This is the first of what will be numerous posts on early Christian history and literature, especially the New Testament, in connection with an undergraduate course I am teaching this term: “Biblical Studies 2: Christian Origins”. Early Christianity and religions of the ancient Mediterranean are my specialty, so there are already many entries here on this blog that will be relevant to Christian origins which you may wish to browse (click and consult the various categories on the right-sidebar). There are also many short and full-text articles and photographs relating to early Christianity, Judaism, and Greco-Roman religions accessible from the topics page of my main website.

Come again, and feel free to post questions or comments.

Photo: Theatre at Ephesus, where Christianity was established quite early (by Phil).

Welcome to ongoing discussions regarding the origins, development, and significance of personified evil — Satan and his demons — in early Judaism and in the history of Christianity. We will be tracing the history of Satan (a.k.a. the Devil, Beelzebul, Beliar, Mastema, Lucifer, Mephisto) and his minions from ancient Mesopotamian chaos-monsters to early Jewish and Christian fallen angels to modern portrayals in music, television, and film. To get a sense of what topics and sources may be covered in the next few months, you can look at my outline for the undergraduate course: “A History of Satan”. There are already a number of entries here on this blog that deal with topics relating to Satan and hell. Ideas associated with this personified evil figure are thoroughly embedded within western culture, and these discussions will be an attempt to partially unravel the layers in his story.

Come again, and I’ll look forward to any historically-minded comments or questions you may have.

UPDATE (Jan. 2): Check out the comments section, where significant (as well as not-so-significant) discussions have already begun.

Photo: Dragon-like mythical figure, associated with the god Marduk, on the Babylonian Ishtar Gate (c. 575 BCE; now in the Istanbul Archeological Museum; photo by Phil). Images like this one may have inspired the story of Daniel slaying the dragon in the Apocrypha, which draws on a long tradition of slaying the chaos-monster.

One more before the holidays.

In my earlier entry on Carlson’s Gospel Hoax I expressed some hesitation regarding what appeared to be the strongest evidence presented by Carlson in favour of the Secret Gospel of Mark being a hoax by Smith, namely the handwriting analysis. Scott Brown has now written a review of Carlson’s book in which Brown himself engages in detailed handwriting analysis in order to challenge what is at the heart of Carlson’s argument: the identification of the hand that wrote the Madiotes document with the hand that wrote The Letter to Theodore (full review at Expository Times online here). After a detailed comparative analysis of the lettering, Brown concludes as follows:

“Given the wholly insufficient basis for a hand-writing comparison, I believe that the strongest finding that a trained examiner might make if there were no significant differences between nos 22 [Madiotes] and 65 [Letter to Theodore] would be ‘inconclusive’. Since, however, there are many significant differences, a firm negative finding of two different writers seems warranted. The fact that Carlson drew such an unlikely conclusion without couching it in terms of probabilities or acknowledging any disconfirming evidence under-scores the wisdom of leaving forensic document examination to disinterested and highly qualified professionals. As Ron N. Morris emphasizes, competence in document examination is not easily acquired:

‘It cannot be over-emphasized that even the completion of a graduate degree program in forensic sciences does not qualify the individual as an expert in any of them. The graduate must still take part in a trainee/apprenticeship program before he is eligible to qualify as a competent, qualified, forensic expert in any forensic science, especially that of a FDE [forensic document examiner].

At the conclusion of his trainee program, the new FDE should continue to work daily with competent, qualified examiners for approximately two or more years before being considered senior enough to work independently.’

Perhaps one of our societies for biblical scholars will take on the task of arranging for some highly qualified and suitable professionals to examine the photographs in consultation with experts in eighteenth-century Greek handwriting.

Since the writing of Madiotes is not the same as the Letter to Theodore, it matters very little whether this surname is real, misspelled, or pseudonymous. There is no connection between these two texts to warrant the hypothesis that this name is a clue left behind by Morton Smith.”
(Scott Brown, “Reply to Stephen Carlson.” Expository Times 117 (2006): 148-149).

Do read my earlier entry and the various comments posted there to better understand Brown’s view here. The ball is now in Carlson’s court, I believe.

(Thanks to Michael Pahl at the Stuff of the Earth for mentioning that the review was now available.)

UPDATE (Jan 25, 2006): Carlson’s review of Scott Brown’s book is now also available at the Expository Times.

