Sunday, March 8, 2026

Expanding Mobility model: Ancient DNA nearby Göbekli Tepe (Çayönü) to Armenian late bronze age Cranial Deformation (not E.T. aliens!)

  Çakmaktepe predates Göbeklitepe by over half a millennium. The rare Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) findings that remained hidden for 12,000 years. Desert kites are massive, 9,000-year-old stone, V-shaped, or funnel-shaped, structures found across Middle Eastern deserts, used by Neolithic hunters as mega-traps to drive and slaughter massive herds of animals like gazelles. These structures, with, say, 3-mile-long stone lines leading to pits,

Çakmaktepe older than Göbeklitepe: vid 

 book chapter Over multiple millennia, from the earliest traces of long-term occupation of camp sites (ca 20,000 BC) to the development of full-scale farming (ca 8000–6000 BC), the Neolithic transition in southwest Asia gradually shaped human societies in dramatic ways (Nadel 2002; Maher et al. 2012; Asouti, Fuller 2013). Here we present recent insights from ancient genomics studies into these societies while focusing on two questions: the population processes driving cultural change in Neolithic central Anatolia and genetic kinship among Çatalhöyük co-burials.

 Here, we report genome-wide data analyses from 110 ancient Near Eastern individuals spanning the Late Neolithic to Late Bronze Age, a period characterized by intense interregional interactions for the Near East. We find that 6th millennium BCE populations of North/Central Anatolia and the Southern Caucasus shared mixed ancestry on a genetic cline that formed during the Neolithic between Western Anatolia and regions in today's Southern Caucasus/Zagros. During the Late Chalcolithic and/or the Early Bronze Age, more than half of the Northern Levantine gene pool was replaced, while in the rest of Anatolia and the Southern Caucasus, we document genetic continuity with only transient gene flow. Additionally, we reveal a genetically distinct individual within the Late Bronze Age Northern Levant. Overall, our study uncovers multiple scales of population dynamics through time, from extensive admixture during …

 

 

Near Eastern farmers from South-Central Anatolia, the Southern Levant, and Northwestern Iran were descended from local foragers, and the transition from foraging to farming in these areas was shown to have been a biologically continuous process with only minor gene flow among them (Broushaki et al., 2016, Feldman et al., 2019, Lazaridis et al., 2016).
Almost two millennia later, this situation had changed. In contrast to these Early Holocene populations, Chalcolithic/Eneolithic and Bronze Age populations from Western and Central Anatolia, the Southern Levant, Iran (Zagros), and the Caucasus show less genetic differentiation from each other, suggesting that these later periods were characterized by an extensive process of gene flow spanning a large area (Allentoft et al., 2015, de Barros Damgaard et al., 2018, Haber et al., 2017, Harney et al., 2018, Jones et al., 2015, Lazaridis et al., 2016, Lazaridis et al., 2017, Wang et al., 2019).

 Eirini Skourtanioti

A lot of genetic exchange between east and west anatolia before city-states emerged... 

 Ancient DNA from the Southern Caucasus
reveals remarkable genetic continuity,
with some mixing from Anatolia/Iran and
the Eurasian Steppe, and shows that even
periods of urbanization and increased
mobility—including the spread of cranial
deformation in the Middle Ages—had
minimal impact on the region’s core gene
pool.

The genetic history of the Southern Caucasus from the Bronze Age to the Early Middle Ages: 5,000 years of genetic continuity despite high mobility

 As early as the 5th millennium BCE, animal husbandry
spread northward across the Caucasus to the Steppe.5 Pro-
pelled by new technologies such as wheels and wagons,6,7
this innovative economic system developed into mobile pasto-
ralism, first evident in Northern Caucasus during the Bronze
Age (BA; starting c. 3500 BCE).8–10 During the same period,
the Southern Caucasus became part of a vast cultural complex
of mainly sedentary agropastoralists known as Kura-Araxes,
linking Eastern Anatolia and Northwestern Iran....

 From the
Middle and Late BA (M/LBA, c. 1900–1200 BCE) onward, Steppe
pastoralists admixed into the Southern Caucasus,14,17,18 a pro-
cess that has been linked to the emergence of the Armenian language, a deep Indo-European (IE) branch.17 Meanwhile, evi-
dence of gene flow in the reverse direction—from the Southern
Caucasus north into the Steppe16—underscores the region’s
complexity during this transformative period and the need for
more comprehensive ancient DNA (aDNA) sampling, as areas
like present-day Georgia remain critically underrepresented.

 Skourtanioti et al., 2025, Cell 188, 1–17

 EEHG ancestry resurged in MBA Georgia and Armenia, when,
with the final stage of the vast South Caucasian BA Kura Araxes
culture, local populations began to interact with Steppe pastoral-
ists, initiating the Early Kurgan and Trialeti culture periods.12
Both cultures are known for burials in a tumulus (‘‘kurgan’’) along
with wheeled carts.11 Based on a marked increase of Steppe
ancestry in LBA Armenia, a direct connection of this gene flow
and the initial spread of the IE Armenian language into this region
has been proposed.17,51 This would fit into models of language
spread that attempt to associate early expansions of IE lan-
guages with Steppe pastoralists, such as the Yamnaya cultural
complex, based on the vocabulary and the estimated date of
the proto-IE reconstruction

