Dura Europos

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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StephenGoranson
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Dura Europos

Post by StephenGoranson »

Dura Europos excavations revealed a Christian manuscript and a Christian house-church, both dated before 256. There is a huge bibliography, some of it available online, including on more recent (French-Syrian) excavations there, all of which confirmed, by coins, by dated documents, etc., the dating of before 256 or possibly 257.

The Christian manuscript is a gospel harmony, maybe by Tatian or possibly by another compiler. That it turned up in an excavation bucket or basket is not suspicious to most who have participated in archaeological excavations; the dig director does not personally move all dirt and instantly identify everything.

The Christian house-church was identified by more than one Christian inscription/graffito and as well as by more than one Christian wall painting. Some things are not correctly identified on first look. For example, I assisted coin experts on a different excavation; some coins are not identifiable until cleaned. The paintings were taken to Yale U Art Gallery (not "Yale Divinity College"), which was also the source of the recent zoom conference. The Christan paintings interact, imo, with the paintings in the larger synagogue also on "west wall street."[1]

[1] "7 vs. 8: The Battle Over the Holy Day at Dura-Europos"
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Dura-Europos.pdf
gryan
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Re: Dura Europos

Post by gryan »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 8:07 am
The Christian manuscript is a gospel harmony, maybe by Tatian or possibly by another compiler. That it turned up in an excavation bucket or basket is not suspicious to most who have participated in archaeological excavations; the dig director does not personally move all dirt and instantly identify everything.

...The Battle Over the Holy Day at Dura-Europos"
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Dura-Europos.pdf
Stephen, Thanks for this link to a very interesting article. And I noticed that you are the author!

Re: "That it turned up in an excavation bucket or basket is not suspicious to most..."

That claim, of course, makes me suspicious. My impression is that "provenance" is all about the importance of the original context where the found object was discovered.
StephenGoranson
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Re: Dura Europos

Post by StephenGoranson »

Well, suspicions are free.
However, ordinarily in archaeological excavation, buckets--gufas--are identified by the specific, surveyed, stratified/depth, very limited locus and date from which they each individually were removed. Soon inspected. In some cases, soon sifted. So the provenance was specified, and recorded, a certain location near a measured portion of the west wall. And what else was nearby. In other words, a better-documented provenance than the majority of ancient documents.
Secret Alias
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Re: Dura Europos

Post by Secret Alias »

Amen.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Dura Europos

Post by Leucius Charinus »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 8:07 am
The Christian house-church was identified by more than one Christian inscription/graffito and as well as by more than one Christian wall painting. Some things are not correctly identified on first look.

[1] "7 vs. 8: The Battle Over the Holy Day at Dura-Europos"
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Dura-Europos.pdf
Nice article Stephen. I trust we can have a rational discussion of a few points I wish to raise. As you know I have been suggesting we ditch the 100% certainty that the "House Church" was a "Christian House-Church". That is a Christian "Religious Room" in a private house - adjacent to the Secondary Gate. I have asked the question to what extent could this religious room be Jewish. Anyone who answers zero percent should address the following.

Maybe I should start with what you wrote.

In your article from the BR August 1996 at p.25 you write "Greek predominates in the Christian building, and no definitely Jewish names appear there providing one indication that the church congregation was not Jewish-Christian."

Firstly I agree there is plenty of Greek in the "Room of the Building". There are the Greek names of David and Goliath for example carved into the mural where David is just about to take Goliath's head off. It's a pity other figures in the other murals were not explicitly named in the Greek language.

However I can't agree that there were no definitely Jewish names associated with the so-called "Christian" house church. One of the Christian inscriptions is called the Sisaeus Graffito. Described as being

"ΤΟΝ ΧΡΙC ΜΝΗCΚΕCΤΕ CΙCΕΟΝ TON ΤAΠΙΝΟΝ".

There are indications that Sisaeus may have been a Jewish name.

Sisaeus as a Jewish Name?

In the Dura Final Report, at p.95 “The name Sisaeus occurs in one of the Dura accounts (P.Dura 47, 3) .... [and] is known as a Jewish name from Josephus, who reports in Ant. Jud. VII, v, 4, 110 that David made a man of this name his secretary.