I am presently researching questions of cultural interactions in antiquity, particularly with regard to the ways in which immigrants (including Jews) both found a place for themselves within the cities of the Roman empire and maintained their own specific ties with the culture of their homeland. So I thought I’d write a brief post appropriate to the holiday season while addressing issues of acculturation (adopting and adapting to cultural practices of others) and the simultaneous maintenance of cultural or ethnic identities. And I’ll use two Jewish families to illustrate. (This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive discussion of the Maccabean revolt, Hanukkah, and New Year’s, by the way).

On the one hand is the story of a Jewish family who refused to adapt to foreign deities and led a revolt which successfully “cleansed” and re-dedicated the temple in Jerusalem in the 160s BCE. I am speaking of the Maccabees who are at the centre of the story of the festival of Hanukkah, or Chanukah (“Dedication”; for a brief online article go here). The years following Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Mediterranean (he died in 323 BCE) were a time of complicated cultural interactions as peoples living in various parts of the known world gradually adjusted to and/or reacted against the Hellenistic (Greek) customs that made their way through governmental, trade, and other social networks. As you can imagine there was a variety of reactions to Hellenistic ways and religions on the ground. Some, such as the Syrian soldiers who identified their own god — in this case Syrian Ba’al Shamem (“Lord of Heaven”) — with a Greek deity (Zeus Olympios), more readily adopted Hellenistic modes of expression. At the same time these same Syrians were also clearly maintaining certain aspects of their own specific religious practices and worldviews (it was Ba’al they worshipped under the guise of Zeus, so to speak).

We know from the story of the Maccabees itself that Judeans (Jews) were not universally agreed on what aspects of Greek culture should or should not be tolerated, adopted, or adapted. Some Judeans were willing to establish a Hellenistic-style city (polis) and gymnasium in Jerusalem, for instance. What the Maccabees and most other Judeans agreed on, however, was that their tradition of monotheistic worship in the Jerusalem temple not be compromised by identifying their God with any god of the Greeks (a “syncretistic” custom that was common in most other places where polytheism prevaled). So when the Syrian soldiers stationed in Jerusalem established an altar in the Jerusalem temple in order to offer sacrifices to Ba’al, this was normal for the soldiers but the last straw for the Maccabees and others like them (see First, Second, Third and Fourth Maccabees in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, available online by clicking on the numbers above). The Maccabean revolt resulted in the cleansing and re-dedication of the temple which are, essentially, the institution of the Hanukkah celebration (according to 1 Maccabees):

“Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Chislev. . . they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of burnt offering that they had built. At the very season and on the very day that the Gentiles had profaned it, it was dedicated with songs and harps and lutes and cymbals. . . Then Judas [Maccabee] and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season the days of dedication of the altar should be observed with joy and gladness for eight days. . . ” (1 Maccabees 4:52-59 [NRSV]).

Grave of a Jewish family at Hierapolis (IJO II 196; photo by Phil)

On the other hand is a Jewish family settled in Hierapolis (a Greek city in Asia Minor) who apparently celebrated the Roman New Year’s festival (feast of Kalends), as well as customary Jewish festivals including Passover and Pentecost. Our evidence for this comes from a family grave dating to the third century CE, which happens to preserve for us the arrangements that a certain man made for himself and his family ( IJO II 196, revising CIJ 777). (I have a forthcoming article that deals at length with questions of acculturation and identity among Jews in Hierapolis which I will post, if possible, when it comes out. In the mean time, for more on Jews, Christians and guilds in Hierapolis and the Lycos valley, go here.)

It was customary for wealthier people in Asia Minor to make arrangements (leave money) for particular people or a group, such as a guild, to come to the family grave on a regular basis and to care for the grave itself. What stands out in this case is that Glykon and his wife, Amia, who were apparently Jews, arranged to have local guilds of purple-dyers and carpet-weavers (who likely included non-Jews in their membership) attend to the grave-ceremonies on both Jewish and Roman holidays. The Roman New Year festival, a precedessor of our New Year celebrations, took place in early January and, as Ovid emphasizes, centred on the exchange of “good wishes” and gifts, including “sweet” gifts (e.g. dates, figs, honey), as well as cash, indicating an omen of a sweet year to come (Fasti 1.171-194). The celebrations were also associated with the Roman god Janus (hence January). Here, then, is a family that clearly maintained Jewish aspects of its identity and arranged for others to continue to remember them on Jewish holy days, but also a family that adapted to some Roman practices, in this case the New Year celebration.

I’ll post again in the new year. Have a good one.