 All analyzed samples originate from 49 excavated site in present-day Georgia and one site in Armenia. Detailed description of the
sites and burials along with the context of artificial cranial deformation in the Southern Caucasus

 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00423-1

 Our study focuses on social organization across two Neolithic periods. The Aceramic period is represented by Aşıklı Höyük (c. 8,350–7,300 cal BCE) and Boncuklu (c. 8,300–7,600 cal BCE), (Figure 1A), which are among the earliest sedentary communities in Central Anatolia. During the 9th millennium these sites were characterized by small curvilinear buildings, and both maintained mainly forager subsistence practices. The subsequent Ceramic Neolithic period communities were increasingly reliant on food production, and they lived in larger settlements characterized by rectilinear, clustered architecture. In our study, this later period is represented by Çatalhöyük (c. 7,100–5,950 cal BCE), Tepecik-Çiftlik (c. 7,500–5,800 cal BCE), and Barcın Höyük (c. 6,600–6,000 cal BCE)., For this study, we screened Neolithic period human remains from Aşıklı Höyük (n = 30) and Çatalhöyük (n = 60) by shotgun DNA sequencing.

  genetic diversity within each region steadily increased through the Holocene. We further observed that the inferred sources of gene flow shifted in time. In the first half of the Holocene, Southwest Asian and the East Mediterranean populations homogenized among themselves. Starting with the Bronze Age, however, regional populations diverged from each other, most likely driven by gene flow from external sources, which we term "the expanding mobility model."

 Male-to-female bias increased over time in inter-regional human movements

 arrivals of people with Steppe-related ancestry in the Greek mainland into ca. 4,200 BP, within the Early BA, i.e., before the beginning of the Middle BA as hitherto known.13 Although this is currently the earliest known evidence for Steppe-related ancestry in Greece,

  this supports the notion of EHG influx in Iran via Central Asia instead of the Caucasus. Our modeling further marks the heterogeneity of ancestry sources across Iran, including the temporary appearance of South Asian

 the influx of Anatolian Neolithic-related ancestry in the South Caucasus with the arrival of Neolithic cultures (ca. 8,000 BP)11

 for instance, up until 6,000–4,000 BP, Anatolian and Aegean populations received intense gene flow from South Caucasus/Iran-related populations, while groups from Caucasus and Iran received gene flow from Anatolian-related populations

 highly male-biased Steppe expansion in the Bronze Age

 We document bodily interventions such as head shaping and cauterization among the individuals examined, reflecting Çayönü’s cultural ingenuity. Last, we identify Upper Mesopotamia as the likely source of eastern gene flow into Neolithic Anatolia, in line with material culture evidence. We hypothesize that Upper Mesopotamia’s cultural dynamism during the Neolithic Transition was the product not only of its fertile lands but also of its interregional demographic connections.

 This temporal increase in genetic diversity was attributed to the transition to farming and associated intensification of population movements and admixture

 Taurus and Zagros Mountains supporting large hunter-gatherer populations, as well as the progenitors of plant and animal domesticates

 This result is consistent with Upper Mesopotamia, but most likely not the Caucasus, being the source of eastern gene flow into Central Anatolia and possibly also into Western Anatolia around 7000 BCE. The finding also resonates with archaeological evidence from Çatalhöyük, where the mid-seventh millennium BCE witnesses the first introduction of obsidian from the Bingöl area of Eastern Turkey, the appearances of lithic types akin to “Çayönü tools,”

 We hypothesize that Çayönü was also a lively hub of interregional networks, potentially because of its location between the sources of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in Upper Mesopotamia. Recent discoveries and ongoing research at sites such as Göbekli Tepe, Gusir Höyük, and Karahan Tepe (2, 64, 65) continue to demonstrate the importance of this region as a central node of cultural dynamism and social networks.

3000 BC Anatolia (Turkey) diet: 

  glume wheats (einkorn and emmer), followed
by barley and pulses (Erkanal and Özkan 1999; Maltas, per-
sonal communication 2019; Oybak and Doğan 2008). In
terms of fruit, the remains of grapes and figs were discovered,
and it has been suggested that olive oil and wine were pro-
duced at the site (Erkanal and Özkan 1999; Oybak and Doğan
2008). Similarly, there have been no archaeozoological stud-
ies so far published from Bakla Tepe, but the presence of
many spindle whorls and tools associated with weaving and
textile production indicate the importance and specialisation
of this technology and suggest the presence of wool-bearing
sheep at Bakla Tepe (Erkanal and Özkan 1999; Gündoğan

 That is precisely the same as the most traditional Berber village I visited in 1997 in Morocco. So I went back in time 5000 years!!!

 ten thousand years ago, small mobile human groups in Southwest Asia shifted to a sedentary existence (Bar-Yosef, 1998; Belfer-Cohen and Goring-Morris, 2010). Hunting and gathering of wild foods gave way to new patterns of subsistence, including food production and systematic storage (Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen, 1989; Bar-Yosef and Meadow, 1995; Nadel et al., 2012; Kuijt and Finlayson, 2009). In early settlements of the Levant and Anatolia, sheep, cattle, and pigs came under human management, multiple species of plants were cultivated, and some of these species eventually were domesticated (Willcox, 2005; Zeder, 2009; Stiner et al., 2018).

 In just a few centuries wild ungulate food was replaced by domesticated meat - especially sheep.

  The occupation of the site began in the mid-9th millennium BC, with the earliest permanent settlement dated to 8350 cal BC. The site was abandoned ca. 7300 cal BC. 

