New discovered Roman amulet mixes Christian and pagan imager

[Blood]

Where is the "christian" influence? I fail to comprehend the title of this thread.

People generally aren't familiar with Egyptian Magical materials that reveal that "Iao"/YWHW was acknowledged and/or worshipped as a deity by non-Jews and non-Christians.

I had certainly never run across that very interesting factoid in the many Christian/NT commentaries I read. I only discovered it in Betz's book on the Egyptian papyri.

People think anything with the name "Iao" on it must be Jewish or Christian.

[Tenorikuma]

I think this reflects our electronic age - Stephan Huller post a link to a twitter post by Archaeology Magazine (saying "A recently discovered Roman amulet mixes Christian and pagan imagery"). I opened it and then the url to the article and posted that url here. But the twitter link and the article are misleading.

It's like every time they dig up an Iron Age artifact in Israel, newspaper headlines trumpet a find "from the time of King David", though there is no connection whatsoever. And then I see people posting on Christian forums how more evidence for David's existence has been found.

[Sheshbazzar]

Recalling that even the 'Christians' were not originally known as 'Christians'. The 'Believers' _who can know with any certainty at this late date exactly what it was that these original Believers believed? I tend to think that there were a lot of regional variants of loosely associated beliefs, before the establishment of orthodoxy.
Is a 'proto'-Christian, one holding radically NON-Christian beliefs, and not contemporarily known by the term Christian, actually a 'Christian' ???)
_may have been' the source, or tangentially involved as an influence in its production.

[Peter Kirby]

Good point, Sheshbazzar.

[MrMacSon]

I tend to think that there were a lot of regional variants of loosely associated beliefs, before the establishment of orthodoxy.

I agree; it seems there were lots of beliefs, especially around the eastern Mediterranean; particularly 'Asia Minor' where a lot of things seemed to have happened.

Shipping played a role in spreading belief.

[Secret Alias]

But none of these included Christians venerating a 'pagan god' as suggested by MrMacSon. Where is the evidence for this?

[Roger Pearse]

The text is an eight-line inscription, consisting of 59 Greek letters, that reads: “Iahweh is the bearer of the secret name, the lion of Re secure in his shrine,” a phrase known from numerous ancient magical papyri and inscribed gemstones that ordinarily appears with depictions of a solar god. The images of the Egyptian gods and their connection to magical papyri on the same artifact as a phrase mentioning the Judeo-Christian deity, Yahweh, speak to a complex world where traditions endured long after they ceased to be part of the official state religion.

This is clearly a magical item of some sort. References to the Jewish God, and indeed to Christian things, do occur in the texts in the Paris magical codex. For instance:

PGM IV. 1227-64

Excellent rite for driving out daimons: Formula to be spoken over his head:

Place olive branches before him, and stand behind him and say:

"Hail, God ofAbraham; hail, God of Isaac; hail, God of Jacob; Jesus Chrestos, the Holy Spirit, the Son of the Father, who is above the Seven, who is within the Seven. Bring Iao Sabaoth; may your power issue forth from him, NN, until you drive away this unclean daimon Satan, who is in him. I conjure you, daimon, whoever you are, by this god, SABARBARBATHIOTH SABARBARBATHIOUTH SABARBARBATHIONETHS ABARBARBAPHCAI Come out, daimon, whoever you are, and stay away from him, NN, I now, now; immediately, immediately. Come out, daimon, since I bind you with unbreakable adamantine fetters, and I deliver you into the black chaos in perdition."

Preparation: take 7 olive branches; for six of them tie together the two ends of each one, but for the remaining one use it like a whip as you utter the conjuration.

Keep it secret; it is proven.

After driving out the daimon, hang around him, NN, a phylactery, which the patient puts on after the expulsion of the daimon - a phylactery with these things
[written] on a tin metal leaf: " BOR PHOR PHORBA PHOR PHORBA BES CHARIN BAUBO TE PHOR BdRPHORBA PHORBABOR BAPHORBA PHABRAIE PHORBA PHARBA PHORPHOR PHORBA BOPHOR PHORBA PHORPHOR PHORBA BOBORBORBA PAMPHORBA PHORPHOR PHORBA, protect him, NN."
But another version has a phylactery on which this sign occurs: 8

Likewise in 3007-86, another exorcism spell, we get "I conjure you by the god of the Hebrews, Jesus"...

If you look at some of the texts, what seems to be going on is the use of "power words" to achieve results. The magician doesn't care whether the being is a deity or whatever - if the name gets results, use it! And the more uncouth and strange the better (as Hippolytus demonstrates, in his explanation of how a magician gets fire to appear in the sky).