I find it pretty cool how the spread of Christianity can be tracked so finely that a 50 update in earliest arrival time is exciting!
I started listening to a podcast called "the history of the early church" to learn a bit more about that but unfortunately I think the target audience was Christians interested in theology rather than nerds interested in history. Recommendations for books etc are welcome!
I think the more interesting developments occurred after the fall of the western Roman empire. The eastern empire (Constantinople) had frequent arguments and disputes with the west over nearly everything, including Christianity. The eastern Orthodox church refers to itself as the "Catholic Church" in internal documents. After the west fell in 476, they continued to present themselves as "the" Catholic church, which was changed forever in 1200 when the largest Christian city in the world (Constantinople) was destroyed. The destruction took two years, and most of the writings, art and treasure of the richest city in the world was either destroyed, stolen, or lost.
Did the fact that Christians from Western Europe looted Constantinople in 1200 play a role in the Eastern Roman Empire's decision to stop identifying themselves as part of the Catholic Church, or were there already deep theological and political divides?
Catholic means universal, so both present themselves as the original and true church, with the head either in Rome or Constantinople/Pentarchy. The actual break of communion comes from 1054 but really began much earlier.
Even in protestant churches like the Presbyterians and the Methodists you will hear references to the "Catholic Church" where it refers to the universal church that is inclusive all all believers regardless of denomination. For example in shows up in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed.
The pope who sent the schism message delegation died before it reached Constantinople. And the patriarch of Constantinople at the time, also died before his reply made it back to Rome.
1054, in fact, but the 1204 ransacking of Constantinople certainly didn't help with how the "Franks" (because that's how the Catholics were mostly called) were seen by the Christian-Orthodox (if it matters I'm a Christian-Orthodox myself).
I was reading a travelogue written by a Russian monk (? not sure, either a monk or a wealthy boyar predisposed to the Holy stuff) who was visiting Constantinople sometimes in the early 1300s, so a century after the whole tragedy, and he was still describing how destroyed the city looked because of the Franks and what big of a tragedy that was.
> a role in the Eastern Roman Empire's decision to stop identifying themselves as part of the Catholic Church
From their point of view, the West abandoned the true (i.e. orthodox) faith.
Also, it's hard to argue that the Eastern Christians changed more than Western ones. For example, since the 12th century the pope has forbidden priest marriage. There is some debate in the Catholic Church about allowing this again. If that is implemented, it would simply be a reversion to what the Orthodox Church has always done.
Iād recommend ā2,000 Years of Christ's Powerā by Nick Needham. I am not sure where it falls on your theology/history spectrum but it has some of both. I enjoyed the audiobook of Volume 1 immensely.
For me it did a great job describing the context in which the church began, the major figures throughout the early church, and the spread, schisms, and events that helped shape the church in its formative years.
Data over dogma is a pretty good podcast about Christianity and Judaism. It's mostly about taking Bible stories and putting them into their historic context with the best evidence we have.
It's not about converting, just covering the history.
Someone already said The Rest is History, but one of the presenters of that podcast Tom Holland (not the actor) has also written extensively about the history of the catholic church in Millennium and Dominion. Highly recommended.
Second the recommendation on Millennium, just note that for some stupid reason the US publisher decided to retitle the book "The Forge of Christendom". So if you're in the US you won't find it under its real title.
I had a long drive where I listened to The Great Courses, which had a set on early Christianity. I think the professor was from Notre Dame. The early church was wrestling with polytheism (is the OT god seemed really different from the NT god) and it eventually had to get resolved by the Council at Nicaea at Constantine's behest.
I've never heard anyone say the early church wrestled with polytheism. Maybe that's my bias nestled in Christian circles of not using that word, in favour of something more like "the nature of the triune Godhead", etc.
Even today plenty of Christian sects refuse to recognize the council of Nicaea's interpretation of the trinity, including the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontrinitarianism (Whether or not any of these flirt with polytheism is up for debate.)
Meanwhile, the Catholic church's own profusion of saints whom you are supposed to beseech for specific blessings is dangerously close to a polytheistic practice in its own right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque - to this day the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church disagree on whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, or from the Father and the Son.
Yeah but most lay people from either branch couldn't tell you the practical consequences of this. It's widely known & considered important because it's a remaining theological justification for the schism, not the other way around.
An interesting take on the dilemma between the two 'sides':
> You see the problem. If you include the filioque, you fight the Arians in the West while inadvertently supporting the Sabellians in the East. But if you exclude it, you fight the Sabellians while inadvertently supporting the Arians. At its heart, the filioque is really a linguistic debate, not a theological one.
I don't know either. To me (an orthodox christian) the filioque seems like a post hoc justification for a schism that was already well underway if not inevitable. By 1054 what became the two churches had already clearly differentiated religious traditions, local saints, and liturgical practices with very little interchange between them, not to mention language, governance, and secular culture.
I have heard some fairly convincing (to a lay person) discussion between orthodox and catholic scholars that the filioque is potentially resolvable as a linguistic problem yes. But it's not worth really pursuing without a solution for the bigger issue of papal primacy. I don't know anyone who claims to have a viable path to reconciliation there. Plus, you know, the thousand years of mutual distrust and enmity.
> is dangerously close to a polytheistic practice in its own right.
I don't really think so. We're supposed to pray with Mary to God and everyone recognizes that all of creation came through Christ, not Mary or any other saint.
I was taught as a child, and this was Protestant with a clear anti-Catholic bias, that:
* Catholics prayed _to_ Mary (eg asking to intercede on your behalf);
* This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of.
I'm guessing you're Catholic from your response; would you mind explaining to this somewhat lost person how Catholics view these two topics please? (I've never heard a good explanation, and even praying "with" Mary is new to me.) I admire Catholicism and wish I felt more trust in it, which is something that comes from childhood indoctrination, I know. Things stick into adulthood even when you're consciously aware of their root. So I'm keen to hear countering views :)
1. Prayer means several things - "I then prayed my friend that he would accompany me on my trip to Italy" does not mean that you worshiped your friend. Mary (and all the saints) are prayed to in that intercessory way, not in the worshipful way that we pray to God. The man at the Beautiful Gate asked Peter for charity and Peter gave him the ability to walk, not by his own power by by the power of Jesus (Acts 3:2-6). And again intercessory prayer as an important part of the life of the Church is well-attested - e. g., St. Paul in 1 Timothy 2:5 says "I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men". Finally, why the focus on Mary above all other saints? "Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me" says Elizabeth "filled with the Holy Spirit" and before that "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you" says Gabriel bringing God's message to Mary. And what does Mary say in response? "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior" and "I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said". When trying to draw closer to Christ, who would you want with you on your journey more than she who was called to be His mother? And who among all mankind would be more eager to have you come to the throne than she for whom "the Almighty has done [great things for]"?
2. "In fact, [God has not forbidden contact with the dead], because he at times has given it ā for example, when he had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). What God has forbidden is the necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. " Via https://www.catholic.com/tract/praying-to-the-saints
>This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of.
Catholics believe that people in heaven are not dead, and can hear your prayers for intercession (this is the case with most protestants too). Jesus said, after all, that he is the God of the living not the God of the dead[1], and that those in heaven will be reborn in a new and everlasting life. Catholics further believe that the saints in heaven can pray on your behalf and are, in fact, excited to do so, and possibly better at it than anyone on earth.
Indeed, I'm not trying to argue that the tradition of Catholic saints doesn't obey an absolute hierarchy. I'm referring to practices that are specific to the domains of various patron saints, such as placing medals of Saint Christopher in your car for protection (him being the patron saint of transporters and travelers, as well as athletics, bachelors, surfing, storms, epilepsy, gardeners, and toothache). One of the reasons that Protestants objected to saintly veneration was precisely because they felt it took focus away from Jesus.
Even if the Catholic church might technically be not polytheistic, it is hard to argue that the cult of saints didn't replace the ancient Roman lares in the day to day cult. Yes, saints are supposed to intercede to provide favors and protection, but the practical effects [1] are the same. Religious syncretism is very well attested.
As Mary asked Jesus to perform the miracle at the wedding at Cana, for the said of her friend, we too are called to pray to ask Mary to intercede for us for our intentions.
Yes, with "saint" I wasn't even trying to invoke a discussion involving Mary at all, because in practice she's so far above the saints that to equate them feels like heresy (and might literally be heresy in some contexts; hyperdulia vs. dulia and all). In practice the absolute adulation of Mary is such that she nearly feels like the fourth member of the trinity.
As an Atheist (formally Orthodox), I think I can adjudicate this.
The problem with the First Council of Nicaea was that it was decided wrong. The whole "there are three gods, but only one god" is inherently confusing. There's a reason why Arianism keeps recurring over and over again. All the new nations who have been introduced to this aspect of Christianity find it bizarre.
If the decision would have been more along the lines of Islam (i.e. Jesus is super holy, but not God) then it would have been easier to maintain unity. In fact, Islam's adoption of a form of Arianism is one of the reasons it replaced Christianity so quickly in North Africa and the Middle East. (Well, that and the sword.)
> Even today plenty of Christian sects refuse to recognize the council of Nicaea's interpretation of the trinity, including the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses
In some ways the (English) word "God" has become 'overloaded' over time:
In a taxonomy of religious belief the communion of saints is much closer to ancestor veneration than it is polytheism. If you're going to see anything in christianity as potentially polytheistic it's the triune god come on.
> I've never heard anyone say the early church wrestled with polytheism.
See:
> Marcion preached that the benevolent God of the Gospel who sent Jesus Christ into the world as the savior was the true Supreme Being, different and opposed to the malevolent Demiurge or creator god, identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament.[2][3][5]
I find myself agreeing with a lot of these āgnosticā interpretations tbh. When you read stuff like Numbers 14, God just comes off as a total asshole lol
Although the whole theology they cooked up around the ātrue godā reads like bad fan fiction usually.
this seems like a sideways retelling of the "Gospels of Thomas" stories.. this is a nuanced topic and shrouded by history.. Suffice it to say that intellectuals and pious people knew very well the cults of Apollo, astrology of High Priests, nature worship, Egyptian deism, goddess worship, and pantheonism while the Christian scriptures were solidifying as a social blueprint.
Speaking of history podcasts, I've gone through Mike Duncan's Rome and Revolutions, the Fall of Civilizations, Dan Carlin's Hardcore Histories... any suggestions for more like this? I noticed there is a Byzantium history series that seemed interesting.
The History of English podcast is worth a listen. It's about the development of the English language, so it covers a lot of history and prehistory, and also linguistics. The presenter Kevin Stroud has a deep passion for the subject matter. Unfortunately, he also has a tendency to repeat himself and over-explain simple examples so the effect can be somewhat soporific.
Assuming you want more Long form, narrative style historical podcasts. History of the Germans, The French History Podcast, and The History of England are all very good in depth podcasts. I also enjoy the History of The Crusades, which is good, narrative and similar to Revolutions following various crusades.
Thought pointedly not a podcast, the YouTube channel Historia Civilis was my go to thing to fall asleep to for a while. The simple animation style and depth I found very soothing.
If you want a non-religious take on the history of Abrahamic religions, a recent episode 393 of the podcast by Sam Harriss, where he interviews historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, should be an interesting listen.
I think one of the oldest historical mentions of Jesus is by Josephus [1][2]. There is, however, scholarly discussion about whether parts of his references to Jesus were altered by later Christian scribes [3].
The traditional view held by Christians is that the Gospel of Matthew was written within 10 years of Jesus' death. Modern scholars (often atheists) do not believe it though.
I mean, wouldn't you find it strange if historians from the year 4000 believed the sexual revolution of 1968 happened in 2018? Quite a discrepancy "only" 50 years
My favorite find in the last few months is the youtube channel "esoterica" - here's his video on the origins of yaweh as a storm god https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdKst8zeh-U
He recommends books and primary sources for every episode and they vary from interesting more pubscience type stuff to incredibly expensive and deep academic sources out of print.