  Levels 5 and 4 represent the early occupations, with a permanent settlement established by the time of Level 4, when both plant cultivation and the caprine management were clearly practiced. In these early levels, domestic wheat types were identified alongside wild species of cereals and pulses. However, a great variety of wild plants were also exploited, including fruits and nuts such as hackberry and almonds (van Zeist and de Roller, 1995; Ergun et al., 2018). The plant diet remained diverse throughout the rest of the occupation sequence, with only limited changes (Ergun et al., 2018). By contrast, the faunal trend from Levels 5 through 2 involved a major change from a broad-spectrum strategy that utilized diverse wild prey species to an extreme focus on the exploitation of caprines (Stiner et al., 2014; Buitenhuis et al., 2018).

 

By the mid-8th millennium BC, the settlement expanded and architectural density increased. Hunting activities focused on aurochs in this period, whereas sheep and goats were managed and had become the main sources of meat. The residents continued to live collectively and share communally.
The last few centuries of the settlement, represented by the upper part of Level 2 and centering on 7500 cal BC, saw significant changes in the settlement layout, including the emergence of residential building groups. These clustered buildings were separated from each other by small street-like spaces, not unlike neighborhoods.

 archaeology vid 

Aşıklı Höyük "People of the Firsts" Documentary
 . The archaeological site of Aşıklı Höyük was first settled in the Aceramic 
Neolithic period, around 9000 B.C.

 

 

 

 very cool house design!!

 doc in English

 Aşıklı Höyük is a rare case in which the evolutionary development of animal management can be observed over a full millennium of human occupation. Importantly, the transition from a broad-spectrum strategy to a monoculture strategy for obtaining meat did not change the ratio of animal protein consumed by the PPN population at Aşıklı or elsewhere in Anatolia. It is likely that animal domestication instead was important for stabilizing human access to animal protein.

 exploiting obsidian from the nearby volcano...

 3000 BCE violence in Turkey

  This evidence may suggest that the individuals
were killed by violent action in connection with the collapse
of the palace system....The »Royal Tomb«, and especially the skeletal remains of
the adolescents discovered above it, suggest a possible case
of ritual killing. On the other hand, the scattered human
remains dating from period VIB1, the evidence of corpses
decaying in the open air and being eaten by animals (such
as dogs, birds, and wolves) constitute important evidence
of killing22....The cases of violence and its possible ritualisation docu-
mented at Arslantepe are limited to a specific historical
period (the end of the 4th millennium BC and the transition
from Late Chalcolithic to the very beginning of Early Bronze
Age) marked by conflicts and political upheavals. They seem
to reflect different episodes and practices, even if they are
presumably somehow related to each other.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2210611120 

 Growing reliance on animal and plant domestication in the Near East and beyond during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) (the ninth to eighth millennium BC) has often been associated with a “revolutionary” social transformation from mobility toward more sedentary lifestyles. We are able to yield nuanced insights into the process of the Neolithization in the Near East based on a bioarchaeological approach integrating isotopic and archaeogenetic analyses on the bone remains recovered from Nevalı Çori, a site occupied from the early PPNB in Turkey where some of the earliest evidence of animal and plant domestication emerged, and from Ba'ja, a typical late PPNB site in Jordan. In addition, we present the archaeological sequence of Nevalı Çori together with newly generated radiocarbon dates. Our results are based on strontium (87Sr/86Sr), carbon, and oxygen (δ18O and δ13Ccarb) isotopic analyses conducted on 28 human and 29 animal individuals from the site of Nevalı Çori. 87Sr/86Sr results indicate mobility and connection with the contemporaneous surrounding sites during the earlier PPNB prior to an apparent decline in this mobility at a time of growing reliance on domesticates.

 

The younger layer (layer II) of the early and middle PPNB architectural phases at Göbekli Tepe is partially contemporaneous with the occupation of the earlier phase at Nevalı Çori for ca. 300 y, and both are characterized by smaller pillars (<2 m, compared with those of PPNA at Göbekli Tepe), rectangular stone buildings, and terrazzo floors (50, 54). The potential relatedness and dynamic interactions between these two sites, and the wider social landscape, require further investigation, however.
The social organization and subsistence strategies of the TSP society are key to better understanding the cultural transformations and the interplay of forager lifeways with the initial stages of agriculture. There has been so much work on subsistence in the FC given the focus on agricultural origins but much less on direct insights into mobility. Nevertheless, modes and degrees of human mobility strongly influence their cultural and social organization and have been central to arguments of agricultural dispersal across the regions (6, 55–58). However, the identification of human mobility on the basis of material culture has posed severe challenges (59). Multidisciplinary bioarchaeological approaches, especially archaeogenetic and isotopic analyses of 87Sr/86Sr and δ18O, have increasingly served as powerful tools for investigating past mobility (60–65). The only available strontium isotope dataset for reference in SE Anatolia so far was generated for Körtik Tepe in the Upper Tigris region of the PPNA period (66), and bioarchaeological datasets aiming to investigate human mobility (Sr isotopic and archaeogenetic data) are missing for the TSP society in the Upper Euphrates. Furthermore, aDNA studies have documented the progressive reduction in genetic differentiation between populations from the Levant, Northwestern–Southcentral Anatolia, and as far as Zagros since the Neolithic, thereby shedding light on genetic admixture of a broad spatiotemporal scale within the FC (67–70). Geographically located among these regions, SE Anatolia is the critical missing link into further elucidating mobility patterns since the earliest phases of Neolithization.

