Transient

"I have seen no evidence for this"
Really?
Haven't read anything at all on how Constantine had numerous "enemies" of his so-called christian "orthodox" church exiled, killed etc?
I suppose if a person considered christianity to be defined and limited to the victors - the RCC then I guess those exiled & executed were just religious mongrels.
In my opinion the RCC is the mongrel & all those descended from her lol.

jeffevnz

That's only necessary if you want to determine which came first. I'm only saying they're related (and I hope you'd agree, clearly related). I'm making a looser statement than you think. I'm only saying that the synoptic Gospels and the Dura fragment are both part of the same family tree of a story that was copied perhaps many times and diverged into several branches. One of the two could be the root of the tree. Or maybe they're just different branches. All I'm saying is they're part of the same tree. And they clearly are.

I didn't ignore the rest of your post. I'm just focusing on this because if the Dura evidence is strong enough, the lack of other lines of evidence for pre-Constantine Christianity is irrelevant.

J-D

Obviously, by definition, 'canonical Christianity' cannot have existed before there was a canon. That is no reason to suppose that Christianity cannot have existed before there was a canon.

Sheshbazzar

Just to be clear, I am very familiar with Pete's theory, and although I agree on some of the points that Pete makes, there are some which yet remain unresolved. He has said it multiple times, he is presenting us with only a theory, and its details are subject to revision when the evidence is strong enough to warrant it.
No I do NOT side with "standard history", most importantly from my perspective, is that The Sect of The Nazarenes was a distinctly Jewish sect, one that held to The Law and Jewish praxis to the very end.
They were NOT, and they NEVER WERE "Christians", not in name, not in beliefs, not in practice, and not in theology. They remained Jewish to the core.
Somewhat contemporary with them were the "chrestians" of the pagan Mystery cults, these gentiles ultimately adopted and incorporated the Paulinian antinomian theological teachings and became known as "Christians".
There was such friction and animosity between The Jewish sect of The Nazarene and these Gentile "Christians", that as the Christians gained in political power they grew in hatred against The Jewish sect of The Nazarene, conspiring to have them persecuted, and ultimately totally exterminated.
This new "Christian" replacement religion became associated with the original Nazarene stories and tropes which they had robbed from them prior to conspiring to their annihilation. The Christians took pains to burn and destroy every evidence of that crime against humanity in which they had engaged.

The Christian cultus had slowly expanded from its small Gentile beginnings, (you might well ignore that inflated crap "history" authored by Eusebius) until by its noisy squabbling it finally caught the attention of Constantine, who perceiving its political possibilities, commandeered its leaders and forced a standardization of its doctrine and theology, the rest as they say, is history, well documented and attested to.
Thus, unlike Pete, I fully expect that a small number of actual sites will be found, but if actually synagogues of the Jewish sect of The Nazarene, they will be misidentified as "proto-Christian" or "Christian" in accordance with present indoctrination into popular misconceptions.
The Nazarenes were NOT "proto-christians", "christians", or any part of "The Christian religion".

spamandham

Although contrived, one can imagine a scenario wherein a pre-existing story (perhaps a play, a novel, a symbolic history, or even a story from an earlier religion) was later incorporated into religious beliefs. Were that the case, then the existence of that story at an earlier time does not indicate the existence of the later religion based, at least in part, upon it.

For example, Psalm 22 is part of the Christian story. If all knowledge of Judaism had been lost to the ravages of time, and we found a scrap of Psalm 22 from the OT, we might presume that Christianity was much much older than we had thought. But we would be wrong (I think?).

I guess if you considered Judaism = Christianity, then it would be fair to say Christianity existed when Psalm 22 was penned (in this example), but surely no-one here considers them the same religion?

This is the sense in which I don't think the Dura evidence disproves mountainman's idea.

Sheshbazzar

If Dura was a Nazarene synagogue, then it was not "Christian" irregardless of the familiar artwork.
The Sect of The Nazarene was first, and these tropes from the beginning first developed, and belonged to that JEWISH religion and heritage;
That the Gentiles latter glommed unto and appropriated those Jewish Messianic themes and stories does not suffice to give them any claim to the stories being of any "Christian" origin, the very idea is an anachronism.

spin

Most ancient despots tended to have inconvenient people killed. That is not the issue the comment you were citing was dealing with. It was the claim:

Constantine had these original Christians hunted down and slaughtered to impose his will upon the people.

I have seen no evidence to support that claim. Have you? Comments about how naughty Constantine was generally are irrelevant to that issue. You need to get specific.

This sort of comment is going to be a helpful guide for you when you have to make clear objective critical analyses. The importance of BC&H is the effort to understand exactly what the biblical texts say and imply. We make the separation between modern exponents' ideas and those of the text. Modern commentators' ideas are irrelevant to the understanding of what the texts themselves hold and how the texts evolved.

Half-baked theories not based on any hard evidence whatsoever, but which are strenuously flaunted at every opportunity, are a hindrance to this forum. This is an infidel forum and we supposedly analyze our topics in a spirit of freethought. If you want to go away from here with a meaningful understanding of the bible and where it came from, you need that spirit of freethought.

History is full of horrid acts: just think of the colonizers of your country who totally destroyed the cultures of the original inhabitants when they stole the land and raped and killed them. You still live there... on the ashes of the hopes and lives of those people.

We need to understand what happened, how and why. The topic of this forum is bible criticism and history. That's what we should be doing.


spin

spin

Stop being full of [hot air], Sheshbazzar. When you make definitive statements you are supposed to have evidence to back them up, not look like the emperor in his new clothes.

Somewhere in this there may be some fact, but you have no way of knowing anything about the beliefs of the "The Sect of The Nazarene" as separate from the gentile religion that Paul started, so cut emitting foul air.


spin

Sheshbazzar

Why not take time to post something that is constructive, of some value for a change, the endless insults do little to contribute to the examination of the subject matter.
There is plenty of information available on the beliefs and practices of Jewish sect of The Nazarenes, prominently they were denounced by the authorities of the early Christian Church as NOT being Christians.
Readers can look into the subject for themselves, and judge whom is emitting the foul air here.

spin

Why don't you make comments that are base don evidence for a change?? To get to saying meaningful things you have to cut out the non-meaningful ones.

Still no evidence for the beliefs of the "Sect of the Nazarenes", Sheshbazzar. What might be handy is if you cited some ancient source about their beliefs instead of making more generalizations.


spin