Silver amulet is the oldest evidence of Christianity north of the Alps

Silver amulet is the oldest evidence of Christianity north of the Alps
archaeologymag.com

> inhumation burials — 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!

[0] though I'm afraid to admit there is at least one actual tambourine...

Just wondering what is the "plenty of extra-biblical evidence"?