The Pokey Finger of God

Following are the assertions I currently use regarding the origin of Christianity. These will likely each be expanded upon over time. 1. Evidence: There is no physical evidence for the existence of a single, rapidly developed mystery cult whose theology or structure singularly informed the post 4th-century Christian church. There is no art, architecture, ritual [...]

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At first, I could never understand the True Believers. My first encounters with them was in Christian churches. My own, initially pedantic, attempts at Bible study repeatedly failed to illuminate the motivations or goals of True Believers. I could never understand just what was so exciting in the faith as I had ever seen it [...]

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Recently, I have enjoyed Death and the Emperor by Penelope J.E. Davies. Dr. Davies teaches Roman art and architecture at UT Austin, and is apparently working on a book focusing on the Republic[1]. This study of the purpose and meaning of a variety of the funerary remains of the great Roman emperors. This work is [...]

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I’m getting that sand-through-the-fingers feeling again. Just when I thought I had pegged the origins of “Christianity” via Constantine, I got all caught up on the question of pre-existing material. How can we know what it was he actually defined himself, and what was pre-existing? Of the pre-existing materials, why were some things chosen and [...]

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I haven’t seen very much, if any, information regarding the relationship between Constantine and either Eusebius (of Caesarea or of Nicomedia). The most detailed information found so far was within one of the Constantine biographies I read last Winter. Intimations there was that the Eusebians were the Katzajammer Kids with Constantine when they were all [...]

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I’m starting to become overwhelmed (again) with revising my understanding of 1st-4th Centuries CE. On one hand, I can still clearly point to the council of Nicea in 325AD and say that this was the place at which Constantine (re-)created Christianity. On the other, I’m completely befuddled regarding which characters were real and which were [...]

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Since discovery of PRF Brown’s site[1], I have burned a good many hours both reading and thinking. It’s clear that the “Eusebian Fiction Postulate”[2] has forced me to re-examine what I thought I understood about early church history. I have been relatively pleased, so far, to find that it seems to make more sense, given [...]

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I just got pointed to P.R.F. Brown’s amazing site. He has posted quite a bit of research to his site — including a few projects I had started myself and am right glad I don’t have to finish them, now, like the list of all known writers in the ancient Western world, categorized and dated. [...]

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Two famous biographies are here summarized to make a point about a significant problem in the art of archaeology. The question is whether one can even determine if the character of some ancient story actually lived when all you have are the written records that tell the story. My first subject has defined an entire [...]

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At the root of Judaism is a written history of people to whom Yah has spoken. These people, we are told, had direct, immediate, and personal knowledge of God. They spoke with him. He answered. His words became the driving force for their actions. This is exactly the sort of individual congress with the divine [...]

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