Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 07-19-2009, 05:56 PM

Early Christian Archaeology: A State of the Field [.PDF]
Kim Bowes, Cornell University

Early Christian archaeology is not about "Early Christian Churches". (None have been found)
Early Christian archaeology is not about "Early Christian Church Houses". (None have been found)
Early Christian archaeology is all about ONE SINGLE "Early Christian House Church". (Singular, not plural)

The Early Christian House Church on the Prairie of Antiquity

It appears that the Dura house church is a singular item.
That we cannot even talk about "early christian house-churches"
because there is only the one, shipped back to Yale full of
great expectations early in the 20th century.

Quote:

THE ‘DOMUS ECCLESIAE’

The archaeology of third-century Christianity is one of those topics over
which the amount of ink spilled is inversely proportional to the evidence
at hand.......

...[trimmed]....

The number of definite third- and early fourthcentury worship spaces has been steadily eroded as earlier excavations are re-evaluated and new chronological evidence brought to light. San Clemente and San Crisogono’s earliest Christian phases may now be dated as late as the later fourth or early fifth century (Guidobaldi 1992; Cecchelli 2001, pp. 232–7), and other purported sites, like Peter’s House in Capernaum (Corbo 1969), have been critiqued for demonstrating no evidence of early Christian activity (Strange & Shanks 1982). The recent discovery of an alleged third-century meeting house in Kefar ‘Othnay, Israel, remains to be definitely dated (Tepper & Di Segni 2006). In other words, Dura Europos is emerging not as the tip of a domus ecclesiae iceberg, but as an unicum.

andrewcriddle · 07-20-2009, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Early Christian Archaeology: A State of the Field [.PDF]
Kim Bowes, Cornell University

This is quite an interesting article. Thanks.

Andrew Criddle

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