How far back can the supposed tomb of Jesus be traced?

[Evan_Drake]

@bob_2

On a recent tour of Israel, I was struck by how little archeological evidence there was about the authenticity of the many religious sites. A major problem is that in most cases one or other of them had built a church and prevented any excavation.

Time and again, we went to a ‘holy’ site that was “Believed to be…” In some cases it was admitted that the site was nowhere near the original - the place on the River Jordan where christians go to be baptised for example.

‘According to Professor James Pritchard *, in his book, Solomon and Sheba **:
…the so-called cities of Megiddo, Gezer and Hazor, and Jerusalem itself were in reality more like villages… Within were relatively small public buildings and poorly constructed dwellings with clay floors. The objects reveal a material culture which, even by the standards of the ancient Near East, could not be judged sophisticated or luxurious… The ‘magnificence’ of the age of Solomon is parochial and decidedly lackluster, but the first book of Kings implies exactly the opposite.’

• Autospell goes to Pilchard.
  ** 1974.

[Darren_Garrison]

@Evan_Drake

'According to Professor James Pritchard *, in his book, Solomon and Sheba *

This is an interesting more recent book on the subject. (Of early Israel, not of Solomon and Sheba.)

[Don_t_Panic]

@aldiboronti

Or he could have just found the construction of a church expedient, useful for the polity of the state; in fact some historians believe that’s exactly how he saw the whole Christian religion, useful (it’s instructive that as well as Christian symbols he also displayed those of Sol Invictus in his private chapel for years.)

Well, it’s probably instructive in terms of what Constantine’s ideas about Christianity were, maybe not so much in terms of whether he was a true believer or a bullshitter. I’m not really sure if Constantine was all that hip to the difference between Sol Invictus and the Christian God, at least to begin with. It looks to me like he was either identifying them as the same or getting them mixed up a bit. This, BTW, is not a Constantine-specific thing. Lots of people seem to have been connecting Sol Invictus and the Christian God.

Whether Constantine really was a true believer or a calculating pragmatist is hard to tell for sure, and we can’t exactly look into his mind or his heart from way over here. Speaking for myself, he strikes me as someone who was a pragmatist, a realist, maybe even somewhat of an agnostic, but at the same time superstitious as heck, *and *a true believer. That sounds like a completely paradoxical mess, but it’s not really. It’s actually pretty simple. I guess what I mean is that he might have been ready to believe in any divinity that would help him win a battle. I’m reminded of the later conversion of Clovis. Hey, God, you want me to believe in you? Well, help me defeat my enemies, and then we can talk. In this sign I’ll conquer, you say? Well, I guess we’ll see if you deliver.

Basically, if Constantine had lost at the Milvian Bridge, I don’t really see him taking that as a sign that God was testing him, or something. More likely, I think he would have tried offering sacrifices to Mars before the next battle instead, to see if that worked out better. But God *did *deliver, so there you go. QED, and the rest is history.

But, oh, yeah, the vision. Did he really see something in the sky? Well, maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. Maybe it really was a sign from God. I personally think it’s a long shot, but YMMV. Maybe it was a meteor. Or maybe he shouldn’t have eaten those shrooms for dinner.

[Wallaby]

@Darren_Garrison

Also, there’s the Holy Prepuce (Batman.)

That is really scary.

Selected quotes

“Various miraculous powers have been ascribed to it”.

“Feast of the Circumcision”

“Many miracles (freak storms and perfumed fog overwhelming the village) are claimed to have followed”

Makes you wonder, if a foreskin is so powerful, why so many churches are keen to cut them off.

[Wallaby]

nm

[carnivorousplant]

@Martian Bigfoot

Whether Constantine really was a true believer or a calculating pragmatist is hard to tell for sure,

You phrase that much better than I, Sir.

[dtilque]

@Martian Bigfoot

But, oh, yeah, the vision. Did he really see something in the sky? Well, maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. Maybe it really was a sign from God. I personally think it’s a long shot, but YMMV. Maybe it was a meteor. Or maybe he shouldn’t have eaten those shrooms for dinner.

If he really did see a “cross” in the sky, it was probably a sun dog.

[Darren_Garrison]

@Wallaby

That is really scary.

Well give this a look.

[Bridget_Burke]

@APB

…The interesting variation on that argument was the suggestion by Martin Biddle, who is arguably the most eminent archaeologist to have worked on the site in recent decades. Prior to this restoration, he speculated that earlier graffiti might have allowed the tomb to be identified and that, if so, there was a chance that it might survive to allow that identification to be confirmed. This was one of the reasons he used to support the restoration going ahead. As it has now been completed without any news of such a discovery, I think we must conclude that he has been disappointed.

