have no idea of the date, what was the basis of your earlier suggestion that it "might be more accurate to those from time of the Late Republic."?

What shape? My question about whether the object was truly a cross or just a stick with armor on it was not rhetorical.

We had already established that they original were in the "shape" of a tree and, later, the "shape" of a pillar or arch. You have yet to establish the use of the "shape" of a cross or 'T'. It is starting to appear as though Carotta's connection between the tropaeum associated with Caesar and the crucifixion of Jesus is far less obvious than he suggests. I would agree that there is an inherent, albeit very general, similarity in the concept of hanging one's enemies armor from a tree or pillar to signify victory and hanging one's enemies from a cross but it seems to me that Carotta is trying to create the impression of a much greater connection without the necessary support from the evidence. Again.

Nonsense. I have no "side" with regard to whether two letters are likely to have been confused by a copyist nor do I have a "side" with regard to whether the tropaeum associated with Caesar's defeat took the shape of a cross. I simply expect evidence to be presented to support these claims by Carotta since they have been offered by his supporters in an attempt to argue for his theory's legitimacy. Where is the support for his claims?

On the contrary, I don't consider the idea to be inherently absurd. I don't want to speak for Vorkosigan but I don't think he does, either. After all, he has offered a more positive opinion of Atwill's similar contention. What does appear to lack credibility, however, are the specifics of Carotta's argument to that conclusion. Perhaps Juliana has not chosen the best specific claims but I would think a supporter would want to start with the most compelling arguments.

How can any argument that is intellectually sound not have a built-in defense?

Absolutely and the fact that Carotta's theory attempts to account for this is certainly a step in the direction of credibility but it is far from the entire journey. He seems to have taken several highly speculative leaps along the way. It would be extremely helpful to his cause, however, if at least some of those leaps could be grounded on substantive evidence. Otherwise, he appears to have flown off with nothing to support him but hot air.

Juliana

No source speaks of 'populace' but always of 'people' or 'crowd'. That fact that you use that word demonstrates your biased attitude towards the Caesar sources. It seems you can't approach the texts 'sine ira et studio' as necessary, but you do it 'cum ira et sine studio'.

The correct form is "mene". "Men" is a contraction thereof. That's why all philologically correct editions write "men' " with an apostroph: "Men' servasse..." - as one can easily ascertain with Google too.

This can only be claimed by someone who is not at home in textual criticism. The mechanism of confusion, where the lectio facilior replaces the difficilior, empirically sometimes leads to greater leaps than this one. Cf. the variants listed by Alan-Nestle in the manuscripts of the NT.

"As the rest of the sentence is read forwards why read this backwards?"

Because it was known that only some words were written heterographically.

It is ridiculous only to incompetent people.

It is known that the Latin Gospel texts, especially the older ones, were not always a translation from the Greek, but not seldom followed an independent Latin tradition (this can be observed, i.a. with the bilingual Bezae Cantabrigiensis).

First off, there is no eis in PS 22:2 "o qeos o qeos mou prosxes moi ina ti egkatelipes me;"
"Ho theos ho theos mou, prosches moi: hina ti egkatelipes me?"

Whom are you trying to fool?

And even if there were one this would mean to misjudge the mechanism of the midrashim. The fact that one finds again the same elements in the quoted Old Testament text as in the NT source, wherein one inserted it, only proves that those elements were already present. And then the legitimate and essential question is: Whence did they really come?

That is only the case in the old Testament text brought in as midrash. After all with the midrash method it is almost impossible to find a text that fits hundred per cent.
As a reminder: A Midrash is a method of interpretation, which tries to find new and unheard of things again in the canonical Jewish texts in order to legitimize them. Thus, if something appears in the Gospel which could be deemed objectionable by the Jews who are supposed to be converted, the Evangelist tries to find one or more text passages in the canonical books of the Jews which can be regarded as its prophetic anticipation. In doing so he naturally often must be content with partial analogies.

This passage seems "casually grabbed" only in the Gospel. In Suetonius it is in its right and natural place, fully integrated in the text. This, btw. is the proof that the Suetonius passage represents the exemplar for the Gospel writer. It is the same as with the myrrh which is given to Jesus during the crucifixion: It doesn't make sense there. But the pyra does make sense at Caesar's cremation.

This misjudges the efforts of the Evangelists in their trouble to bring in all possible folk-etymological variants. So at one time they understood Capitolium as Capi-Tolium (and made it Kraniou Topos, place of a skull, i.e. Golgotha), another time as Capit Oleum (which lead them to the oil garden resp. the oil press, i.e. Gethsemane).

Yes, you're right. You should clean up your mess and do a lot of homework.

Amaleq13

This is as inappropriate as it is contrary to your desire to have Carotta taken seriously. Rather than make such empty and insulting assertions, establish by way of logical argument and supporting evidence that it is not ridiculous.

spin

Pedantry.

More pedantry. The text is abbreviated, indicating how it should be spoken. If not spoken but read, one would not find the extra "e". The point still fails. It's nice that you know the underlying form, but that is irrelevant.

You wouldn't know.

