Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 07-06-2009, 03:36 PM

New Scientist: Computer reveals stone tablet 'handwriting' in a flash

Quote:

You might call it "CSI Ancient Greece". A computer technique can tell the difference between ancient inscriptions created by different artisans, a feat that ordinarily consumes years of human scholarship.

"This is the first time anything like this had been done on a computer," says Stephen Tracy, a Greek scholar and epigrapher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who challenged a team of computer scientists to attribute 24 ancient Greek inscriptions to their rightful maker. "They knew nothing about inscriptions," he says.

No word on how useful this would be in detecting modern forgeries.

mountainman · 07-06-2009, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

New Scientist: Computer reveals stone tablet 'handwriting' in a flash

Quote:

You might call it "CSI Ancient Greece". A computer technique can tell the difference between ancient inscriptions created by different artisans, a feat that ordinarily consumes years of human scholarship.

"This is the first time anything like this had been done on a computer," says Stephen Tracy, a Greek scholar and epigrapher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who challenged a team of computer scientists to attribute 24 ancient Greek inscriptions to their rightful maker. "They knew nothing about inscriptions," he says.

But the computer team were Greek academics

Very interesting development in technology.
It's stuff like this that can make breakthroughs ...

Quote:

No word on how useful this would be in detecting modern forgeries.

One comment about chronology is quite insightful ...

Quote:

"They are very difficult to date and, as is true of all archaeological artefacts, the better the date you can give to an artefact, the more it can tell you."

That the new testament canonical texts, and many
of the new testament apocryphal texts are not dated,
is a serious obstacle in their interpretation.

arnoldo · 07-06-2009, 07:24 PM

Obviously the following stone monuments are fake. . .

Quote:

I. The Gospel Carved on Stone During the Han Dynasty, especially Eastern Han, carved stone objects were often used for burial. Furthermore, elaborate tombs were constructed with limestone, with carvings on the doors and walls of underground chambers. In June, 2002 a colleague from Xuzhou (in northern Jiangsu Province) informed me that the museum in this city contained many excavated carvings with Middle East cultural characteristics. So, with the hope of finding evidence of Christianity in Eastern Han China, I visited the Art Museum in Xuzhou. Later the church in Xuzhou (formerly a Presbyterian church within the Synod of Jiang-Huai) gave me a newly published book Xuzhou Han Stone Carvings compiled by the director of the museum, Mr. Wu Liuhua (published in Beijing, November 2001). Most of the picture illustrations on these pages are taken from this volume.

The first startling piece of art I came upon was a carving with fish and phoenix as symbols. (A)(5) The phoenix, also known as “eternal” or “everlasting” bird, was a symbol for resurrection in Egyptian myths. The Fish (ICQUS), meaning “Jesus Christ God’s Son our Savior,” was used by early Christians on their doors and tombs. The combination of these two symbols on the Han tomb may indicate the hope of Christians for salvation and resurrection by faith in Christ. To the left of this carving was the date: “The seventh day of the third month in the year of Yuan-he” – 86 AD. Yuan-he was the name of the reign of Emperor Zhangdi in Eastern Han. So the construction of this tomb was 550 years before the Nestorian monk Alopen reached Changan (today’s Xi’an) in 635 AD, and about 50 years after the mass persecution in Jerusalem, resulting in Christians being dispersed to other parts of the world.(6)

http://www.christianityinchina.org/C...4&Charset=big5

Toto · 07-06-2009, 07:41 PM

No, arnoldo, that is not necessarily fake. But reading it as Christian is a stretch. The phoenix is not a specifically Christian symbol, and that fish looks nothing like the Christian fish symbol.

Please stick to the topic.

mountainman · 07-06-2009, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Obviously the following stone monuments are fake. . .

Quote:

The first startling piece of art I came upon was a carving with fish ... The Fish (ICQUS), meaning “Jesus Christ God’s Son our Savior,” was used by early Christians on their doors and tombs.

We have no reason to think that every fisherman
on the planet automatically became a christian in
that auspicious epoch in which the whale of a tale
about Moby Jesus Dick was purportedly first floated.

arnoldo · 07-06-2009, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

No, arnoldo, that is not necessarily fake. But reading it as Christian is a stretch. The phoenix is not a specifically Christian symbol, and that fish looks nothing like the Christian fish symbol.

Please stick to the topic.

Ok, for those interested there is an excellent book on this subject available as a PDF download; The Cross and the Dragon; or, The fortunes of Christianity in China By John Kesson; from the intro:

Quote:

. . . Under the first, notice is taken of the legends of the introduction of Christianity into China by the Apostle Thomas and his disciples. Under the second head, some space is devoted to the history of the Nestorian Christians in China, in the seventh century, with their leader, Olo-puen, the first apostle. The third head comprises the missions of the Dominicans and Franciscans in the fourteenth century; the chief actor being John of Monte Corvin, the second Chinese Apostle. . .

arnoldo · 07-06-2009, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Obviously the following stone monuments are fake. . .

We . .

Nosism?

mountainman · 07-06-2009, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

We . .

Nosism?

Plural opinion about the dubious documentation
concerning the relationship between inscriptions
of fish (plural) as an indicator by which a person
wearing "Christian Glasses" can detect the
presence of "Christians" in antiquity.

Toto · 07-07-2009, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

No, arnoldo, that is not necessarily fake. But reading it as Christian is a stretch. The phoenix is not a specifically Christian symbol, and that fish looks nothing like the Christian fish symbol.

Please stick to the topic.

Ok,

OK what? I asked you to stick to the topic and you go wandering off . . .

Quote:

for those interested there is an excellent book on this subject available as a PDF download; The Cross and the Dragon; or, The fortunes of Christianity in China By John Kesson;. . .

If you read that book, it claims only that there are legends of Christians traveling as far as China, which are not totally impossible.

Quote:

These statements, whether legendary or historical, will be received with different degrees of credence by different minds. They plainly lead to the conclusion that Christianity was partially known as far east as China in the apostolical age. Whether this conclusion is admissible or not, at all events it is not improbable that Christianity may have been known in China at a very early date; soiled and enfeebled, no doubt, through its far-eastern journey, but still preserving some of its characteristic features, and presenting its distinctive marks to the religious systems that already obtained there.

But then what happened?

Quote:

At this point a dead blank of five centuries ensues, wherein we have neither tradition nor history to guide us to a knowledge of the fortunes of the Christianity which it is conjectured was introduced into China late in the first or early in the second century. It must have been too feeble to make head against idolatry, too dim to shed great light in the midst of heathen darkness. It is asserted, that various ancient Christian monuments have been found in China, and among others an iron cross, in the province of Kiang-see, on which there is a date which corresponds to the year A. D. 239. A cross need not necessarily be a relic of Christianity, especially if it be true, as we read, that the Chinese had a cross upon their coinage before the Crucifixion, and adored the cross before the expiatory cross was erected upon Calvary.

Clivedurdle · 07-07-2009, 01:08 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Sutras

Martin Palmer is brilliant on this - like how this branch of xianity dumped the idea of original sin.

But back the topic, how do we get the scholars to look at everything using these technologies?

Is there an issue that biblical studies and technology do not mix?

Quote:

The Greek computer scientists would also like to build a comprehensive database of digital inscriptions and attributions, so any newly discovered or analysed inscription could be quickly attributed and dated.

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07-06-2009, 07:41 PM	#4
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	No, arnoldo, that is not necessarily fake. But reading it as Christian is a stretch. The phoenix is not a specifically Christian symbol, and that fish looks nothing like the Christian fish symbol. Please stick to the topic.

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