Ancient Christian Witness

The actual text:

http://septuagint-interlinear-greek-bible.com/OldTestament.pdf



This is from the website "The Apostolic Bible polyglot"

To hear more about the Holy Heiromartyr Lucian Of Antioch go to the link.

JNORM888

And









As seen from the website:

"By Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -
Archaeologists in Israel said on Thursday they had unearthed the oldest Hebrew
text ever found, while excavating a fortress city overlooking a valley where the
Bible says David slew Goliath.

The dig's uncovering of the past near the
ancient battlefield in the Valley of Elah, now home to wineries and a satellite
station, could have implications for the emotional debate over the future of
Jerusalem, some 20 km (12 miles) away.

Archaeologists from the Hebrew
University said they found five lines of text written in black ink on a shard of
pottery dug up at a five-acre (two-hectare) site called Elah Fortress, or
Khirbet Qeiyafa.

Experts have not yet been able to decipher the text
fully, but carbon dating of artifacts found at the site indicates the Hebrew
inscription was written about 3,000 years ago, predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by
1,000 years, the archaeologists said.

Several words, including "judge,"
"slave" and "king," could be identified and the experts said they hoped the text
would shed light on how alphabetic scripts developed."

To read the rest of the article, please go to the website.








JNORM888

I would like to give thanks to Dr. Emma Loosley for suggesting these books to me, they will come in handy as I finish up on my rejoinder with Morey's book. But since I can't read spanish I won't be able to check out one of the books. Eventually, I will be able to check out:



1.) The Christian Art of Byzantine Syria by Father Pena (A Franciscan)








2.) The Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema in Fourth-to Sixth-Century Syrian Churches by Dr. Emma LOOSLEY (her book)

These along with Mike Aquilina's book Signs and Mysteries: Revealing Ancient Christian Symbols. Should give me what I need in talking about the issue of Icons. I'm going to be quoting from these books once I get done with it.

The plan is to start out with the signs and symbols of early christianity into the Icons of early christianity. I will also let people know about the Icons of Judaism in the synagogues as well. At least that's how I plan on making my case.

The only otherthing I have to cover in the rejoinder is the "Calvinist" Patriarch claim. Other Orthodox on the web have already posted stuff about that so I'm just gonna quote what they already said.

This is going to take longer than what I planned. Especially now, since I'm in the St. Stephen's Course in Orthodox Theology program. Which is seen here and here. So it's gonna be awhile, but I'm sure I can always use what I'm learning at Saint Stephen's with what I'm working on here.......so I will quote stuff from the books I have to read for the Saint Stephen's program as well. For anything that deals with the topic at hand will help. In my conclusion, I will talk about how Eastern Orthodoxy had many places(regions) of influence. Robert Morey tries to paint the picture that we came from Egypt, but that's purely false. The City of Alexandria was not the only Holy See of Orthodoxy.

He totally ignores (or just doesn't know) about the Holy See of Antioch, plus at that time, the East and West were in full communion, so you would have to include Rome in the picture as well when you talk about Ancient Orthodoxy.

For at first the Holy Sees were

1. Rome

2. Alexandria

3. Antioch

And Later two more Holy sees were added in Constantinople and Jerusalem:

1. Rome

2. Constantinople

3. Alexandria

4. Antioch

5. Jerusalem


Morey only focuses on Alexandria Egypt, but Antioch was important as well, for after all, we were first called Christians in the city of Antioch. And to ignore the influence of Antioch is to distort the whole picture. So I'm going to include the influence of Antioch in my rejoinder.






