Ben C Smith

Okay, that makes more sense.

But it still looks more like a sarcophagus.

At any rate, it represents the burial place, one way or another.

Ben.

spin

You can see that the structure is actually taller than the women, as they aren't as high as the space allowed and the structure itself goes beyond the space limit: that should indicate that it's not intended as a sarcophagus. For it to have been a sarcophagus you wouldn't expect to see just the end of it, nor would you expect it anywhere near as big.

If it looks like the end a sarcophagus, does it also look like a Kidron tomb?


spin

mountainman

Dear Avi,

I entirely agree that the issue has been conflated, and that at the end of the day what is important, as you clearly state, and list, is the evidence itself. Therefore I have extracted the following from your responses, which explicitly addresses this thread and poll about the Dura-Europos evidence, and respond to it below.

I would like to make a special note of pointing out the truth in this statement by avi. The name of De Rossi is often associated with many of the more well known archaeological citations to "christianity", but today we know many of his "works" were fraud.


The answer is that we dont, and neither does spin. The issue from the opening gambit has been to lay down the authoritative mainstream intepretation (which has never been formally challenged as far as I am aware) which as most objective readers might determine for themselves is a bundle of tenuous conjectures.

What I would like to know and my detractors have not yet outlined, is who has been responsible for "touching up" the women on the frescoe for surely, if we were to examine the paint-work in a scientific manner, what would it reveal about the restoration which has been photographed and displayed here in this forum, to substantiate the assertion that a christian new testament canon existed prior to the rise of Bullneck.

Nice colours.
Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

Almost everything is ancient history is partly conjectural/speculative. Most conclusions in ancient history depend on fragmentary evidence, because that is most of what there is to work with. However tenuously supported the mainstream conclusions are, your conclusions are even more tenuously supported, being wholly conjectural/speculative and wholly unsupported by any evidence, even the most fragmentary.

spamandham

Ok. I've fundamentally misunderstood your hypothesis.

I was under the impression it referred to the canon, the start of what we call Christianity, and a false church history to make it all seem plausble. I've seen you talk about polemic reactions to that before, but did not realize part of your hypothesis was that the entire non canonical corpus post dates 324. Thanks for clearing that up.

As a result, I'm changing my position in this thread.

The Dura fragment does prove to me a minimum of something like a gospel tradition prior to 324 in my mind. It's sufficiently implausible that the same cast of characters would be involved in something totally unrelated by mere happenstance, even allowing for your interpretation of Joshua instead of Jesus.

spamandham

:notworthy: I did ask for that.

Thank you sir may I have another.

spamandham

I still find this one confusing regardless of my changed vote. If it's a tomb, it's hard to imagine an entrance accessed by rolling away a stone. If it's a supersized sarcophagus, it's still out of place.

Are we sure this is even supposed to depict a burial scene?

mountainman

Dear S&H,

Am still working on this, but I thought I should report that the term "three hundred and eighteen fathers " is the key term to be faced in the useage of authority over the course of the fourth century, a practice revised by Cyril.

Best wishes,


Pete

Ben C Smith

I was not following the entirety of this thread very closely, but an error on my Dura fragment page has been pointed out both here and by avi via email that I have now corrected.

I used to have the Greek word for cross on line 3 written as if there were an ellipsis or lacuna in the text; this was inaccurate. Rather, it is one of the nomina sacra, which on this page I am expanding out into their full unabbreviated forms. I do this expansion, using braces {}, to help those who are just beginning to parse Greek texts. The letters inside the braces are the ones that are not expressed in the text; rather, an overstroke marks the presence of an abbreviation. I use brackets [] to indicate true lacunae.

Thanks to avi for pointing this out.

Ben.

mountainman

Dear Ben,

What does deep midnight's voice contend? I chimed in a response.

Best wishes,


Pete