Dioscorus Boles, who comments regularly on Coptic materials here, has started his own blog here, discussing history and politics from a contemporary Coptic point of view.
Month: April 2011
Slightly worrying…
Did the plays of Menander survive to the renaissance
I was very tired last night, and in need of something gentle to read. So I took Andrew Lang’s Books and Bookmen to bed with me. The name of Andrew Lang is one that I knew when I was a lad, for Tolkien refers to him often in his essay on fantasy, as the author of the Blue Fairy Book and other collections of literary.
The essay was published in Tree and Leaf, which, like many another Tolkien fan I bought and found somewhat uncomfortable. The ‘leaf’ story, Leaf by Niggle, was charming, although I was oblivious to the deeper meaning that only time could bring. But as for ‘tree’, the essay, it was a puzzle. I had never heard of literary criticism, when I read it; nor, indeed, of Andrew Lang, who is perhaps a forgotten author these days.
The copy of Books and Bookmen itself was a century old, on good paper, and a delight to read and handle. Stamps at various places indicated that it had once belonged to Norwich public library, which had foolishly disposed of it. So I read of the Elzevir editions, of the bibliophilia of France, of the famous Derome blue binding which fades so badly, and of other things of no real importance to a poor man like myself, but curiously soothing.
In the middle of the book was an essay on literary forgeries, itself of considerable interest and relevance today, when the so-called Jordan Lead Codices are being touted. But one passage caught my eye:
After the Turks took Constantinople, when the learned Greeks were scattered all over Southern Europe, when many genuine classical manuscripts were recovered by the zeal of scholars, when the plays of Menander were seen once, and then lost for ever, it was natural that literary forgery should thrive.
Is it so? Were the plays of Menander then extant?
I don’t know what Lang’s source is for this remark, and I can’t find any leads. If any reader does know, perhaps he would share his knowledge with us?
In the mean time, tonight, I shall continue to read Books and Bookmen.
Coptic fragments from Sothebys
Alin Suciu has a couple of interesting posts, identifying some Coptic fragments recently auctioned at Sothebys. More info here!
Bibliotheca Orientalis online!
An email from a correspondant brings great news: Assemani’s Bibliotheca Orientalis is online!
You have here the list of the 4 volumes from Bonn’s University :
http://opac.ulb.uni-bonn.de:8080/webOPACClient/search.do?methodToCall=volumeSearch&dbIdentifier=-1&forward=success&catKey=708760&periodical=N
And the pdf for each volume is here (I had no time to download them):Vol. 1 = http://s2w.hbz-nrw.de/ulbbn/content/structure/31899
Vol. 2 = http://s2w.hbz-nrw.de/ulbbn/content/structure/32610
Vol. 3 = http://s2w.hbz-nrw.de/ulbbn/content/structure/33339
Vol. 4 = http://s2w.hbz-nrw.de/ulbbn/content/structure/34086
The Goussen’s Library is very rich in Oriental Texts. Look here:
http://s2w.hbz-nrw.de/ulbbn/nav/classification/17267
Some notes on David Elkington
The Jordan Lead Codices continue to attract my interest. This evening I went looking for an email address for the gentleman, with a view to asking him some questions. It is, after all, entirely possible that he is the victim of a fraud, rather than its perpetrator. The latter, indeed, seems unlikely to me.
I didn’t find an email address, but I did find a biography at the literary agent, Curtis Brown, here.
David Elkington is the author of In the Name of the Gods, the highly acclaimed academic thesis on the resonance and acoustical origins of religion. David is primarily an Egyptologist, specializing in Egypt-Palestinian links that have inevitably drawn him into the field of Biblical studies.
Between 1987 and 1990 he trained under Julia Samson, curator of the Petrie Museum, University of London, specializing in the Amarnan period of Egypt (c. 1500 BC), and also under Prof. Christine el Mahdy at the British School of Egyptology. He has co-hosted academic tours of the major ancient sites of Egypt and has been a member of the Egypt Exploration Society, the Palestine Exploration Fund and well as a fundraising Vice-Chairman of the Oxford China Scholarship Fund Working Group. He has lectured at universities all over the world and written many papers on ancient history and linguistics.
Interesting.
From my diary
Starting a new job today, so not very much free time. The new job demands 8 hours a day, rather than the usual 7.5 — there is a nasty trend in modern work to increase hours worked, and to try to get even more than that, and get hours unpaid. Oh well.
Meanwhile a correspondent, who needs a copy of the Eusebius book for academic purposes, has agreed to buy the first proof from me. This proof has an unsatusfactory dustjacket, which is being worked as we speak, but is otherwise as production so is fine for his purposes. The sale will help pay for the second proof. Unfortunately I can’t find any time to answer emails to do with this. Maybe tomorrow.
