mountainman

Thanks. It is quite lengthy. I will check it.

There appears to be another non canonical text - "Vita Abercii" - that is highly related to this inscription (or vice verse) that does not have an English translation freely available on the net.


From the pdf, another translation of line 16:

mountainman

I made a list of all so-called Christian and/or Chrestian inscriptions claimed to be earlier than Constantine the Great Bullshit Artist.

Do you have a problem with this approach?

Have either of you two skeptics read Elsa Gibson's book?

mountainman

Part of this is presented at the appendix.

The Life of Abercius appears to be classified as another late 4th century non canonical text.





The big question is did the epitaph come from the text or vice verse.




De Rossi's record as a fabricator does not augur well here.




Chrestian reference in Abercius?

Christians are not mentioned, just the Good Shepherd.

As mentioned in the footnote above, many of the earliest CLAIMED Christian inscriptions in Gibson's book and other sources state "Chrestians" and not "Christians".

Here someone is trying to interpret "good wine" as "chrestos wine" and then inferring the "Christos wine". It doesn't work that way IMO.

Nice try though. Ten out of ten for looking closely with the Christian glasses firmly on.

mountainman

The article states that the present evidence for this inscription is a Vatican Museum reconstruction.


The papal archaeologist de Rossi was involved c.1888.

It's like what Yale later did for the Dura-Europos "house-church" murals.

De Rossi called it the "Queen of Early Christian Inscriptions".

It stinks of fabrication.

But that does not seem to trouble some people here.

mountainman

See Page 25.


The reasoning of the scholars who have decided that this is clearly Christian started with De Rossi.

mountainman

It sounds like Ramsay found the inscription in two parts.
The first contained the first and last lines.
The second contained the middle.
How serendipitous.



TIMELINE for the discovery of the Queen of Christian Inscriptions - the Abercius Inscription


1882:

Inscribed slab dated 216 CE found by English traveller, W. Ramsay, at Kelendres, near Synnada, in Phrygia Salutaris (Asia Minor)
The inscription in question recalled the memory of a certain Alexander, son of Anthony.
On comparison it was found that the inscription in memory of Alexander corresponded, almost word for word,
with the first and last verses of the epitaph of the Bishop of Hieropolis; all the middle part was missing.
Called the epitaph of Alexander (now in the Istanbul Archaological Museum).
No actual photograph of this inscription has been published; we do have two different line drawings/reconstructions of it.



1882: ?

De Rossi and Duchesne at once recognized in it phrases similar to those in the epitaph of Abercius.
The text of the inscription was available in the "Life of Abercius" authored in the late 4th century.


1883:

Mr. Ramsay, on a second visit to the site of Hieropolis, discovered two new fragments covered with inscriptions,
built into the masonry of the public baths. These fragments, which are now in the Vatican Christian Museum, filled out the
middle part of the stele inscribed with the epitaph of Abercius.

Ramsay was able to find Abercius’ inscription because he first found the hot springs that the vita Abercii says
spontaneously erupted by the intervention of the saint.


1888:

De Rossi's report: argument for the unified inscription having been inscribed on only one side of the stone,
appeals to the analogy of the disposition of the inscription on the epitaph of Alexander.

Sheshbazzar

The Inscription of Abercius is dated to 216 CE, the Paul mentioned as a companion could hardly be that Paul that Christianity firmly places in the 1st century CE.

Παῦλος 'Paulos' was a very common Greek name. It is a real stretch to imagine that this line is speaking of the 1st century 'apostle' Paul as being his companion.

mountainman

Also Harnack on the Inscription of Abercius
F. C. Conybeare

The Classical Review
Vol. 9, No. 6 (Jul., 1895), pp. 295-297

Harnack refers to the 4th century text as "The Acts of Abercius".

Other references like to call it the "Life of Abercius".

Anyone know the story?



Ramsay's original report entitled The Tale of Saint Abercius - W. M. Ramsay
Pages 339-353

makes an interesting read.

Sheshbazzar

Don'cha just love how they just toss that 'indisputably historical' assertion out there? Especially about something that had been and still is a subject of dispute?

'Nor is there any further need to enter into the questions raised in one quarter or another;'

Cut off all discussion so their assertions cannot be questioned or disputed in their cloistered little religious academic kingdom.
After all they already consulted their Urim and Thummim for their final decision, so it cannot be permitted to be questioned.

De Rossi, Giovanni Battista (Carlo), 1822-1894; Roman Catholic archaeologist

Duchesne, Louis Marie Olivier, 1843-1922, French Roman Catholic ecclesiastic

Cumont, Franz-Valéry-Marie, 1868–1947, Belgium, archaeologist

Regarding Cumant, E. D. Francis who posthumously published Cumont's contribution to a final report on the 'Mithraeum at Dura-Europos' in an English translation with notes under the title “The Dura Mithraeum” Had this to say;
(Source)

Admittedly this comment dealt with Cumont's work at Dura Europos, but was an observation made by one most intimately familiar with Cumont's working methodology.

mountainman

The Acts of Abercius in which the text of the inscription appears is regarded as a 4th century non canonical act. We may have been too hasty to call these non canonical acts pulp fiction.

Ramsay discovers the first and last lines of the Alexander inscription which De Rossi and other Christian Priests suddenly recognise as the first and last lines in the inscription of Abercius mentioned in a 4th century pulp fiction manuscript.

A year later, guided by the fact that Saint Abercius had caused hot springs to flow out of the ground near where he was to be buried, the same English traveller Ramsay suddenly finds another inscription that miraculously contained the missing middle lines. He finds it in the wall of a bath house.

When he wrote his report entitled " The Tale of Saint Abercius" (See JSTOR article above) it is interesting to note his very last sentence. He mentions that the papal archaeologist de Rossi has found another startlingly wonderful inscription. One good turn deserves another in the inscription publishing industry run by the Pope. Big bucks. Moochos Kudos.

I wonder whether Ramsay knew where to look?

The Queen of all Early Christian inscriptions is looking a little suss.

Huller is quiet.