Maklelan

No it doesn't. There have been quite significant advances in paleography in the 76 years since initial publication, particularly in the number of early manuscripts available for comparison. Irrespective, C14 dating is unlikely to give you a date range any more precise than the widest range you can find for P46.

As I've already pointed out, radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin produced a 50% wider range of dates than the widest range you have asserted for P46. I don't think you have much experience with either paleography or radiocarbon dating.

aa5874

Again,a recent P 46 dating by Paleography has destroyed your claim. A Paleographer, Young Kai Kim, claimed the P 46 is dated to the 1st century. He certainly showed that Paleography is very problematic--he seems not to have applied any advances in paleography.

His findings were heavily criticised and practically rejected.

Again, Scientific dating ONLY needs a blank piece of the medium on which the texts was written. It tends to be highly objective.

You don't have any idea of what you are saying about radiocarbon dating. You seem not to understand the difference between a wide range of dating and CONSISTENCY of dating.

You should know that PALEOGRAPHY deals with WRITINGS and NOT with BLOOD and SHROUDS.

What does the Shroud of Turin have to do with Paleography?

Please, tell me the date of the Shroud and the Blood based on Paleography so that we can compare it with the radiocarbon dating?

stephan huller

You think? It may surprise you but aa5874 is Bart Ehrman's identity at this forum. He likes to let his 'wild side' hang out from time to time.

Maklelan

I addressed Kim's dating already. He's the one outlier, and he goes in the opposite direction from the earliest analysis, but I pointed out that the academy's widespread rejection of his dating acts as a control for those kinds of anomalies, just as anomalous data occurs in every single C14 analysis. I'd ask that you pay better attention from now on if you intend to carry on this discussion.

Which shows that the academy itself limits bias and subjectivity. This is how scholarship works.

And as I have pointed out multiple times already, C14 dating is unlikely to get you closer to a firm date than paleography. Why do you continue to ignore this fact? Additionally, the data can produce vastly different results depending on the quantitative method used, the selection of the samples, and other methods. For instance, you have to choose how you want to measure the samples. You can use Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Liquid Scintillation Counting, or Gas Proportional Counting. The results will not be identical. Even testing the same sample with the same method you get different results. As an example of how inconsistent the results can be as a result of these factors, take a look at the following articles:

Segal, D., "14C Dates from Horvat Teiman (Kuntillet 'Ajrud) and Their Archaeological Correlation," Tel Aviv 22.2 (1995): 208–12.

Carmi, I., and Segal, D., "14C Dating of an Israelite Biblical Site at Kuntillet 'Ajrud (Horvat Teiman): Correction, Extension and Improved Age Estimate," Radiocarbon 38 (1996): 385–86.

Finkelstein, I., and Piasetzky, E., "The Dating of Kuntillet 'Ajrud: The C14 Perspective," Tel Aviv 35.2 (2008): 175–85.

These three studies used the exact same collection of data and came up with three different ranges:

Segal: 825–775
Carmi and Segal: 800–770
Finkelstein and Piasetzky: 795–720

Another example is a bit more interesting, since it highlights how the data can be (and is) manipulated and reinterpreted. Finkelstein and Piasetzky have an article here entitled "Khirbet Qeiyafa: Absolute Chronology." Notice these comments:

So, seven samples were measured (one twice) to give eight different readings. Only five fit the period they wanted, and one was a bit too high, so they tossed four of them. They averaged the four remaining to get a range of 1026–944 BCE. Then Finkelstein and Piasetzky come along and point out that the samples don't all date to the same event, but come from different periods, and thus averaging is a bad idea. Elsewhere Finkelstein is a fierce proponent of "uncalibrated weighted averaging," but he also likes the Bayesian method. He tends to use the two and try to conflate the data. Amihai Mazar, an ideological opponent of Finkelstein, comes to vastly different conclusions using the exact same data as well.