The gentleman who runs it is very obviously jewish in practice but only uses that to inform his historical context instead of override it, its very refreshing as someone who is an atheist.
>I'll never be able to read about us digitally unrolling fragile scrolls without it seemingly like otherworldly sci-fi technology.
I similarly had my mind blown reading an article last week, about how sports & game card collectors are now having their packs CT scanned so they can identify what cards are inside (and the value of the pack) while keeping them sealed.
Speaking as a participant in a number of somewhat "modern" Christian traditions, I think one factor is that we have changed quite a lot and then some strands of the faith have decided to go back into the past and seek what we lost from the early days. One example being certain rock'n'roll churches where people stick their hands up in the air while singing and praying: I heard one pastor defend this as being "this is not a new form of prayer, this is what Jewish people were doing hundreds/thousands of years ago and now we're bringing it back". (See the rather-ancient Book of Exodus, for example. No electric guitars or drum kits there[0], but Moses is definitely described as holding his hands up in prayer, sometimes with the help of Joshua when his arms got tired).
[0] though I'm afraid to admit there is at least one actual tambourine...
Thing is, Christianity is (should be? idk) based on the teachings of Jesus which separated from Judaism; on prayer and worship, the New Testament has teachings like:
> Matthew 6:5-14
> 5 āAnd when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
That is, he teaches a humble, private, and not-showy way of praying, as opposed to the Jews of their time. But this is causing tension and schisms in Christian churches everywhere. I grew up in a fairly conservative one - grey suits, quiet / low energy services, nothing too outlandish. But family of mine ended up in more Evangelical churches, with live music and the like. Then there's Catholics where opulence and grandeur is apparent in their cathedrals, and while I can appreciate them for their architecture and atmosphere and the like, I don't think that's in line with Jesus' teachings of humility and helping the poor etc, especially not given how much money goes and went around in the church.
> I don't think that's in line with Jesus' teachings of humility and helping the poor etc, especially not given how much money goes and went around in the church.
Hmm, but in the Exodus, the ark of the covenant was glided in gold with cherubs on the four corners. Same with the Jewish Temple, it was probably decked out in marble. Unlike Protestants, Catholicism have arts, choral music and statues and architecture not because they are "worshipping it" but because these things are supposed to direct the mind upwards towards God.
I think the Catholic Mass is the ancient form of worship by the early Church. There's multiple references to the Real Presence in the Eucharist in New Testament (ie. the road to Eramus and the breaking of bread, and in John 6:53*) and the Sanctus is still in the Eucharistic Prayer, and besides, its an obvious break with the Jews who did burnt offerings in the Temple.
John 6:53ā58, āVery truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.ā
The Old Testament can't be used to counter Jesus - Jesus is the counter to the Old Testament. He is the reason it's "Old" - humility, loving all without conditions, forgivenes, turning the other cheek - The Greatest Commandment, none of them are ignored or "misinterpreted" in any justified way, even if that way is quoting scripture from Exodus.
That's a very unusual context for me, in my tradition (reformed Presbyterian) we definitely don't view things that we way in general, the God of the old testament is the God of the new and Jesus didn't wholesale make the old testament invalid, only the parts of the law that he had already satisfied. (Eg no need for more animal sacrifices, we've already sacrificed enough via Jesus) (Notably, the moral law and parts of the ceremonial law are still valid)
It is interesting to think about why it's ok to differ from the old temple. Granted of course some of it is cultural differences, we're not the same people and it's 1000s of years later, and perhaps it was different because we're not the theocratic state of ancient Israel.
But something for me to think about why this component is no longer needed (my church is very classic boring protestant architecture)
āAll which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.ā
The reason the ceremonial law is abrogated is because it pointed forward to Christ who was to come. But since Christ has come, retaining the ceremonial law is tantamount to denying Christ (see full text of WCF 19.3 and book of Hebrews).
If you were thinking of the link between baptism and circumcision, remember that God gave the covenant promise and sign to Abraham 430 years before Moses (Gen 17, Gal 3:17), so circumcision predates the law.
Well yeah, opulent temples are in line with Jewish traditions but the other poster is suggesting that's not in line with the teaching of the new testament specifically?
As somebody outside of religions (thank you both parents, probably the greatest gift one can give to one's kids - freedom of faith and self determination, something almost impossible as adult if indoctrinated young), these kind of discussions are funny to me.
Why? They are present in every corner of the world, every religion. And all you need is to take few steps back and stop taking everything literally, trying to find some universal life guidance in bronze age texts. Not that its not there completely, some things are universal, but so are half the self-help books for example or literally any other serious text. Frank Herbert's Dune series is way more appealing and worthy to me for example and truths in it way more universal, yet I am not basing my whole life and morals on it, nor do I feel the need to push it on rest of the world.
Those were stories, no moral value greater than old greek (or persian, hindu etc.) tales which always had some strong message beyond story on the surface. Stories made up by men, hundreds of years after christ, which were retold probably 20x before somebody wrote them down (and then 20x translated between various slangs, languages and targeted meanings). Current bible has little to do with original story, its simply not technically possible for complex stories to be preserved 100% for hundreds of years by just retelling them.
You realize that say sunni vs shia muslims are, when reduced to few words, a conflict between which member of the family was the truest believer and whose words are more important, while having 0 reference to actually decide so? Yet conflicts between those are numerous and victims of those in hundreds of millions.
Every time I see people desperately looking for specific truths, there is some deeper underlying problem and inability/unwillingness to decide something rather trivial for oneself. Like which sort of music should be happening where - what the heck does this have to do with actual faith in your god(s)? Do you also consult religious text when picking up Sunday sweater color? Deities are not that petty, not even in those bronze age tales, its just showing human flaws and fears.
that's all brave and probably well intentioned, but there is another side to it. The Bible was specifically "a single agreed upon text" so that groups of people in real life could stop fighting about theology points, big and small. It still exists today. "The Bible is the Truth" end of statement. It is not because you personally cannot find new meaning in non-Bible things.. it is specifically to get groups of people "on the same page" .. that phrase is used today. The written nature of it also tends toward stability.
Perhaps in an unsatisfying way to an adolescent, the answer is there already, and you personally find your place in the order that is established by your ancestors and lead you life. Mostly the whole exercise is opposite of adolescent exploration. IMHO this is neither bad nor good. It is boring and meant to be boring, to prevent deadly conflict, wasted efforts, petty differences etc.
Based on this boring interpretation, Christians went on to build massive, mighty buildings, large civilized empires and vast written knowledge available to literate citizens. Those things did not have to happen at all. The triumph is that they did happen. In modern times we mostly dont even regard these things, since they are "obvious."
Please note that I am not saying this is the only one True Path at all, just describing things.
While your reference talks about prayer which is distinct from worship, I think that the instructions around prayer and worship are related. However, I dont think the message is to be reserved, but instead be honest. I understand this verse to mean don't be fake, God knows your heart. Be real. Here are a few examples that reinforce why I think this.
When talking to the Samaritan woman at the well Jesus talks about worship being true and of the spirit.
John 4:23-24 NIV
[23] Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. [24] God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
A reminder to forgive and seek forgiveness from those you have wronged (as reinforced in Matthew 6:14-15, Leviticus 19:18, Proverbs 17:9 ) before asking for forgiveness and before worshipping God:
Matthew 5:23-24 NIV
[23] āTherefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, [24] leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
Showing that fake worship means little:
Matthew 15 8:9 (NIV) quoting Isaiah 29:13
[8] ā āThese people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. [9] They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.ā ā
It's a catastrophe, not just esthetically but spiritually as well. It has nothing to do with austerity or wealth. Some of the churches no longer seek to express holiness ("having been set aside for God") and support the numinous and eternal nature of the divine liturgy that takes place in them.
One of the most breathtaking pictures I've ever seen in this regard is of Mass in a German church completely destroyed during WW2.
There's loads of artisans that can expertly sculpt/carve marble, wood, etc. It's just if you want to hire someone (or a team of people) to create such things it could cost more than the building itself.
Much cheaper to adorn your church with mass-manufactured statues made from molds and they give you that same air of creepiness for a tenth or 100th the price :thumbsup:.
That's because Yahweh was a sky god and lived high up in the clouds. So raising your hands, standing on mountain tops, etc, reduces your distance to him. Raising your hands while praying doesn't make as much sense anymore since Heaven is a metaphysical concept and not a place in the skies.
Are you asking about the scriptural basis from ancient times that they use to justify their modern practices? (i.e. the immediate topic at hand) Or are you looking for theological and/or scientific opinions on whether the claims they make are true, for at least some meaning of the word ātrueā?
There is nothing in the Bible that describes the practice they promote. Sure, there is a claim that people who are filled with the Holy Spirit will not die if bitten by snakes, but no description of it being used as a ritual practice and you could claim it contradicts ādo not put the Lord God to the testā.
I have no idea if there is extra-biblical evidence for people doing that in early churches, and whether those churches were considered orthodox or heretical at the time, or perhaps the 1st century equivalent of āwe donāt know yet, weāre just trying stuff out to see what worksā.
Im going to cite (slightly shorten) Wikipedia. I have no competency to understand the sources and fact check but I though itās quite interesting.
> In the 2nd century the Ophites reportedly handled snakes during their services, and also worshipped the serpent.
> The Ophites [ā¦] were a Christian Gnostic sect.
> Gnosticism [ā¦] is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These diverse groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the proto-orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions.
Seems very reasonable sects to me but itās understandable "authorities of religious institutions" didnāt like it.
Indeed extra biblical gospel from Luke and Mark:
> Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
> And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
IMHO Gospels are comparable with the Bible as a source of history.
Gnosticism is a bit of a catchall - the Ophites were a sect or branch and not by any means the standard - it's difficult to say there is an established "Standard Gnostic Theology" as there really isn't, there are some common deviations from modern Christianity that rendered them more similar thru a modern lens than they may be, tho they are some common Gnostic themes, like self awareness but snake charming isn't one.
That said, snakes have been widely deified thru out history by various cultures and beliefs.
Prior to Christianity the god Tiamet would have been widely known and had been so for hundreds of years. It is common practice for a religion to take the previous god and render them the "bad guy" in their new religion - that could also have been done to the Ophites as the Gnostics were essentially erased by the Church and what little remains the establishment said about them has been rendered sus by what we have found recently of OG Gnostic texts.
You have to realize, by 400 - saying someone handles snakes during their church service was a kin to saying they are a satanic cult.
That said - Gnostics would handle snakes if they wanted or needed to and they would be fine bc that is the faith they preached, a faith of action. Step onto the water - you will not sink of you do and have faith already, no more is needed in the moment, no assistance from Priest or higher power.
Christianity adopted the faith of Paul - the apostle not chosen by Christ, and became people that wait in their beliefs, faithfully waiting for God.
yes agree and .. there are branches of Christianity across the world that did not lose the connection to warfare. There are plenty of people who fight fiercely (in real life) that espouse Christ deeply.. a current Japan martial arts cage fighting champion from Brazil dedicated his whole victory speech to Christ recently, for example.
There's very similar, but perhaps much more challenging project for digitally unrolling the Herculaneum papyri[1], which is set up as an open machine learning competition[2].
Isn't any translation a product of the language norms of the translator, as opposed to a pure translation?
I know when I read Spanish, I have to mentally convert the order of words to what makes sense in English (for example, "Thanksgiving" in Spanish would be "Day of Action of Thanks" if translated directly).
Yes, with the caveat that with religious texts there are certain conventions that get conserved even across languages. For example, The Book of John starts off "In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." However, the term being translated here as "Word" (Ī»ĻĪ³ĪæĻ- logos) could easily be translated a number of different ways, and the technically literal meaning of "word" was already falling out of favor by the time John was written. The word could be "Logic" or "reason" or "The underlying principle that governs the order of the universe" but early Latin translators chose to translate this term as "Verbe" and so future translations followed suit.
