andrewcriddle

Codex Bezae is a bilingual Greek-Latin text of the Gospels and Acts writen around 450 CE. At which time there had been Latin versions of the NT around for at least 200 years.

It is accepted by most but not all scholars that the Latin of Bezae is not simply a fresh translation of the Greek of Bezae but was influenced by the preexisting Old Latin textual tradition.

This Old Latin tradition is almost certainly ultimately dependent on the Greek text but on an earlier form than that represented by the Greek of Bezae.

(The earliest ascertainable version of the Old Latin NT shows strong signs of being a translation from Greek both in vocabulary and grammar.)

Andrew Criddle

Juliana

I stronly suggest you not only look at page 385 but also read the corresponding text of note 157 which perfectly explains why it is a "bloody cross" in that reconstruction drawing and the development of Christ's cross from Caesar's tropaeum.
See also the illustrations in that note.

Just keep lying by omission it certainly is an effective manner of contortion.

Concerning the "crucifixion".
As late as 325 AD, the time of the Council of Nicaea, there was no talk of crucifixion and neither of Pontius Pilatus in the creed, only that he had suffered: pathonta, passus est. Only with the following Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum, 381, both appear.

For those familiar with the Quran there is also a passage there concerning the "crucifixion" of Jesus.
In Sura 4, verse 157 it says:
“… And they did not crucify him, but a simulacrum, an effigy, was made of him. And those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow…�?

But you certainly will "refute" those too, by mangling the text or displaying more of your sophistry.

Amaleq13

"Perfectly explains"? Hardly. The drawing depicts a crucified Caesar for no other reason than to correspond to Carotta's theory. He offers no evidence to support this entirely speculative "reconstruction" and it is clearly the result of circular reasoning (ie Caesar=Christ, Christ=crucified, therefore Caesar=crucified in effigy). The text of the note makes it plain to see that he has no actual evidence to support the speculation nor the enormously self-serving drawing. Why are Caesar's arms outstretched? Because that's the "only way" an effigy could be attached to a tropaeum! Really? It is impossible to attach it in any other way? How about lashing it with its arms down to the sides on a single pole? Apparently not because we are also told the additional "reasons" include the unsubstantiated assertion that this is how dead bodies fall and that Antonius wanted to show the body as it originally lay on the ground. Another alleged motivation is that, according to Damascenus, Caesar's body was seen on a litter with the arms hanging off the sides.

It is painfully clear that only a fragile web of largely unsubstantited speculation supports Carotta's claim that Caesar's effigy was displayed on a cross-shaped tropaeum in a position of crucifixion. He has no actual evidence for the claim.

andrewcriddle

The early Eastern creeds tend not to have much about the earthly life of Christ.

However the early Western creeds have more details.

In the Apostolic Tradition chapter 21 the declaratory baptismal creed (which is probably that in use in Rome about 250 CE) has Andrew Criddle

Juliana

It is interesting that the early Eastern creeds tend not to have much about the earthly life of Christ, especially the crucifixion which one would assume is essential. Numerous and important ante-nicene Church Fathers do not mention Pilate and the crucifixion in their Creed either, i.a.: Origenes (Alexandria) A.D. 230, Gregory (Neo Caesarea) A.D. 270, Lucian (Antioch) A.D. 300, Eusebius (Caesarea, Pal.) A.D. 325, Cyril (Jerusalem) A.D. 350
Why?

In the West Cyprian (Carthage) A.D. 250 and Novatian (Rome) A.D. 250 - why does he not have it when it was "probably in use in Rome about 250 CE" - know nothing about it either. Isn't that strange?

Aquitaine

The basis for saying that it 'might' be, is the fact that it 'might' be.


I don't think Carotta says "IT WAS DEFINITELY THIS SHAPE" etc. The process of his thinking (in my understanding/remembrance), is that he says: if his theory is true, then we should find some object or factor in the story of Caesar's funeral that could be misunderstood as, or could have morphed into, that rather important Christian symbol we all know: the cross.
He ends up finding the tropaeum. He then recounts what he discovers when he pursues this hunch. IIRC, this is how much of the book goes.
I find it to be a plausible way of approaching the complexity of what is involved.

