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

281–290 of 310 posts

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

#281

Post by hex3 »

NemoNobody wrote: post #280
sickofparadox wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of. Catholics believe that people in heaven are not dead, and can hear your prayers for intercession (this is the case with most protestants too). Jesus said, after all, that he is the God of the living not the God of the dead[1], and that those in heaven will be reborn in a new and everlasting life. Catholics further b…

The dead are dead - they cannot hear those prayers. God may be able to but if he hears our laments to our lost loved ones, even if we ask them to help us, I cannot conceive how he could anything but pity us, he loves us after all. People punish - Jesus loves. That's a super easy way to see the lies from the truth

[dead]

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

#282

Post by NemoNobody »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #105
kibwen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In a taxonomy of religious belief the communion of saints is much closer to ancestor veneration than it is polytheism. If you're going to see anything in christianity as potentially polytheistic it's the triune god come on.

God is in 3 parts that comprise a whole in their sum.

Legislative, Executive, Judicial = Govt of US Strike 1, 2 and 3 = an out Mind, Body, soul = A person

I could list hundreds of these examples.

3=1 is a rule found all over reality. The easiest way to create something that will exist for awhile, as it has a sound foundation, is build the foundation in 3 parts that make the whole.

Almost all dichotomies have a hidden third aspect. The fight is over how obvious it was at the time - the church was scared people may discover the secret way to create like the divine, so they convoluted it until they couldn't understand it uniformly anymore.

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

#283

Post by bandie91 »

snapcaster wrote: post #133
PittleyDunkin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I found that interesting too, and curious about what it implies for how people thought about religion at the time Religion is an invention of the rennaisance. People at the time would have just perceived what we see as "religion" as worldview, much like people today typically believe in a fusion of economic theories.

That's fascinating but makes sense. any places to go learn more about this you recommend? googling things like invention of religion don't really lead anything on this specific topic

yes i second this. just a bit clarification. not as "the concept of religion" as we call it today would have been an invention. it existed since humanity. rather that religion is something besides or independent of the everyday life ← this is a modern invention. today people say "you can be of any religion" and still do the same civil life as everyone else, go to school, to the grocery, watch TV, participate in the economy system: religion is "something like a hobby", a coloring to your everyday life, like a "community flair" of some people does not eat this-or-that on this-or-that day or cutting their hair in a specific manner, etc. it just happened when common welfare got high enough that people did not need to worry about keeping "old customs" to keep the community and themself *aligned with the created order*. consequentially the rationale for "old customs" gets blurred and forgotten and mostly becomes "superstition". so people more and more trusting themself in the hands of industry and tech they themself created as a protection around themself instead of the tangible instruments of ageless wisdom gathered along the ages, which they swipe instead in the box of "religion" and move on. thus economy + industry and tech become the new religion itself.

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

#284

Post by jajko »

dmonitor wrote: post #251
jajko wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

> 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 This really isn't possible to give someone. Your cultural upbringing will flavor your core beliefs, whether religiously or non-religiously

Not sure I understand. My father is catholic. Mother is protestant/evangelical. Both decided in their adulthood to stop practicing it and not push a single speck of it in me, consciously, without caring 'what others will say'. They didn't push me into some religious schools (unlike my wife who has rest of her life to deal with maybe well-meant but massive trauma of strict religious upbringing, psychologists can only help so much). My parents literally defined my cultural upbringing, more than anybody/anything else combined.

Anybody strong enough can do that, but lets be honest here, most people are not that strong and rather will go the path of least friction and most comfort and not the best long term path.

As said, I am eternally thankful to them for this since when looking back I clearly see choices they've made.

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

#285

Post by bandie91 »

o11c wrote: post #233
markovs_gun wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agios- direct transliteration from the Greek "'άγιος" which is the exact term used in Isaiah 6:3 in the popular Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. If not a "good" translation, it's certainly an old one, being the word Christians and Jews in that part of the world would have been familiar with in the Book of Isaiah for hundreds of years before this amulet was made.

In defense of the Septuagint, there are several places where the Dead Sea Scrolls agree with it against the Masoretic Text.

yes i second this. whoever states "it not a good translation", define what "good" is supposed to be, what is your standard? I believe LXX is written by those who actually lived the faith and are closer to the story. MT on the other hand is penned down by those who had a strong incentive against the Christians.

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

#286

Post by abrenuntio »

NemoNobody wrote: post #239
madars wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Sacred architecture flows necessarily from essence (what church is) through substance (can't be accident or easy-to-vary) into form (matter receiving truth). Regrettably, accidents get commonly confused for substance like mistaking material poverty for spiritual authenticity, or adorning for corruption. Poor churches in middle ages still had a golden chalice (for literal God), cruciform layout (or other hard…

No. You are wrong. No fine stuff necessary for Jesus or his Dad. Does God need an altar to be elevated? Who does that altar actually elevate exactly? Who most benefits from the splendor and opulence? We cannot create anything so nice that it would be more than a 4 year olds drawing for the fridge - God created all things but is super impressed by Gold chalice, sees that as a show of sincerity rather than action and b…

Yes. You are right. "My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise." It would not be good to create religious beauty to "impress" God in a boastful way. All that is good in creation exists in God in supereminent fashion.