You might also check out this article, which discusses C14 measurements of around a dozen Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts and compares the results to paleographic analyses of the same scrolls. There is only one disparity, and that's quite an enormous one. The C14 dating is probably wrong, though, as it places the text over a century before the Dead Sea Scroll community ever arrived at Qumran. The text discusses the contamination that likely took place.

I see.

I already explained this in some detail. Please pay better attention.

This kind of belligerent rhetoric isn't convincing me you're approaching this from an objective or particularly informed point of view.

Doug Shaver

Hmmmm.

Which is more probable . . .

aa is for real, or

aa is really Bart Ehrman?

I think Bayes' Theorem would choke on that one.

mountainman

Browse Arthur Drews on Tacitus, especially the arguments against the genuineness. The manuscript seems to have suddenly appeared very very late in the entire preceedings, and without any prior mention by any of the church fathers. It's appearance was not without the opposing appearance of claims of forgery.


Mention in Pliny is also claimed from the 15th century, but no manuscript survives. What should we make of this? I'll tell you briefly. Those who assert the positive case of the existence of the explicit "Christians" prior to the 4th century have the onus to produce the evidence. Pliny the Younger's witness appears 14 centuries after the event. Noone cites it. Someone somehow "lost" the 15th century manuscript.






P.Oxy 3065 is not evidence for "Christians".



Firstly, the "Good Shepherd" motif goes back to c.1000 BCE. The inscription speaks of "The Shepherd" not "The Christian". That this allegorical text refers to anything christian is only by way of assumption. For example, there have been a number of different interpretations of Abercius. In 1894 G. Ficker, supported by O. Hirschfeld, strove to prove that Abercius was a priest of Cybele. In 1895 A. Harnack offered an explanation based upon religious syncretism. In 1896, Dieterich made Abercius a priest of Attis. Are readers aware of the rather suspicious provenance of the text and the inscription?

My notes


De Rossi worked for the Popes. A number of inscriptions from De Rossi's wonderful research into "Early Christian Inscriptions" were struck off the list as forgeries. This Abercius inscription is Murkious, and has no legs.


The author's claim is that none of these explicitly mention "Jesus" or "CHRIST". All of them employ encrypted forms. A note at the end states ...."Codex Vaticanus uses abbreviations which you term (in Latin) "nomina sacra", Codex Sinaiticus, which I believe scholarship generally regards as the version commission for Constantine I, does not, for it spells out both the name and title - "Chrest".

The conflation between "Chestos" and "Christos" by the christians is quite remarkable, and ultraviolet evidence reveals tampering by scribes still being conducted in the 15th century. Why was all this professional scribal correction, and subterfuge necessary if everying was "Christos Clear"? Obviously it wasn't and isn't.



Which textbook are you using? If it is Graydon Snyder's work Ante Pacem: archaeological evidence of church life before Constantine, then I suggest you look closely at the claims. The fish symbol is hardly christian,being used on imperial coinage. Virgins, bread and wine are hardly the exclusive intellectual property rights of early christians in antiquity. These claims are quite plainly just false hypotheses.



I suggest that the article does not ignore the evidence at all, but provides the necessary critical skepticism to ask the question how sure can we be that this evidence is unambiguously "Christian". It challenges the perceived SCARCITY of evidence before the 4th century to produce something which is unambiguously christian. The dogma associated with the "Early Christian Evidence" is a false certaintly, and a false scholarship. The beginnings of "Christian Archaeology" is described by Graydon Snyder as follows:


How instrumental were Pope Pius IX and Giovanni de Rossi to the circus of pseudo-scholarship surrounding "Early Christian Archaeology"? How many forgeries did this pair conspire to fabricate? I took a look at the first one and wondered why on earth people (even like Graydon Snyder) have any faith at all in the claims invested in papal collected archaeological relics.