This is just one example. There are other instances where a word is a loanword from Greek or Latin because it is an early technical term. For example "sanctification" is taken directly from a Latin technical term that is translated that way because of how early Latin translators chose to translate the Greek.
I wonder if this is what radicals like Gerrard Winstanley had in mind when developing the English Reformation as chance for social reform as well? This quote for example suggests he was I think:
>In the beginning of Time, the great Creator Reason, made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, to preserve Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Man, the lord that was to govern this Creation; for Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds, and Fishes; but not one word was spoken in the beginning, That one branch of mankind should rule over another.
There's 3 part Radio 4 series from a while ago on the King James Version, with one of the 45 minute episodes focussed on the translation of the work:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x3x68
Great example. See also āthou shalt not killā which would contradict tons of the surrounding text, if that is actually what the original Hebrew said.
Thanks for helping to flesh out the technical side of the discussion while Iām over here getting hung up on the theology :-) this is what makes HN still (occasionally) great.
The article mentions "18-line Latin text" but I was unable to recognize any word on the scroll (took Latin in high school) even something obvious like deus.
>> Although I realized fairly early on that the New Testament Letter to the Philippians is quoted at the end, I still spent a long time puzzling over the text, which is written in quite a crude form of Latin. I consulted specialist literature and databases and, finally, made some suggestions for how it might be interpreted.
>> The inscription begins with the Trisagion, the threefold cry of āHolyā [based on Isaiah 6:3], which remains part of the liturgy of the Eucharist to this day. In this case, however, itās written in Greek [āagios, agios, agiosā] but in Latin script.
It's super cool to see the digital unraveling of scrolls become more accessible. It's also amazing that we can still read the text of something that is nearly 2000 years old.
One thing I don't understand is the picture of the scroll though. I don't see how they were able to figure out the letters? They don't look like an alphabet to me
The article said Latin, but I don't know what script that is. It looks like it was written right-to-left so maybe it's Latin written in Hebrew script? I'm not even sure if that was a thing.
> I found that interesting too, and curious about what it implies for how people thought about religion at the time
Religion is an invention of the rennaisance. People at the time would have just perceived what we see as "religion" as worldview, much like people today typically believe in a fusion of economic theories.
That's fascinating but makes sense. any places to go learn more about this you recommend? googling things like invention of religion don't really lead anything on this specific topic
Don't have any reasonable good links available but over here, further East (present-day Romania and then the Roman province of Dacia) there was a strong presence of Oriental/Siro-Palmyrian deities like Mithras, Dea Syria or Belus. There's this (non-academic) page [1] in Romanian which you can use Google translate on in order to get a better hang of it.
> There is scientific consensus that Jesus was a historical figure
It's fair to say that there is general consensus amongst Biblical scholars that there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth. Calling it a scientific consensus is a bit of a stretch though. As far as I'm aware there's zero scientific evidence for His existence. Just that the surviving textual evidence makes little sense if He didn't.
One of the more interesting pieces of evidence in the Bible.
The Roman census that required every family go back to their hometown did not happen (why would it?). Romans kept very good records of censuses and such an event would be well covered.
So why does the Bible have this story? The best guess is that Jesus was well known to have come from Nazareth. Yet the older messianic texts say the Messiah would be from Bethlehem. The gospel author undoubtedly was trying to square that circle to make sure the prophecy was fulfilled. Something they'd not need to do if Jesus wasn't real. The author had to explain to people who had grandparents who knew him as being from Nazareth why that still jives with older prophecies.
Before you tie yourself in this knot it might be useful just to look and see if there was a Roman census in that time period:
"When I administered my thirteenth consulate (2 B.C.E.), the senate and Equestrian order and Roman people all called me father of the country, and voted that the same be inscribed in the vestibule of my temple"[0]
That Rome did censuses and kept detailed records of the censuses is not in dispute. The thing that never happened is people making long trips to the ancestral lands.
The entire point of a census is to get an accurate population count for reasons of taxation and public spending. People uprooting to go to grandpa's home to be counted messes with that count. It's counter productive. Rome would never have required this and in fact would have tried to restrict travel during the census because they wanted an accurate population count.
The much more likely explanation is the author of Luke needed Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, which was problematic because Jesus was well known to be from Nazareth.
That doesn't describe a census or anything like it. There is absolutely no evidence there was a census covering the Roman empire let alone the whole world (as actually stated in gLuke).
However, there was a census of Judea ordered by Quirinius when Herod Archelaus was kicked out in 6AD. And that makes sense because, prior to that time, Judea was a client state so Rome would not have directly taxed it. Once it became a province, it would be subject to direct taxation and, hence, would have needed a census to determine the taxable population.
So, by far the most likely scenario is that the author of gLuke was referring to this census but got his facts a bit wrong. He made way bigger whoppers than that one.
Fascinating from both a technological and theological/ecclesiological perspective. I'll be sure to pass this on to some of my faith-filled friends who now live south of the Alps but have roots in the same region.
> inhumation burials ā a practice uncommon in other Roman cemeteries in Frankfurt
To save others looking it up: "inhumation burial" seems to be a technical term in the field for what we simply call "burial", i.e. digging a grave and then covering the person with dirt and/or rocks. I'm not an expert, but given that this became the primary method of disposal in Christian culture (and still is, in many traditions who believe that cremation prevents the body being resurrected), one could infer that this is an indicator of Here Be Christians.
If you know even a smidgeon of theology, it's not technically possible to define (mainstream) Christian faith without any reference to Jewish beliefs. Jesus was, of course, himself raised a Jew, as were both Saints Peter & Paul, although the latter was also a Roman citizen who wrote in Greek, and they famously quarrelled quite a bit about how much of Judaism should be incorporated into the new religion, well documented in the New Testament itself and plenty of extra-biblical evidence.
It does seem a reasonable claim that nothing in this text contains elements of Judaism that were not already or subsequently incorporated into what became Christianity (though I'm pretty sure at this point it didn't yet have a name other than "The Way". I could be wrong there.)
However, just for fun:
- "Holy Holy Holy" is most definitely a reference to the (Hebrew) book of Isaiah, which was also quoted in the (Christian) book of Revelation aka Apocalypse (Greek, New Testament)
- Of course they don't use the name Yahweh when talking about the God/Lord of the World, of whom Jesus is claimed to be the Son. Neither does the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, produced for use by Greek-speaking Jews a few hundred years before Christ). But they are most definitely talking about the same God.
- I'm not sure if this pre- or post- dates the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent, on the grounds that the Name itself is too holy to be spoken or to risk being destroyed if the manuscript gets damaged or, you know, buried in the ground to decay with a dead person. But that could also be a factor.
Unfortunately they don't provide a transcription of the Latin text into modern characters so there's no opportunity right now to go nuts on that but it would be interesting to see what specific Latin words were used compared with translations of the Septuagint, and the original Greek and Hebrew texts themselves.
My wife is Messianic Jewish, where the primary intent is to restore Jewish traditions and beliefs while still believing in Jesus/Yeshua ("Jesus" being essentially a mispronunciation; the westernized version of the name would more accurately be "Joshua"). Personally my beliefs lie elsewhere, but it's still unfortunate that "denomination" is still such a tiny minority, given its desire to be a purer form of the religion.
I have a lot of respect for Messianic Jews; they're struggle is real. I wish more Jews knew just how Jewish the story of Jesus actually is. As far as Christians are concerned, Jesus is the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies in the old testament. Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:18)
That said, there is arguably no simpler or purer form of Christianity than simply having faith in and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
That was then transliterated to the Latin Iesus with basically the same deal ie phonetic with an ending change.
And that morphed into Jesus, probably about the 16th century, when the swash 'I' became a 'j' sound.
> more accurately be "Joshua"
It wouldn't really be more accurate; it would just be a transliteration through a different route. The most that can be said is that there are fewer hops.
It would still likely have most of the sounds wrong, esp if Jesus' name was originally pronounced in Galilean Aramaic. As I understand it that wouldn't have pronounced the final 'a' like an 'a' but more like a glottal stop. But that's right on the edge of my knowledge so I could have made the last bit up.
Donāt confuse culture and gradual inculturation with purity of religion and validity of liturgy.
In the age of the Messiah the faithful are truly drawn āfrom every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languagesā. If your wife would go to any (decent) Catholic or Orthodox church, and learns to "read" the building and the liturgy of Holy Mass, maybe she could recognize the contours of the āpureā or āmore Jewish" religion she is yearning for. She could go to modern or more traditional Latin/Greek/Ukrainian/Syriac/Ethiopian/... rites and in the plurality of all those different cultures and temperaments recognize over and over again the exact same elements and basic plan, organically evolved yet meticulously preserved in a chain of unbroken sacramental obedience.
Entering the church building sheād gradually walk from the holy water near the entrance, through the āouter courtyardā for the lay people, to the sanctuary with the sacrificial altar, golden vessels and incense, elevated and separated by altar rail or curtain. Behind is the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies containing the Real Presence, indicated by a lit candle. And if she was to e.g. carefully analyse the words of the Eucharistic prayers in all these different rites and languages, she would find over and over again the same underlying structure, complete with the Haggadah.
But language and cultural differences aside, there must be fundamental differences as well. It is Christ Himself who took the prescribed liturgy of the ancient Passover meal and gave it its full and final meaning by substituting Himself, in the presence of the apostles, for the merely symbolic lamb. It is through Christ that the Trinity is fully revealed.
How then could e.g. the exact same holidays have been retained? For instance, why would you celebrate Shavuot, if with Pentecost the Holy Spirit directly descended on the Church? Another example: the Lord's Day is not "Sabbath on the wrong day". Sabbath laws do not apply to those under the New Covenant. Beyond the most excellent idea of dedicating an entire day to the Lord with plenty of obligatory prayer, rest, food and family/community time, the Christian Sunday is simply not the Sabbath. On Sunday we celebrate the Resurrection, which occurred on the first day of a new week (the supernatural "eighth day", beyond the natural fullness of the old week).
The priest in this age is also no longer a Levite. To properly offer this sacrifice, he is now sacramentally ordained by proper religious authorities āin the Order of Melchizedekā, reminiscent of the royal priesthood of David and the priesthood of Adam and the firstborns. And where the old liturgy was a sign of divine grace, the liturgy of our age is an effective cause of divine grace. If the priest obeys the liturgy that has been prescribed for his own rite and his own day, no amount of personal corruption can take away the sanctity of his work. This also means that there is no fundamental need for wars in the Holy Land or for "conquering" the Temple Mount by force. The Temple is already being built. Every time the faithful, after having been sacramentally cleansed of mortal sin through baptism or confession, participate in the Lordās sacrifice by eating the body and drinking the blood of the Lamb, they themselves will inevitably become more and more the dwelling place of the Lord within the material creation.
Only because of your own cultural background / upbringing where Josh was a pretty normal and non-reverent name, like how people like me one day realise there's a whole culture of people out there where Jesus is still a common and popular first name, instead of something reserved for a religious figure.
I live in one of those cultures and have several coworkers named Jesus. But some names have different associations. It is like "Todd, The Necromancer!" Vs "Evelyn the sorceress". Jesus is a serious and competent embedded c++ programmer. Josh is a goofy guy in accounting.
Every religion makes truth claims. Many of those truth claims contradict each other. It's incumbent upon us to do the research, put the claims to the test and come to the most reasonable conclusion as to what is true.
Not necessarily, they consider themselves right / proper or just prefer it over other flavours though (example being the many branches of Protestantism where each branch has a slightly different take on how things should be done, but it's not like they're at odds with each other per se)
Protestants all find their differences of opinion a big enough deal that they'll break up over it. They're not fighting wars I've doctrinal differences any more, but who in Christendom is these days?
Goodness, where to startā¦ I donāt have time to read your link so Iāll only reply to what you wrote from my own direct personal experience:
- many Protestant groups, while not fighting wars of physical violence, still harbour very unchristian hate in their hearts towards other Protestant sects and (usually) towards all Catholics, whom they consider to be idol worshippers led astray by Satan himself (sadly many Catholics also still feel the same about all Protestants and many other Catholics who donāt play the right music, wear the right vestments or worship in the right language and or precise form of words.)
