StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 5:50 am
The Dura-Europos gospel ms evidences Christian presence in D-E. D-E has been extensively excavated; many religious buildings have been identified, including a real synagogue. Christians gathered; the house church is the only viable candidate place, evidenced by paintings and inscriptions, and architectural modifications to make it church. If you have better alternate explanations of the paintings I haven't read them.
Confirmation bias alone explains why Christian Biblical scholars of 1932 (January to at least November) looked to the New Testament in an effort to explain the murals in the house church. The first mural to attract the attention of Clark Hopkins was the one of David and Goliath. Here is what Hopkins writes about the discovery.
In Feb 1932 a mural of David and Goliath could not have been Jewish
Feb 10 1932 - Report of Clark Hopkins, Field Director,
to President James Rowland Angell
It was this striking scene of David and Goliath that confirmed the impression which had been growing on me as we advanced; we were in a little Christian chapel, the first certainly Christian work to be found at Dura. As if to set any lingering doubt to rest, a graffito framed in the red and black geometric design which had first attracted our attention in the sanctuary called upon the reader to remember the Christ. We could then go back and interpret with more confidence the scenes already revealed.
Feb 10 1932 -
Report of Clark Hopkins, Field Director,
to President James Rowland Angell
So Hopkins says he thinks he is in a little Christian chapel before he cites what he supposes to be the name of Christ in its abbreviated Christian form. Why would he reject the possibility that he has just discovered a Jewish "house church" with a mural of David and Goliath? The answer is provided by Hopkins himself, writing many decades later:
Clark Hopkins: Discovery of the synagogue
"We stood together in mute silence and complete astonishment. A casual passerby witnessing the paintings suddenly emerging from the earth would have been astonished. If he had been a Classical archaeologist, with the knowledge of how few paintings had survived from Classical times, he would have been that much more amazed.
But if he were a biblical scholar or a student of ancient art and were told that the building was a synagogue and the paintings were scenes from the Old Testament, he simply would not have believed it. It could not be; there was absolutely no precedent, nor could there be any. The stern injunction in the Ten Commandments against the making of graven images would be sufficient to prove him right."
As cited in "Early Christian Synagogues" and "Jewish Art Historians".
The Discovery of the Synagogue of Dura-Europos
Author(s): Margaret Olin
Source: Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft, 27. Bd. (2000), pp. 7-28
Published by: Verlag des Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminars der Philipps-Universität Marburg
Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/134871
It seems completely obvious (to me anyway) that Hopkins admits that it was, in early 1932 when he discovered the church house and the mural of David and Goliath,
completely impossible that the these were Jewish. Jewish wall paintings from the Old Testament were not to be believed. "There was absolutely no precedent, nor could there be any. The stern injunction in the Ten Commandments against the making of graven images would be sufficient" to reject Jewish provenance.
A great deal happened between January 1932 when Hopkins discovered the supposed Christian murals (because they were not Jewish) and November 1932 when he discovered the Jewish synagogue. Biblical academics all across Europe and the US piled on to the discovery of the oldest Christian chapel on planet Earth. It was exciting times. Biblical group think went into overdrive during 1932 (prior to the discovery of the synagogue).
25 April 1932 - Cumont says Christian frescos causing sensation (Letter to M.I. Rostovtzeff)
25 Sep 1932 - Hopkins gives a Presentation at the Third International Congress of Christian archaeology at Ravena
Avi-Yonah agreed with Taube (1907) that overbars are not always present in early NS. Other archaeological examples have since been reported.
No I don't read it that way at all. The system outlined by Ludwig Traube for the abbreviations in ancient Christian
manuscripts insisted that they always carried a supralinear stroke drawn across the whole abbreviation. The abbreviations discussed by Hopkins in the Preliminary report do not show the supralinear stroke and Hopkins suggested "it may not be necessary on short inscriptions". IOW Hopkins says there were no supralinear strokes over the abbreviations he reported upon. Avi-Yona called them "individual freaks". He says that "the system as described by Traube
was not adopted for inscriptions before the 4th century." SUMMARY = no overbars = "freak"
In the final report VIII:II page 96 col. 1, Kraeling/Welles: "I show the present state of the plaster"--namely, with overbars.
The final report attests to these statement by Welles:
p.95 and p.96
17. SISAEUS "XPIC"
Copied by Hopins 1931/32 traced and revised by Welles in the Yale Art Gallery
18. PROCLUS "XN IN"
Read by Hopkins in 1931/32; revised and traced by Welles in the Yale Art Gallery
The key phrase is "traced and
revised by Welles in the Yale Art Gallery"
In these revisions, taking all the above into account, IMO the supralinear strokes were added by Welles.
But nice article. Thanks.