Archaeological Evidence of pre-Constantinian Christianity
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 2:16 am
Even Tim O'Neil in his typically scathing rant review of this book here goes very quietly into a super-rant against mythicists rather than deal with the reality of next-to-zero archaeological evidence.Kapyong wrote:
[*]Myth 7 - Archeology confirms the Gospels
Kapyong
Let's look at the archaeology ....Tim O'Neil wrote:
He pauses in his brief chapter on archaeology and, in a weak attempt to make this chapter vaguely relevant to his main argument, writes:
At the risk of being redundant, we should remember that there has never been a trace of physical archaeological evidence for Jesus, despite centuries of infamous hoaxes such as the Shroud of Turin (p. 108)
Again, that the faithful have clung to pious hoaxes and that the gullible still fall for fake artefacts is not remotely relevant to Fitzgerald's thesis. And "there has never been a trace of physical archaeological evidence" for most people who have existed in human history, particularly if they were poor and lived in a backwater. For Fitzgerald to think that the lack of any such evidence for Jesus tells us something about whether he existed or not makes him about as clueless as the Shroud believers.
(1) The Cross: this does not appear until the 4th century when Constantine's mother finds the One True Cross in downtown Jerusalem.
(2) The Name of Jesus: does not appear in the ancient world or in the Bibles or its fragments. All that appears is a code "IS".
(3) The Name of Christ: does not appear in the ancient world or in the Bibles or its fragments. All that appears is a code "XP".
(4) The first evidence of the expansion of the "XP" code is not to "CHRIST" but to "CHREST". See this thread
(5.1) The first complete Greek Bibles: these do not appear in the evidence until - according to DOGMATIC TRADITION & not C14 - the 4th and 5th century
(5.2) The fragments of the Greek Bibles: these have been dated ONLY early by means of the subjective art of palaeography. (No C14 testing)
(6) Christian Churches: No Christian church before the 4th century has ever been found. Period. End of story. (I wonder why?)
(6) Christian Church-Houses: No Christian church-house before the 4th century has ever been found. Period. End of story. (I wonder why?)
(6) Christian House-Churches: One sole exemplar of a Christian house-church before the 4th century has been claimed to have existed not at Rome, Alexandria or Antioch but way out on the Persian border, in Manichaean territory, at Dura-Europos. It is very suspect, having been identified as such by "ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION".
(7) Inscriptions: The name of Jesus in the Bible is a code "IS" and the name of Christ is a code "XP" - very simple reproducible two-letter motifs. Why are they not found scattered on headstones in the 1st or 2nd or 3rd centuries of the common era? Why did no Christian inscribe the name of their two-letter god anywhere?
(8) COINS: The CHI-RHO first appears on Imperial coinage c.316 CE under the rule of Constantine. Again, this need not have been "CHRIST" but "CHREST".
(9) ART: Emperor centric renditions of Christ appear in the 4th century and continue for centuries
(10) GRAFITTI: The Alexandros Grafitti does not necessarily depict Jesus since thousand and thousands of people were crucified by the Romans. In the very early 2nd century the Roman Emperor Trajan publically crucified 2000 Jews of the city of Emmaus.
(11) FIGURINES: The earliest crucifix with a person on it is from the 6th century. The 6th century. Six is not equal to one or two or three etc. Thousands of figurines to hundreds of gods have been found by archaeologists, and/or described by travellers (like Pausanius) but nobody has found one for Jesus.
(12) This list is endless. We have no archaeology for Jesus or his supposed Christian church until the very late. Why is it so?