Interesting! St Helena is the Patron Saint of Archaeologists…

[aldiboronti]

@cmkeller

aldiboronti:

If he was raised by his parents to believe that to be true, why would anyone expect him to suddenly start questioning it? Intelligent he may have been, but even many intelligent people never question what to them has been gospel truth all their lives.

Raised by his parents to believe the finding of the cross relics to be true? You do realize that Constantine was in his mid-50s when Helena found the supposed relics and had been Emperor for over 20 years?

[Evan_Drake]

@Martian Bigfoot

There’s a question I’ve never pondered before. What would happen to a cross post-crucifixion? Would it get reused for more crucifixions? Sounds likely. But then? Eventually thrown away? Burnt? Sure, it’s useful wood, but it’s a pretty morbid idea to recycle a beam from a cross into part of your barn or something.

Well, the remains of everything that has existed still exist someplace.

And the question applies equally to all the gallows ever made, which must be in the millions; or the small cages the Ancient Chinese or Indians used as punishment for that matter. The wood, drenched in psychic suffering, will just look like old wood 30 years later to someone who knows not what it did. Not being a christian I doubt the Holy Cross is any more special than the crosses of his two companions ( who suffered just as much, being human ).
Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if even without the Son of God bit that cross was cut into slithers, for sale not to the faithful, but the superstitious credulous. Pieces of anything from executions were vaunted with frankly unlikely powers, not restricted to curative healing properties. [ I think one of the Max Carrados stories by Ernest Bramah touches on such a relic – from the crucifixion itself ]
Imagine the embarrassment of making a Hand of Glory from the Saviour !

[cmkeller]

aldiboronti:

Raised by his parents to believe the finding of the cross relics to be true? You do realize that Constantine was in his mid-50s when Helena found the supposed relics and had been Emperor for over 20 years?

No, I did not realize that. I was just reacting to the statement that it seemed at odds with his intelligence that he’d believe something his mother had apparently invented from whole cloth. I assumed wrongly about when his mother had done so.

Evan Drake:

.the so-called cities of Megiddo, Gezer and Hazor, and Jerusalem itself were in reality more like villages… Within were relatively small public buildings and poorly constructed dwellings with clay floors.

This is pretty out-dated, and more modern archaeology has uncovered some rather large ancient buildings, at least in Jerusalem. The “Large Stone Structure” may not (but then again, may) be the remains of David’s actual palace, but it is certainly a large, well-constructed building, not merely a small, poorly constructed one.

[Tatterdemalion]

@aldiboronti

Raised by his parents to believe the finding of the cross relics to be true? You do realize that Constantine was in his mid-50s when Helena found the supposed relics and had been Emperor for over 20 years?

Beside, who’s going to argue with Constantine’s mom?

[Dana_Scully]

I grew up Catholic (am now garden-variety Protestant) and I know how fixated on this people can get.

So they can’t find the tomb? So they can’t find the True Cross, the nails, etc.? So the Shroud of Turin is real or a fake–so what?

Faith is NOT based on “things” that “prove” one thing or another (or disprove). If you curl up in a ball and die because the Shroud of Turin (to use an example) is proved to be a fake, then you had pretty weak faith. I forget the Bible quote about it being based on things hoped for, not seen, etc.

[DrDeth]

@Wallaby

‘If you gathered together all the remnants of the One True Cross in cathedrals, churches and monasteries across the world, you could lay sleepers across the Australian outback’.

240 cubic inches doesnt go that far.

Taking the Measure of Relics of the True Cross

True Cross

[Darren_Garrison]

@Dana_Scully

I grew up Catholic (am now garden-variety Protestant) and I know how fixated on this people can get.

So they can’t find the tomb? So they can’t find the True Cross, the nails, etc.? So the Shroud of Turin is real or a fake–so what?

Faith is NOT based on “things” that “prove” one thing or another (or disprove). If you curl up in a ball and die because the Shroud of Turin (to use an example) is proved to be a fake, then you had pretty weak faith. I forget the Bible quote about it being based on things hoped for, not seen, etc.

Excellent job rebutting a point that nobody in this thread was making!

[md2000]

Reading between the lines, Constantine’s mother “found” the true cross, actually the three crosses; presumably something planted by the locals eager to please the emperor’s mom. She then had a revelation which of the three was the true cross.

If you’ve seen the middle east, especially that area - it’s not like it was a forested woodland of verdant growth. Things are pretty sparse and dry. The locals probably chopped down any unguarded trees for firewood. So, any decent lumber would be very valuable. I imagine they recycled their crossbeams until they were too splintered to take more nails, then found other uses up to and including firewood.