- on the other hand, many, many Protestants and Catholics are also working to resolve or otherwise sideline those ādebatable thingsā and āfoolish controversiesā that St Paul advised the churches not to quarrel about (he didnāt say what, specifically, but then this is supposed to be a faith based on love and grace rather than legalism). Iāve been to large events where Catholics and Protestants are worshipping, witnessing and praying joyfully together and seeking to find the similarities and not the differences, without compromising on the fundamentals of what it means to follow Jesus. And these kinds of movements are growing around the world year upon year and also working together to fight social injustice, inequality and poverty
ā hopefully soon, more of our Orthodox brothers and sisters will get on board with this, but there are glimmers of hope in that direction too, as long as nobody says the word āFilioqueā ;-)
Ah yes, I had a chance to read it while walking down the street. I know that joke, reminds me of the one my dad used to delight in telling, which ends with āI must be the luckiest Arab in Belfastā.
Funnily enough the exact one that you posted is these days repeated by many churches somewhere during the Alpha Course, which after pausing for laughs is identified as an example of exactly not what you are being invited to believe.
The unfortunate part is where Christians try to pass themselves off as Jews by adding "Jewish" to the name of their denomination. I wish my great aunts and uncles could have added "Christian" to their denomination to escape being murdered in the Holocaust, that would have been nice.
Presumably that's a reference to the GP describing "Messianic Jewish". (or rather, Messianic Judaism)
> It considers itself to be a form of Judaism but is generally considered to be a sect of Christianity,[2][3] including by all major groups within mainstream Judaism, since Jews consider belief in Jesus as the Messiah and divine in the form of God the Son (and the doctrine of the Trinity in general) to be among the most defining distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. It is also generally considered a Christian sect by scholars and other Christian groups.
So are they claiming that Messianic Jews are not actually Jews? Because they implied that people were falsely taking the title Jew if I understood them correctly. That would be the first time I've ever heard that particular assertion.
Yes and that was what I was saying (sorry it wasn't clear).
What it means to be a Jew is complicated. Jews form an ethnicity of interconnected people with a range of beliefs and practices (it is, definitionally, not whether one is religiously adherent to Judaism). To me, one could in principle be religiously Christian and also ethnically Jewish (that's an unusual view among Jews), but to do that requires having an actual connection to the Jewish ethnicity (e.g. if one was raised ethnically Jewish and maintains a Jewish identity). My impression is that "Messianic Jews" are religiously and ethnically Christian who are importing Jewish practices into their otherwise non-Jewish identity. If OP's wife was born Jewish or converted prior becoming a "Messianic Jew," I would stand corrected.
If I, a very white person, start singing songs from Back churches, that doesn't make me Black. I wouldn't face the real-world struggles against racism of Black people, for example, and I think that's a useful hint when thinking about who is and isn't a member of a minority group like Jews. Likewise, acting out Jewish practices doesn't necessarily make one a Jew, and as one example it doesn't subject one to the sorts of anti-Semitism faced by Jews. I'm not saying facing anti-Semitism a necessary or sufficient condition for being a Jew, but if not that, then there must be something else that connects one to the Jewish ethnicity --- the interconnected people who believe they are Jews --- other than just by saying so.
So I'm confused--are you saying that Israel thinks Messianic Jews are not Jews because they abandoned their faith or something like that, OR are you saying that Israel doesn't let Messianic Jews to be citizens because sometimes non-Jews convert to become Messianic Jews?
It sounds like a variation of a - not so much that they abandoned their faith, per-se, but that the faith they espouse as being Jewish is not acceptably āin the same roomā as other Jewish faith.
It would be somewhat like saying you were a Messianic Christian because you believed that Mohammed was a later prophet. There is a word for that kind of religion, and it isnāt Christianity.
There are essentially two completely different movements claiming the name of "Messianic Judaism." The first are people who are Jewish- culturally, ethnically, and even religiously, who have converted to Christianity and believe that all other Jews should do the same. There is a small pocket of Messianic Jews of this definition in my hometown, so this is the version I was most familiar with.
It wasn't until later that I learned that there is a second, much more popular movement under the name of Messianic Judaism which are people who are not ethnically or culturally Jewish who have determined that Christianity should return to its Jewish roots. These people have no historical connections to Judaism and usually grew up within a Christian cultural context. There is a lot of overlap with the "Hebrew Roots" movement that you mentioned, and in my opinion there isn't a real distinction between the two.
Myself I feel kind of biased but I view the first kind as more "legitimate" since Judaism, isn't merely a religion, it's a living, breathing culture and it is super weird for someone to just roll up and claim it without having any connection to anyone who was doing it before. It's like if I decided I was going to be Indian and started wearing stereotypical Indian traditional dress and eating only curry because I think that's what Indians eat, without having any actual Indians in my movement.
I agree that ethnic Jews with Christian religious beliefs is a legitimate concept. But I would rather call them Messianic Jews (or just Christian Jews) rather than adherents of "Messianic Judaism." To say that "Judaism" can include Jesus erases the Jewish religion by leaving it without a name, conveniently benefiting the dominant Christian religion. (And Messianic Jews who are not Jews should be called something else entirely.)
> "Holy Holy Holy" is most definitely a reference to the (Hebrew) book of Isaiah, which was also quoted in the (Christian) book of Revelation aka Apocalypse (Greek, New Testament)
Could you expand on that? Is there any specific reference to the book of Isaiah, and is "holy" (AGIOS in the Latin of the scroll) a good translation of the Hebrew word?
Agios- direct transliteration from the Greek "'Ī¬Ī³Ī¹ĪæĻ" which is the exact term used in Isaiah 6:3 in the popular Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. If not a "good" translation, it's certainly an old one, being the word Christians and Jews in that part of the world would have been familiar with in the Book of Isaiah for hundreds of years before this amulet was made.
> and they famously quarrelled quite a bit about how much of Judaism should be incorporated into the new religion, well documented in the New Testament itself and plenty of extra-biblical evidence.
Just wondering what is the "plenty of extra-biblical evidence"?
Good point, I didnāt fact check that part, I probably mixed up hazy memories of some other incidents I read about in the Didache and other early church writings. Wikipedia says thereās no evidence outside of Lukeās and Paulās own words (Acts and Galatians respectively) and since Luke was hanging out with Paul for a lot of that time (see all the times Acts switches between āheā and āweā) we could be skating on thin ice as far as actual textual evidence goes. Good spot, thanks for calling me out.
> the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent
Perhaps, but in this Latin inscription we have Jesus being referred to as "IHS XP" - a Greek(!) abbreviation of Jesus Christ, so not avoiding his name altogether.
> I'm not sure if this pre- or post- dates the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent,
That taboo already existed even before the New Testament was written. The Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Old Testament, was written around 260 BC and uses this convention, translating the Lord's name as "kyrios"- "Lord." The authors of the New Testament itself extensively quote this translation, and firmly established this convention within Christianity as well, especially because most Christian converts wouldn't know Hebrew or be expected to learn Hebrew to hear (remember that literacy rates were very low in this era compared to now) Jewish scriptures in their own languages.
Speaking of literacy, I notice that the Latin of this inscription is very messy. I don't know much Latin myself, but the handwriting is terrible, to the point where I wonder if the maker of this scroll was only semi-literate.
The examples on that page are way cleaner and easier to read than the scroll inscription. The letters in the scroll are not written consistently, and even the size of the letters changes dramatically as the inscription goes on.
Seems very possible when you consider that this is before the Roman Aristocracy decided to muscle in on the action and take over the church. Many of the original disciples and apostles were semi-literate working class types from the north country (see ānothing good could ever come from Nazarethā) and Paul, the one who wrote the most (but even then likely dictated a lot of it) was a late addition to the team. Sure he recruited a bunch of possibly āmiddle classā tradesmen and business owners to set up churches in their homes (Priscilla and Aquila, famously) but it was still mostly an underground movement among the slave and worker classes before Constantine decided he could put it to his own use.
The local pre-Christian burial custom was burning, but other cultures in far-off places still buried their dead. So while Christianity isn't exclusive in its use of burial, it was supplanting religious customs that did not include burial throughout northern Europe.
I find it pretty cool how the spread of Christianity can be tracked so finely that a 50 update in earliest arrival time is exciting!
I started listening to a podcast called "the history of the early church" to learn a bit more about that but unfortunately I think the target audience was Christians interested in theology rather than nerds interested in history. Recommendations for books etc are welcome!
I think the more interesting developments occurred after the fall of the western Roman empire. The eastern empire (Constantinople) had frequent arguments and disputes with the west over nearly everything, including Christianity. The eastern Orthodox church refers to itself as the "Catholic Church" in internal documents. After the west fell in 476, they continued to present themselves as "the" Catholic church, which was changed forever in 1200 when the largest Christian city in the world (Constantinople) was destroyed. The destruction took two years, and most of the writings, art and treasure of the richest city in the world was either destroyed, stolen, or lost.
In fact the very word catholic derives from the Greek words kata and holos
Additionally, it's part of the credo:
> [We believe] in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."
In Latin:
> Et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Marks_of_the_Church
Catholic just means universal.
Did the fact that Christians from Western Europe looted Constantinople in 1200 play a role in the Eastern Roman Empire's decision to stop identifying themselves as part of the Catholic Church, or were there already deep theological and political divides?
Catholic means universal, so both present themselves as the original and true church, with the head either in Rome or Constantinople/Pentarchy. The actual break of communion comes from 1054 but really began much earlier.
Even in protestant churches like the Presbyterians and the Methodists you will hear references to the "Catholic Church" where it refers to the universal church that is inclusive all all believers regardless of denomination. For example in shows up in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed.
The pope who sent the schism message delegation died before it reached Constantinople. And the patriarch of Constantinople at the time, also died before his reply made it back to Rome.
The schism was in 1053
1054, in fact, but the 1204 ransacking of Constantinople certainly didn't help with how the "Franks" (because that's how the Catholics were mostly called) were seen by the Christian-Orthodox (if it matters I'm a Christian-Orthodox myself).
I was reading a travelogue written by a Russian monk (? not sure, either a monk or a wealthy boyar predisposed to the Holy stuff) who was visiting Constantinople sometimes in the early 1300s, so a century after the whole tragedy, and he was still describing how destroyed the city looked because of the Franks and what big of a tragedy that was.
> a role in the Eastern Roman Empire's decision to stop identifying themselves as part of the Catholic Church
From their point of view, the West abandoned the true (i.e. orthodox) faith.
Also, it's hard to argue that the Eastern Christians changed more than Western ones. For example, since the 12th century the pope has forbidden priest marriage. There is some debate in the Catholic Church about allowing this again. If that is implemented, it would simply be a reversion to what the Orthodox Church has always done.
The Centre Place youtube channel has some pretty good lectures, including some very good lectures on Judaism and early Christianity: https://www.youtube.com/@centre-place/playlists
The videos are presented by a pastor of the Community of Christ church in Toronto, but they're from a historical rather than religious perspective.
The āReligions of the Ancient Mediterraneanā podcast is excellent. Itās mostly cut-up university lectures by the author, who teaches at York University in Toronto. https://www.philipharland.com/Blog/religions-of-the-ancient-...
Iād recommend ā2,000 Years of Christ's Powerā by Nick Needham. I am not sure where it falls on your theology/history spectrum but it has some of both. I enjoyed the audiobook of Volume 1 immensely.
For me it did a great job describing the context in which the church began, the major figures throughout the early church, and the spread, schisms, and events that helped shape the church in its formative years.
You might enjoy Let's Talk Religion[0] and ReligionForBreakfast[1]. Both have variety of topics not solely focused on Christianity.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkReligion
[1] https://www.youtube.com/@ReligionForBreakfast
Data over dogma is a pretty good podcast about Christianity and Judaism. It's mostly about taking Bible stories and putting them into their historic context with the best evidence we have.