I’ve spent a little leisure time — I have only a little time — working on the Wikipedia article on these lead codices from Jordan. Not that I am doing any of the research which is exposing the scam; just linking to those like Tom Verenna who are emailing the key figures in the story.
Lead codices are fake
I mentioned a few days ago the find of a stash of lead books, supposedly from the time of Christ, in Jordan.
One of the few people to see the collection is David Elkington, a scholar of ancient religious archaeology who is heading a British team trying to get the lead books safely into a Jordanian museum.
Elkington, however, may not be a reputable scholar, at least according to blogger Clayboy here.
Today Jim Davila gives a damning email from Peter Thonemann, of Wadham College, Oxford, here. It turns out that Elkington approached Thonemann last year, asking for information about one of the codices, on copper. And he got it; clear evidence of forgery. Unfortunately it seems that Mr. Elkington did not heed the warning.
Key excerpts:
On 15 September 2010, I received the following email out of the blue from a certain David Elkington …
“… one of the copper codices that brings me to you. … It has an inscription in Greek along the top. A putative investigation has failed to find the meaning, dialect or type of Greek used and we are seeking to find an expert who might help in determining what it says. Would you have the time and the knowledge to be able to help?”
I received on the 13 October the following three photographs of this ‘copper codex’ from Mr Elkington … I replied later that same day…
“The text was incised by someone who did not know the Greek language, since he does not distinguish between the letters lambda and alpha: both are simply represented, in each of the texts, by the shape Λ. The text literally means ‘without grief, farewell! Abgar also known as Eision’. This text, in isolation, is meaningless. However, this text corresponds precisely to line 2 of the Greek text of a bilingual Aramaic/Greek inscription published by J.T. Milik, …
‘For Selaman, excellent and harmless man, farewell! Abgar, also known as Eision, son of Monoathos, constructed this tomb for his excellent son (i.e. Selaman), in the third year of the province’.
This is a stone tombstone from Madaba in Jordan, precisely dated to AD 108/9, on display in the Archaeological Museum in Amman.
The text on your bronze tablet, therefore, makes no sense in its own right, but has been extracted unintelligently from another longer text … The longer text from which it derives is a perfectly ordinary tombstone from Madaba in Jordan which happens to have been on display in the Amman museum for the past fifty years or so. The text on your bronze tablet is repeated, in part, in three different places, meaningless in each case.
The only possible explanation is that the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman by someone who did not understand the meaning of the text of the inscription, but was simply looking for a plausible-looking sequence of Greek letters to copy. He copied that sequence three times, in each case mixing up the letters alpha and lambda.
This particular bronze tablet is, therefore, a modern forgery, produced in Jordan within the last fifty years. I would stake my career on it.
And Jim adds:
At least one of David Elkington’s metal codices (a copper one) is a forgery. It seems very unlikely indeed, therefore, that any of them are genuine.
Which sums up my feelings too.
Eusebius update
I’m trying to get the issues with the dustjacket fixed. Everything is taking longer than it might! The graphic designer isn’t responding to my emails — I don’t think I was nasty to him, but I did have to say that the proof showed up problems, because it did.
A reader has kindly jumped in and is making some possible changes which may do instead. Also Bob the typesetter has answered my email after a two day delay and had a go at fixing them too. But … I can’t see what he did as I don’t have a copy of InDesign and he can’t export as PDF since I didn’t realise I needed to send him the images separately!
It is a little frustrating to be so close but unable to get it done. Still, I think it will happen. I start a new job on Monday, which will mean that I can’t spend much time on this then.
I’m also working on getting the Amazon “search inside” functionality working.
“According to Realencyclopaedie, the inscription Chrestos is to be seen on a Mithras relief in the Vatican”
I love modern legends. They have been the stimulus for much of what I have done online. The effort to research, access and document has given me many happy hours.
This morning I was sitting in front of the monitor, looking for inspiration and stimulation. Then a Google Groups search on Mithras brought up this gem:
Christ: The Greeks used both the word Messias (a transliteration) and Christos (a translation) for the Hebrew Mashiach (Anointed). The word Christos is far more acceptable to some Pagans who worship Chreston and Chrestos. According to The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, the word Christos was easily confused with the common Greek proper name Chrestos, meaning “good.” According to a French theological dictionary, it is absolutely beyond doubt that Christus and Chrestus, and Christiani and Chrestiani were used indifferently by the profane Christian authors of the first two centuries AD The word Christianos is a Latinism, being contributed neither by the Jews nor by the Christians themselves. The word was introduced from one of three origins: the Roman police, the Roman populace, or an unspecified Pagan origin. Its infrequent use in the New Testament suggests a Pagan origin. According to Realencyclopaedie, the inscription Chrestos is to be seen on a Mithras relief in the Vatican. According to Christianity and Mythology, Osiris, the Sun God of Egypt, was reverenced as Chrestos..
