mountainman

I'd really have to ask for some form of "Surmisation Report"
before I would even begin to accept this as any form of
genuine scientific evidence. Do we know when it was dated,
and by whom, and who funded the research? These appear
as scratches into the wall.

In regard to the actual outlined image being examined
you go on to say ....

The graffiti looks like a horse to me.
How do you distinguish it from a donkey?
Do we have any equine experts in the forum?

Why should one infer that the image and the
text associated with it to be interpretted as
a jeer? What evidence?

Equally, it could be a jeer at the crucified
graffiti-horse-man, a local horsebreeder
caught rustling the imperial herd, who when
sentenced to the cross, in the moment of his
death, was worshipping his god.

I find in this archeological instance no evidence
whatsoever to associate the image exclusively
to christianity. The Romans crucified hundreds
of thousands of respected men (without horses
heads), each of whom would have been likely
to worship a God of their world, or Gods. There
were many in the world then, you know.

Additionally, I find no evidence to date the image
to the pre-Nicaean epoch, after which time, I claim
the phenomena of chistianity to have evolved via
the leverage of supremely imperial sponsored
technology, and raw mafia barbarian power.

I will add this item, in time, to the list of other
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_070.htm
so-called archeological exceptions raised against
the theory that:

"The NT is a FICTION of men
composed by wickedness"
(Emperor Julian)

in the fourth century.




Pete Brown

dongiovanni1976x

Paula Fredriksen in "From Jesus to Christ" "suggests" that this graffiti is a jeer and implies that it is a donkey (I believe, I will need to check on that) and that it refers to Christianity. I know of no mention of the date form this source (insofar as my memory goes at thsi moment) but I have read elsewhere that it is supposedly dated to the late first century to early second.
I wish I could cite this at the moment but I just wanted to comment on this.

Ben C Smith

I think the worshipper is the figure standing to the left of the crucified man in the image. The Jews were slandered as worshipping the image of an ass, and that slander apparently spilled over into Christianity, as well, according to Minucius Felix and Tertullian. I have a page on my site with the relevant texts.

Ben.

dongiovanni1976x

Where did this slander/old calumny come from...what is the first reference to this kind of slander?

Just curious...

Ben C Smith

In that link I gave, I cited Tertullian, who says that Tacitus fabricated the suspicion. Tacitus himself, however, seems to credit earlier authors (I know not which) with the story, unless the plurimi auctores are being cited only for the part about the expulsion from Egypt.

Ben.

dongiovanni1976x

Thank you. What I was reading earlier seemed to imply that this was a Jackal and therefore should be seen as the Egyptian god Anubis. Though possible, it certainly seems more likely that this is an ass from the pictures I have been viewing and given this slander against the Jews I think it adds further weight to support the traditional interpretation that this is a mockery of some early Jewish/Christian.

mountainman

In regard to the archeological dating we have as yet had zero
citations from the archeological field.

In regard to the substance of the theme of the graffiti
we have a series of opinions: Rodney J. Decker, Assoc.,
Professor of New Testament, seems to have an opinion,
as do other individuals in this forum, in which the
inference is made that the theme is essentially christian
in nature.

What conceit! What pride !
(quoting Basil, of course).

That of the many hundreds of thousands of decent men
of many tribes (Jeews, Druids, etc) that the Romans
crucified as an imperial warning to the survivors, that
the one in the graffiti was one and the same specific
person, details of whom were fraudulently interpolated
into Josephus, in the fourth century.

So far, any reasonable objective person could not yet
be persuaded that:

1) the Alexandros grafitti is dated to pre-Nicaean (325 CE), or
2) the Alexandros grafitti is considered exclusively a christian motif.

Can we scale this discussion to the topic at hand?
But thanks for the comments to date, especially the
information from Ben's page. Can this investigation be
carried any further, and where are the citations?

Best wishes to all,



Pete Brown

xaxxat

Not sure where I saw it, but I did read that the Philistines, after capturing and opening the Ark, said it contained a head of an ass.

mountainman

The word "calumny" and its derivatives are used
very freely in much of the purported "christian literature"
that is either ascribed to Eusebius of Caesarea, and/or
the presumed christian authors in the pre-Nicaean Epoch.

I will one day assess the statistical distribution of this
word (and its derivatives) in this sample of literature,
in a quantifiable manner.


Pete Brown