spin

As I've never asserted 100% certitude about anything, I'm sure that you will understand that no reader could take your assessments seriously.

spin

Your attempt to change the topic only underlines your utter lack of evidence, argument and sense.

stephan huller

The evidence is strong enough to feel safe assuming that Christianity existed in the third century. That's a baby step for most people but for you that's a big step.

aa5874

I am merely exposing your fallacies. You spout that 14000 coins were found not realizing that the condition of many of the coins were of no real historical value and could NOT show when they were minted.

You don't know what you are talking about. You don't know the difference between proof and probability.

You abandon all reasonable analysis when you PRESUME all 14000 coins found were minted before c 256-257.

I made no such presumptions.

spin

You merely expose your lack of comprehension.

You can keep contemplating your navel and ignoring the fact that the coin evidence points to no coins whatsoever after 256 CE. Your cluelessness about the coins is noted.

You may have demonstrated that it is true about yourself, but that puts you at a disadvantage judging others.

That's just an assertion you spew for lack of reasonable response.

You are only presumption. Every thread you seem to have started presumes your conclusions and never get past the presumption. Go and read the coin information rather than continue to show your ignorance. I've linked to at least once source on the coins (and there are photographs of the coins for you to peruse) and referred you to another, when you provided a link to an article in the same journal.

aa5874

You are the one who has been defending Toto's absurd claim of 100% probability for the Dura fragment since post #106.

Instead of correcting Toto you started to attack others who pointed out Toto's gross error.

It is clear from those who have examined the limited evidence that Presumptions and Guessing were employed because of the lack of any historical details of the siege of Dura.

It must first be PRESUMED that there was no activity at Dura any time after the siege by Shaphur.

Toto

But this`dig was spectacularly successful because of the well preserved Hellenistic synagogue. The house church was almost a footnote, and the fragment a very minor addition to the significance of the find.

I don't think anyone could have predicted that this fragment would become a key part of an argument showing that Christianity existed before the fourth century. That was not an issue on anyone's mind at the time.

spin

Instead of ignoring what I said you should deal with it rather than insist on talking about nonsense. You are being utterly mindless about things as usual. When people talk about Augustus as if it were 100%, certainty I don't see you being this ridiculous about Augustus. You are incoherent.

Utter mindless stupidity.

As you ignore the evidence you merely presume. The lack of historical details about the siege of Dura doesn't change the fact that it happened or that it happened in the 250s or that it terminated the usage of the site or that the Dura fragment was found under the embankment constructed for defense for that siege.

You figure it out. The occupants stopped doing things. The coins stopped being dropped. No more inscriptions were made. No more references to the city in historical records other than by Shapur I who said he destroyed it. If you call the result a presumption, I'd guess that everything in your life is based on such presumptions. There is nothing reasonable about what you are advocating. Wake up.

spin

But that's the thing. Someone in their foresight must have predicted just this very eventuality, ie that someone would be wacky enough to propose a conspiracy theory involving Eusebius producing christianity, and snuck a a bunch of christian paintings into the archaeological site along with an ancient document. That's the only thing that makes sense. :constern01:

mountainman

Before the mid twentieth century, as is the case today, the manuscript evidence supporting the generally accepted hypothesis of the first century origins of the new testament did have some valuable exemplars, in the form of papyri fragments (many from Oxyrynchus) which were all dated by means of palaeography. (That is there have been found no NT related papyri which had an explicit date as part of the text).

As a result of this situation, which persists today, the significance of the Dura Parchment 24 was extremely unique, because it offered a method of dating (by means of an archaeological terminus ad quem) which was NOT entirely reliant upon palaeographical assessment. That Kraeling (or anyone else in the field in 1933 etc) was not aware of this unique significance cannot be maintained.


I suggest you read Grenfell and Hunt on the dates of early Christian codices : setting the record straight by Brent Nongbri.
The opinions of Grenfell and Hunt, with their assessment of the vast amount of papyri fragments from Oxyrynchus, held a great - almost hegemonic - sway until the mid 20th century. With a few exceptions, Grenfell and Hunt maintained through various arguments that most of these papyri were from the 4th century. These arguments related to:

a) palaeographical assessment
b) the rise of the codex implied a later century
c) the use of parchment mitigated towards a later century.

But don't take my quick summary of this article as representative. Read through the article and you will see that the generally accepted dates for papyri, following the opinions of Grenfell and Hunt (while they lived) were, with few exceptions, quite late (i.e. the 4th century was often cited).