Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 09-23-2013, 08:59 PM

Quote:

One does not need any dramatic imagination to place Emperor Julian and the entire Roman army (containing many 4th century Christians) in and around the city of Dura Europos in early April of the year 363 CE.

Ha, ha, ha! And so what would that prove? I've been to Berlin. That doesn't make me the author of the Hitler diaries forgery. You keep cheating with this 'dramatic imagination' claim. You used the same 'imagination' to argue that Xiphilinus could have been at Mount Athos copying out the Philosophumena into Dio Cassius. Now you use the 'imagination' argument to find an escape with the idea that a pagan Emperor could have planted evidence related to the first Christian Emperor's plot to invent Christianity. Come on, Pete. This is getting ridiculous. Your a complete disgrace. What's next? The time machine defense?

Quote:

See the sources: Ammianus (23.5.1-15) and Zosimus (3.14.2)

What about these citations? Please demonstrate that he was involved in forging gospels anywhere near Dura Europos.

Toto · 09-23-2013, 10:14 PM

To be fair, Pete and avi seem to be arguing that the same Christian scoundrels who infiltrated the Roman army and assassinated the emperor Julian would not have been above forging some evidence for 20th century archaeologists.

I thought the dramatic imagination came into play when avi saw the Roman soldiers called to the site where their forefathers had suffered defeat, who then got busy with shovels and paintbrushes and built that Christian house church, then reburied it.

mountainman · 09-23-2013, 10:15 PM

Some issues about Dura_Parchment_24 -Textual_character_of_the_codex

Quote:

In Luke 23:49 it contains a unique reading: "the wives of those who had been his disciples".[11] In Matthew 27:57, the city Arimathea, normally spelled Αριμαθαια, is spelled Ερινμαθαια (Erinmathea).[12]

The city of Erinmathea? The Sryriac reads "Ramtha".

What's going on?

Was there a city of Erinmathea?

Quote:

The text twice agrees with Codex Vaticanus and Bohairic against everything else (in line 1. added αι before γυναικης; in line 9. και between αγαθος and δικαιος is omitted).[13]

What an amazing coincidence.

Quote:

There are two agreements with Codex Bezae, in line 4 it has ην δε η ημερα παρασκευη for και ημερα ην παρασκευη [or παρασκευς], in line 9 και ανηρ is omitted.[13]

The fragment has two agreements with Syriac Sinaitic. First Syriac Sinaitic shares with Codex Bezae the reading ην δε η ημερα for και ημερα ην, and secondly it describes Arimathaea as "city of Judea" instead of "city of the Jews".[14] The last reading is supported by other Syriac authorities, by Old-Latin Codex Veronensis, Vulgate, and the Arabic Harmony, against the entire Greek tradition.[15]

The fragment does not agree with the Syriac reading Ramtha for Arimethaea.[13]

The text-type of this manuscript is no longer classifiable, because of the Diatessaric character of text (likewise Papyrus 25). Even so, Aland placed it in Category III.

What does it mean that "The text-type of this manuscript is no longer classifiable"?

Quote:

The text of the manuscript has some unusual orthographic features, which have been found nowhere else. For example, the letter upsilon (Υ) appears at several points in the text, but not connected with it in any way that has yet been understood.

Perhaps an explanation may one day be found "on the top of a bucket"?

I am interested in hearing about explanations for any of these issues.

Especially the one about the appearance of "the crucified one" on the fragment. Has anyone had a close look at the fragment at that place?
Could Kraeling be mistaken?

Toto · 09-23-2013, 10:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

One does not need any dramatic imagination to place Emperor Julian and the entire Roman army (containing many 4th century Christians) in and around the city of Dura Europos in early April of the year 363 CE. See the sources: Ammianus (23.5.1-15) and Zosimus (3.14.2)

Ammianus

Quote:

Julian decided to turn south into Babylonia and proceeded along the Euphrates, coming to the fortress of Cercusium at the junction of the Abora and Euphrates Rivers around the first of April,[[104]] and from there he took his army west to a region called Zaitha[[105]] near the abandoned town of Dura where they visited the tomb of the emperor Gordian which was in the area. On April 7 he set out from there into the heart of Babylonia and towards Assyria.[[106]]

...

[[106]]Ammianus, puts the tomb before Julian's arrival in Dura (23.5.1-15) . Zosimus 3.14.2 confirms Dura as the location of Gordian's tomb

I can't locate the Zosimus quote online.

spin · 09-23-2013, 10:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Some issues about Dura_Parchment_24 -Textual_character_of_the_codex

Quote:

In Luke 23:49 it contains a unique reading: "the wives of those who had been his disciples".[11] In Matthew 27:57, the city Arimathea, normally spelled Αριμαθαια, is spelled Ερινμαθαια (Erinmathea).[12]

The city of Erinmathea? The Sryriac reads "Ramtha".