  This overall reliance on plants may help to explain the close apparent linkage between growing reliance on domesticated resources and a reduction in mobility following the early PPNB phase.

 early PPNB, Göbekli Tepe was a ritual center in the Urfa region characterized by its magnificent monolithic structures. The hypothesized large events held in the TSP buildings might have been part of routine gathering and feasting events that the surrounding communities participated in  (33). Göbekli Tepe is not the only place in the Urfa region where the geological context consists of a mixture of Eocene and Miocene limestones (SI Appendix, Note S2), the signature of which can be distinguished from that of Nevalı Çori. The other sites of the TSP are of similar geological context as Göbekli Tepe. Therefore, “Göbekli Tepe” here refers not only to the site itself but also to the TSP society as a whole, which covers the interactive sphere in the Urfa region from the PPNA to PPNB, including Karahan Tepe, Sefer Tepe, Harbetsuvan Tepesi, and so on (Fig. 1A) (102, 108).

 the Early Holocene populations like those from the Southcentral Anatolia but also traced part of her ancestry to populations in the southern and eastern wings of the FC (i.e., Levant and Iran)...This corroborates different demographics in Upper Mesopotamia, which could have promoted long-range mobility resulting in many of the observed genetic signals in ancestry.

 An unstable animal-driven protein supply could have motivated people to practice a mixed subsistence pattern, with both hunting-gathering and farming acting as risk-buffering strategies, which might also suggest that the TSP ritual system did not collapse abruptly as reflected in the fact that the construction of monumental architecture continued at Nevalı Çori into PPNB II and III (71). According to the strontium isotopic results, there are still some individuals (e.g., NEV008, NEV003, and NEV017) from post-PPNB I that fall into the 87Sr/86Sr range of Göbekli Tepe and other TSP communities, and these individuals may have continued to engage in the maintenance of the traditional belief system and social networks manifested by TSP, with other members at Nevalı Çori investing more in cultivation and domestication, becoming more sedentary.

  an enigmatic type of site with T-shaped pillars (TSP) emerged and flourished in SE Anatolia and has been seen as an iconic part of the early Neolithization process. The TSP themselves are believed to signify humans, with low reliefs representing head, arms, and clothing like belts and loincloth, and are often decorated with a variety of animal motifs, including snakes, scorpions, aurochs, and gazelles, and geometric patterns in low and high relief

 https://www.dailysabah.com/turkey/ancient-dna-study-in-turkiye-sheds-light-on-mesopotamias-history/news

Çayönü, a Neolithic settlement located in present-day Diyarbakır in southeastern Türkiye, some 300 kilometers (186.41 miles) away from famed Göbeklitepe, offers clues for scientists determining the genetic past of people in this northern part of the wider Mesopotamian region. Comprehensive DNA analysis of skeletons dating back to 8,500 B.C. helped them understand the medical practices of old times as well.

A finding on the skull belonging to a young girl, for instance, points out the earliest examples of primitive surgeries, which apparently continued for centuries in the region, in the form of cauterization. Their findings also prove a “genetic flow” from Mesopotamia to inner parts of Anatolia.

 The research shows Northern or Upper Mesopotamia was a place where different cultures mingled some 10,000 years ago. On Çayönü mound, they discovered a high genetic diversity among people who lived between 8,500-7,500 B.C.

 

 

 

 

 

at No comments:

Asiatic Johannine Logos-Christ celibacy spermatiko Logos alchemy of the "perfected disciples" of the Lord via Essenes

  Ancient Judaism: Between Christian Memory and Jewish Forgetting:

Asiatic Johannine school.  https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/15999

 
Irenaeus admits “the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to the ‘perfected’ apart and privily from the rest” of Christians and so we can be sure “they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves” (Against Heresies 3.3.1).

 Irenaeus boasts the most about Clement, the author of 1 Clement that conspicuously shows no knowledge of an earthly Jesus or any Gospel narrative at all....

 "There are also those who heard from him [Polycarp] that John, the Disciple of the Lord," - Irenaeus

  Irenaeus thus never actually says Polycarp said he was “instructed by apostles” and “conversed with many who had seen Christ.” Irenaeus just believes that he did, because it is what “the Asiatic Churches” say about Polycarp,...Irenaeus then says “there are also those who heard from” Polycarp a possibly apocryphal story about John the Disciple. Notably, Irenaeus did not evidently hear any such story from Polycarp himself, despite having attended his lectures and sermons....even this unnamed, unvetted source did not say Polycarp learned this story about John from John.

 “Polycarp told stories about John the Disciple” becomes “Polycarp knew John the Disciple,”...Polycarp never mentions knowing John in this letter, but does quote the Epistle 1 John, twice, without attribution—thus easily inspiring the legend that maybe Polycarp was quoting John personally, and not just some revered letters attributed to said John. Again, how legends are made....

 describes Papias as “the hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp” (in Against Heresies 5.33.4). Not Polycarp was the hearer of John. Moreover, we know from Eusebius (History of the Church 3.39) that the “John” Papias meant was not John the Apostle, but a much later John, John the Elder (Ibid. 4-6). Papias was older than Polycarp. Yet Papias himself never says he met any Apostles—John or otherwise—

 Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians

 In like manner, let the young men also be blameless in all things, being especially careful to preserve purity, and keeping themselves in, as with a bridle, from every kind of evil. For it is well that they should be cut off from the lusts that are in the world, since every lust wars against the spirit; 1 Peter 2:11 and neither fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, shall inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 nor those who do things inconsistent and unbecoming. Wherefore, it is needful to abstain from all these things, being subject to the presbyters and deacons, as unto God and Christ. The virgins also must walk in a blameless and pure conscience.

 Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles (NHC VI,1) is a 4th-century Gnostic Christian text found in the Nag Hammadi library. It follows the Apostles on a journey to a city named "Habitation," where they meet a pearl merchant named Lithargoel (revealed to be Jesus) who instructs them to heal the poor and avoid the rich...

 potentially finds its roots in a Syriac context, whereas the final compilation of the work is seemingly associated with the region of Alexandria. A comparative analysis with Clement of Alexandria’s highlights striking similarities between the two texts, particularly in the depiction of the apostolic ministry, bestowed by Jesus to the apostles, to serve as “healers of bodies and souls” of the faithful.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/38337 

 the extant text has Papias call these two men “Disciples of the Lord,” he must have been using that term very loosely, as even Eusebius admits neither can have been actual disciples but were from a later generation.

  Irenaeus said he was once a student of Polycarp, whom he claims once knew Papias),... we have no mention of Papias discussing the Gospel of John, “therefore” he must predate it (though dating John is even more vexing).

 We’ve seen Irenaeus fabricate this claim for Polycarp and Papias, so we have no reason to believe any of his sources “actually saw John” (at all, much less as saying this weird thing about brobdingnagian grapes). Irenaeus is both a wantonly gullible author and a man of dubious honesty. And odds are, he’s fibbing about his sources actually being second hand.

 Benjamin A. Edsall Justin Martyr without the “Parting” or the “Ways”

Justin Martyr was anti-Jewish?

 THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE APOLOGETICAL ARGUMENTS OF JUSTIN MARTYR

 Justin intended his Apologies to
be read by the emperors for the purposes of establishing the innocence of the Christians
against the charges of atheism, immorality and disloyalty, to end the arbitrary injustices
committed against them by the Roman judicial procedure, and to show forth Christianity as
the superior, true and perfect philosophy in order to ultimately win imperial adherence

 . Justin does this in 2 Apology in his account of the
Christian woman who sought to persuade her husband to live a sober life. She threatened
him with hell-fire as the penalty for failing to change his lifestyle. However, he failed to
respond to her deliberative rhetoric and instead denounced her to the authorities as a
Christian (2 Apol. 2).

 the Apostle Paul, who associates philosophy with empty deceit and a potential source of peril for Christians (Col. 2:8). Contrary to Barnard, O. Skarsaune, ―The Conversion of
Justin Martyr,‖ Studia Theologica 30 (1976), pp. 53-73 at p. 56, states, ―There is no smooth passage from Plato to Christ in Justin‘s story … It is not Platonism itself but its destruction that prepares Justin for conversion.

 As early as AD 144, he [Justin] composed a treatise denouncing the heresies prevalent among the Christians in Rome. This work, known as Syntagma, was most probably a response to Marcion concerning the problem of the Jewish Law. It is now entirely lost. Justin invites Antoninus Pius to read this treatise in 1 Apol. 26. Irenaeus mentions the same work in Against Heresies 4.6.

 Other heretical movements that Justin associated with the Marcionites included
Valentinians, Basilidians, Saturnilians, ―and others by other names; each called after the...Tertullian (Adv. Marc. 1.2) claimed that he had close connections with
the Syrian Gnostic Cerdo, who may have influenced his views. Marcion‘s notion of an
inferior creator God, his negative view of corporeality, and his rejection of the Old
Testament approximate views commonly associated with Gnostics, but other views of his
do not. For instance, Marcion recognised no divine spark in the human person

tension was also magnified by Christian refusal to assist the Jews in Bar
Cochba‘s revolt.142 Justin makes the claim that, ―in the Jewish war which lately happened
Bar Cochba, the leader of the revolt of the Jews, gave orders that Christians alone should be
led to terrible punishments, unless they would deny Jesus the Christ and blaspheme‖ (1
Apol. 31).
In the words of Justin, the Jews ―hate and, whenever you have the power, kill us …
And you cease not to curse him and those who belong to him‖ (Dial. 133). Justin was
aware of the Jewish prayers of eighteen petitions, which included the birkath-ha-minim, or
thrice-daily curse against the Christians pronounced in the Jewish synagogues (Dial. 16,
47, 93, 95, 123, 133; cf. 1 Apol. 31)...

 Justin also believed that the Jews spread calumnies about the Christians, as well as
attacks against the person of Jesus of Nazareth himself (for example, that he was a
magician and a deceiver whose body was stolen) (Dial. 17, 108, 120, 133).145 Five times in
Dialogue he complains about Jews spreading misconceptions about Christianity (17, 32,
93, 108, 117). These ―slanders‖ were spread by emissaries, not only to Jewish communities of the Diaspora, but to ―every land‖ (Dial. 17). Justin himself entered into debate with a number of Jewish evangelists (Dial. 50). Justin considered Jewish teachers in general ―blind,‖ ―unintelligent,‖ ―foolish,‖ and ―selfish‖ (Dial. 68), and responsible for misleading their people with false interpretations of Scripture.1

 ..........

