andrewcriddle

There are dated 3rd century CE Christian inscriptions.

EG from Phrygia an inscription beginning 327 is in the Sullan era and is equivalent to 242/3 CE.

We also have Christian remains from Dura-Europos almost certainly before its sack in c. 256 CE. This includes a Christian church and a fragment of a harmony of the Gospels.

Andrew Criddle

mountainman

The city was not destroyed, it was walled and the walls fell.
After that the Parthians took over its possession. Recent reports
indicate a Persian detachment resident at Dura Europus after
the victory of 256. For example, see the report by Pierre Leriche
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Archae...ra_europos.htm

Consequently, it is entirely feasible that the fragment 0202 was introduced to the city (and perhaps stored in the wall) at a later date, than the date of the seige in 256.

(nb: separate response to the inscription exception forthcoming)

Are you aware of any other historical evidence (outside of the reach of Eusebius) that christianity existed before say 312 CE? Thanks very much for the input.




Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au/essenes

Julian

I believe I answered that already. We have evidence.

Julian

andrewcriddle

The Christian Church (as distinct from the fragment) at Dura-Europus almost certainly dates from before 256.

The reference in the cited article to seems unlikely to imply 4th century occupation of Dura. It may simply refer to the period of continued military activity until shortly after the capture of Valerian in 260.

In any case the Greek rather than Syriac nature of the Harmony fragment is better explained by a date before the Persian occupation of the area.

Andrew Criddle

mountainman

The Inscription of Abercius speaks of "The Shepherd" not "The Christian".
That this allegorical text refers to anything christian is only by way of assumption.

Paleographic dating cannot be expected to be accurate in the case of forged manuscripts, whereas carbon dating is more authoritative here.


The carbon-dating (circa 312) has a tolerance which would also be within the period from 312-324 in which time frame, according to the Eusebian Fiction Postulate, massive volumes of literature were generated under Constantine.


Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au/essenes

mountainman

Can you provide a reference for that, specifically whether the words "a christian" is written into stone.

Thanks,


Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au

andrewcriddle

'Montanist Inscriptions and Testimonia' by William Tabbernee 1997
pps 154-161.

The stone inscription is fragmentary but ChREISTIANOS is complete (except for the final sigma which is only partly preserved.)

(There are other dated 3rd century Christian inscriptions but this is one of the most unambiguous.)

Andrew Criddle

mountainman

Our thesis is that Constantine provided imperial sponsorship of this monumental literature creation exercise, of which Eusebius of Caesarea was the Editor-In-Chief. The literature generated covers all sources in Eusebius, and such a voluminous list was provided by Vorkosigan on 27-AUG-2004 in a thread entitled "Would Eusebius have fabricated an organised church history to please Constantine" initiated by Ted Hoffman.

It is our argument that this agglomerate literature evidencing a diversionary history (the Eusebian Fiction) was created out of the whole cloth, with its own inbuilt chaotic contradictions, for the same reasons that Eusebius created MML&J (along with the Eusebian cannon tables as a by-product of the creation process) as 4 independent testimonies that did not perfectly agree. How can 4 people ever tell the same story? Eusebius was a master of tabulated data, having studied the works of Origen in his youth.

Nevertheless the type of evidence that you have presented here related to the internal analysis of the agglomerated texts, and does not as such represented first degree historical evidence for the presence of anything christian in the world before Constantine appeared on the horizon.


Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au

sorompio

Hi, mountainman. About your thesis, check independent work from professor Fernando Conde Torrens. I opened a thread some time ago about the subject:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...hlight=catalan

mountainman

By what process is the stone inscription dated, and what date has been ascribed by this process? Thanks for the info, but I do not have access to this work.


Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au