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

archaeologymag.com

121–130 of 310 posts

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

#121
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is scientific consensus that Jesus was a historical figure, so the book referred here is probably fiction.

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 Bet…

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

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

#122
post #40

> 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?

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...

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

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, this has changed a lot. Catholic churches built in the last 50 years are far more austere than those built earlier.

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:.

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

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 “And 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 in…

> 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…

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.

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

#126
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

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.

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

#127
post #80

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.

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

#128

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!

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.

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

#129
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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-...

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

#130
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.
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