Bad scholarship. A rant.

[gwynraven]

Ok, so I have never viewed the Discovery channel or their Discovery.com website as a citeable source by any stretch of the imagination, but I did credit them with generally trying to give accurate facts, even if the delivery were slanted in favour of one theory or another. However, this article has completely blown any faith I may have had in

Comments

[6_bleen_7]

I also noticed the eta right away, though at first I thought it was a pi. In any case, isn't Christ a title, rather than a proper name? Now if the bowl had said "Iεσoυς", I'd be really impressed, but as it is, even if it did say "Christ," how much importance should we place on it?

[gwynraven]

Yup, it is. It simply means 'annointed one' and the Biblical Jesus is not the only one who was referred to by that title.

[gwynraven]

Moreover, even if it did say Iεσoυς or something similar, that *still* wouldn't be that impressive. Jesus is simply the Roman version of the Hebrew Yeshua, which was one of the most common Jewish names of the time. It'd be like seeing an inscription to 'John' or 'Bill' and concluding that it *must* be referring to John Wayne or Bill Clinton.

two-handled cup

[6_bleen_7]

Why are the words from both sides of this two-handled cup being joined into one sentence ?

One side reads "Through Christ" the other side reads something else.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v344/Daveyh8/chrestus-bowl-540x380.jpg

http://www.ancienttouch.com/540.jpg

Re: bad scholarship?

[gwynraven]

Yeah, but they don't usually suck so transparently.

[vimsig]

good call - kudos!

[gwynraven]

Thanks. I actually did some trolling around on the internet (in the fishing sense, not the insulting sense) and found several experts making the same points as I did, and taking it further. 'Chrestos' was apparently a very common Greek name at the time, and so could refer to just about anybody. It was also a word that translated as 'good'. One scholar pointed out that the 'Ogoistais' that they have translated as 'magician' here could just easily mean 'magic' or 'enchantment'. The cup is of the type used to hold wine. So this scholar postulated that the inscription was actually an advertising slogan meant to describe the wine it contained - he parsed it as "Enchantment through excellence". I like that. And it's at least as plausible as any other interpretation out there.