What's going on?

Was there a city of Erinmathea?

Quote:

The text twice agrees with Codex Vaticanus and Bohairic against everything else (in line 1. added αι before γυναικης; in line 9. και between αγαθος and δικαιος is omitted).[13]

What an amazing coincidence.

Quote:

There are two agreements with Codex Bezae, in line 4 it has ην δε η ημερα παρασκευη for και ημερα ην παρασκευη [or παρασκευς], in line 9 και ανηρ is omitted.[13]

The fragment has two agreements with Syriac Sinaitic. First Syriac Sinaitic shares with Codex Bezae the reading ην δε η ημερα for και ημερα ην, and secondly it describes Arimathaea as "city of Judea" instead of "city of the Jews".[14] The last reading is supported by other Syriac authorities, by Old-Latin Codex Veronensis, Vulgate, and the Arabic Harmony, against the entire Greek tradition.[15]

The fragment does not agree with the Syriac reading Ramtha for Arimethaea.[13]

The text-type of this manuscript is no longer classifiable, because of the Diatessaric character of text (likewise Papyrus 25). Even so, Aland placed it in Category III.

What does it mean that "The text-type of this manuscript is no longer classifiable"?

Quote:

The text of the manuscript has some unusual orthographic features, which have been found nowhere else. For example, the letter upsilon (Υ) appears at several points in the text, but not connected with it in any way that has yet been understood.

Perhaps an explanation may one day be found "on the top of a bucket"?

I am interested in hearing about explanations for any of these issues.

Especially the one about the appearance of "the crucified one" on the fragment. Has anyone had a close look at the fragment at that place?
Could Kraeling be mistaken?

Will you pay tuition fees or do you expect an education free?

stephan huller · 09-23-2013, 10:40 PM

Quote:

near the abandoned town of Dura where they visited the tomb of the emperor Gordian which was in the area.

I get this as the actual words of Ammianus:

Quote:

Leaving Circesium, we came to Zaitha, the name of the place meaning an olive-tree. Here we saw the tomb of the emperor Gordian, which is visible a long way off, whose actions from his earliest youth, and whose most fortunate campaigns and treacherous murder we related at the proper time, and when, in accordance with his innate piety he had offered due honours to this deified emperor, and was on his way to Dura, a town now deserted, he stood without moving on beholding a large body of soldiers.

And as he was doubting what their object was, they brought him an enormous lion which had attacked their ranks and had been slain by their javelins. He, elated at this circumstance, which he looked on as an omen of success in his enterprise, advanced with increased exultation; but so uncertain is fortune, the event was quite contrary to his expectation. The death of a king was certainly foreshown, but who was the king was uncertain.

For we often read of ambiguous oracles, never understood till the results interpreted them; as, for instance, the Delphic prophecy, which foretold that after crossing the Halys, Croesus would overthrow a mighty kingdom; and another, which by hints pointed out the sea to the Athenians as the field of combat against the Medes; and another, later than these, but not less ambiguous:—

"O son of Aeacus,
I say that you the Romans can subdue."

10. The Etrurian soothsayers who accompanied him, being men skilful in portents, had often warned him against this campaign, but got no credit; so now they produced their books of such signs, and showed that this was an omen of a forbidding character, and unfavourable to a prince who should invade the country of another sovereign however justly.

11. But he spurned the opposition of philosophers, whose authority he ought to have reverenced, though at times they were mistaken, and though they were sometimes obstinate in cases which they did not thoroughly understand. In truth, they brought forward as a plausible argument to secure credit to their knowledge, that in time |327 past, when Caesar Maximianus was about to fight Narses, king of the Persians, a lion and a huge boar which had been slain were at the same time brought to him, and after subduing that nation he returned in safety; forgetting that the destruction which was now portended was to him who invaded the dominions of another, and that Narses had given the offence by being the first to make an inroad into Armenia, a country under the Roman jurisdiction.

12. On the next day, which was the 7th of April, as the sun was setting, suddenly the air became darkened, and all light wholly disappeared, and after repeated claps of thunder and flashes of lightning, a soldier named Jovianus was struck by the lightning and killed, with two horses which he was leading back from the river to which he had taken them to drink.

