Christ on a Bowl? Not likely….
The world of misleading headlines gets a little larger today with the lede to this story on MSN:
Earliest reference describes Christ as ‘magician’
The bowl itself is pretty interesting– dating to between 200 BCE and 100 CE, it carries an inscription currently being read as DIA CHRHSTOU OGOISTAIS (ΔIA XPHCTOY OΓOICTAIC). The story continues:
If the word “Christ” (CHRHSTOU) refers to the Biblical Jesus Christ, as is speculated, then the discovery may provide evidence that Christianity and paganism at times intertwined in the ancient world.
The full engraving on the bowl reads, “DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS,” which has been interpreted by the excavation team to mean either, “by Christ the magician” or, “the magician by Christ.”
There are a few HUGE problems with this automatic assumption (an assumption which serves to titillate but is actually extraordinarily misleading). The most egregious leap in logic is, of course, the very idea that the word “CHRSTOU” refers to the historical Jesus. In fact, the word had been used variously in quite a few different ways at the time, most notably as a fairly common personal name.
Professor April Deconick points out that the word has also been used as a common title of Athoth, one of the Archons in classical Sethian Gnosticism.
For various possible interpretations and a plethora of interesting possibilities, visit this Textual Interpretation forum. Here’s my fave (probably not correct, but awesome, esp. to readers of Foucault’s Pendulum):
O might stand for O(INOU)
“gost./goist.” - this is an abbreviation for “grammata hosa…”, i.e. “ca. X grams”.
Thus, ELAIOU KALOU GOIST IS
would mean
“ca. 16 grams of good oil”.
Regardless, it seems an exceptional leap based purely on sensationalism that the cup would have anything whatsoever to do with the historical Jesus. Still, pretty interesting find overall.