Well, he has an entire chapter dealing with the issue. I haven't the time to make a synopsis of it, since there is quite a bit there, and I probably would only end up botching it with an incomplete explanation...
He uses numismatic evidence (there are pictures in the chapter) as well as images from statues. (the breastplates on some statues have images on them)...
btw, I found this image online:
http://www.severusalexander.com/images/milne3166.jpg

If you remove the shields and the armor, it sure seems that underneath would be found a wooden cross-shaped structure. It seems logical to assume that such a structure is the basic shape that most wooden tropaeums would have had, and on this would be attached the armor. Or in the case of Caesar's funeral, the wax replica of his stabbed body.

Well, if you are referring to the image that I had previously linked tolink, I can only really say for certain that it sure as hell has a cross-shape! If it is "tree-trunk shaped with armor hanging from it" still, the overall shape that one perceives is a cross.
Also, if it represents a 'very early' form of tropaeum, it still is a tropaeum; and if it is earlier than Caesar, then a later tropaeum of Caesar's time would certainly be influenced by the tradition that influenced this shape...
Really, this kind of 'criticism' doesn't seem to be in the spirit of seeking a better understanding.


I am satisfied that tropaeums did come in a cross-shape. Carotta has pictures, and also we can find pictures on the internet.

Well, maybe they took five tree-trunks, laid them on the ground and did the freakin' hokey-pokey! Haha!


Good gracious. Hey, I'm just a guy who read a book and I was very intrigued by what it said. If you honestly desire to know the answers to such questions, you better not ask me. I never claimed to be an expert on tropaeums!
But at least I read the book, and I DON'T attack someone else's book until I have read it, and formed my opinions after giving the author that chance to 'speak' to me directly.

No, I don't think it does.

The speculations made by Carotta are based on evidence. We can disagree with that evidence. (I haven't read a book and agreed with EVERYTHING it said.) And many history books are forced by circumstances to resort to speculations on pretty darned scanty evidence.



Well, I honestly think Carotta is on to something. He does speculate, but he does provide a lot of explanations for what he bases them on.
When I try to look through the book in an attempt to answer a lot of the objections raised here, it seems such a daunting task. Perhaps it is the way in which Carotta recounts his discoveries, or perhaps it is just the nature of what he has found that makes things so difficult.
I wish I had more time to explain at the moment...

Juliana

Maybe to you it is "painfully clear". I feel no pain about it.
By a "web of largely unsubstantiated speculation" you probably mean, e.g. the fact that Jesus is never depicted as a crucified one during the first millenium, never hanging but always shown as if standing on the cross. And if you want to expose a body showing the wounds on it, especially the mortal one in the side - "of all the many stab wounds according the judgement of Antistius, his personal physician, only one was mortal, namely the second, which he took in his chest" (Suet. Div Jul. 82) -
you will certainly lash it with its arms down to the sides on a single pole. Does that make sense? Isn't it easier and the natural position to affix a man with his arms outstretched. What kind of evidence (there are umpteen coins with a cruciform tropaeum and an armor attached to it) do you want? A photograph perhaps?

spin

Ameleq13 has responded to most of the substantive implications of Juliana's post, so I'll just respond to his weak attempts at invective.
As the picture was right in the note which I was reading, it's exceptionally hard not to have got to the picture other than by the note. I'd strongly suggest that you refrain from making erroneous assumptions.

A bloody tropaeum is not a bloody cross, despite Carotta's limp attempt to make it so by conflating the two sources he uses and then by assuming that the only way the wax figure could be seen from all angles is to hang it off a bloody tropaeum. Suetonius, who talks about a tropaeum on which the robe was placed, knows nothing about a wax figure, though he in his position had access to the city's records and liked the juicier details such as this wax figure would have been. That Appian talks about a wax figure seems merely to be dramatic embellishment post Suetonius.

:rolling:

Love it: "lying by omission"!

Carotta has happily omitted the fact that Suetonius knows nothing about the effigy and allows his readers to assume that the two accounts provide ostensibly similar data.

Hypocrisy comes easily with you, doesn't it Juliana, my dear?

Why project Carotta onto me??


spin

spin

That implies a rather late stage, I'm afraid, when you can't feel anything.