13. When this was seen, the interpreters of such things were sent for and questioned, and they with increased boldness affirmed that this event forbade the campaign, demonstrating it to be a monitory lightning (for this term is applied to signs which advise or discourage any line of action). And this, as they said, was to be the more guarded against, because it had killed a soldier of rank, with war-horses; and the books which explain lightnings pronounce that places struck in this manner should not be trodden on, nor even looked upon.

It would appear that Julian "stood without." There is no mention of soldiers entering the town to deposit a fragment of the Diatessaron to confound members of this forum.

mountainman · 09-23-2013, 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

To be fair, Pete and avi seem to be arguing that the same Christian scoundrels who infiltrated the Roman army and assassinated the emperor Julian would not have been above forging some evidence for 20th century archaeologists.

The argument is that any one of a very large number of Christian soldiers could have scrunched up and dropped this fragment in April 363 CE in which date, according to Ammianus (23.5.1-15) and Zosimus (3.14.2) the Roman army passed through Dura. There was a Roman Army base there, and temples to the gods that Julian reverenced. Why the melodrama?

The fragment could have been tossed in a crevice either on top, or at the edges (between the outer wall, or building walls - or the side edges) of the earthen embankment and then gradually covered over by the desert sands between 363 CE and the 20th century.

If you read the report there was indeed an entire mass of (Latin) papyri related to the administration of army matters located in the northern part of the city in the Roman Army base of the early to mid 3rd century. This entire mass of papyri were physically buried in the rampart.

But the Dura Fragment 24 was not part of this type of secure terminus ad quem chronology because it was found all by itself, and elsewhere at another location on the west wall, and was ultimately found "in a bucket".

stephan huller · 09-23-2013, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Emenso itaque itinere bidui, prope civitatem venimus Duram desertam, marginibus amnis impositam.
‘After making a march of two days in this manner we approachedthe deserted city of Dura, situated on the river bank’.(Ammianus Marcellinus,Rerum Gestarum, XXIV.1.5)

Here is the full reference:

Quote:

After two days' march we came near a deserted town called Dura, on the bank of the river, where many herds of deer were found, some of which were slain by arrows, and others knocked down with the heavy oars, so that soldiers and sailors all had plenty of food; though the greater part of the animals, being used to swimming, plunged into the rapid stream and could not be stopped till they had reached their well known haunts.

Then after an easy march of four days, as evening came on, he embarked a thousand light-armed troops on board his boats, and sent, the Count Lucillianus to storm the fortress of Anatha, which, like many other forts in that country, is surrounded by the waters of the Euphrates; Lucillianus having, as he was ordered, placed his ships in suitable places, besieged the island, a cloudy night favouring a secret assault.

It does not sound like they even went into ruins long enough to 'plant evidence.' They were hungry, killed some deer outside the town. I have read from other articles that there are apparently no coins or debris from the evening occupation outside the town. The fact that many of the deer were killed by oars and then 'the greater part' ran away into the forest suggests little or no time was spent in the city itself.

mountainman · 09-23-2013, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Will you pay tuition fees or do you expect an education free?

The questions were free so I'd expect some free answers.

FWIW I have been spending a good bit of time reading a number of academic articles related to the interpretation of the Dura Fragment 24.
Even from the WIKI page there are alternative explanations:

Quote:

Carl H. Kraeling, C. Bradford Welles, Plooij claim "There is no reasonable doubt that the fragment is really Tatian".[6]

Parker, Taylor, and Goodacre claim it is "another harmony of the four Gospels, different to Diatessaron, and much closer to the text of the Gospels.[7]

Another investigator sent me this in response to the question "Where does Jesus appear at Dura Fragment 24?

stephan huller · 09-23-2013, 11:17 PM

Quote:

Carl H. Kraeling, C. Bradford Welles, Plooij claim "There is no reasonable doubt that the fragment is really Tatian".[6]

Parker, Taylor, and Goodacre claim it is "another harmony of the four Gospels, different to Diatessaron, and much closer to the text of the Gospels.[7]

These are not contradictions in the way you want them to be. Scholars have a habit of identifying the Arabic Diatessaron as Tatian's text. This is silly. But that's what they do.

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09-23-2013, 10:14 PM	#52
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	To be fair, Pete and avi seem to be arguing that the same Christian scoundrels who infiltrated the Roman army and assassinated the emperor Julian would not have been above forging some evidence for 20th century archaeologists. I thought the dramatic imagination came into play when avi saw the Roman soldiers called to the site where their forefathers had suffered defeat, who then got busy with shovels and paintbrushes and built that Christian house church, then reburied it.

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