Freethought & Rationalism Archive

arnoldo · 04-30-2009, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

It is my understanding that the appearance of "christian names"
in the archaeological record is after the mid-fourth century and
that aside from rare exceptions such do not appear earlier.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Mark was the most common male name in the Roman Empire and Luke was the second most common.

This is the case perhaps sometime in the fourth century.
But is it not the case in any earlier period in the empire.
If anyone wants to dispute this please feel free.

It should come to no shock that the following Aramaic names were rather common in Israel during the first century. . .

Quote:

. . . And after they entered, they went up into an upper room. (Those) that were staying in <her> : Petros, and Yukhanan, and Yaqub, and Andraus, and Peleepos, and Tawma, and Mattai, and Bar-Tulmay, and Yaqub Bar-Khalpai, and Shimon the zealot, and Yehud Bar-Yaqub. 14These, all of them, were steadfast in prayer with one soul, and (with) the women with Maram, [his] mother of Yeshua, and with his brethren.

15And among them in those days arose Shimon Keepa in the midst of the disciples there. .
Aramaic Peshitta

Are you seriously claiming that these names were not used until the fourth century?

mountainman · 04-30-2009, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

It is my understanding that the appearance of "christian names"
in the archaeological record is after the mid-fourth century and
that aside from rare exceptions such do not appear earlier.

This is the case perhaps sometime in the fourth century.
But is it not the case in any earlier period in the empire.
If anyone wants to dispute this please feel free.

It should come to no shock that the following Aramaic names were rather common in Israel during the first century. . .

Quote:

. . . And after they entered, they went up into an upper room. (Those) that were staying in <her> : Petros, and Yukhanan, and Yaqub, and Andraus, and Peleepos, and Tawma, and Mattai, and Bar-Tulmay, and Yaqub Bar-Khalpai, and Shimon the zealot, and Yehud Bar-Yaqub. 14These, all of them, were steadfast in prayer with one soul, and (with) the women with Maram, [his] mother of Yeshua, and with his brethren.

15And among them in those days arose Shimon Keepa in the midst of the disciples there. .
Aramaic Peshitta

Are you seriously claiming that these names were not used until the fourth century?

Above I have cited Lane-Fox who cites Bagnall's review of the papyri.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LANE-FOX

"At present a negative point does emerge from the papyrii." [FN:14]
[14] R.S. Bagnall, B.A.S.P (1985), 105

The footnote is Bagnall:

Quote:

Originally Posted by BAGNALL's REVIEW

"Very few examples before c.300 of the personal names
which christians in Egypt later preferred to adopt.
From c.340 onwards, references to christians,
churches and christian authorities multiply
as do the numbers of favored christian names".

Toto · 04-30-2009, 04:22 PM

"Very few examples before c.300 of the personal names which christians in Egypt later preferred to adopt. From c.340 onwards, references to christians, churches and christian authorities multiply as do the numbers of favored christian names".

This relates to Egypt. It shows an explosive growth of references to Christianity in Egypt after Constantine made it an official religion.

It may very well have been that Christians existed before this, but did not advertise themselves, or adopt distinctive names. Names tend to follow fads and fashions in any case.

What is even remotely surprising about this?

mountainman · 04-30-2009, 05:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

"Very few examples before c.300 of the personal names which christians in Egypt later preferred to adopt. From c.340 onwards, references to christians, churches and christian authorities multiply as do the numbers of favored christian names".

This relates to Egypt. It shows an explosive growth of references to Christianity in Egypt after Constantine made it an official religion.

It may very well have been that Christians existed before this, but did not advertise themselves, or adopt distinctive names.

"It may very well have been that .... ????

It may very well have been that Christains did not exist before this. How about some evidence to support your contention ? I have cited a 1985 academic review of the papyrii. What are you going to cite? Mark's fantastical visit to Egypt? Stark's conjectures?

Toto · 04-30-2009, 06:02 PM

You cited an academic review that does not support your conclusion. Back to square one.

mountainman · 04-30-2009, 10:02 PM

The academic review cited speaks for itself.
It is not going away in a hurry.
We do not have any reasonable evidence for
the statistical emergence of "christian names"
in Egypt - and thus from Alexandria -- until late.

Feel free to cite any other review from any other
part of the Roman empire which contradicts the
findings expressed in the cited review.

It may represent "square one" of the review of the evidence.
The apologists however are operating from "square zero".
They have no evidence to contribute to the discussion
aside from the sickening "authority of the christian tradition".

Until further evidence is presented, the absence of christian
names in the archaeological records represents, as Lane-Fox
states -- a negative point --- against "tradition."

Its a bit like baseball. The apologists are being struck out
one negative point after another. They have nothing on
the scoreboard of history, except false-hits and alot of
hand-waving to the bench. If evidence is the equivalent
of runs, then after almost 1600 years at the pitch, they
have zero runs. Not one Apologetic striker has made it home,
or if they thought they did, the points were eventually removed
from the scoreline by the umpires in the field of ancient history
and archaeology.

Huon · 05-01-2009, 12:38 AM

The first Bishop of Bordeaux known to history, Orientalis, is mentioned at the Council of Arles, in 314.

mountainman, you could examine the names of the first bishops of Western Europe, Middle East, and North Africa. A "christian" name is the (ordinary) name of a person who was celebrated at some moment because he/she was martyred, most of the time. These names had been previously given to persons who were or were not christians.