The only “reference” for all these claims is to a post in a closed forum.
If you search around the web for this stuff, you will find it repeated endlessly. Some even add after the bold phrase “(I’ve seen it myself)” although since this too is repeated, one wonders just who the author was.
One claim caught my eye: the claim about the RE. After much searching, I found a slightly different version here:
Who was this Chrestos or Chreston with which Christos became confused with?
We have already seen that Chrestos was a common Greek proper name, meaning “good.” Further we see in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopaedie, under “Chrestos,” that the inscription Chrestos is to be seen on a Mithras relief in the Vatican. We also read in J. M. Robertson, Christianity and Mythology, p. 331, that Osiris, the Sun-deity of Egypt, was reverenced as Chrestos. We also read of the heretic Gnostics who used the name Chreistos.
OK, so what does the RE say about “Chrestos”?
Well, in the 6th half-volume (band III.2) the entry appears in columns 2449-2450, giving a list of people known by that name:
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A praetorian prefect under Alexander Severus (Dio. epit. book 80, 2:2), also given as prefect of Egypt in a papyrus fragment, where his name appears as Geminus Chrestus.
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A Roman geographer, mentioned by John the Lydian in De Mensibus IV 68 (p. 98ff of the Bonn edition) as talking about the Nile.
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An officer under Constans (Aurelius Victor, epit. 41, 22) ca. 350 AD.
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An African grammarian, ca. 357, mentioned in Jerome’s Chronicle under AA 2374. But one manuscript gives the name as Charistus.
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A pupil of Herodes Atticus at Byzantion, working as a sophist and teacher in the second half of the second century. (Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, p. 98, l.15 of Kayser’s edition).
And after that, we find the following entry:
6) Auf Grund der Inschrift eines Mithrasreliefs im Vatican (Cumont Mitras inscr. nr. 39; mon. fig. nr. 31) Χρῆστος πατὴρ καὶ Γαῦρος ἐποίησαν früher für einen Künstler gehalten. Doch bezeichnet, wie zuerst Brunn Künstlergesch. I 611 gesehen hat, ἐποίησαν nur die Weihung, πατὴρ im Mithraskult ein priesterlicher Titel ist. Kaibel IGI 1272. Loewy Inschr. griech. Bildh. 457. [C. Robert.]
I.e.
6) On the base of an inscription of a Mithras relief in the Vatican (Cumont, Mithras, inscrip. 39; mon. fig. 31) Χρῆστος πατὴρ καὶ Γαῦρος ἐποίησαν was previously taken for the name of an artist. But it is now recognised, as Brunn saw in Künstlergesch. I 611, that ἐποίησαν refers to the consecration, and πατὴρ is a title for a priest in the Mithras cult. Kaibel IGI 1272. Loewy Inschr. griech. Bildh. 457. [C. Robert]
Indeed the text says:
Χρῆστος πατὴρ καὶ Γαῦρος ἐποίησαν
Chrestus the Pater and Gaurus made [this].
Let’s look at Cumont. I found the stuff in vol. 2 of Textes et Monumentes, in p.211 in the section on Rome, which I had great difficulty navigating.
31. Bas-relief de marbre blanc [L. 0.71m, H. 0.41m, Ep. 0.05m], conservé au musée du Vatican, Galleria scoperta, n° 416 [doit être déplacé].
Cité : Zoega, p. 149, n° 15; cf. Kaibel, ISI, n° 1272.
Mithra tauroctone dans la grotte avec le chien, le serpent, le scorpion et le corbeau, mais sans les dadophores. Dans les coins supérieurs, à gauche, Sol sur un quadrige, à droite Luna sur un char traîné par deux taureaux. Dans les coins inférieurs, de chaque côté, un cyprès grossièrement dessiné. En dessous l’inscription n° 39.
Brisé en deux morceaux, mais sans restauration importante. Travail médiocre.
And the inscription itself is on p.100
39. Kaibel, ISI, 1272. — Voyez le monument n° 31.
Χρῆστος πατὴρ καὶ Γαῦρος ἐποίησαν.
Non videntur artifices esse Chrestus et Gaurus cf. Brunn, Hist. art., I, 611, qui cum recte iam Rochettius vidisset Chrestum fuisse patrem Mithrae, verbum ἐποίησαν ita explicabat ut esset consacraverunt [Kaibel].
It’s a tauroctony, in other words, a relief showing Mithras killing the bull, which has the inscription beneath. All it shows is that a priest named Chrestus set up the relief. It happens to be in the Vatican museum, but has no ancient connection specified with that location.
As ever, once we know the facts and return to the context of the original claim, we see that the reader is being misled by a statement which, literally true, is nevertheless guaranteed to mislead everyone to suppose that “Chrestos” is another name for “Mithras”.