It's not about converting, just covering the history.
Someone already said The Rest is History, but one of the presenters of that podcast Tom Holland (not the actor) has also written extensively about the history of the catholic church in Millennium and Dominion. Highly recommended.
Second the recommendation on Millennium, just note that for some stupid reason the US publisher decided to retitle the book "The Forge of Christendom". So if you're in the US you won't find it under its real title.
> Recommendations for books etc are welcome!
See perhaps the references / (printed) sources at:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
I had a long drive where I listened to The Great Courses, which had a set on early Christianity. I think the professor was from Notre Dame. The early church was wrestling with polytheism (is the OT god seemed really different from the NT god) and it eventually had to get resolved by the Council at Nicaea at Constantine's behest.
I've never heard anyone say the early church wrestled with polytheism. Maybe that's my bias nestled in Christian circles of not using that word, in favour of something more like "the nature of the triune Godhead", etc.
Even today plenty of Christian sects refuse to recognize the council of Nicaea's interpretation of the trinity, including the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontrinitarianism (Whether or not any of these flirt with polytheism is up for debate.)
Meanwhile, the Catholic church's own profusion of saints whom you are supposed to beseech for specific blessings is dangerously close to a polytheistic practice in its own right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque - to this day the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church disagree on whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, or from the Father and the Son.
Yeah but most lay people from either branch couldn't tell you the practical consequences of this. It's widely known & considered important because it's a remaining theological justification for the schism, not the other way around.
An interesting take on the dilemma between the two 'sides':
> You see the problem. If you include the filioque, you fight the Arians in the West while inadvertently supporting the Sabellians in the East. But if you exclude it, you fight the Sabellians while inadvertently supporting the Arians. At its heart, the filioque is really a linguistic debate, not a theological one.
* https://old.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/68hb00/eli5_th...
(I don't know about the intricacies/subtleties enough to know how 'technically accurate' the above assessment is.)
I don't know either. To me (an orthodox christian) the filioque seems like a post hoc justification for a schism that was already well underway if not inevitable. By 1054 what became the two churches had already clearly differentiated religious traditions, local saints, and liturgical practices with very little interchange between them, not to mention language, governance, and secular culture.
I have heard some fairly convincing (to a lay person) discussion between orthodox and catholic scholars that the filioque is potentially resolvable as a linguistic problem yes. But it's not worth really pursuing without a solution for the bigger issue of papal primacy. I don't know anyone who claims to have a viable path to reconciliation there. Plus, you know, the thousand years of mutual distrust and enmity.
> is dangerously close to a polytheistic practice in its own right.
I don't really think so. We're supposed to pray with Mary to God and everyone recognizes that all of creation came through Christ, not Mary or any other saint.
I was taught as a child, and this was Protestant with a clear anti-Catholic bias, that:
* Catholics prayed _to_ Mary (eg asking to intercede on your behalf);
* This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of.
I'm guessing you're Catholic from your response; would you mind explaining to this somewhat lost person how Catholics view these two topics please? (I've never heard a good explanation, and even praying "with" Mary is new to me.) I admire Catholicism and wish I felt more trust in it, which is something that comes from childhood indoctrination, I know. Things stick into adulthood even when you're consciously aware of their root. So I'm keen to hear countering views :)
1. Prayer means several things - "I then prayed my friend that he would accompany me on my trip to Italy" does not mean that you worshiped your friend. Mary (and all the saints) are prayed to in that intercessory way, not in the worshipful way that we pray to God. The man at the Beautiful Gate asked Peter for charity and Peter gave him the ability to walk, not by his own power by by the power of Jesus (Acts 3:2-6). And again intercessory prayer as an important part of the life of the Church is well-attested - e. g., St. Paul in 1 Timothy 2:5 says "I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men". Finally, why the focus on Mary above all other saints? "Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me" says Elizabeth "filled with the Holy Spirit" and before that "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you" says Gabriel bringing God's message to Mary. And what does Mary say in response? "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior" and "I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said". When trying to draw closer to Christ, who would you want with you on your journey more than she who was called to be His mother? And who among all mankind would be more eager to have you come to the throne than she for whom "the Almighty has done [great things for]"?
2. "In fact, [God has not forbidden contact with the dead], because he at times has given it ā for example, when he had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). What God has forbidden is the necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. " Via https://www.catholic.com/tract/praying-to-the-saints
>This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of.
Catholics believe that people in heaven are not dead, and can hear your prayers for intercession (this is the case with most protestants too). Jesus said, after all, that he is the God of the living not the God of the dead[1], and that those in heaven will be reborn in a new and everlasting life. Catholics further believe that the saints in heaven can pray on your behalf and are, in fact, excited to do so, and possibly better at it than anyone on earth.
[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew%2022%3A32
Indeed, I'm not trying to argue that the tradition of Catholic saints doesn't obey an absolute hierarchy. I'm referring to practices that are specific to the domains of various patron saints, such as placing medals of Saint Christopher in your car for protection (him being the patron saint of transporters and travelers, as well as athletics, bachelors, surfing, storms, epilepsy, gardeners, and toothache). One of the reasons that Protestants objected to saintly veneration was precisely because they felt it took focus away from Jesus.
Even if the Catholic church might technically be not polytheistic, it is hard to argue that the cult of saints didn't replace the ancient Roman lares in the day to day cult. Yes, saints are supposed to intercede to provide favors and protection, but the practical effects [1] are the same. Religious syncretism is very well attested.
[1] however you want to interpret this.
As Mary asked Jesus to perform the miracle at the wedding at Cana, for the said of her friend, we too are called to pray to ask Mary to intercede for us for our intentions.
Yes, with "saint" I wasn't even trying to invoke a discussion involving Mary at all, because in practice she's so far above the saints that to equate them feels like heresy (and might literally be heresy in some contexts; hyperdulia vs. dulia and all). In practice the absolute adulation of Mary is such that she nearly feels like the fourth member of the trinity.
Who judges what appears to happen in practice?
As an Atheist (formally Orthodox), I think I can adjudicate this.
The problem with the First Council of Nicaea was that it was decided wrong. The whole "there are three gods, but only one god" is inherently confusing. There's a reason why Arianism keeps recurring over and over again. All the new nations who have been introduced to this aspect of Christianity find it bizarre.
If the decision would have been more along the lines of Islam (i.e. Jesus is super holy, but not God) then it would have been easier to maintain unity. In fact, Islam's adoption of a form of Arianism is one of the reasons it replaced Christianity so quickly in North Africa and the Middle East. (Well, that and the sword.)
> Even today plenty of Christian sects refuse to recognize the council of Nicaea's interpretation of the trinity, including the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses
In some ways the (English) word "God" has become 'overloaded' over time:
* https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/12/christians-muslims-...
And that's not even getting into "god":
* https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/04/further-thought-on-...
In a taxonomy of religious belief the communion of saints is much closer to ancestor veneration than it is polytheism. If you're going to see anything in christianity as potentially polytheistic it's the triune god come on.
> I've never heard anyone say the early church wrestled with polytheism.
See:
> Marcion preached that the benevolent God of the Gospel who sent Jesus Christ into the world as the savior was the true Supreme Being, different and opposed to the malevolent Demiurge or creator god, identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament.[2][3][5]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism
I find myself agreeing with a lot of these āgnosticā interpretations tbh. When you read stuff like Numbers 14, God just comes off as a total asshole lol
Although the whole theology they cooked up around the ātrue godā reads like bad fan fiction usually.
Note that to non-Christian monotheists, the Christian resolution of that problem is often seen as polytheism with circumlocution.
This arises from a confusion of multiplication 1x1x1 with addition 1+1+1 in the abstraction of facets of truth.
this seems like a sideways retelling of the "Gospels of Thomas" stories.. this is a nuanced topic and shrouded by history.. Suffice it to say that intellectuals and pious people knew very well the cults of Apollo, astrology of High Priests, nature worship, Egyptian deism, goddess worship, and pantheonism while the Christian scriptures were solidifying as a social blueprint.
Speaking of history podcasts, I've gone through Mike Duncan's Rome and Revolutions, the Fall of Civilizations, Dan Carlin's Hardcore Histories... any suggestions for more like this? I noticed there is a Byzantium history series that seemed interesting.
https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/
The British History Podcast starts in deep pre-Roman times and, after ~460 episodes, is up to 1091.
The History of English podcast is worth a listen. It's about the development of the English language, so it covers a lot of history and prehistory, and also linguistics. The presenter Kevin Stroud has a deep passion for the subject matter. Unfortunately, he also has a tendency to repeat himself and over-explain simple examples so the effect can be somewhat soporific.
Assuming you want more Long form, narrative style historical podcasts. History of the Germans, The French History Podcast, and The History of England are all very good in depth podcasts. I also enjoy the History of The Crusades, which is good, narrative and similar to Revolutions following various crusades.
History on Fire is another great one. Heās especially interested in military / martial arts but it has a bit of everything.
Twelve Byzantine Rulers https://12byzantinerulers.com/
Thought pointedly not a podcast, the YouTube channel Historia Civilis was my go to thing to fall asleep to for a while. The simple animation style and depth I found very soothing.
The rest is history is pretty good.
The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion - Rodney Stark
If you want a non-religious take on the history of Abrahamic religions, a recent episode 393 of the podcast by Sam Harriss, where he interviews historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, should be an interesting listen.
I think one of the oldest historical mentions of Jesus is by Josephus [1][2]. There is, however, scholarly discussion about whether parts of his references to Jesus were altered by later Christian scribes [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
[3] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=jose...
The Didache predates Josephus.
I understand that the Didache doesn't mention Jesus itself.
Read it here:
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm
(E.g. when discussing the Eucharist.)
This blew my mind when I first learned of it
The traditional view held by Christians is that the Gospel of Matthew was written within 10 years of Jesus' death. Modern scholars (often atheists) do not believe it though.
I mean, wouldn't you find it strange if historians from the year 4000 believed the sexual revolution of 1968 happened in 2018? Quite a discrepancy "only" 50 years
My favorite find in the last few months is the youtube channel "esoterica" - here's his video on the origins of yaweh as a storm god https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdKst8zeh-U
He recommends books and primary sources for every episode and they vary from interesting more pubscience type stuff to incredibly expensive and deep academic sources out of print.
The gentleman who runs it is very obviously jewish in practice but only uses that to inform his historical context instead of override it, its very refreshing as someone who is an atheist.
I'll never be able to read about us digitally unrolling fragile scrolls without it seemingly like otherworldly sci-fi technology.
The translated blessing text itself seems almost modern. Funny to see how little we've changed in some ways.
>I'll never be able to read about us digitally unrolling fragile scrolls without it seemingly like otherworldly sci-fi technology.
I similarly had my mind blown reading an article last week, about how sports & game card collectors are now having their packs CT scanned so they can identify what cards are inside (and the value of the pack) while keeping them sealed.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5987857/2024/12/12/trading-...
Speaking as a participant in a number of somewhat "modern" Christian traditions, I think one factor is that we have changed quite a lot and then some strands of the faith have decided to go back into the past and seek what we lost from the early days. One example being certain rock'n'roll churches where people stick their hands up in the air while singing and praying: I heard one pastor defend this as being "this is not a new form of prayer, this is what Jewish people were doing hundreds/thousands of years ago and now we're bringing it back". (See the rather-ancient Book of Exodus, for example. No electric guitars or drum kits there[0], but Moses is definitely described as holding his hands up in prayer, sometimes with the help of Joshua when his arms got tired).
[0] though I'm afraid to admit there is at least one actual tambourine...
