Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

archaeologymag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 310 posts

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

#171

Post by pram »

throw0101b wrote: post #102
papandada wrote: post #66

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.

> 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 “gnostic” 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 “true god” reads like bad fan fiction usually.

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

#172

Post by svieira »

vintagedave wrote: post #151
3pt14159 wrote: post #94

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.

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 neve…

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 — 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

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

#173

Post by adamredwoods »

ilamont wrote: post #152

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 “Holy” [based on Isaiah 6:3], which remains part of the liturgy of the Eucharist to this day. In this case, however, it’s written in Greek [“agios, agios, agios”] but in Latin script.

https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/university-of-bonn-researche...

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

#174

Post by BillSaysThis »

foobarian wrote: post #62
bjackman wrote: post #28

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!

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.

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

#175

Post by tivert »

Hilift wrote: post #56
bjackman wrote: post #28

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 w…

> 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...

Is that really so odd? Doesn't "catholic" mean something like "universal," and I think it would be very odd for one faction of a split organization to cede that kind of title to its rival faction.

I might be misunderstanding your point, but I kinda feel it should be followed up with a kind of "Did you know, Western European, that these two different things are actually similar in this way you didn't know about?"

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

#176

Post by throwup238 »

pram wrote: post #171
throw0101b wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 “gnostic” 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 “true god” reads like bad fan fiction usually.

> "the nature of the triune Godhead"

Yeah that sounds like some weak Warhammer 40k fanfic.

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

#177

Post by pwgentleman »

tivert wrote: post #175
Hilift wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

> 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... Is that really so odd? Doesn't "catholic" mean something like "universal," and I think it would be very odd for one faction of a split organization to cede that kind of title to its rival faction. I might be misunderstanding your po…

> "catholic" mean something like "universal,"

Christians make a distinction between churches and the church. The former is the physical building or even denominations like Lutherans or Roman Catholics. The latter is the group of people that are part of Christianity, across time and denominations. The Universal Church refers to the latter.

Galatians 1:2 "…the churches of Galatia…" vs Colossians 1:24 "…for the sake of his body, that is, the church…"

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

#178

Post by markovs_gun »

elevaet wrote: post #154
eschulz wrote: post #123

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.

No, it's written left to right, it's just extremely messy cursive. There are also abbreviations and special shorthand symbols.

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

#179

Post by blueshoe14 »

svieira wrote: post #172
vintagedave wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 neve…

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). A…

Did you mean 1 Timothy 2.1?

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

#180

Post by yndoendo »

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #12
hoseja wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Disposing of the dead via burning or burial was an evolution means to protect your community from epidemics. Ancient generations didn't know about the of details of viruses and bacterium. All they learned through out the years was, _if you remove the dead there is a better chance of the community staying healthy_.

Religion latched onto which ever means of disposing of their dead the locals already performed. No different than how religion took over local customs and traditions to help bring in more people into their fold.

Communities that didn't properly dispose of their dead would of experience a net-positive when pushed to follow a religious which their funeral tradition helps prevent epidemics. Those people would most likely of uplifted the religion when they though divine intervention reduced their epidemics. In reality, it was as laws of physics reducing the propagation of contagions.

Fun fact, disposal via vulture consumption is another good means to contain contagions. Their digestive system is like battery acid and kills mostly everything. Natures evolutionary animal that assists with preventing epidemics. A natural wake.

Post reply on HN