Casper

From what I gathered, it is dated partially on the premise that St Georgeous is from the late second or early 3rd century. However the pottery recovered seems only to go back to the 3rd century at best. That suggests to me that St Georgeous may need some scrutiny applied to its historical claims. Or maybe it is simply an invalid proxy.

Perhaps I'm reading something incorrectly.

The Foxnews link words it differently:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,364486,00.html

Sounds a little more sober. An old christian gathering place of some kind, from possibly the 2nd century, is a very significant find in itself, there is no need to trivialize it with fantastic claims.

gstafleu

"dating from 33AD to 70AD." Is it possible to date such a site this accurately?

Gerard Stafleu

Amaleq13

Sure, if you assume a date for the crucifixion as the earliest possible date and consider the war to be the latest possible date.

MortalWombat

Yeah, it's funny that they pick those specific dates when in the article it says:

But there is no mention of anything dated to earlier than that.

gstafleu

Ah yes, of course! So the logic is: we found something underneath what until now was the oldest church. So it must be older than the oldest, so it must be the oldest possibly possible. We know that that is between 33 and 70. So that's how we date it. From these dates we can then conclude that this must be the oldest Christian church. Thanks for the elucidation .

Gerard Stafleu

gstafleu

You can't expect to find anything earlier than that, because its historical footprint would be undetectably small. Hence its absence proves the accuracy of the dating :devil1:.

Gerard Stafleu

Casper

Except that even that church is traditionally dated only to 230CE, hence my comment on the evaluation of that date, in the stratigraphy scheme. Even if that date stands, the sublayer can still be 3rd century. Which fits with the pottery observation of 3rd-7th century. Which means the catacombs were either in use over the first four centuries of the church, or the church is only 7th century. I guess there are other possibilities that segue into this as well, but it certainly doesn't support any conjecture about 1st century use or even existence.

Great find, it's just a shame that it has to be tarnished with sensationalism.

MortalWombat

Another important tidbit is this:
Does anyone know what this refers to and when it dates from?

Solitary Man

Wow, any more strawman up your sleeve?

Solitary Man

What's nonsense?