UPDATE (Dec 23): For two different media takes on the Maccabees and Hanukkah (mentioned by Jim Davila), see Hanukka and Hellenization (Jerusalem Post) and The Maccabees and the Hellenists (Slate).

(Dec. 27): Even more media reflections on the Hasmoneans a.k.a. Maccabees (thanks to Jim Davila’s keen eye) here and here.

Greco-Roman culture was marked by a competitive atmosphere in which individuals, groups, and communities sought to gain honour and reputation, sometimes at the expense of someone else’s shame. Cities, too, were often among the competitors for honour and, as Dio Chrysostom’s speeches to Greek cities in Asia Minor and elsewhere show (late first century CE), rivalries between particular cities could get quite heated, ranging from ongoing name-calling to violent clashes and war. Thus, for instance, Dio addressed the citizens of Nicomedia about their discord and strife with Nicaea, which involved each city claiming it was the greatest over against the other, and there were some concrete negative interchanges as a result (Oration 38). Dio, like Paul writing to the Christian group at Corinth (1 Corinthians), sought to alleviate the competitive atmosphere and tried to promote the values of concord and unity.

As in modern regional rivalries or region-centric thinking (in Canada it was once common to hear jokes about people from Newfoundland), sometimes negativity towards another area or people could take the form of ethnic stereotypes, including jokes. The ancient joke-book which I discussed in the previous post, The Laughter-Lover, contains a number of jokes of this kind, with the primary targets being inhabitants from Sidon (in Syria), Abdera (in Thrace), and Kyme (in Asia Minor). No doubt, some such jokes and caricatures originally emerged within the context of local civic rivalries. Here are a few that poke fun at — or stereotype as less than brilliant — people from Kyme (Cyme):

“A man from Kyme who was looking for a friend was in front of his house calling his name. ‘Shout louder, so that he’ll hear you,’ advised a passer-by. So he started calling, ‘Louder!’” (no.160).

“A man from Kyme was riding by a garden on a donkey. Catching sight of an overhanging branch full of ripe figs, he made a grab for it. But the donkey bolted and left him hanging. Up came the gardener and demanded to know what he thought he was doing hanging there. ‘I had an asinine accident’” (no. 166).

“A man from Kyme was so ill that his doctor despaired of him. However, he recovered. But he kept avoiding the doctor. Finally, the [doctor] managed to corner him and ask why. ‘Well, I’m embarrassed to be seen alive after you said I was going to die’” (no. 174).

“[There was a] doctor from Kyme who switched to a blunt scalpel because the patient on whom he was operating was screaming so much from the pain” (no. 177).

(Again, all translations are from Baldwin, Philogelos, as cited in no. 1 of this ancient jokes series).

There are two recent articles of note on the Megiddo find.

On the one hand, there is an article over on Sightings, a publication of the Martin Marty Center (University of Chicago). Laurie Brink (Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Catholic Theological Union) provides an overview of the situation regarding dating and reaffirms the sort of cautions on theories of an early date that I have expressed here on my blog before (she speaks of the “archaeological penchant for early dating”). She also notes Megiddo’s “competitor” for the earliest church, namely the house-church (domus ecclesiae) at Dura Europa which is dated to 240-41 CE. The Dura Europa find represents a building that was originally a house that was transformed for use as a church, what we call a house-church (on potential house-synagogues, see my earlier post here). Brink also mentions recent redatings of archeological finds that push dates later, such as Magness’ redating of the Sardis synagogue (on which see my post here). Overall, Brink tends to the view that the Megiddo find is more likely dated to the time after Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313 CE. (There are some spelling errors in the article [e.g. Edit], so beware). Brink concludes: “Thus the significance of the Megiddo discovery may lie neither in its date nor its uniqueness, but in its context, where it may prove to be a rare archaeological example of an ordinary center for early Christian worship. As such, it would not compete against the Dura Europos church, but rather find commonality with it.”

The other article is at Haaretz.com and gives you somewhat of a prisoner’s perspective on the find: ‘ “First I found corner,” Batir continues. “I go, dig with hoe, saw here a little, 10 centimeters, and I think to myself there is something here. There was plaster, shards, no pictures. After that I saw fish and I know it is Christian.” ‘

History Carnival no. 22 is now up at Frog in a Well, the Korea History Group Blog. One of the links there is to a number of graffiti from Pompeii which, however offensive they may seem to some of us now, were clearly intended to be humorous (as well as offensive) then. Among the less offensive: “Satura was here on September 3rd.”

