Two Thousand Infants Sold to Russia for Human Sacrifice May 30, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Prehistoric
***Dedicated to Wade who sent the relevant passage in***
The custom of burying infant children in the foundations of new buildings was well established in prehistoric, ancient and even (gulp) medieval times. The bigger and more important a building the more likely it was to a have a tot dropped in the cement. It is pretty ghastly but there you are… Humans are pretty ghastly: no news there.
The custom while not universal seems to have been used through much of Euro-Asia-Africa and large parts of the Americas. Presumably the dried cats in walls that Beach has publicised with a certain abandon in the past are an updated version of this? A sacrifice to ‘ground’ the building and assuage the gods of earthquakes, floods and other misfortunes.
Beach has come across infant burial reports from all over the world and from many different time periods. However, yesterday he ran across this extraordinary piece about the nineteenth-century China to Russia railway.
As the Siberian Railway approached the northern boundaries of the Chinese Empire and surveys were made for its extension through Manchuria to the sea, great excitement was produced in Pekin (sic) by the rumor that the Russian minister had applied to the Empress of China for two thousand children to be buried in the roadbed under the rails in order to strengthen it. Some years ago, in rebuilding a large bridge, which had been swept away several times by inundations in the Yarkand, eight children, purchased from poor people at a high price, were immured alive in the foundations. As the new bridge was firmly reconstructed out of excellent materials, it has hitherto withstood the force of the strongest floods, a result which the Chinese attribute, not to the solid masonry, but to the propitiation of the river god by an offering of infants.
The ‘rumor’ can probably be brushed gently to one side, though it says a lot about nineteenth-century China that such a rumour could grow to maturity: or is this just Russians barbarizing the Chinese with tall tales?
More difficult to deal with is the whole question of the bridge in Yarkand. Beach would bet a substantial amount of money that eight children were not bought from their parents and that they were not built into the bridge. But tradition, depravity and superstition – a particularly hellish threesome - are such that he would not bet his house (which has he hopes not skeletal remains in the foundations).
Can anyone add anything to the tradition of the children in the Yarkand bridge? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
(Apologies for all those unanswered emails but Little Miss B been very ill the last four days and this has coincided with a period of manic work chez Mrs B.)
The Talking Dog and King’s Fellow May 25, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Horror upon horrors, today is tax day in the Beachcombing household. Somewhere in this study there are the various documents that justify Beach’s fiscal probity and he must now find them. The next twelve hours will be the most tedious of the year. Forgive then a small post as Beach plunges into the piles of paper. Here is a cute passage from R.W.Evans quoted by Jennifer Westwood in her wonderful Albion. Evans has been asked to gather evidence to settle two bets. (It goes without saying that Beach would far rather be doing this).
The first [bet] was as to whether so-and-so had ever been a fellow of King’s College; my researches disclosed that he had in fact once been an assistant teacher in an elementary school in King’s Road Chelsea. The second was as to a remarkable dog owned by a long-defunct classical fellow of another college; the beast had been taught to speak Latin and conversed in the most agreeable fashion with any superior person who would open the conversation by enquiring after the animal’s health. My researches showed that there was such a classical fellow attended in his old age by a servant called Airedale, who had picked up a few tags of dog-latin which, for the price of half-a-pint of beer he would recite.
Beach has long concentrated on ‘cobblers’, myth-making in history. However, he asks himself now how many of these misunderstandings are based on linguistic stupidities like this: ‘the disease of language’ of good old Max Müller. He would be extremely grateful for any extra examples, drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com and, reader, PLEASE have a better day than Beach is about to have…
Marco Polo and Pasta May 21, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval, Modern
***Dedicated to Zach Nowak and Beach’s good friends over at FoodinItaly***
The lunatic idea that Marco Polo brought back spaghetti from China to grateful Italians is a modern food myth. There is no proof for this in MP’s writing: though there is an interpolated passage that might have started the confusion. In fact, the idea of MP hauling kilos of Barilla can be disproved by external sources that show pasta was already around in Italy before MP’s birth. When did this myth begin? We don’t know, but it was certainly running up steam in 1926 when it became the subject of an American advertising campaign. Enjoy this.