Martin (Martinus : the god Mars) is a name which was given very often, after the fourth century in Gaul, due to the celebrity of Martin of Tours (316-397).

In my region, there is a girl's name, Quitterie (pron. Kittery). It is the name of a noble girl who was martyred by a wisigoth King, perhaps Alaric, at the end of the Vth century. This is a part of the black legend of the Wisigoths, who were Arians. Some very christian families give this ridiculous name to one of their girls. Before 1950, it was unknown.

spin · 05-01-2009, 01:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I don't know if Stephen Carr was being serious there.

Roman names

Quote:

The praenomen was the personal name, and there were very few to choose from: Caius or Gaius (the most common), Cnaeus or Gnaeus, Titus, Tiberius, Quintus, Aulus, Decimus, Lucius, Marcus, Postumus, Publius, Quadratus, Sextus, Servius, Spurius, and maybe Primus and Tertius. That's about it. Nova Roma also lists Flavius and Cassius, but those are nomina and were certainly not praenomina until the 3rd or 4th century.

I'm not sure how you would identify a "Christian" name in any case.

Well, Constantine had a half-sister called Anastasia. Now that beyond all doubt is a christian name... I mean a name from christian tradition, Anastasia means "resurrection", not a concept found in other religious contexts of the era. Her mother's name was Theodora ("gift of god"), which is a little less specific, in that it could have been christian or Jewish.

spin

Toto · 05-01-2009, 05:45 AM

There is a discussion and criticism of Bagnall here.

Quote:

A third transformation that Bagnall outlines, and the subject on which he is most provocative, lies in the sphere of religion. As Peter Brown and Annik Martin have respectively detailed in various publications, the fourth century sees the rise of both the Christian holy man and Christianity as a civic institution in Egypt.2 But for what proportion of the population were these trends relevant? Against triumphalist church historians of another age who viewed "paganism" as an inherently lost cause by the first century CE, scholars like Wilcken, Maspero, Rémondon, and Kaegi provided abundant evidence, papyrological as well as literary, for the continuity of Egyptian religion through the sixth century (although only in isolated enclaves like Philae and Abydos after the fourth century).3 This argument, continued more recently by Wipszycka, van der Vliet, and Trombly, has grown more refined with greater awareness of the limitations of the sources (predominantly hagiographical after the fourth century) and greater attention to the class, region, discourse, and activities of such "lingering paganism."4 Thus one might almost conclude that Egyptian religion was not really suffering in the fourth century.

Bagnall himself had attempted to refute this conclusion from statistical angle in a 1982 article and an ensuing debate with Ewa Wipszycka.5 Using all the datable papyri from the fourth and fifth centuries he calculated the proportion of Christian and non-Christian names and thus proposed the percentage of Christians in the Egyptian population at several periods over the fourth century. By this ingenious, if unrealistically mechanistic approach to "conversion" Bagnall deduced the Christians' shift over the course of the fourth century from minority to heavily majority status.

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04-30-2009, 04:22 PM	#13
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	"Very few examples before c.300 of the personal names which christians in Egypt later preferred to adopt. From c.340 onwards, references to christians, churches and christian authorities multiply as do the numbers of favored christian names". This relates to Egypt. It shows an explosive growth of references to Christianity in Egypt after Constantine made it an official religion. It may very well have been that Christians existed before this, but did not advertise themselves, or adopt distinctive names. Names tend to follow fads and fashions in any case. What is even remotely surprising about this?

04-30-2009, 06:02 PM	#15
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	You cited an academic review that does not support your conclusion. Back to square one.

04-30-2009, 10:02 PM	#16
mountainman Contributor Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Falls Creek, Oz. Posts: 11,192	The academic review cited speaks for itself. It is not going away in a hurry. We do not have any reasonable evidence for the statistical emergence of "christian names" in Egypt - and thus from Alexandria -- until late. Feel free to cite any other review from any other part of the Roman empire which contradicts the findings expressed in the cited review. It may represent "square one" of the review of the evidence. The apologists however are operating from "square zero". They have no evidence to contribute to the discussion aside from the sickening "authority of the christian tradition". Until further evidence is presented, the absence of christian names in the archaeological records represents, as Lane-Fox states -- a negative point --- against "tradition." Its a bit like baseball. The apologists are being struck out one negative point after another. They have nothing on the scoreboard of history, except false-hits and alot of hand-waving to the bench. If evidence is the equivalent of runs, then after almost 1600 years at the pitch, they have zero runs. Not one Apologetic striker has made it home, or if they thought they did, the points were eventually removed from the scoreline by the umpires in the field of ancient history and archaeology.

05-01-2009, 12:38 AM	#17
Huon Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Bordeaux France Posts: 2,796	The first Bishop of Bordeaux known to history, Orientalis, is mentioned at the Council of Arles, in 314. mountainman, you could examine the names of the first bishops of Western Europe, Middle East, and North Africa. A "christian" name is the (ordinary) name of a person who was celebrated at some moment because he/she was martyred, most of the time. These names had been previously given to persons who were or were not christians. Martin (Martinus : the god Mars) is a name which was given very often, after the fourth century in Gaul, due to the celebrity of Martin of Tours (316-397). In my region, there is a girl's name, Quitterie (pron. Kittery). It is the name of a noble girl who was martyred by a wisigoth King, perhaps Alaric, at the end of the Vth century. This is a part of the black legend of the Wisigoths, who were Arians. Some very christian families give this ridiculous name to one of their girls. Before 1950, it was unknown.

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