Please note the new web address for this blog (with no html page address):
http://www.philipharland.com/Blog/

I have successfully transferred all posts from my former blogger blog to this new Wordpress blog. The very nice thing about Wordpress is the categories (look to the right and further down). All 100 or so posts are now here and I have even attempted to get the more substantial comments transferred (all this done manually since any automated conversion was impossible with blogger not publishing to my server). I like Wordpress very much, but it has been a little bit tiring to figure out php language (which Wordpress uses in its formatting rather than html). Please do let me know (by email at pharland-at-alcor-dot-concordia-dot-ca) if you find any links that are “not found” (I’ve been trying to correct all internal links). Unfortunately, all previous permalinks have changed from the old blog (nothing I could do about that since the page names are not “html” in Wordpress).

Hope you like the look of this one and come again. I designed the banner myself, so let’s hope it doesn’t come across as “home-made” in a bad way;)

There is no doubt that humour is a cultural thing. What is funny in the ancient world will not necessarily be funny now, and may even be considered nonsensical or offensive from the modern perspective. Likewise, what makes one group of people laugh in a particular period will certainly not be funny to another contemporary cultural group. Still, there are times when jokes from the Greco-Roman period make me laugh, perhaps partly because I spend a good part of my life “living” (theoretically) in the ancient world, but also because of western civilization’s cultural connections with the ancient Mediterranean. I have already mentioned some episodes in early Christian literature that seem intended to make the ancient audience laugh, such as the story of the apostle John and the bed bugs.

I thought it might be fun to start up an ongoing series on jokes from antiquity, jokes that may make some of us moderns laugh and/or provide us with glimpses into a very different cultural world than our own. There are plenty of references to humour and funny situations in many ancient sources (and ancient theatrical comedy was of course aimed, in part, at bringing laughter). Yet there is only one surviving example of an actual anthology of 265 ancient jokes, The Philogelos or Laughter-Lover (manuscript dating to the 10th century but reflecting jokes from the first centuries of our era, one of which can be dated to 248 CE).

The Laughter-Lover collects together jokes thematically, dealing with the stereotypical “intellectual”, “scholar”, or “professor” (scholastikos; there are over 100 of these), with physicians, with civic rivalry, and with people with bad breath, among others. Quite a few jokes have direct relevance to issues of gender and views of women in antiquity, as translated and discussed online here at Diotima.

Here’s my first installment relating to scholar-types (some of which also happen to reflect the realities of ancient slavery):

“An intellectual who had had an operation on his uvula was ordered by his doctor not to talk for a while. So he instructed his slave to greet all his callers on his behalf. Then he proceeded to say to each caller, ‘Please don’t be offended that my slave greeted you instead of me; I’m under doctor’s orders not to talk’” (Laughter-Lover, no. 7).

“After a dinner party two intellectuals kept taking it in turns to escort the other home in accordance with the rules of etiquette. The result: neither of them ever got to bed” (no. 20).

“An intellectual was on a sea voyage when a big storm blew up, causing his slaves to weep in terror. ‘Don’t cry,’ he consoled them, ‘I have freed you all in my will’” (no. 25).

Translations in this series of posts come from Barry Baldwin, The Philogelos or Laughter-Lover Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1983, with adaptations. For a general discussion of humour through history, see Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg, eds., A Cultural History of Humour from Antiquity to the Present Day (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997).

It’s been an annoying week or two as far as website related things go. Blogger was no longer successfully publishing to my server, so I was forced to find another way, and I have decided to switch to Wordpress (which has a good reputation and does not require any transfer from one server to another). Another result was that any time I had for web-related things was occupied with solving this problem, rather than making new posts (and this may be so for a little while yet). So the blog will now continue on Wordpress, and most of the previous posts will remain in blogger format for now (including their html link-names alongside this new and better blog). I may begin to transfer them gradually here, but there’s 110 entries in my previous blog (not looking forward to transferring them all).

UPDATE: Everything is now transferred from the old blog to this one.

As noted on Stoa, there is a beautiful new website that provides high-quality photos of inscriptions (about 800 of them) relating to the mysteries of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis: Mysteries at Eleusis: Images of Inscriptions (hosted at Cornell University Library)If you are not familiar with the mysteries and would like some background first, you can read short discussions about the mysteries generally on my site here and about the Eleusianian mysteries here, as well as the mysteries of Dionysos, Mithras, and the Great Gods (of Samothrace).