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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

#41

Post by BoxOfRain »

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…

I wonder if this is what radicals like Gerrard Winstanley had in mind when developing the English Reformation as chance for social reform as well? This quote for example suggests he was I think:

>In the beginning of Time, the great Creator Reason, made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, to preserve Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Man, the lord that was to govern this Creation; for Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds, and Fishes; but not one word was spoken in the beginning, That one branch of mankind should rule over another.

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

#42

Post by MontagFTB »

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’d recommend “2,000 Years of Christ's Power” by Nick Needham. I am not sure where it falls on your theology/history spectrum but it has some of both. I enjoyed the audiobook of Volume 1 immensely.

For me it did a great job describing the context in which the church began, the major figures throughout the early church, and the spread, schisms, and events that helped shape the church in its formative years.

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

#43

Post by christopher8827 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #37
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…

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 because they are "worshipping it" but because these things are supposed to direct the mind upwards towards God.

I think the Catholic Mass is the ancient form of worship by the early Church. There's multiple references to the Real Presence in the Eucharist in New Testament (ie. the road to Eramus and the breaking of bread, and in John 6:53*) and the Sanctus is still in the Eucharistic Prayer, and besides, its an obvious break with the Jews who did burnt offerings in the Temple.

John 6:53–58, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

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

#44

Post by noworriesnate »

joshdata wrote: post #33
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…

The unfortunate part is where Christians try to pass themselves off as Jews by adding "Jewish" to the name of their denomination. I wish my great aunts and uncles could have added "Christian" to their denomination to escape being murdered in the Holocaust, that would have been nice.

What denominations do that? I'm familiar with Hebrew Roots, but doesn't seem to be what you're describing.

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

#45

Post by kcsaba2 »

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!

The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion - Rodney Stark

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

#46

Post by noworriesnate »

ahaferburg wrote: post #35
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You wrote "one could infer that this is an indicator of Here Be Christians".

The local pre-Christian burial custom was burning, but other cultures in far-off places still buried their dead. So while Christianity isn't exclusive in its use of burial, it was supplanting religious customs that did not include burial throughout northern Europe.

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

#47

Post by nemomarx »

christopher8827 wrote: post #43
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #37

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…

Well yeah, opulent temples are in line with Jewish traditions but the other poster is suggesting that's not in line with the teaching of the new testament specifically?

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

#48

Post by wolfhelius »

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 had a long drive where I listened to The Great Courses, which had a set on early Christianity. I think the professor was from Notre Dame. The early church was wrestling with polytheism (is the OT god seemed really different from the NT god) and it eventually had to get resolved by the Council at Nicaea at Constantine's behest.

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

#49

Post by lucozade »

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…

> "Jesus" being essentially a mispronunciation

Warning! Unnecessary nit-picking incoming...

Jesus isn't a mispronunciation of Yeshua, it's a transliteration. Initially the Hebrew/Aramaic ישוע was transliterated to the Greek Ἰησοῦς which is essentially a phonetic transliteration with the ending changed to the Greek masculine singular.

That was then transliterated to the Latin Iesus with basically the same deal ie phonetic with an ending change.

And that morphed into Jesus, probably about the 16th century, when the swash 'I' became a 'j' sound.

> more accurately be "Joshua"

It wouldn't really be more accurate; it would just be a transliteration through a different route. The most that can be said is that there are fewer hops.

It would still likely have most of the sounds wrong, esp if Jesus' name was originally pronounced in Galilean Aramaic. As I understand it that wouldn't have pronounced the final 'a' like an 'a' but more like a glottal stop. But that's right on the edge of my knowledge so I could have made the last bit up.

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

#50

Post by vitus »

noworriesnate wrote: post #44
joshdata wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfortunate part is where Christians try to pass themselves off as Jews by adding "Jewish" to the name of their denomination. I wish my great aunts and uncles could have added "Christian" to their denomination to escape being murdered in the Holocaust, that would have been nice.

What denominations do that? I'm familiar with Hebrew Roots, but doesn't seem to be what you're describing.

Presumably that's a reference to the GP describing "Messianic Jewish". (or rather, Messianic Judaism)

> It considers itself to be a form of Judaism but is generally considered to be a sect of Christianity,[2][3] including by all major groups within mainstream Judaism, since Jews consider belief in Jesus as the Messiah and divine in the form of God the Son (and the doctrine of the Trinity in general) to be among the most defining distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. It is also generally considered a Christian sect by scholars and other Christian groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism

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