I have also asked the question about the 100% certainty associated with the Christian provenance of this inscription. Specifically about the

"ΧΡΙC".
StephenGoranson
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Re: Dura Europos

Post by StephenGoranson »

I (still) say that that place in Dura Europos was certainly a house-church. I briefly summarized the evidence above. The attempted walking on water scene, for instance, is from the New Testament; also the mentions of Christ. It was not a Jewish synagogue, one of which was already available just down the street.

Using 100% is odd for history. Was Queen Elizabeth II regarded by many as Queen? Yes, certainly. Did you Peter (a Jewish name?) claim that Constantine invented Christianity--100%? Seems like it. Though Constantine, and/or Flavians, did not.

Is my 1996 Bible Review publication 100% up-to-date? I have not claimed that. Could one sentence in it have been more clearly written? Probably. Mea culpa. In context of page 25, though, it has partly to do with the contrast of Greek with Aramaic and Hebrew, the latter of which are attested in the real synagogue. Also my one sentence on page 25 is relevant in the context of note 7 on page 44, which discussed Jewish-Christianity as well as the name Sisa or Siseos--with bibliography.

{Next sentence was edited:]
The Dura Europos house-church graffito #17 (and compare #18) that includes the name, Siseon, names Christ!
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Ken Olson
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Re: Dura Europos

Post by Ken Olson »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 8:07 am Dura Europos excavations revealed a Christian manuscript and a Christian house-church, both dated before 256. There is a huge bibliography, some of it available online, including on more recent (French-Syrian) excavations there, all of which confirmed, by coins, by dated documents, etc., the dating of before 256 or possibly 257.

. . .

The Christian house-church was identified by more than one Christian inscription/graffito and as well as by more than one Christian wall painting. Some things are not correctly identified on first look.
Stephen,

Thanks for the link to your article. The Wikipedia article on the Dura-Europos Church has some excellent images of the wall paintings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dura-Europos_church

I think all the identifications of the wall paintings are plausible, but I think the Women at the Tomb, the Good Shepherd, and the Woman at the Well could plausibly be something else.

However, the identification of two of the wall paintings seems abundantly clear to me.
Christ_Healing_the_Paralytic_-_Dura-Europos_circa_232.jpeg
Christ_Healing_the_Paralytic_-_Dura-Europos_circa_232.jpeg (2.69 MiB) Viewed 996 times
This certainly looks like The Paralytic in John 5.8-9:

5.8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked.

The other is even clearer, though Jesus' head is missing because of damage to the painting:
Baptistery_wall_painting_Christ_Walking_on_Water.jpeg
Baptistery_wall_painting_Christ_Walking_on_Water.jpeg (129.02 KiB) Viewed 996 times
This wall painting depicts Jesus and Peter walking on water from Matthew 14.22-33:

14.22 Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

28 Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

You can see that Jesus' feet are depicted as above the level of the water, while Peter has begun to sink and his feet are beneath the water, and Jesus has reached out his hand and caught him. In this case, I don't think there is a credible alternative identification of the scene.

Best,

Ken
Last edited by Ken Olson on Sun Sep 25, 2022 8:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: Dura Europos

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Ken Olson wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 6:49 am This certainly looks like The Paralytic in John 5.8-9:

5.8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked.

Hi Ken, thanks for bringing that to our attention. It's interesting to see a krabattos on a ancient depiction.
Secret Alias
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Re: Dura Europos

Post by Secret Alias »

And when this discovery was made no one likely had any idea that in due course there would be a 'fourth century conspiracy theory' arising on a thing called 'the internet.' But even with this consideration there is the tacit recognition that this turned out to be a 'sealed' time capsule as it were from 256/7 CE. There is a Church. There is a gospel fragment. There was Christianity in 256/7 at Dura Europos and as such 'in the world.' It has been further argued that the house which became a Christian church was constructed early in the third century and was converted into a Christian church at some point between 240-250 CE. Since it is unlikely that Christianity was invented at Dura Europos the fact that the religion made its way to this remote outpost by 240 CE the religion must already existed 'somewhere' in the second century CE. If we can't agree on these basic facts there is no point pretending to have a conversation about anything.
schillingklaus
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Re: Dura Europos

Post by schillingklaus »

It is not a basic fact but a reckless assumption.
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