Accordingly [Marco Polo] steered his ship as close to the shore as safety would permit, and sent several of his men off in a small boat in quest of fresh water. One of the sailors in the party was a Venetian named Spaghetti, and it is around this man that the legend centers. When the small boat reached the beach the 3 or 4 sailors comprising the party separated, each striking out in a different direction. They knew there would be fresh water close by, but of course did not know its exact location. Spaghetti in his search, soon came to a little patch of huts. He realised that water must be close but before advancing into the village his attention was drawn to a native man and woman working over a crude mixing bowl. The woman appeared to be mixing a dough of some kind, particles of which had overflowed the mixing bowl and extended to the ground. The warm, dry air characteristic of the country, had in a short time hardened these slender strings of dough, and had made them extremely brittle. Spaghetti observed the ingredients used, the simple method of mixing, and it immediately occurred to him that a dry food of this kind would be a welcome addition to their ship’s menu. His curiosity prompted him to approach the couple and make known his wants as best he could. Through signs and gestures he managed to obtain a quantity of the grains used in making this strange dough, also a batch of the ready mixed dough and several strings which had dried. After relating his experience, upon returning to the ship, Spaghetti ‘worked’ the entire quantity of dough into long slender ribbons. As they dried he broke them into shorter and more convenient lengths. The problem of preparing the food had not been given much thought and it was one which would have to be experimented upon. The sticks were not palatable if eaten dry, and when cooked in fresh water were not much better. Thereupon Spaghetti conceived the idea of boiling strips in sea water, which, as every one knows, is intensely salt [sic]. This method seemed to produce the best result, and to bring out the flavour of the food. Before returning to Venice Spaghetti learned much of this new and appetising food. He discovered its energy providing qualities, its ability to remain fresh [? copy not clear] and wholesome for long periods to time and noted the acclaim with which it was received by his shipmates and other Europeans to whom he introduced it. Upon Spaghetti’s arrival home the popularity of this new delicacy spread among the villagers and before long a similar food made of home grown wheat was to be found on every table.
John Dickie in his history of Italian food claims that this campaign marks the origin of Marco Polo pasta-myth: note, incidentally, the way that the advertisers don’t entirely give the credit to the Chinese. It was from there, then, that we surmise that the myth was picked up by the 1938 film The Adventures of Marco Polo, in which there is a memorable scene showing some Chinese Christians eating spaghetti with MP and his imbecile sidekick. Beach can’t find the videoclip on line, sorry… It is well worth seeing.
However, as an extract that we, long ago, passed on to FoodinItaly has shown the legend dates back to at least 1900 when this appeared in an English language cookbook.
And why, so far, no word of pasta, that ever present, ubiquitous Italian dish? For the reason that Pasta, whatever it may be to-day, is said not originally to have been a native of the country, but is alleged to be one of the many wonders brought home by the 13th century explorer, Marco Polo, from his travels in China. Nevertheless, although Pasta, in its many shapes and forms, may not have started off as a true native of Italy, to-day it seems as much a part of the country as an operatic tenor, and anyone wanting to present a truly Italian meal must perforce learn a few of the ways of preparing and cooking Pasta…
The myth seems to have already been around when this was written. So where does the myth come from and when does it begin? Can anyone help Beach and FoodinItaly track the myth down? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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23 May 2012 John G writes in with this link that contains the Marco Polo link at about twelve minutes. Beach does not have a media player on this computer so he has not been able to check the exact seconds. Thanks John!
Transvestite President? May 19, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Contemporary, Modern
Beachcombing isn’t big on cross-dressing but this fabulous pastiche of poor old Jefferson Davies’ capture caught his attention. Some accounts – Union accounts it should be noted – claim that Jefferson tried to escape wearing his wife’s clothing. This comes from the New York Times.
To Maj. Hudson was given the duty of surrounding the tent of the great rebel. He picked fifteen of his best men and proceeded to execute the order, which was done with consummate skill, and to the entire satisfaction of his superior officer… After the order had been properly executed of surrounding the tent, the Major proceeded to the tent of Davis, where he was met by Mrs Davis somewhat en dishabille. She inquired if they intended to invade the privacy of a lady’s apartment. The Major thought not. At this juncture an individual having the appearance of an antiquated grandam, dressed with a lady’s waterproof cloak and shawl, minus the inevitable hoop skirt, however, accompanied by a young negro servant girl, bringing a small bucket, emerged from the tent, apparently for the purpose of going to the spring for a bucket of water. This was an ingenious device of Mrs Jefferson Davis to get her husband through the lines. The ruse failed, and Jefferson Davis was discovered. The servant girl ran back to the tent, and Jefferson Davis was soon effectually procured. For some time he remained sulky, very much after the fashion of an old lady in need of her usual compound extract of strong tea; but the ‘President’, after a while, got over his ‘fits’, and became quite communicative; conversing freely on ordinary topics, but maintaining a prudent silence on current military and political events.
Here is another Union account this time from Harper’s Weekly.
The captors report that [Davis] hastily put on one of his wife’s dresses and started for the woods, closely followed by our men, who at first thought him a woman, but seeing his boots while he was running, they suspected his sex at once. The race was a short one, and the rebel President was soon brought to bay. He brandished a bowie-knife and showed signs of battle, but yielded promptly to the persuasions of Colt’s revolvers, without compelling the men to fire. He expressed great indignation at the energy with which he was pursued, saying that he had believed our Government were too magnanimous to hunt down women and children.
Note the differences. The northern press clearly found the story so irresistible that they began to make hay with it. Within a month Barnum was actually running sketches of Davis stumbling in dresses before circus crowds.