JNORM888

In reading "Signs and Mysteries" by Mike Aquilina & Lea Marie Ravotti, I came across a statement that said:

"The Early Christians kept, more or less, within these limits. Yet, even with these constraints, they found an abundance of images at hand. Their first resource was the Bible, with its rich history and metaphor. The biblical images had for generations been stereotyped in the iconography of the synagogues of the Jews. Though later Judaism came to reject most religious artwork, the synagogues of late antiquity were lavishly decorated." page 15 [1]

They didn't have any pictures of this claim, but I didn't doubt it because I once saw something on TV in where they found evidence of something similar. I also heard a Conservative Jewish Rabbi mention the samething about some synagogues that still have icons in them. But I never really saw any pictures of what he was talking about. I heard the conservative Jewish Rabbi say it on this podcast. Play Online (It's about 40 minutes long and it was said in passing, when asked a question about it)

The pictures shown on this blog came from this Website: I agree with the general drift/ethos of what was said, but I don't agree with every statement said on that site for the issue was a bit more complex than that. There were christians in the church that rejected it, and it took a while for the Church to take a stand on the issue, but I 100%ly agree that images in some form were always present. We can see this with the Fish, the cross, the Shepard and the lamb, along with a host of others......... With that said, here are the Jewish pics.









Judean Synagogue in Dura Europos. According to the website it dates back to about 235 A.D.











This is a close up picture of one of the icons dipicted above.




Now, what I would like to know is when did the Jews start to change their mind about iconography in their Synagogues? Well wait, I heard that even some synagogues today have icons. But I would still like to know when they changed their mind. .......in general.




You can also find this icon at this Site.





JNORM888

[1] page 15, from the book "Signs & Mysteries: Revealing Ancient Christian Symbols" by Mike Aquilina, illustrations by Lea Marie Ravotti, Copyright 2008 by Our Sunday Visitor publishing.

This is Lesson 20 from the podcast, Search the Scriptures. Last week Dr. Jeannie Constantinou finished her discussion about the school of Alexandria. This week her focus is on the Cappadocian Fathers.

As seen from the Website:
"Today, Jeannie looks at 2 of the Cappadocian Fathers - Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa."


Play Online

Direct Link






JNORM888

"The present Bible Commentary Series is not so much in honor
of John Chrysostom as it is to continue and promote his legacy as an interpreter
of the biblical texts for preaching and teaching God’s congregation, in order to
prod its members to proceed on the way they started when they accepted God’s
calling. Chrysostom’s virtual uniqueness is that he did not subscribe to any
hermeneutic or methodology, since this would amount to introducing an
extra-textual authority over the biblical texts. For him, scripture is its own
interpreter. Listening to the texts time and again allowed him to realize that
“call” and “read (aloud)” are not interconnected realities; rather, they are one
reality since they both are renditions of the same Hebrew verb qara’. Given that
words read aloud are words of instruction for one “to do them,” the only valid
reaction would be to hear, listen, obey, and abide by these words. All these
connotations are subsumed in the same Hebrew verb šama‘. On the other hand,
these scriptural “words of life” are presented as readily understandable
utterances of a father to his children (Isaiah 1:2-3). The recipients are never
asked to engage in an intellectual debate with their divine instructor, or even
among themselves, to fathom what he is saying. The Apostle to the Gentiles
followed in the footsteps of the Prophets to Israel by handing down to them the
Gospel, that is, the Law of God’s Spirit through his Christ (Romans 8:2;
Galatians 6:2) as fatherly instruction (1 Corinthians 4:15). He in turn wrote
readily understandable letters to be read aloud. It is in these same footsteps
that Chrysostom followed, having learned from both the Prophets and Paul that
the same “words of life” carry also the sentence of death at the hand of the
scriptural God, Judge of all (Deuteronomy 28; Joshua 8:32-35; Psalm 82; Matthew
3:4-12; Romans 2:12-16; 1 Corinthians 10:1-11; Revelation 20:11-15).
While
theological debates and hermeneutical theories come and go after having fed
their proponents and their fans with passing human glory, the Golden Mouth’s
expository homilies, through the centuries, fed and still feed myriads of
believers in so many traditions and countries. Virtually banned from dogmatic
treatises, he survives in the hearts of “those who have ears to hear.” His
success is due to his commitment to exegesis rather than to futile hermeneutics.
The latter behaves as someone who dictates on a living organism what it is
supposed to be, whereas exegesis submits to that organism and endeavors to
decipher it through trial and error."