Toto

That's The Christian Inscription at Pompeii (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Paul Berry.

This review says: From this, Berry goes on to conclude that the Roman church used Latin rather than Greek, and that Jesus must have replied to Pontius Pilate in Latin.

(See this discussion, post 45, for a summary. This all seems to tie in to the controversy over the Latin Mass.)

But this particular inscription was discussed more thoroughly in this thread - start at post 104, go to 121.

mountainman

Summary:

De Rossi?


The evidence has been glorified by fraud.
There is no integrous citation for the existence
of christianity prior to the military supremacist
council of Nicaea.

Best wishes,


Pete

No Robots

Berry describes recent photographic analysis which confirms the initial 'C' to make 'Christianos'.

mountainman

Berry thus deals with the first of the above listed issues in isolation. I think this is a very premature description of the totality of the picture.

For example, some of the other issues left:

* It was in Latin
* It had no context to evaluate its meaning.
* It was a charcoal inscription
* It is now lost (!)
* under what circumstances was it found?
* How was it authenticated?
* Who did the authenticating?
* De Rossi's involvement is SUSS.


BTW, do you know what a "lost charcoal inscription" is?


Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

These are not open issues.

Refer back to my post here (I am having some problems with the google books links)

The inscription was in Latin because it was in a Latin-speaking area, and the term "Christian" is a Latin form in any case. We know the context: Stephen Carlson noted in that thread that I think that's why you don't read a lot about this inscription - it's too iffy, too easily the product of an active imagination and wishful thinking.

ChuckE99

I read through this topic with interest a couple days ago. I've got nothing scholarly to add, but yesterday, I was at a company-sponsored training and there was a woman there with the first name, "Hristina". So maybe there doesn't have to be a missing first letter at all.

No Robots

In my view, the corroboration from three different archaeologists makes it considerably less than "iffy". Add the photographic analysis of the carbon traces on the wall and it's a slam dunk.

There is in fact considerable discussion of this inscription. Just type 'audi christianos' in google books and google scholar.

It is fun to speculate on why it is relatively little known outside of the professional realm. In my view, there is little to hold the popular interest here. Most people aren't aware of the significance of such early graphical evidence of Christianity's spread to Italy. For people attuned to the question, of course, this is quite explosive.

Another factor, in my view, is what the graffito says about Christians. It is widely accepted that it is some kind of insult, calling them either 'severe swans' or 'severe Solons'. It may bother some Christians that they were known so early on as annoying scolds, and it may bother some sceptics that their criticism hasn't advanced much beyond what was generally known from the get-go.

Toto

ChuckE99 - that's the Slavic spelling of Christina, based on transliterating the Cyrillic alphabet, which was invented some centuries after this.

No Robots - the graffito is supposed to be audi christiani, but I don't get any results from that on Google Scholar, and only one for audi christianos, which links to a JSTOR article I don't have access to, which seems to think that the inscription is Aramaic written in Latin letters.

No Robots

I'm pretty sure it's 'audi christianos', which brings up a lot of hits in google books.

gstafleu

I have access to JSTOR, and the picture definitely shows it is "christianos". I can, I think, send you the relevant pages, but I need your real email address for that.

Gerard