mountainman

Can you point me to any online resources relating to
the secure terminus ad quem of 257 CE that I have not
already cited? For example a more detailed desription of
the process of recovery of either the house-church or
the fragment by which this secure terminus ad quem of 257 CE
of the city of Dura-Europa can be associated with either
said house church or fragment.

My argument is that a cone of silence did not fall over
the desert town in 257 CE, and remain hidden from the
world for millenia. I have cited historical evidence of the
entire Roman army under Julian passing very close by to
the site - possibly twice - in the year 363 CE.

This post-Nicaean incursion places doubt on the inference
that the ancient city remained un-visited since 257 CE.


Pete Brown

spin

First useful thing that pops up is here. And memory was off a year: it should have been 256 CE.

yummyfur

Catacombs of Callixtus - usage starting from late second century. By the way, they are starting to do AMS C 14 analysis on parts of these catacombs, I think one set has been done already, on the newest section of the catacombs, the Liberian area, that was thought to be excavated sometime in the late 4th century, I'm not sure what the results were. I think there are plans to do similar tests throughout including the parts dated to the late second century.

Personally I think the Coptic Gospel of Judas carbon dated to 280 +_ 60 is a serious problem for your hypothesis, but I'm sure you will just dismiss it.

mountainman

The error bounds provide 220-340 CE.
Nicaea (325 CE) is inside these bounds.



Pete Brown

mountainman

NO GO spin: "The page you are looking for is currently unavailable"



Pete Brown

spin

You have a problem if you can't get a link from Yale. You can search google for "house church dura europos" and look for university links.

The Bishop

This is because the "pseudo-Hadrian" understands every one of a hundred subtle changes to make to his script in order to make his forgery undetectable?

You can write a million theories that are "undisprovable". Yours is "There was no Christianity prior to Constantine." It's not disprovable by hard physical evidence, but it's not terribly likely either.

In the absence of hard physical evidence, it makes sense to accept textual evidence and not to dismiss entirely one of the principal tools used to fill in the hard evidence gap. The textual evidence suggests that there was a Christianity in the first three centuries CE, and the historical evidence suggests that Constantine used it as a tool to consolidate power and unify the Empire.

Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the Empire's official religion ("Christianity - the official religion of the Roman Empire!") is what has provided us with the evidence in the form of the earliest and most complete books of any kind that stand as historically useful texts on paper/parchment. The concept that these are not only the earliest surviving texts but also the oldest texts there ever were is simply not tenable.

yummyfur

Well I guess you are just going to ignore the Catacombs of Callixtus.

Sure the Council of Nicaea possibly falls in the range, though only the last 15 years of a 120 year range. And you still have to account for the fact that it is both a Coptic translation and a copy of that translation, which take time, money and motivation to occur. Your hypothesis gives no support for these happening to some fake heretical text that was written to merely back up a brief mention in a fake Irenaeus, especially when it has to be done in a mere 15 years. Also to say something actually dates from the very last possible date of it's C14 standard error is improbable, so really you have less time than 15 years if you want something without a piss poor probability.

Besides the Council of Nicaea is a fiction, there is nothing that can date it it to 325, the Eusebian documents pertaining to it were actually written in the late 4th century by Jerome and Theodosius I, to create a more Christian seeming earlier empire. We have no Eusebian manuscripts that can be carbon dated to the time period which you want Eusebius to be writing in, or before Jerome. We have no manuscripts mentioning Eusebius that can be carbon dated before Jerome, Any texts mentioning Eusebius or the Council, or Constantine's approval of Christianity, that seem to predate Jerome were created by Jerome, to make Eusebius and an earlier Empire approved Christianity seem real.

post tenebras lux

Including the Emperor Julian's?

And is there really nothing dating the founding of Constantinople?

yummyfur

Sure there is stuff that dates the founding of Constantinople, but how does that prove that the Council of Nicaea took place? or that Constantine was involved and approved of Christianity?

Also Julian's "Against Galileans" are preserved in Cyril Of Alexandria's writings, who wrote about them in the early 5th century in "Against Julian". But to be honest I don't think I even need to claim these were faked at Jerome's insistance to Cyril, because I don't think Julian mentions the Council of Nicaea, Eusebius or Constantine's approval of Christianity in his text's anywhere.