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

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

#11

Post by hoseja »

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #3

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 — 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",…

Inhumation isn't exclusively christian where did you even come up with that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9An%C4%9Btice_culture#Buri...

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

#12

Post by FearNotDaniel »

hoseja wrote: post #11
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #3

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 — 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",…

Inhumation isn't exclusively christian where did you even come up with that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9An%C4%9Btice_culture#Buri...

Didn’t come up with it, didn’t claim it. Where did you come up with the idea that I said it was exclusive to Christianity?

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

#13

Post by markovs_gun »

bdcravens wrote: post #8
Oarch wrote: post #4

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.

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" (λόγος- 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.

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

#14

Post by FearNotDaniel »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #9
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #3

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 — 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",…

> 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 didn’t 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 there’s no evidence outside of Luke’s and Paul’s 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 “he” and “we”) we could be skating on thin ice as far as actual textual evidence goes. Good spot, thanks for calling me out.

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

#15

Post by markovs_gun »

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #3

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 — 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'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.

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

#16

Post by FearNotDaniel »

wil421 wrote: post #10
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 “true”?

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

#17

Post by markovs_gun »

wil421 wrote: post #10
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What about the rattle snake churches?

They also claim to be reviving an ancient practice, although the evidence for that actually being true is very lacking

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

#18

Post by FearNotDaniel »

markovs_gun wrote: post #13
bdcravens wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" (λόγος- logos) could easily be translated a number of different ways, and the technically literal meaning of "word" was a…

Great example. See also “thou shalt not kill” which would contradict tons of the surrounding text, if that is actually what the original Hebrew said.

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

#20

Post by andrepd »

bdcravens wrote: post #7
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #3

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 — 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",…

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 religio…

Every religion thinks they're the "purer" form of religion though, don't they? x)
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