spin

All falsified by the existence of a house church in places like Dura Europos -- this one dated to before the Sassanid conquest of the city, when the who area which included the house church, a synagogue and a mithreum, was filled in to strengthen the western wall. This fill was what preserved the sites for the archaeologist. Date 256 CE. :wave:

rlogan

Pffft.

Forgeries.

mountainman

The synagogue and the mithreum are a synagogue and a mithreum.
That the "house church" represents pre-Nicaean evidence of christianity
is an inference of the archeological evidence that I am not compelled
to share. You can see the photos of the wall painting online.

What compels you to see in these paintings anything "christian"?
I am interested in how the human mind works.




Pete Brown

spin

We are watching how the human mind works.

Further, we have a mosaic on the floor of a church at Megiddo on wwhich pottery from the late third century was found, discovered by Israeli prisoners and investigated by the IAA archaeologist Yotam Tepper. (One inscription has QW IU XW, ie Qew Ihsou Xristw, the god Jesus Christ, not exactly your average Eusebian theology.)

Roger Pearse

I was wondering why you included the definite article in your translation.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

Just quick English form. How would you put it in acceptible English?


spin

mountainman

Indeed it is a fascinating tool.

The archeological director of the Megiddo site is reluctant to date
the find earlier than Nicaea, for some conservative reason.



Pete Brown

spin

You gotta love it. That's two pre-Nicene christian structures to falsify this theory. But mountainman isn't worried about it. He knows he's right.

Jobar

Speaking as a layman coming to mountainman's theory for the first time, I'll say that it appears to me that he's incorrect, and that there were self-identified Christians, with beliefs which varied among themselves but are recognizable today as Christian dogmas (or sometimes heretical minority opinions), prior to Nicea.

But I have to say that I don't consider it *impossible* that he's right, and Constantine forged (had forged, actually) most of the evidences we have for pre-Nicean Christianity. Such forgery would indeed explain Julian's invective, and who here doubts that such tailoring of a religion from whole cloth usually isn't below the ethics of those who seek such power as Constantine did? As rlogan points out, we're pretty sure that the writings about first-century Christianity we have are all largely fictitious. The question we need to answer is, what's the earliest evidence we can accept as non-fictitious?

From this, please don't count me as a supporter of mountainman's theory. I do actually think he's wrong. Still, the pre-fourth century evidence we have for a religion called Christianity is very scarce, and open to varying interpretations. And we know that some of it is definitely forged- Josephus, for example.

From what posts of his I've read (all of it here in BC&H), I don't think that mm is clinging to his theory beyond all reason. (added- Although clinging tenaciously would, IMO, be a fair description. )

Mountainman, would you be willing to refine your definition of Christian as honoring doctrines which are recognizably part of the present NT? That way you aren't vulnurable to rlogan's accusation of tautology, which as you've stated your definition seems a valid one.

mountainman

What doctrines might these be Jobar?
Essenic? Doctrines not in the OT?
Which doctrines?



Pete Brown