Kosh

I remember reading once (don't ask me where) that the practice of having Churches (as opposed to meeting in the home) was a result of Constantines conversion. THey suddenly found themselves with all these pagan temples that needed to be repurposed.

Can anyone confirm that?

post tenebras lux

Toto: re megiddo.

I fail to follow the logic of claiming that a table rather than an altar indicates that they were still worshipping in secret/underground if the donor was not scared to let their name be on the mosaic. :huh:
I know that 'God, Jesus Christ' were only written in abreviated form, but it still seems a non sequitur to me.

Further: do you know if these 'additional artifacts' (apparently buried under the stratum where the floor was found) are christian in nature? Thanks.

MountainMan: you need to remove the . at the end of your site's linky to the CAIS article so that the link works - as it doesn't at the moment. Do you know what christian writings were found on the walls there (as I couldn't find any reference on the CAIS site - sorry) and of what quality are they? You call it 'graffiti', but is that accurate?

Didymus

The church didn't expand rapidly until the 2nd century, but as we can see from the Pliny-Trajan correspondence, it's unlikely that Christians would have advertised their presence with churches. This may have varied from province to province, however.

Perhaps there's no archeological data, but there is epigraphic evidence in the form of Rylands p52, a papyrii fragment of John's gospel paleographically dated to 120 - 130 CE, found in Egypt. Quite a few 2nd century fragments of the gospels have been found there, but nothing has been found in Palestine from that early period. Perhaps that's because there was no Christian activity in Palestine until much later.

Didymus

andrewcriddle

IIUC the conversion of pagan temples into churches was not all that common and mostly well after Constantine.

Again IIUC Christians began substantial building of churches during the period of formal legal toleration of Christianity initiated by the Emperor Gallierus c 262.

Andrew Criddle

mountainman

Thanks. Fixed it.

You should find some references to images here:
http://www.factbites.com/topics/Dura-Europos-synagogue
I have not yet seen a picture of the grafitti, but its existence
was mentioned by others on this discussion board.


Pete Brown

mountainman

So far, none of these NT papyrii fragments have been carbon dated.
Our prediction is that, despite the paleographic estimate, there will be
found no manuscript or papyrus fragment of the new testament that
is carbon-dated prior to the fourth century.



Pete Brown

post tenebras lux

Thanks MM. Using google images for 'dura church' I've got a few more.

Here's the reconstructed interior:


And here's the only 'christian' bit I've found so far: A picture of Adam and Eve and 'The Good Shepherd'. Well, I can see a guy carrying a sheep, that much is true.

This painting is above 'the baptistry' aka a pool (or so the text claims, but you can see from the other photo that it's actually in an alcove), so even if the room was religious, why could they not have been Mandaeans?