But we don't do things to impress God in that sense. By supernatural grace our broken spirit begins to heal and we become like God, from the inside out, in a way appropriate to our finite created nature. From grace comes our (sometimes clumsy...) imitation of Jesus and, why not, a taste for sacred art and beauty. By grace all of creation will be transformed.

Since you ask: what is elevated on the Catholic (and Orthodox) altars is the Son, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It does not come from us, we did nothing to deserve it, and yet it was given to us so we can offer it to God. As the Lamb is elevated and we look up to it, we desire to add what little is in us. One expression of this desire is to have everything involved, from the building to the sacred vessels, express the sanctity of what is taking place. It may be clumsy, it may be mixed up with impure motives and false piety. Who knows, it may really have been a bit much at times. But in itself, it is good and appropriate. It does not exclude other expressions of grace. In fact, to suppress it completely strikes me as joyless, misanthropic, deeply unbiblical and likewise potentially mixed up with impure motives and false piety.

What I think is wrong in your reply, is that you seem to confuse the art and golden vessels found in churches (which is a growing heritage serving public and religious purposes) with privately owned wealth and a life dedicated to self-indulgence (like the rich man from Lazarus).

Finally, as a father I am always happy with the drawings of my kids, especially if I know that they really put effort in it. It is amazing to see that these little human beings I helped to come into existence have such creativity in and of themselves. Would this same joy not exist in our Heavenly Father in a supereminent way?

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

#287

Post by jajko »

mistrial9 wrote: post #166
jajko wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

that's all brave and probably well intentioned, but there is another side to it. The Bible was specifically "a single agreed upon text" so that groups of people in real life could stop fighting about theology points, big and small. It still exists today. "The Bible is the Truth" end of statement. It is not because you personally cannot find new meaning in non-Bible things.. it is specifically to get groups of people…

Not disagreeing per se, but what you write about as the goal was not achieved, far from it just look around and look at history. Its probably due to human flaws rather than anything else but that doesn't matter at the end. Look at all the sects of christianity, they can't agree on even basic things. There used to be wars killing tens of millions between those sects.

Again, human flaws, but that's the whole point - we can't escape them, no 'absolute truth' fixing anything. And that 'absolute truth' doesn't stand test of time, or should we be really killing gays on spot and also brides that aren't virgins?

Christianity doesn't throw away its hebrew origins (old testament) - which is properly schizophrenic experience to have those 2 books next to each other and attempting to say you believe in both. Its a fatal flaw of christianity that it wasn't started from scratch - basic secondary school logic will fail it very easily since those are really 2 distinct religions. Because you basically believe in 2 gods, 2 versions of events, 2 distinct set of morals which can't be merged together. You can't claim its fine to be psychotic petty mass murderer and preach love and forgiveness for everybody at the same time, thats just desperate self-lie to maintain unmaintainable. I see folks doing it all the time just to be clear, but its always a desperate house of cards and they very quickly shy away from any deeper discussion in fear of questioning a pillar of their existence.

Which goes back to first sentences of my previous post - thankful to my parents they didn't do this to me. I am doing the same to my kids, they can decide what they want in their adulthood, not a second earlier.

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

#288

Post by bandie91 »

cogman10 wrote: post #210
toolslive wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not "evidence". The bible mentions Babylon and Babylon existed, but the bible mentioning Babylon is no evidence of Babylon's existence. In this sentence, I'm mentioning the Sun, and it exists, but I provide no evidence whatsoever.

I may have misinterpreted what you are saying. When I read this > there is no evidence of anything in the Bible I interpreted it as you saying "Nothing in the bible has corroborating evidence". Not "the bible is not evidence for anything". The bible mentions the sun and we have corroborating evidence that the sun does indeed exist. The bible's mention of the sun alone isn't evidence for it's existence. That said, the…

why hold a specific set of writings to a different standard than other books from the same area and timeframe? all texts hold a non-zero evidential value regardless to how people treat those texts outside of academic processes. you don´t take them at face value of course but neither other texts.

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

#289

Post by bjackman »

alskdj21 wrote: post #55
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!

You might enjoy Let's Talk Religion[0] and ReligionForBreakfast[1]. Both have variety of topics not solely focused on Christianity. [0] https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkReligion [1] https://www.youtube.com/@ReligionForBreakfast

Oh yeah I like ReligionForBreakfast!

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

#290

Post by randomcarbloke »

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…

roman catholicism, eastern orthodoxy, and anglicanism are all catholic (the latter is also reform).
Post reply on HN