  Justin also intended it for Hellenised, liberalising Jews.239 However,
Adolf von Harnack rejects a Jewish destination, stating of Dialogue, ―… what purports to
be a polemic is nothing but apologetics for the internal use of the Church.‖240 Rokéah has
recently resurrected a Jewish destination, maintaining that Dialogue was ―intended for the
Jews,‖ due to its ―friendly tone.‖241 However, Dialogue‘s harsh tone of language and severe
portrayal of the Jews in numerous instances (Dial. 32, 39, 44, 55, 64, 68, 92, 110, 134)
tends to negate Rokéah‘s opinion

 ..................

 Justin‘s philosophical journey and conversion (1-9).
(ii) The abrogation of the Mosaic Law (10-30).
(iii) Old Testament prophecies concerning Christ (31-108).
(iv) On the superiority of the Christians as the ―New Israel‖ and the conversion of
the nations (109-141).
(v) Conclusion and wishes for conversion of the Jews (142)

 Hints of missionary action directed at Jews are ―… at most, marginal
comments.‖257 Setzer argues for the same conclusion, believing that if Justin intended to
convert Jews he would have had Trypho admit the superiority of his arguments and convert

 ......................

 whether Justin‘s purpose was to offer an alternative to Philonic Judaism, ―showing that philosophy and the revealed religion of the New Israel are compatible in a more straightforward way than the highly obtruse ideas and exegesis of the school of Alexandria … ‖ S

 to establish continuity between Judaism and Christianity, to represent Christianity as
the fulfilment of the mystical and ancient books of the Old Testament, and to find in the
Old Testament prophetic descriptions of the person and work of Christ.270 All this was in
order that his reader ―may be of the same opinion as ourselves, and believe that Jesus is the Christ of God‖ (Dial. 142).

 ............

 G. Stroumsa, ―From Anti-Judaism to Antisemitism in Early Christianity?‖ in O. Limor and G. G. Stroumsa (eds), Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Christians and Jews, Texts and Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism 10, J. C. B. Mohr, Tübingen, 1996, pp. 1-26 at p. 1

  Reflecting on these truths as found in pagan philosophy Justin sought to recognise
them as a praeparatio evangelica, a preparation for the gospel, planted by the work of the
Logos-Christ.

 

 

 

"Hellenization" and Logos Doctrine in Justin Martyr

R. M. Price
Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 18-23 (6 pages)

 Throughout his works Justin Martyr equates the “gods of the nations”
with demons (cf. LXX Ps 95.5) and explores the various ways in which
they deceptively imitate the divine in order to lead unwary humans away

The Trickery of the Fallen Angels and the Demonic Mimesis of the Divine: Aetiology, Demonology, and Polemics in the Writings of Justin Martyr 

 the fallen angels inseminated human women with demonic offspring and how they enslaved
humankind through trickery, coercion, and magic, encouraging them to
worship the demons as gods.

 the fallen angels corrupted humankind through teachings of metalworking, cosmetics, magic, and celestial divination, thereby depicting angelic descent as the ultimate cause of evil on the earth.

 Thereafter, a number of Christian thinkers—including Tatian, Athenagoras,
Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Commodian, and
Minucius Felix—would follow Justin in using the angelic descent myth to
denounce pagan culture as demonic.7

 Justin uses the sins of the primeval couple to explicate the nature of Jewish wickedness
as willful disobedience, his retelling of the angelic descent myth functions
to account for pagan error as the product of unwitting deception by the
demonic mimesis of the divine.

 presupposes extrabiblical developments in the tradition. Specifically, Justin’s
version of the angelic descent myth appears to adopt its purpose and
structure from the Book of the Watchers9 while integrating motifs from
the Testament of the 12 Patriarchs, a Christian reworking of earlier
Jewish testamentary sources.10 In interpreting the descent of the Watchers
as a transgression of the natural order of the cosmos, Justin follows both
1 Enoch 15–16 and Testament of Naphtali 3. 

 Justin
here cites the elements of heaven, the fruitfulness of agricultural produce,
and the predictable rotation of the seasons as evidence for the governance
of divinely instituted natural law (2 Apol. 5.2; cf. 1 Enoch 5.1–2). When
describing the cosmic situation prior to the angel’s descent, he focuses
exclusively upon God’s delineation of separate realms of human and
angelic responsibility within his orderly creation. Whereas earthly things
(tå §p¤geia) are subjected to human beings, “the care of humankind and
the things under heaven [tØn m¢n t«n ényr≈pvn ka‹ t«n ÍpÚ oÈranÚn
prÒnoian]” is entrusted to the angels (2 Apol. 5.2).

 the Giants
will suffer a double destruction. Their bodies will be slaughtered as part
of the Watchers’ antediluvian punishment (1 Enoch 15.8–10; also 10.9–
12, 12.4–6), but their evil spirits (pneÊmata ponhrå) will roam the earth
until the final judgment, when they will be annihilated alongside human
sinners (1 Enoch 15.11–12; also 10.13–16, esp. 15).