I appreciate the response Maklelan, but in terms of the claim that we have a vacuum of evidence for pre-4th century Christianity, the author of that article is an archaeologist, not a theological college graduate.

mountainman

I think you need to do some background reading on Arnaldo Momigliano, one of the foremost ancient historians (n.b. not "Biblical" historians) of the 20th century. If Eusebius has no reputation as a competent chronographer, how can he be regarded as a competent historian? The answer is that he cannot be regarded as a competent historian.

aa5874

Your opinion is NOT a fact. What you think is likely or unlikely has not yet been shown to be a fact.

Your posts are RECORDED. You have NOT shown that Paleography can determine the date for the Shroud of Turin.

You have only confirmed that Scientific dating tend to be unbiased and does NOT tend to suffer from subjectivity.

Maklelan

First, a Nazi/pagan philosopher from WWI hardly constitutes a compelling witness, especially when that Nazi/pagan philosopher was a belligerent proponent of mythicism. Next, his text doesn't adequately address the significance of the use of Christus immediately following. He just attempts to blow the significance of "Chrestianos" light years out of proportion and then conclude that because it also says "Christus" that there is confusion and corruption and error. In the end he says the notion that "Chrestianos" originally referred to an Egyptian deity or priest is simpler, and that it should be accepted, which is nothing less than asinine. The fact that the correction was made by the author's own hand, and that Chrestianos is just a play on words that was common to the time period seem to have eluded the writer.

I happened across some of your discussion of chrestos, by the way. I would point out a few concerns with your analysis:

- Yes, the word χρισω has a moderate semantic range. All words do. To use them with a more specific nuance is the only way that communication on an appreciably precise level can be achieved. To say that "Christian theology has chosen and decreed that the name Christos should be taken as derived from [chrio, chriso]" is just bizarre. The word is unquestionably derivative of the root χρισω. That's not something early Christians just arbitrarily declared, and to insist that their use is inappropriate is just ludicrous. To insist that the moderate semantic range somehow problematizes that usage evinces a stunning level of lexicographical ignorance.

- χριστης means "white-washer" because it's a different word entirely. The notion that this is more appropriate because Christ was never "anointed" is silly on a couple of levels. First, Christ was certainly considered anointed in a variety of ways by early Christian writers. Acts describes him as anointed by the Holy Ghost at his baptism. Mark certainly supports this notion, as his description of Jesus' baptism alludes to Psalm 2, which discusses the anointing of the Israelite king. Elsewhere Jesus is described as anointed with oil by his followers. Second, the title "anointed" in Second Temple Judaism did not necessarily refer specifically to one who had literally been anointed. It was a title that had developed in reference to an eschatological deliverer. By the time of the New Testament it had become conflated with literary imagery from all over the world of Greco-Roman literature ("Son of God," "Son of Man," λογος, etc.). The notion of "anointed" simply referred to one chosen by God for a specific mission. Third, Jesus was never described as a white-washer either.

- χρηστης refers to a prophet or sooth-sayer, but it's a completely different word from χρηστος, which just means "good," or "useful." Obviously it's clear why Christians would use that play on words.

- On your "Erythrean Sybil," I would point out that your source and his analysis is phenomenally ignorant. θεου υιος does not mean "God, Son," it means "son of God." θεου is in the genitive, for crying out loud. Your source doesn't seem to know Greek at all. You and your source also spelled the word "Sibyl" wrong. It's not "Sybil." Additionally, that text dates to the second century CE, not to before the Common Era. Lines 65–74 are universally understood as a reference to Marcus Aurelius, and v. 148 discusses the downfall of Rome in the end of the second century CE. Also, the language of the oracles is unquestionably Christian ("Most High," "holy ones," "roll up the heavens," "Moses prefigured him," "from five loaves and a dish of the sea he will satisfy five thousand men in the desert," "the veil of the temple will be rent"). You obviously haven't even read that particular sibylline oracle. For quite a good discussion of the text, see John J. Collins' translation in Charlesworth's Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1, 415–29.