Thing is, Christianity is (should be? idk) based on the teachings of Jesus which separated from Judaism; on prayer and worship, the New Testament has teachings like:
> Matthew 6:5-14 > 5 āAnd when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
That is, he teaches a humble, private, and not-showy way of praying, as opposed to the Jews of their time. But this is causing tension and schisms in Christian churches everywhere. I grew up in a fairly conservative one - grey suits, quiet / low energy services, nothing too outlandish. But family of mine ended up in more Evangelical churches, with live music and the like. Then there's Catholics where opulence and grandeur is apparent in their cathedrals, and while I can appreciate them for their architecture and atmosphere and the like, I don't think that's in line with Jesus' teachings of humility and helping the poor etc, especially not given how much money goes and went around in the church.
> I don't think that's in line with Jesus' teachings of humility and helping the poor etc, especially not given how much money goes and went around in the church.
Hmm, but in the Exodus, the ark of the covenant was glided in gold with cherubs on the four corners. Same with the Jewish Temple, it was probably decked out in marble. Unlike Protestants, Catholicism have arts, choral music and statues and architecture not because they are "worshipping it" but because these things are supposed to direct the mind upwards towards God.
I think the Catholic Mass is the ancient form of worship by the early Church. There's multiple references to the Real Presence in the Eucharist in New Testament (ie. the road to Eramus and the breaking of bread, and in John 6:53*) and the Sanctus is still in the Eucharistic Prayer, and besides, its an obvious break with the Jews who did burnt offerings in the Temple.
John 6:53ā58, āVery truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.ā
Exodus was as far from Christ as we are.
The Old Testament can't be used to counter Jesus - Jesus is the counter to the Old Testament. He is the reason it's "Old" - humility, loving all without conditions, forgivenes, turning the other cheek - The Greatest Commandment, none of them are ignored or "misinterpreted" in any justified way, even if that way is quoting scripture from Exodus.
That's a very unusual context for me, in my tradition (reformed Presbyterian) we definitely don't view things that we way in general, the God of the old testament is the God of the new and Jesus didn't wholesale make the old testament invalid, only the parts of the law that he had already satisfied. (Eg no need for more animal sacrifices, we've already sacrificed enough via Jesus) (Notably, the moral law and parts of the ceremonial law are still valid)
It is interesting to think about why it's ok to differ from the old temple. Granted of course some of it is cultural differences, we're not the same people and it's 1000s of years later, and perhaps it was different because we're not the theocratic state of ancient Israel.
But something for me to think about why this component is no longer needed (my church is very classic boring protestant architecture)
Agreed except for this comment.
> parts of the ceremonial law are still valid
Westminster Confession 19.3:
āAll which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.ā
The reason the ceremonial law is abrogated is because it pointed forward to Christ who was to come. But since Christ has come, retaining the ceremonial law is tantamount to denying Christ (see full text of WCF 19.3 and book of Hebrews).
If you were thinking of the link between baptism and circumcision, remember that God gave the covenant promise and sign to Abraham 430 years before Moses (Gen 17, Gal 3:17), so circumcision predates the law.
Well yeah, opulent temples are in line with Jewish traditions but the other poster is suggesting that's not in line with the teaching of the new testament specifically?
As somebody outside of religions (thank you both parents, probably the greatest gift one can give to one's kids - freedom of faith and self determination, something almost impossible as adult if indoctrinated young), these kind of discussions are funny to me.
Why? They are present in every corner of the world, every religion. And all you need is to take few steps back and stop taking everything literally, trying to find some universal life guidance in bronze age texts. Not that its not there completely, some things are universal, but so are half the self-help books for example or literally any other serious text. Frank Herbert's Dune series is way more appealing and worthy to me for example and truths in it way more universal, yet I am not basing my whole life and morals on it, nor do I feel the need to push it on rest of the world.
Those were stories, no moral value greater than old greek (or persian, hindu etc.) tales which always had some strong message beyond story on the surface. Stories made up by men, hundreds of years after christ, which were retold probably 20x before somebody wrote them down (and then 20x translated between various slangs, languages and targeted meanings). Current bible has little to do with original story, its simply not technically possible for complex stories to be preserved 100% for hundreds of years by just retelling them.
You realize that say sunni vs shia muslims are, when reduced to few words, a conflict between which member of the family was the truest believer and whose words are more important, while having 0 reference to actually decide so? Yet conflicts between those are numerous and victims of those in hundreds of millions.
Every time I see people desperately looking for specific truths, there is some deeper underlying problem and inability/unwillingness to decide something rather trivial for oneself. Like which sort of music should be happening where - what the heck does this have to do with actual faith in your god(s)? Do you also consult religious text when picking up Sunday sweater color? Deities are not that petty, not even in those bronze age tales, its just showing human flaws and fears.
that's all brave and probably well intentioned, but there is another side to it. The Bible was specifically "a single agreed upon text" so that groups of people in real life could stop fighting about theology points, big and small. It still exists today. "The Bible is the Truth" end of statement. It is not because you personally cannot find new meaning in non-Bible things.. it is specifically to get groups of people "on the same page" .. that phrase is used today. The written nature of it also tends toward stability.
Perhaps in an unsatisfying way to an adolescent, the answer is there already, and you personally find your place in the order that is established by your ancestors and lead you life. Mostly the whole exercise is opposite of adolescent exploration. IMHO this is neither bad nor good. It is boring and meant to be boring, to prevent deadly conflict, wasted efforts, petty differences etc.
Based on this boring interpretation, Christians went on to build massive, mighty buildings, large civilized empires and vast written knowledge available to literate citizens. Those things did not have to happen at all. The triumph is that they did happen. In modern times we mostly dont even regard these things, since they are "obvious."
Please note that I am not saying this is the only one True Path at all, just describing things.
While your reference talks about prayer which is distinct from worship, I think that the instructions around prayer and worship are related. However, I dont think the message is to be reserved, but instead be honest. I understand this verse to mean don't be fake, God knows your heart. Be real. Here are a few examples that reinforce why I think this.
When talking to the Samaritan woman at the well Jesus talks about worship being true and of the spirit.
John 4:23-24 NIV
[23] Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. [24] God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
A reminder to forgive and seek forgiveness from those you have wronged (as reinforced in Matthew 6:14-15, Leviticus 19:18, Proverbs 17:9 ) before asking for forgiveness and before worshipping God:
Matthew 5:23-24 NIV
[23] āTherefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, [24] leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
Showing that fake worship means little:
Matthew 15 8:9 (NIV) quoting Isaiah 29:13
[8] ā āThese people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. [9] They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.ā ā
"This perfume was worth an entire year's wages. Why wasn't it sold and the money given to the poor?"
Sacred art exists to honor the Lord. We ourselves may remain poor and humble in the middle of all this beauty :-)
FWIW, this has changed a lot. Catholic churches built in the last 50 years are far more austere than those built earlier.
It's a catastrophe, not just esthetically but spiritually as well. It has nothing to do with austerity or wealth. Some of the churches no longer seek to express holiness ("having been set aside for God") and support the numinous and eternal nature of the divine liturgy that takes place in them.
One of the most breathtaking pictures I've ever seen in this regard is of Mass in a German church completely destroyed during WW2.
https://www.churchpop.com/content/images/size/w1200/wordpres...
"Stat crux dum volvitur orbis"...
I believe it, modern society has killed the artisans crafts. No one can make the old style ornament now.
Nonsense! It just isn't economical.
There's loads of artisans that can expertly sculpt/carve marble, wood, etc. It's just if you want to hire someone (or a team of people) to create such things it could cost more than the building itself.
Much cheaper to adorn your church with mass-manufactured statues made from molds and they give you that same air of creepiness for a tenth or 100th the price :thumbsup:.
> Then there's Catholics where opulence and grandeur is apparent [ā¦]
It is not "opulence and grandeur" that are on display, but beauty, or Beauty:
* https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/aquinas-on-beauty/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentals
See also "Beauty, Truth, and Goodness":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7RSQpDnYUY
That's because Yahweh was a sky god and lived high up in the clouds. So raising your hands, standing on mountain tops, etc, reduces your distance to him. Raising your hands while praying doesn't make as much sense anymore since Heaven is a metaphysical concept and not a place in the skies.
What about the rattle snake churches?
What about them?
Are you asking about the scriptural basis from ancient times that they use to justify their modern practices? (i.e. the immediate topic at hand) Or are you looking for theological and/or scientific opinions on whether the claims they make are true, for at least some meaning of the word ātrueā?
They also claim to be reviving an ancient practice, although the evidence for that actually being true is very lacking
There is nothing in the Bible that describes the practice they promote. Sure, there is a claim that people who are filled with the Holy Spirit will not die if bitten by snakes, but no description of it being used as a ritual practice and you could claim it contradicts ādo not put the Lord God to the testā.
I have no idea if there is extra-biblical evidence for people doing that in early churches, and whether those churches were considered orthodox or heretical at the time, or perhaps the 1st century equivalent of āwe donāt know yet, weāre just trying stuff out to see what worksā.
Im going to cite (slightly shorten) Wikipedia. I have no competency to understand the sources and fact check but I though itās quite interesting.
> In the 2nd century the Ophites reportedly handled snakes during their services, and also worshipped the serpent.
> The Ophites [ā¦] were a Christian Gnostic sect.
> Gnosticism [ā¦] is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These diverse groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the proto-orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions.
Seems very reasonable sects to me but itās understandable "authorities of religious institutions" didnāt like it.
Indeed extra biblical gospel from Luke and Mark:
> Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
> And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
IMHO Gospels are comparable with the Bible as a source of history.
Gnosticism is a bit of a catchall - the Ophites were a sect or branch and not by any means the standard - it's difficult to say there is an established "Standard Gnostic Theology" as there really isn't, there are some common deviations from modern Christianity that rendered them more similar thru a modern lens than they may be, tho they are some common Gnostic themes, like self awareness but snake charming isn't one.
That said, snakes have been widely deified thru out history by various cultures and beliefs.
Prior to Christianity the god Tiamet would have been widely known and had been so for hundreds of years. It is common practice for a religion to take the previous god and render them the "bad guy" in their new religion - that could also have been done to the Ophites as the Gnostics were essentially erased by the Church and what little remains the establishment said about them has been rendered sus by what we have found recently of OG Gnostic texts.
You have to realize, by 400 - saying someone handles snakes during their church service was a kin to saying they are a satanic cult.
That said - Gnostics would handle snakes if they wanted or needed to and they would be fine bc that is the faith they preached, a faith of action. Step onto the water - you will not sink of you do and have faith already, no more is needed in the moment, no assistance from Priest or higher power.
Christianity adopted the faith of Paul - the apostle not chosen by Christ, and became people that wait in their beliefs, faithfully waiting for God.
Huge difference.
yes agree and .. there are branches of Christianity across the world that did not lose the connection to warfare. There are plenty of people who fight fiercely (in real life) that espouse Christ deeply.. a current Japan martial arts cage fighting champion from Brazil dedicated his whole victory speech to Christ recently, for example.
There's very similar, but perhaps much more challenging project for digitally unrolling the Herculaneum papyri[1], which is set up as an open machine learning competition[2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_papyri
[2]: https://scrollprize.org/
Maybe our timescale of what is 'modern' is not so modern at all.
Isn't any translation a product of the language norms of the translator, as opposed to a pure translation?
I know when I read Spanish, I have to mentally convert the order of words to what makes sense in English (for example, "Thanksgiving" in Spanish would be "Day of Action of Thanks" if translated directly).
Yes, with the caveat that with religious texts there are certain conventions that get conserved even across languages. For example, The Book of John starts off "In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." However, the term being translated here as "Word" (Ī»ĻĪ³ĪæĻ- logos) could easily be translated a number of different ways, and the technically literal meaning of "word" was already falling out of favor by the time John was written. The word could be "Logic" or "reason" or "The underlying principle that governs the order of the universe" but early Latin translators chose to translate this term as "Verbe" and so future translations followed suit.
This is just one example. There are other instances where a word is a loanword from Greek or Latin because it is an early technical term. For example "sanctification" is taken directly from a Latin technical term that is translated that way because of how early Latin translators chose to translate the Greek.