It is merely guesswork. Carotta guesses that in this instance the Marcan writer reads backwards what he needs the writer to have read backwards. This is faking data.

Who knew? How do you know they knew? Why make more epistemological problems for yourself than you can deal with?

On the reading one bit forwards and another bit backwards and that begging that a particular form was used and that both a Latin "n" and a Latin "m" backwards could look like an LI combination, I said "ingenious but ridiculous" and Juliana in his wisdom responds:
The incompetence is on the believer who is gullible enough to think that it could happen in such a complex way without any clues pointing to it.

To whom is it known exactly?

In English translations it is still verse 22:1. I do appreciate your continued pedantry though.

I'll happily concede that the Marcan writer didn't get eis from the original text. Congratulations on getting something right.

But how exactly does it help you, when you have a composite structure in each case, ina ti and eis ti? Couldn't ina ti or even simply ina be translated with "ut"? (as in Mt 1:22 or 4:3, Mk 1:38, 2:10 or 3:9, etc.) In fact wouldn't ina generally be a better translation for "ut" than forms using eis? Why would the Marcan writer use eis and not ina if the source was the one Carotta suggests?

The use of eis instead of ina makes Carotta's tenuous proposition even more tenuous.

Given the extremely good fit, I think you are straining to over look the obvious. Many casual citations from the Hebrew bible were used in the same way, almost none of which can be mangled to relate to Caesar. Carotta picks the one that he can stretch to resemble Pacuvius. Convenient.

Ps.22:1 is much better than a partial analogy. KISS.

Only if you reject the good fit with Ps.22:1 and you haven't provided any good reason to do so. The alternative is, ummm, garbled.

Pacuvius certainly is.

You are not making sense. You are ignoring the most suitable candidate for the Marcan text.

:rolling:

You have to consistently mangle the text to get what you need.

Try to show what you claim.

Latin had a nice word for "skull", umm, "calva" as in "calvaria". That's what "kranion" means. The Latin word for "head" is "caput". An etymology using "capit" is wrong-headed (though one does get words based on "caput" such as "capitalis"). Thus, "Capi-Tolium" "made it Kraniou Topos", is nothing more than the vaguest free association on Carotta's part and totally laughable.

You must understand that the more one mangles the texts for their analysis the less credible the analysis becomes.

I think it's Carotta whose doing the buchery, but then, you wouldn't know. Run along and get help again.


spin

Aquitaine

Hi, just a quick response for now, (I'm pressed for time)

Well, first of all, the key here is my use of the word "might"...

There was probably an evolution to the form of the tropaeum, and also a varying of its shape according to the circumstances, too. I admit that I can't say for certain that this cross-shaped tropaeum that I had found a picture of was from the late-Republic/Caesarian era, but we can probably say for certain that we cannot make definite inferences that since Trajan's column is not cross-shaped, then NO tropaeums were cross-shaped.


There is also an important difference to take into account: Trajan's column was a monument/(tropeaum) built to last for decades if not centuries, while the tropaeum we are specifically talking about was a tropaeum designed for a one-time use in a funeral.

Anyway, for anyone interested, I found a nice description of tropaeums here:
http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-dgra/1175.html
http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-dgra/1176.html

Secondly, my not knowing the exact date of this cross-shaped tropaeum doesn't mean I cannot speculate on it. I certainly did use the word 'might. I would rather be 100% honest here, and so if you ask me a specific question about something I will answer it honestly even if it the answer does not support my case. I hope we all are searching for the truth, and so wil act in the same way towards each other.


It wasn't my intent to imply your question was rhetorical!

In order to really know whether evidence exists that tropaeums came in the shape of a cross (T-shaped or whatever) we might have to consult an expert on it, and not by dependent upon what is currently findable on the web.
I for one feel certain that they did come in the shape of a cross. But that is not worth didly-squat to you, and I perfectly understand why.


Hopefully in the spirit of wanting to know the truth, we will all share together whatever we find.

Amaleq13

Yes and I'm asking what the basis for it is.

We already know there was an evolution in the form. We've learned that it started using a tree and, eventually, pillars or arches were used. Where did Carotta learn that there were tropaeum shaped like crosses and that this is the shape of the one associated with the defeat of Caesar? On what basis does he make this claim?

You apparently also can't say for certain that it is actually cross-shaped rather than tree-trunk shaped with armor hanging from it. So it could actually represent a very early form of tropaeum that has nothing to do with a cross nor Caesar.

I'm not trying to "prove a negative". I'm asking if you know of any evidence that supports Carotta's claim of a cross-shaped tropaeum.

That should help narrow your search. Did they arrange two staffs to form a cross upon which to hang the trophies? Or did they use three to form a tripod? Or did they use two attached to form an upside-down 'V'?

Does Carotta's claim simply rely on the possibility that the Caesar tropaeum may have taken the form of a cross?

There is a significant difference between speculation based on evidence and unsubstantiated speculation. The most important difference being that only the former is interesting.

Carotta just asserts this without offering evidence to support it?

You are correct that I place no evidentiary value on your feelings regarding Carotta's claims. I am only interested in whether there is evidence to support your feeling of certainty.