 I see no need to assume that Justin
himself would have perceived the Book of the Watchers as a Jewish as opposed to
Christian text. His use of this text thus differs from his integration of other sources
that were more clearly marked as Jewish,

 Prior to Justin Martyr, the Jewish and Christian writers who used this text tended to neutralize its radical approach to the
question of evil by adapting its treatment of the Watchers as archetypal
sinners, with special appeal to its extrabiblical elaboration of their punishments. Some include the Watchers alongside humans in lists of paradigmatic sinners (e.g., CD 2.14–3.1; 2 Pet 2.4) or present them as negative exemplars of men who fall prey to lust ..........

 Justin states that the “prince of the evil demons” is called both “Satan” and the
“devil.
Yes,
Justin Martyr wrote before Irenaeus of Lyons. Justin’s major works, such as his First Apology, were written around 150–155 CE, whereas Irenaeus wrote Against the Heresies around 180–185 CE. 
Papias of Hierapolis
 is generally considered to have written his5-volume Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord slightly earlier, around 110–130 AD, while Polycarp of Smyrna's Letter to the Philippians is dated to around 110–140 AD. Polycarp was never truly "lost" but was preserved in early Christian literature, quoted by Irenaeus in the 2nd century. The earliest Greek manuscripts date to the 11th–13th centuries, with 9th-century Latin translations...Papias of Hierapolis’ writing, specifically his Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord, was never discovered as a complete, single manuscript but is known through fragments quoted by later Church Fathers. These fragments, written around 110–120 AD, are primarily preserved in the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea (4th century) and Irenaeus of Lyons

 Although the intercession of the angels in the revelation of the Law to Moses at Sinai is a well-known early Christian tradition going back to a pre-Christian Jewish milieu, any specific role of Michael in this process is almost unknown (we shall browse exclusions). As to the Watchers, their intercession at Sinai is not only at odds with the mainstream Jewish and Christian traditions, but goes against the well-established and prevailing in both Jewish and Christian worlds tradition identifying them with the Giants. This tradition starting from 1 Enoch (“Book of Giants”, 3rd cent. BC) and going through the Qumranic texts, ends with the Middle Age Byzantine historiographers, thus becoming a part of the trivial mediaeval knowledge … By the way, this is, to my opinion, the reason why our fragment was cut off from the Greek text of St Andrew’s Commentary.
No doubts, there were, in the Second Temple Judaisms, some movements where the Watchers-Giants were not painted only in black. For instance, in Jub 4:15 they taught the mankind “to make justice”, in contrast to 1Enoch where they taught to do only the bad things. Nevertheless, in Jub 7:21 the standard story of their fall with the women took place, and this “place” is before the Flood, that is, long before Moses…
However, in our Papias’ fragment the Watchers’ image is not only absolutely positive, with no connection to Giants, but even crucial for the Old Testament as a whole — because the Watchers, together with Michael, become the intercessors in the revelation of the Law to Moses. This is an independent tradition that should be traced.

 https://hgr.livejournal.com/179757.html

 This document explores the theme of a rivalry between the Messiah and the Watchers. After having said (4QMessAr ii, 16) that “His [Messiah’s] deed will be as the one of the Watchers ()”, the document continues: 18. […] … […] Holy One and the Watchers ) […] saying
19. […] they have spoken against him

 he depicts the transgressions of the first humans as facilitated by the demonic influence of the Serpent, who is identified with Satan (Dial 88, 103, 125). 

 shocking anti-Judaism (see esp. Dial. 132). 

 Justin interprets circumcision as a punishment aimed at separating this defiant nation from all others (Dial 19, 92). He attributes a
similarly tainted origin to the Jewish dietary laws: “You were commanded
to abstain from certain kinds of food, in order that you might keep God
before your eyes while you ate and drank, seeing that you were prone and
very ready to depart from his knowledge” (Dial. 20).32
For Justin, the consistent failure of these measures underlines the Jewish propensity for disobeying God. He argues that the chronic disobedience of the Jews culminates in their rejection of Jesus and their causal role
in his death 
..................

 Just as his interpretation of Jewish history inverts the Deuteronomistic approach to Israel’s sins and
punishments, so Justin here twists the traditional Jewish association of Israel with the angels by paralleling the corrupting influence of the Jews with the actions of the fallen angels and their demonic progeny.39

 if Christ is the Logos, then Christianity must be the true philosophy. Hence, it is especially striking that Justin integrates Greco-Roman philosophical critiques of popular religion into his denunciation of pagan idolatry as demonic.

 In his words, “Since they did not know the whole of the Logos, which is Christ, they often contradicted themselves” (2 Apol. 10). Consequently, the teachings of Plato are not wholly different from those of Christ, and yet: ....For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the spermatic Logos [toË spermatikoË ye¤ou lÒgou] . . . he proposes
that one can recognize Logos-inspired philosophy precisely by its rejection of two
demonic creations: myth and idolatry

 Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism

 The Origin of Heresy
A History of Discourse in Second Temple
Judaism and Early Christianity
Robert M. Royalty, Jr.