I wonder if this is what radicals like Gerrard Winstanley had in mind when developing the English Reformation as chance for social reform as well? This quote for example suggests he was I think:
>In the beginning of Time, the great Creator Reason, made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, to preserve Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Man, the lord that was to govern this Creation; for Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds, and Fishes; but not one word was spoken in the beginning, That one branch of mankind should rule over another.
There's 3 part Radio 4 series from a while ago on the King James Version, with one of the 45 minute episodes focussed on the translation of the work: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x3x68
Great example. See also āthou shalt not killā which would contradict tons of the surrounding text, if that is actually what the original Hebrew said.
Looks like the project partners made a video about it, with some good visuals. But i can't find the actual paper.
Press release with link to the video is here: https://frankfurt.de/de-de/aktuelle-meldung/meldungen/frankf...
Thanks for helping to flesh out the technical side of the discussion while Iām over here getting hung up on the theology :-) this is what makes HN still (occasionally) great.
The article mentions "18-line Latin text" but I was unable to recognize any word on the scroll (took Latin in high school) even something obvious like deus.
Was this some sort of Latin shorthand?
>> Although I realized fairly early on that the New Testament Letter to the Philippians is quoted at the end, I still spent a long time puzzling over the text, which is written in quite a crude form of Latin. I consulted specialist literature and databases and, finally, made some suggestions for how it might be interpreted.
>> The inscription begins with the Trisagion, the threefold cry of āHolyā [based on Isaiah 6:3], which remains part of the liturgy of the Eucharist to this day. In this case, however, itās written in Greek [āagios, agios, agiosā] but in Latin script.
https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/university-of-bonn-researche...
Some of the letter shapes look like Latin/Roman cursive, but even then I'm not sure I recognize any words either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_cursive
It's super cool to see the digital unraveling of scrolls become more accessible. It's also amazing that we can still read the text of something that is nearly 2000 years old.
One thing I don't understand is the picture of the scroll though. I don't see how they were able to figure out the letters? They don't look like an alphabet to me
But what language is used for the inscription on the rolled silver amulet?
The article said Latin, but I don't know what script that is. It looks like it was written right-to-left so maybe it's Latin written in Hebrew script? I'm not even sure if that was a thing.
Related, for those interested in the history of religions and Christianity: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-rise-of-chr...
> a lot of male cult members join because the cult has hot girls. This seems to have been a big factor in the spread of early Christianity as well.
well, that explains it then </s>
As someone that went to church for that reason as a child I can tell you some things never change.
> Typically, amulets from this era contained a blend of Christian, Jewish, and pagan elements.
Interesting; does anyone have a link showing a typical amulet from that era, for comparison?
I found that interesting too, and curious about what it implies for how people thought about religion at the time
> I found that interesting too, and curious about what it implies for how people thought about religion at the time
Religion is an invention of the rennaisance. People at the time would have just perceived what we see as "religion" as worldview, much like people today typically believe in a fusion of economic theories.
That's fascinating but makes sense. any places to go learn more about this you recommend? googling things like invention of religion don't really lead anything on this specific topic
I'd probably start here: https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/97801...
Or at the wikipedia page that links to that article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism
Don't have any reasonable good links available but over here, further East (present-day Romania and then the Roman province of Dacia) there was a strong presence of Oriental/Siro-Palmyrian deities like Mithras, Dea Syria or Belus. There's this (non-academic) page [1] in Romanian which you can use Google translate on in order to get a better hang of it.
[1] https://historia.ro/sectiune/general/culte-si-credinte-in-da...
> dates back to approximately 230-270 CE
The nerve to use "Common Era" when specifically talking about the spread of christianity.
"He who testifies to these things says, ``Yes, I am coming soon.'' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."
there might be even older evidence lurking if the following is true: "Jesus was Julius Divius"
https://www.carotta.de/eindex.html
There is scientific consensus that Jesus was a historical figure, so the book referred here is probably fiction.
> There is scientific consensus that Jesus was a historical figure
It's fair to say that there is general consensus amongst Biblical scholars that there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth. Calling it a scientific consensus is a bit of a stretch though. As far as I'm aware there's zero scientific evidence for His existence. Just that the surviving textual evidence makes little sense if He didn't.
There's a ton of textual evidence for the existence of Santa Claus.
Correct, he lived in Turkey around the late third-early fourth century.
One of the more interesting pieces of evidence in the Bible.
The Roman census that required every family go back to their hometown did not happen (why would it?). Romans kept very good records of censuses and such an event would be well covered.
So why does the Bible have this story? The best guess is that Jesus was well known to have come from Nazareth. Yet the older messianic texts say the Messiah would be from Bethlehem. The gospel author undoubtedly was trying to square that circle to make sure the prophecy was fulfilled. Something they'd not need to do if Jesus wasn't real. The author had to explain to people who had grandparents who knew him as being from Nazareth why that still jives with older prophecies.
Before you tie yourself in this knot it might be useful just to look and see if there was a Roman census in that time period:
"When I administered my thirteenth consulate (2 B.C.E.), the senate and Equestrian order and Roman people all called me father of the country, and voted that the same be inscribed in the vestibule of my temple"[0]
[0] http://classics.mit.edu/Augustus/deeds.html
Oh, I'm sorry I must not have been super clear.
That Rome did censuses and kept detailed records of the censuses is not in dispute. The thing that never happened is people making long trips to the ancestral lands.
The entire point of a census is to get an accurate population count for reasons of taxation and public spending. People uprooting to go to grandpa's home to be counted messes with that count. It's counter productive. Rome would never have required this and in fact would have tried to restrict travel during the census because they wanted an accurate population count.
The much more likely explanation is the author of Luke needed Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, which was problematic because Jesus was well known to be from Nazareth.
Here's a good article detailing those problems:
https://bam.sites.uiowa.edu/faq/can-you-explain-problem-cens...
I should note, this is not a controversial take.
That doesn't describe a census or anything like it. There is absolutely no evidence there was a census covering the Roman empire let alone the whole world (as actually stated in gLuke).
However, there was a census of Judea ordered by Quirinius when Herod Archelaus was kicked out in 6AD. And that makes sense because, prior to that time, Judea was a client state so Rome would not have directly taxed it. Once it became a province, it would be subject to direct taxation and, hence, would have needed a census to determine the taxable population.
So, by far the most likely scenario is that the author of gLuke was referring to this census but got his facts a bit wrong. He made way bigger whoppers than that one.
Fascinating from both a technological and theological/ecclesiological perspective. I'll be sure to pass this on to some of my faith-filled friends who now live south of the Alps but have roots in the same region.
> inhumation burials ā a practice uncommon in other Roman cemeteries in Frankfurt
To save others looking it up: "inhumation burial" seems to be a technical term in the field for what we simply call "burial", i.e. digging a grave and then covering the person with dirt and/or rocks. I'm not an expert, but given that this became the primary method of disposal in Christian culture (and still is, in many traditions who believe that cremation prevents the body being resurrected), one could infer that this is an indicator of Here Be Christians.
If you know even a smidgeon of theology, it's not technically possible to define (mainstream) Christian faith without any reference to Jewish beliefs. Jesus was, of course, himself raised a Jew, as were both Saints Peter & Paul, although the latter was also a Roman citizen who wrote in Greek, and they famously quarrelled quite a bit about how much of Judaism should be incorporated into the new religion, well documented in the New Testament itself and plenty of extra-biblical evidence.
It does seem a reasonable claim that nothing in this text contains elements of Judaism that were not already or subsequently incorporated into what became Christianity (though I'm pretty sure at this point it didn't yet have a name other than "The Way". I could be wrong there.)
However, just for fun:
- "Holy Holy Holy" is most definitely a reference to the (Hebrew) book of Isaiah, which was also quoted in the (Christian) book of Revelation aka Apocalypse (Greek, New Testament)
- Of course they don't use the name Yahweh when talking about the God/Lord of the World, of whom Jesus is claimed to be the Son. Neither does the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, produced for use by Greek-speaking Jews a few hundred years before Christ). But they are most definitely talking about the same God.
- I'm not sure if this pre- or post- dates the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent, on the grounds that the Name itself is too holy to be spoken or to risk being destroyed if the manuscript gets damaged or, you know, buried in the ground to decay with a dead person. But that could also be a factor.
Unfortunately they don't provide a transcription of the Latin text into modern characters so there's no opportunity right now to go nuts on that but it would be interesting to see what specific Latin words were used compared with translations of the Septuagint, and the original Greek and Hebrew texts themselves.
Still, thanks for posting!
My wife is Messianic Jewish, where the primary intent is to restore Jewish traditions and beliefs while still believing in Jesus/Yeshua ("Jesus" being essentially a mispronunciation; the westernized version of the name would more accurately be "Joshua"). Personally my beliefs lie elsewhere, but it's still unfortunate that "denomination" is still such a tiny minority, given its desire to be a purer form of the religion.
I have a lot of respect for Messianic Jews; they're struggle is real. I wish more Jews knew just how Jewish the story of Jesus actually is. As far as Christians are concerned, Jesus is the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies in the old testament. Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:18)
That said, there is arguably no simpler or purer form of Christianity than simply having faith in and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Messianic Judaism is usually seen as a corruptive and corruptED force. Israel bans Messianic Jews from being citizens.
> "Jesus" being essentially a mispronunciation
Warning! Unnecessary nit-picking incoming...
Jesus isn't a mispronunciation of Yeshua, it's a transliteration. Initially the Hebrew/Aramaic ×ש××¢ was transliterated to the Greek į¼øĪ·ĻĪæįæ¦Ļ which is essentially a phonetic transliteration with the ending changed to the Greek masculine singular.
That was then transliterated to the Latin Iesus with basically the same deal ie phonetic with an ending change.
And that morphed into Jesus, probably about the 16th century, when the swash 'I' became a 'j' sound.
> more accurately be "Joshua"
It wouldn't really be more accurate; it would just be a transliteration through a different route. The most that can be said is that there are fewer hops.
It would still likely have most of the sounds wrong, esp if Jesus' name was originally pronounced in Galilean Aramaic. As I understand it that wouldn't have pronounced the final 'a' like an 'a' but more like a glottal stop. But that's right on the edge of my knowledge so I could have made the last bit up.
Donāt confuse culture and gradual inculturation with purity of religion and validity of liturgy.
In the age of the Messiah the faithful are truly drawn āfrom every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languagesā. If your wife would go to any (decent) Catholic or Orthodox church, and learns to "read" the building and the liturgy of Holy Mass, maybe she could recognize the contours of the āpureā or āmore Jewish" religion she is yearning for. She could go to modern or more traditional Latin/Greek/Ukrainian/Syriac/Ethiopian/... rites and in the plurality of all those different cultures and temperaments recognize over and over again the exact same elements and basic plan, organically evolved yet meticulously preserved in a chain of unbroken sacramental obedience.
Entering the church building sheād gradually walk from the holy water near the entrance, through the āouter courtyardā for the lay people, to the sanctuary with the sacrificial altar, golden vessels and incense, elevated and separated by altar rail or curtain. Behind is the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies containing the Real Presence, indicated by a lit candle. And if she was to e.g. carefully analyse the words of the Eucharistic prayers in all these different rites and languages, she would find over and over again the same underlying structure, complete with the Haggadah.
But language and cultural differences aside, there must be fundamental differences as well. It is Christ Himself who took the prescribed liturgy of the ancient Passover meal and gave it its full and final meaning by substituting Himself, in the presence of the apostles, for the merely symbolic lamb. It is through Christ that the Trinity is fully revealed.
How then could e.g. the exact same holidays have been retained? For instance, why would you celebrate Shavuot, if with Pentecost the Holy Spirit directly descended on the Church? Another example: the Lord's Day is not "Sabbath on the wrong day". Sabbath laws do not apply to those under the New Covenant. Beyond the most excellent idea of dedicating an entire day to the Lord with plenty of obligatory prayer, rest, food and family/community time, the Christian Sunday is simply not the Sabbath. On Sunday we celebrate the Resurrection, which occurred on the first day of a new week (the supernatural "eighth day", beyond the natural fullness of the old week).