- I wonder if you wouldn't mind explaining exactly how you conclusion in the following quote is proved by Philo's word:

Philo died around 50 CE, and he was an Alexandrian. There's no indication at all that Christianity had become entrenched in Egypt by that time period. How does his text prove anything at all about what Christians were going by?

I think you would do well to go study these languages and these texts yourself rather than just pawn off the ignorant ramblings of some other pseudo-scholar as impermeable truth.

Yeah, the vast majority of our witnesses to early Greco-Roman texts come from the Middle Ages. This is not anything significant.

The same thing we make of all other manuscripts dating to that time period.

A rather evasive sidestepping of my argument.

No, it goes back much further than that. It's associated with the ideology of kingship, and it can be found in third millennium BCE Egyptian texts, second millennium BCE Old Babylonian texts, and elsewhere. It's a pretty standard metaphor.

And their reading has been flatly rejected, but I note that you have copied and pasted that sentence directly from Wikipedia. Way to show me just what calibre of pseudo-scholar I'm dealing with.

Are readers aware that the very Wikipedia article from which you're ripping these sentences follows with this:

We might add the conclusions of Wischmeyer, Livingstone, Cumont, Lefebvre, Snyder, Tabbernee, Burnet, Mitchell, Young, Bowie, and every other actual scholar who has addressed the issue in the last 100 years.

What a ludicrous and flippant dismissal of the academic consensus.

You have to assume that the nomina sacra are encrypting one word instead of the other, but we have numerous commentaries and other texts that predate Sinaiticus and explicitly use "Jesus" and "Christ." The entire world of academia is in agreement that "Chrestos" was just a play on words, and they're not nearly as willing as you guys appear to be to just flippantly dismiss texts that complicate your theory.

Subterfuge? You don't appear to know much at all about textual criticism or scribal habits. The use of a play on words is not particularly remarkable, and it's also not remarkable that scribes multiple generations down the road might approach the text from a different point of view. That this was all subterfuge and sinister manipulation of the text is just asinine.

I'm not using any textbooks.

All of them brought together in the same way they appear in texts you refuse to date to the same time period certainly indicates a Christian provenance. Unless, of course, you can show pagan texts that conflate in one text the fish symbol with virgins, shepherds, bread and wine, and a special seal. You can't, though. The only place that happens is in Chrisitan texts. The symbolism is generic when scattered about different texts, but you cannot point to a single explicitly pagan text that juxtaposes all these symbols. Your methodologies are juvenile at best here.

Funny that the amateurs who make mistakes throughout their scholarship are right, while the professionals who don't make those mistakes are all wrong. This doesn't strike you as indicative of something other than a sinister plot on the part of the actual academy?

Yeah, archaeology was quite undisciplined in the nineteenth century.

Notice Snyder believes that the epitaph of Abercius is a genuine Christian artifact, and that it associates the eaten fish with Jesus (see pp. 33–34, 247–49). I don't think you're actually reading the sources you're citing, whether primary or secondary. You've displayed a quite obdurate and naive perspective on the scholarship so far, and I have no doubt you will just flatly ignore the problems I've highlighted with your interpretations of the data.

Also, I'm not a "theological college graduate." I study history, language, and literature. My interest is purely academic and secular, not theological.

Maklelan

So you are contesting my conclusion that C14 dating does not necessarily provide a more precise dating for first or second century CE artifacts? I've provided evidence for that lack of precision, and you've not responded to it. On what grounds do you reject my conclusion?

Then go read them again.

That was never a part of my argument. My argument was intended to show the lack of precision and the lack of consistency inherent in the process of C14 dating.

I have actually shown quite the opposite, but the fact that you ignored the numerous articles I cited and my discussion, only to insist that it means the opposite of what it actually means is noted. I'm beginning to think I'm wasting my time trying to get you guys to acknowledge real evidence.