Umm, Jesus wasn't stabbed in the chest. He was speared in the side. And that story is only found in the gospel of John. Are you saying that the various elements of the Caesar story found in the gospels are actually spread out, a few in this one a few in that? How do you suppose that happened??

No, you should pay more attention to Appian, who talks about turning it "in every direction by a mechanical device, and twenty-three wounds could be seen, savagely inflicted on every part of the body and on the face". Do you imagine a tropaeum being turned this way? Or was the wax figure suspended and the mechanism allowed the figure to be turned in every direction? That would allow the wounds to be seen both front and back.

Remember that the tropaeum was only in Suetonius's account and was used to drape Caesar's blood-stained robe on. Appian has a totally different story: Antonius "lifted his robe on the point of a spear and shook it aloft, pierced with dagger-thrusts and red with the dictator's blood", so there is no tropaeum in the Appian version.

The two accounts do not concur in the facts Carotta is trying to deal with, so he has conflated them, as a christian apologist conflates the contrary birth narratives.

Have a look at the foot of the column of Trajan, you'll see a relatively clear relief of a tropaeum of the form you're interested in.


spin

Amaleq13

I suspect you are correct because I have certainly gotten the impression from the examples you and Juliana have offered that circular reasoning is crucial to accepting Carotta's theory. It only seems reasonable if you examine the argument while assuming the conclusion is true. While this approach is an excellent way to "affirm" the conclusion, it seems extremely unreliable in detecting false positives.

It appears to me that he speculates on the rather sparse evidence in a way that supports his "hunch". There is nothing in the descriptions of Caesar's effigy on a tropaeum that suggests or requires a cross or a crucified position.

The complexity is required by the approach and should serve as in indication of circular reasoning. When complex rearrangements of the evidence, special considerations, and unique "possibilies" are necessary, skepticism is an entirely reasonable response. This is a seriously flawed approach that cannot eliminate the possibility that the starting assumption is wrong. The conclusion should follow from the evidence and this should be apparent from an objective description of that evidence. Assuming the conclusion introduces a strong tendency to bias one's consideration of the evidence.

How do you eliminate the possibility of a tree-shape with multiple arms upon which various arms and armor were hung? How do you know they didn't look more like coatracks than crosses? I've already said that it is possible they were cross-shaped but there doesn't appear to be any reason to think it more likely than not except to preserve the conclusion.

It is only "logical" to make the assumption if one first assumes the conclusion. Otherwise, we really don't have any evidence that requires or even suggests that the effigy was displayed as though crucified. That it is not impossible seems to be the strongest claim that can be made.

I have already agreed that the entire form in the picture you provided creates the shape of a cross but Carotta's claim is clearly that the wooden frame took the shape of the cross so that the only way the effigy could be displayed was in a crucified position. We cannot tell the actual shape of the frame from the pictures but that is what we need to know.

Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that they sometimes took a cross shape, there still seems to be no good reason to assume that the one displaying Caesar's effigy took that shape. For all we know, it took the form of an actual, uprooted tree or a single spear shaft or a more complex rack.

How so? I feel I am obtaining a much better understanding of the basis for Carotta's theory. I don't understand what you are implying. What is wrong with questioning the evidentiary basis for offered claims?

Carotta has a picture that was drawn to depict his speculation. He has no pictures of Caesar's tropaeum and no pictures of an effigy crucified on one.

You attempted to defend Carotta's assertions. I don't understand how you can be convinced of a theory you cannot explain or defend. Isn't that the definition of "faith"?

The claim was brought here. If you don't want your claim critiqued, don't make it here. Frankly, the arguments offered so far, do not suggest to me that the book is worth the time.

They are inspired by the evidence with an intended goal of supporting the initial assumption.

No, we can disagree about the plausibility of the speculations but the state of the evidence is demonstrably objective. The texts describing Caesar's tropaeum say what they say no matter who reads them. They do not require or suggest a cross-shaped tropaeum. That it was cross-shaped appears to be entirely speculative. The evidence does not, in and of itself, support the theory.

I agree but don't you agree that we should be skeptical whenever that speculation is offered to support a particular, favored conclusion?