The priest in this age is also no longer a Levite. To properly offer this sacrifice, he is now sacramentally ordained by proper religious authorities āin the Order of Melchizedekā, reminiscent of the royal priesthood of David and the priesthood of Adam and the firstborns. And where the old liturgy was a sign of divine grace, the liturgy of our age is an effective cause of divine grace. If the priest obeys the liturgy that has been prescribed for his own rite and his own day, no amount of personal corruption can take away the sanctity of his work. This also means that there is no fundamental need for wars in the Holy Land or for "conquering" the Temple Mount by force. The Temple is already being built. Every time the faithful, after having been sacramentally cleansed of mortal sin through baptism or confession, participate in the Lordās sacrifice by eating the body and drinking the blood of the Lamb, they themselves will inevitably become more and more the dwelling place of the Lord within the material creation.
Isn't it Yesu, the diminutive, so Josh? "Josh is the name above all names", sounds kind of odd though.
Only because of your own cultural background / upbringing where Josh was a pretty normal and non-reverent name, like how people like me one day realise there's a whole culture of people out there where Jesus is still a common and popular first name, instead of something reserved for a religious figure.
I live in one of those cultures and have several coworkers named Jesus. But some names have different associations. It is like "Todd, The Necromancer!" Vs "Evelyn the sorceress". Jesus is a serious and competent embedded c++ programmer. Josh is a goofy guy in accounting.
Every religion thinks they're the "purer" form of religion though, don't they? x)
Every religion makes truth claims. Many of those truth claims contradict each other. It's incumbent upon us to do the research, put the claims to the test and come to the most reasonable conclusion as to what is true.
Not necessarily, they consider themselves right / proper or just prefer it over other flavours though (example being the many branches of Protestantism where each branch has a slightly different take on how things should be done, but it's not like they're at odds with each other per se)
Protestants all find their differences of opinion a big enough deal that they'll break up over it. They're not fighting wars I've doctrinal differences any more, but who in Christendom is these days?
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religio...
Goodness, where to startā¦ I donāt have time to read your link so Iāll only reply to what you wrote from my own direct personal experience:
- many Protestant groups, while not fighting wars of physical violence, still harbour very unchristian hate in their hearts towards other Protestant sects and (usually) towards all Catholics, whom they consider to be idol worshippers led astray by Satan himself (sadly many Catholics also still feel the same about all Protestants and many other Catholics who donāt play the right music, wear the right vestments or worship in the right language and or precise form of words.)
- on the other hand, many, many Protestants and Catholics are also working to resolve or otherwise sideline those ādebatable thingsā and āfoolish controversiesā that St Paul advised the churches not to quarrel about (he didnāt say what, specifically, but then this is supposed to be a faith based on love and grace rather than legalism). Iāve been to large events where Catholics and Protestants are worshipping, witnessing and praying joyfully together and seeking to find the similarities and not the differences, without compromising on the fundamentals of what it means to follow Jesus. And these kinds of movements are growing around the world year upon year and also working together to fight social injustice, inequality and poverty
ā hopefully soon, more of our Orthodox brothers and sisters will get on board with this, but there are glimmers of hope in that direction too, as long as nobody says the word āFilioqueā ;-)
Ah yes, I had a chance to read it while walking down the street. I know that joke, reminds me of the one my dad used to delight in telling, which ends with āI must be the luckiest Arab in Belfastā.
Funnily enough the exact one that you posted is these days repeated by many churches somewhere during the Alpha Course, which after pausing for laughs is identified as an example of exactly not what you are being invited to believe.
Except Universalist/Unitarians, perhaps, they like to mix it all up into one big melting pot.
The unfortunate part is where Christians try to pass themselves off as Jews by adding "Jewish" to the name of their denomination. I wish my great aunts and uncles could have added "Christian" to their denomination to escape being murdered in the Holocaust, that would have been nice.
What denominations do that? I'm familiar with Hebrew Roots, but doesn't seem to be what you're describing.
Presumably that's a reference to the GP describing "Messianic Jewish". (or rather, Messianic Judaism)
> It considers itself to be a form of Judaism but is generally considered to be a sect of Christianity,[2][3] including by all major groups within mainstream Judaism, since Jews consider belief in Jesus as the Messiah and divine in the form of God the Son (and the doctrine of the Trinity in general) to be among the most defining distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. It is also generally considered a Christian sect by scholars and other Christian groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism
So are they claiming that Messianic Jews are not actually Jews? Because they implied that people were falsely taking the title Jew if I understood them correctly. That would be the first time I've ever heard that particular assertion.
Yes and that was what I was saying (sorry it wasn't clear).
What it means to be a Jew is complicated. Jews form an ethnicity of interconnected people with a range of beliefs and practices (it is, definitionally, not whether one is religiously adherent to Judaism). To me, one could in principle be religiously Christian and also ethnically Jewish (that's an unusual view among Jews), but to do that requires having an actual connection to the Jewish ethnicity (e.g. if one was raised ethnically Jewish and maintains a Jewish identity). My impression is that "Messianic Jews" are religiously and ethnically Christian who are importing Jewish practices into their otherwise non-Jewish identity. If OP's wife was born Jewish or converted prior becoming a "Messianic Jew," I would stand corrected.
If I, a very white person, start singing songs from Back churches, that doesn't make me Black. I wouldn't face the real-world struggles against racism of Black people, for example, and I think that's a useful hint when thinking about who is and isn't a member of a minority group like Jews. Likewise, acting out Jewish practices doesn't necessarily make one a Jew, and as one example it doesn't subject one to the sorts of anti-Semitism faced by Jews. I'm not saying facing anti-Semitism a necessary or sufficient condition for being a Jew, but if not that, then there must be something else that connects one to the Jewish ethnicity --- the interconnected people who believe they are Jews --- other than just by saying so.
Israel doesnāt allow Messianic Jews to be citizens for this reason.
So I'm confused--are you saying that Israel thinks Messianic Jews are not Jews because they abandoned their faith or something like that, OR are you saying that Israel doesn't let Messianic Jews to be citizens because sometimes non-Jews convert to become Messianic Jews?
It sounds like a variation of a - not so much that they abandoned their faith, per-se, but that the faith they espouse as being Jewish is not acceptably āin the same roomā as other Jewish faith.
It would be somewhat like saying you were a Messianic Christian because you believed that Mohammed was a later prophet. There is a word for that kind of religion, and it isnāt Christianity.
There are essentially two completely different movements claiming the name of "Messianic Judaism." The first are people who are Jewish- culturally, ethnically, and even religiously, who have converted to Christianity and believe that all other Jews should do the same. There is a small pocket of Messianic Jews of this definition in my hometown, so this is the version I was most familiar with.
It wasn't until later that I learned that there is a second, much more popular movement under the name of Messianic Judaism which are people who are not ethnically or culturally Jewish who have determined that Christianity should return to its Jewish roots. These people have no historical connections to Judaism and usually grew up within a Christian cultural context. There is a lot of overlap with the "Hebrew Roots" movement that you mentioned, and in my opinion there isn't a real distinction between the two.
Myself I feel kind of biased but I view the first kind as more "legitimate" since Judaism, isn't merely a religion, it's a living, breathing culture and it is super weird for someone to just roll up and claim it without having any connection to anyone who was doing it before. It's like if I decided I was going to be Indian and started wearing stereotypical Indian traditional dress and eating only curry because I think that's what Indians eat, without having any actual Indians in my movement.
I agree that ethnic Jews with Christian religious beliefs is a legitimate concept. But I would rather call them Messianic Jews (or just Christian Jews) rather than adherents of "Messianic Judaism." To say that "Judaism" can include Jesus erases the Jewish religion by leaving it without a name, conveniently benefiting the dominant Christian religion. (And Messianic Jews who are not Jews should be called something else entirely.)
> "Holy Holy Holy" is most definitely a reference to the (Hebrew) book of Isaiah, which was also quoted in the (Christian) book of Revelation aka Apocalypse (Greek, New Testament)
Could you expand on that? Is there any specific reference to the book of Isaiah, and is "holy" (AGIOS in the Latin of the scroll) a good translation of the Hebrew word?
Agios- direct transliteration from the Greek "'Ī¬Ī³Ī¹ĪæĻ" which is the exact term used in Isaiah 6:3 in the popular Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. If not a "good" translation, it's certainly an old one, being the word Christians and Jews in that part of the world would have been familiar with in the Book of Isaiah for hundreds of years before this amulet was made.
> and they famously quarrelled quite a bit about how much of Judaism should be incorporated into the new religion, well documented in the New Testament itself and plenty of extra-biblical evidence.
Just wondering what is the "plenty of extra-biblical evidence"?
Good point, I didnāt fact check that part, I probably mixed up hazy memories of some other incidents I read about in the Didache and other early church writings. Wikipedia says thereās no evidence outside of Lukeās and Paulās own words (Acts and Galatians respectively) and since Luke was hanging out with Paul for a lot of that time (see all the times Acts switches between āheā and āweā) we could be skating on thin ice as far as actual textual evidence goes. Good spot, thanks for calling me out.
Some of the latin text is on the Wikipedia page [1]. Hopefully it will be updated to include more.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_silver_inscription
One of the references on the wikipedia page seems to have a full transcription (along with German translation):
https://archaeologisches-museum-frankfurt.de/index.php/de/?v...
I personally cannot make heads or tails of the script used in the various images, but it seems about right.
(Note that V and U are generally used interchangeably in Latin, since they were the same character. Same with I / J.)
> the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent
Perhaps, but in this Latin inscription we have Jesus being referred to as "IHS XP" - a Greek(!) abbreviation of Jesus Christ, so not avoiding his name altogether.
> I'm not sure if this pre- or post- dates the Jewish tradition of replacing the Name with "Adonai" (Hebrew for "Lord") or its Greek/Latin equivalent,
That taboo already existed even before the New Testament was written. The Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Old Testament, was written around 260 BC and uses this convention, translating the Lord's name as "kyrios"- "Lord." The authors of the New Testament itself extensively quote this translation, and firmly established this convention within Christianity as well, especially because most Christian converts wouldn't know Hebrew or be expected to learn Hebrew to hear (remember that literacy rates were very low in this era compared to now) Jewish scriptures in their own languages.
Speaking of literacy, I notice that the Latin of this inscription is very messy. I don't know much Latin myself, but the handwriting is terrible, to the point where I wonder if the maker of this scroll was only semi-literate.
> I notice that the Latin of this inscription is very messy
To a modern eye (like mine), other examples of Roman cursive look hard to read as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_cursive
The examples on that page are way cleaner and easier to read than the scroll inscription. The letters in the scroll are not written consistently, and even the size of the letters changes dramatically as the inscription goes on.
> only semi-literate
Seems very possible when you consider that this is before the Roman Aristocracy decided to muscle in on the action and take over the church. Many of the original disciples and apostles were semi-literate working class types from the north country (see ānothing good could ever come from Nazarethā) and Paul, the one who wrote the most (but even then likely dictated a lot of it) was a late addition to the team. Sure he recruited a bunch of possibly āmiddle classā tradesmen and business owners to set up churches in their homes (Priscilla and Aquila, famously) but it was still mostly an underground movement among the slave and worker classes before Constantine decided he could put it to his own use.
Inhumation isn't exclusively christian where did you even come up with that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9An%C4%9Btice_culture#Buri...
Didnāt come up with it, didnāt claim it. Where did you come up with the idea that I said it was exclusive to Christianity?
You wrote "one could infer that this is an indicator of Here Be Christians".
The local pre-Christian burial custom was burning, but other cultures in far-off places still buried their dead. So while Christianity isn't exclusive in its use of burial, it was supplanting religious customs that did not include burial throughout northern Europe.
No such thing as āamuletā in Christianity