  "heresy" was not just a second-century invention, but a rhetorical tool used in ideological conflicts within early Christian and Jewish texts. Royalty traces the genealogy of "heresiology" (discourse against heretics) back to first-century literature, including the New Testament, suggesting that defining orthodox identity through opposition was already prevalent

 Christianity in
Antioch: Partings
in Roman Syria

 THE LOCAL CULTURES OF NORTHERN SYRIA PLAYED A PIVOTAL ROLE
in the partitioning of Christian identities from Jewish piety and
peoplehood.1 A striking number of the sources cited as exemplary of the
"parting(s) of the way(s)" are from or about Syria. Not only is Paul's call
to be "apostle to the gentiles" situated on the road to Damascus, but both
Paul and Luke-Acts point to Antioch as the setting of an early contro
versy concerning the interactions between Jesus' Jewish and non-Jewish
followers.2 Although the precise character of the "incident at Antioch''
remains debated, 3 it is clear that local controversies in Syria spurred
efforts to distinguish non-Jewish affiliation with the Jesus movement from
adherence or conversion to Judaism. Problems in Antioch prompted the
articulation of what became a distinctively Christian vision of biblically
based piety for gentiles.

 

 

 

 

 

Saint Ignatius of Antioch is earlier than Justin Martyr
. Ignatius was an Apostolic Father who died around A.D. 108–110

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supersessionism, or replacement theology, is
the theological belief that the Christian Church has replaced or superseded national Israel as God’s chosen people, fulfilling the covenants of the Hebrew Bible.

  Annette Yoshiko Reed 

 Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity and Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard

 Justin's Conversion and the Rhetoric of Heresy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Will Hedieh Tehrani survive the Child Rapist attack on Iran? Sultry Soltan movie was her first hit

 

 

 https://www.instagram.com/hediehtehranioriginal/?hl=en

I never saw her breakout hit film yet!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Friday, March 6, 2026

Encratism as celibacy in early Christianity

 apocryphal encratism book

ENCRATISM: EARLY CHRISTIAN ASCETIC EXTREMISM CECIRE, ROBERT CLYDE .   University of Kansas ProQuest Dissertations & Theses,  1985 

 

 MOTIVATIONS FOR ENCRATITE PRACTICES IN EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE Author(s): Andrew R. Guffey

 

 

 

 

 

 First have of the 3rd century...

 

 Eschatology, Androgynous Thinking, Encratism, and the Question of Anti-Gnosticism in 2 Clement 12 (Part One)

2 Clement 12:2b quotes
an unrecorded saying of Jesus regarding the timing of the kingdom of God: "...When the two shall be one, and the outside as the inside, and the male with the female, neither male or female".

  2 Clement was included in some early Bible manuscripts (such as the Codex Alexandrinus)

 agrapha (unwritten sayings) of Jesus, ‘Salome asked correctly when the Logos spoke of the end, “How long shall death prevail?” Whereupon the Lord very aptly answered, “As long as you women bear children”’ (The Gospel of the Egyptians, frag. 4, trans. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament, 18).

 Robert M. Price

Celibacy and Free Love in Early Christianity
Theology & Sexuality, 
2006

 

 Christian texts, right down until the
Reformation (and long after it in the Roman Catholic Church), have been
primarily the product of male celibates, who have not generally been
concerned to articulate the interests and insights of married people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Strange case of Simon Magus/Marcion/Paul in early Christianity: Robert M. Price

 Jesus is to John the Baptist in Qumran as Simon Magus (Paul) is to Saul (Qumran)

Simon Magus claimed he was "apparently suffering on the cross but not really" and that Jesus may have been absent from the 12... Some of the 12 disciples has been disciples of John the Baptist so they agreed to recognize Simon Magus/Paul...but the Three top disciples couldn't handle that Simon Magus/Paul did not require circumcision. But at that point Jesus was the central character of both groups...

the Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul By Robert M. Price 

 Justin Martyr, in his voluminous writings, never mentions Paul. When he is mentioned by various writers, Paul has nothing distinctive to say, is a pale shadow and obedient lackey of the Twelve, as in Acts.
When Ignatius, Polycarp, and 1 Clement (all much too blithely taken for genuine early
second-century writings, in my opinion) make reference to Pauline letters, as Bauer
noted, they sound almost like an ill-prepared student trying to fake his way through a
discussion of a book he neglected to read. 1 Clement (47: 1) appears to have thought
there was but a single Pauline letter to Corinth. Ignatius (Ephesians 12:2) somehow
imagined that Paul had eulogized the Ephesians in every one of his epistles. Polycarp
thought there were several letters to Philippi (Philippians 3:2) and that all Paul's letters
mentioned the excellent Philippians (11 :3). 

https://repository.up.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/97b55ed0-b630-4606-af40-a1ac896a120e/content 

 SIMON MAGUS AND MARCION
TWO FIGURES OF PAUL

 Kunsoo Paul Choi
Drew University
Madison, New Jersey
May 2003

 Paul was deliberately attacked under the names o f Simon Magus and Marcion.
Why and in what capacity did Paul’s opponents use the names of Simon and Marcion to
attack him?
 the Marcionite Christians,
according to some scholars, allegedly outnumbered the Roman “orthodox” Christians for
some time.
Heresiologists attempted to link Marcion with Simon via Cerdo, a Syriac Gnostic.
As Justin connected Marcion with Simon in a certain way by placing his name, along
with Menander, in the same section where Simon's name appears (1 Apol 26), so did
Irenaeus connect him with Simon in his AH 1.27.4: “... We have necessarily made
mention o f him (=Marcion) at present that you might know that all those who in any way
adulterate the truth and do injury to the preaching of the Church are the disciples and
successors o f Simon, the magician o f Samaria...Did he claim Paul as his only Apostle (and teacher)
because Paul was really Simon in disguise as the Pseudo-Clementines implicitly claimed
(and as H. Detering also argues)? 

 

 

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