Remember, once the Christian religion came out of hiding with Constantine, there would be a constant stream of pilgrims to visit the holy sites whenever times were peaceful (which was - not always). The locals were more interested in pleasing the visitors than historical veracity.

[aldiboronti]

@Dana_Scully

I grew up Catholic (am now garden-variety Protestant) and I know how fixated on this people can get.

So they can’t find the tomb? So they can’t find the True Cross, the nails, etc.? So the Shroud of Turin is real or a fake–so what?

Faith is NOT based on “things” that “prove” one thing or another (or disprove). If you curl up in a ball and die because the Shroud of Turin (to use an example) is proved to be a fake, then you had pretty weak faith. I forget the Bible quote about it being based on things hoped for, not seen, etc.

Right, seeing through a glass darkly, etc. I always thought Paul’s “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” richly ironic. It describes perfectly the process by which humanity, or at least some parts of it, puts away the superstition of its beginnings and begins to understand as the millennia pass and the species reaches maturity the way the universe really works. Not knocking religion though, I’m sure for some people magical beliefs actually help them with life.

As for Constantine I agree with Martian Bigfoot, the man was a pragmatist. A supreme tactician both in the arts of peace and war he would have made use of anything which helped him secure his empire, and he had the wit to see that Christianity would be an ideal religion for keeping his subjects obedient and in their place. Unlike Paganism with its proliferation of gods the monotheism of Christianity was a perfect fit for his polity - one God ruling the heavens, one Caesar ruling the earth, with both staying out of each other’s way. (He must have found Jesus’ dictum Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s very interesting reading indeed. Christianity might have been tailor-made for Constantine’s needs!)

That isn’t to say that he was totally skeptical. He may well have believed it or half-believed. But he would have been sure to privately hedge his bets. This was a guy who delayed his baptism until just before his death in order, as some historians think, to have a whole lifetime of sins absolved at one fell swoop. (Christians could do that then, not sure if they could pull that one now.)

[Darren_Garrison]

@aldiboronti

(Christians could do that then, not sure if they could pull that one now.)

Sure they can. The Deathbed Conversion is a beloved trope in the born-again population, where there is no type of pennance necessary, only reciting the proper magic formula. There were lies about Darwin having a deathbed conversion, more recently lies about Christopher Hitchens having a deathbed conversion, and the plot point is often used in BAG Christian fiction, such as in God is Not Dead, when the awful, evil atheist Captain Dilan Hercules had a [del]deathbed[/del] side of the road conversion after being smacked by a car.

[Don_t_Panic]

@aldiboronti

That isn’t to say that he was totally skeptical. He may well have believed it or half-believed. But he would have been sure to privately hedge his bets.

Well, people’s beliefs do change and evolve during their lifetimes, and I’m pretty sure this is the case for Constantine, too. How much of a Christian was he at the time of the Milvian Bridge, in 312? Well, he had his alleged vision followed by a dream, but maybe that was retconned later, either by his biographers or by an older and more devout Constantine. There is famously no overtly Christian symbolism on the Arch of Constantine, erected in 315 to commemorate the victory. And, yes, that is a bit weird, as everyone agrees. Although, the inscription on it does attribute the victory to a “divinity” (unspecified). The Edict of Milan, from 313, legalizes Christianity, proclaims religious tolerance, and instructs that confiscated property should be returned to Christians. However, it does not outlaw paganism or make Christianity the official Roman religion. (All that would come later, but not until Theodosius in 380, well after Constantine’s time.) The edict is actually rather wishy-washy in its language concerning God, speaking again of “the divine” (unspecified). Constantine does make use of the labarum standard, with the Chi Ro symbol, from at least as early as 317, when it’s depicted on coins. However, it’s not entirely clear that Constantine would have considered the Chi Ro to have been an exclusively Christian symbol, as opposed to one way among several he could get the attention and support of a “divinity”. Until 324, he was also very much into the cult of Sol Invictus, as noted earlier. So, at this stage? Vague monotheism?

Constantine would later, of course, heavily promote Christianity, construct basilicas, and take a personal interest in church affairs. I think he was schooled pretty heavily in Christianity at around the the time of the Council of Nicea, and he ditched Sol Invictus at that time. Basically, the older Constantine was probably more Christian, more knowledgeable about Christianity, and more exclusively Christian, than the younger version. And is there really anything wrong or all that unusual about that?

Yes, he was only baptized right before his death. It may indeed have been an attempt to play chicken with God, and have all the sins of his lifetime (of which there were many, BTW, so he certainly had something to play for) erased at the last moment, allowing him to enter the afterlife with a blank slate. But then again, this is a guy who was progressively moving in that direction over time. Maybe he just wasn’t ready to take that final plunge until the last moment.