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

archaeologymag.com

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

#21

Post by FearNotDaniel »

markovs_gun wrote: post #17
wil421 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 “do not put the Lord God to the test”.

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 “we don’t know yet, we’re just trying stuff out to see what works”.

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

#22

Post by FearNotDaniel »

markovs_gun wrote: post #15
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…

> 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 “nothing good could ever come from Nazareth”) 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 “middle class” 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.

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

#23

Post by rrr_oh_man »

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.

Maybe our timescale of what is 'modern' is not so modern at all.

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

#26

Post by FearNotDaniel »

pergadad wrote: post #19

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 I’m over here getting hung up on the theology :-) this is what makes HN still (occasionally) great.

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

#27

Post by FearNotDaniel »

andrepd wrote: post #20
bdcravens wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Except Universalist/Unitarians, perhaps, they like to mix it all up into one big melting pot.

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

#28

Post by bjackman »

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!

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

#30

Post by snackexchange »

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",…

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