And so the Confederacy ended not with a bang but bangs and a petticoat.
Here, instead, is a letter from the always formidable Varina Davis describing the moment of her husband’s arrest. Essentially, if we are to believe her words – and they are pretty consistent with the report in the NYT – she was responsible (perhaps accidentally) for making her husband into a woman. Though note she quickly jumped on the cross-dressing bandwagon by calling him her ‘mother’. JD always passionately denied he had put on women’s clothing and his wife’s account suggest that he may not have realised what was happening.
Just before day the enemy charged our camp yelling like demons. Mr Davis received timely warning of their approach but believing them to be our own people, deliberately made his toilette and was only disabused of the delusion when he saw them deploying a few yards off. He started down to the little stream hoping to meet his servant with his horse and arms. But knowing he would be recognized, I plead [sic] with him to let me throw over him, a large waterproof which had often served him in sickness during the summer season for a dressing gown, and which I hoped might so cover his person, that in the grey of the morning he would not be recognized. As he strode off I threw over his head a little black shawl which was round my own shoulders, seeing that he could not find his hat and after he started sent my colored woman after him with a bucket for water, hoping that he would pass unobserved. He attempted no disguise, consented to no subterfuge, but if he had, in failure is found the only matter of cavil. Had he assumed an elaborate female attire as a sacrifice to save a country, the heart of which trusted in him, it had been well. When he had proceeded a few yards, the guards around our tents with a shocking oath called out to know who that was. I said it was my mother and he halted Mr. Davis, who threw off the cloak with a defiance and when called upon to surrender did not do so – and but for the interposition of my person between his and the guns would have been shot. I told the man to shoot me if he pleased to which he answered he ‘would not mind it a bit’, which I really believed.
It is, in wartime, the duty of POWs to make for the hills and Davis was trying to do just that and his shame at women’s clothing is curious: though looking at these cartoons…It should go without saying that a long line of men from Achilles, through Bonny Prince Charlie, Antonio López de Santa Anna, Charles II and a half dozen other famous individuals owe their lives to a skirt: any others, drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com.
There is also, Beach notes, a recent trend among Islamists to use burkas to evade capture, most notably Hamdi Adus Isaac, one of the failed London bombers, who, in 2005, got to Rome relying on the multicultural sensibilities of Britain’s border police. Hamdi got back to London thanks to an international arrest warrant.
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27/May 2012: John M writes in. It seems that the Jeff Davis in a dress story is a spurious legend with no credible evidence to back it up. Cobblers, I think you call it? A most telling paragraph from this article: The arrival in Washington of the so-called petticoats proved to be a big letdown. When Stanton saw the clothes, he knew instantly that Davis had not disguised himself in a woman’s hoop skirt and bonnet. The “dress” was nothing more than a loose-fitting, waterproof raglan or overcoat, a garment as suited for a man as a woman. The “bonnet” was a rectangular shawl, a type of wrap President Lincoln himself had worn on chilly evenings. Stanton dared not allow Barnum to exhibit these relics in his museum. Public viewing would expose the lie that Davis had worn one of his wife’s dresses. Instead Stanton sequestered the disappointing textiles to perpetuate the myth that the cowardly “rebel chief” had tried to run away in his wife’s clothes. The above account seems to originate from a relatively neutral source, but I’m sure you could suss that out more adequately than I. more on the story, can be found on the lost museum and memory (scroll down a bit). thanks John M!
The Popess: A Female Pope? April 28, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval
There are popes who had children, there are popes who took part in orgies, there are popes (at least one) who did not believe in God. However, Beachcombing has so far avoided the most remarkable pope of all: Pope Joan. The story is quickly told. Pope John VIII went out to bless the people of Rome after a locust storm in 854. However, between the Vatican and S Giovanni in Lateran, the Pope was struck with stomach pains. He fell down and at this point it became apparent that Pope John was actually a Joan and that she was about to give birth. The crowd was so infuriated that they fell upon the false pope and, Romans being Romans, tore Joan and the new born child to pieces.
Women do spend years successfully pretending to be men so there is nothing inherently impossible here. However, make no mistake, this little tale is cobblers: there was no John or Joan between Leo IV and Benedict III, which the dating of the story probably demands (there is a minor controversy about its chronology). The first sources comes some two centuries after the events and include Sigisbert of Gembloux (obit 1112) and Mariannus Scottus. From there the material grows through several generation into the Marchen described above: Joan appears in Boccaccio and Luther (who was scandalised about a statue of Joan in Rome).
So what is the explanation for this extraordinary story that might, incidentally, have given us the ‘Popess’ in the pack of tarot cards (pictured above)? Our sources are just too slight to base proper hypotheses off. However, there are three facts that run together. First, the early tenth century, when this story was, Beach would assume, maturing orally, was the period of the ‘pornocracy’ or government by whores in Rome: when popes had sexual relations with women of easy repute who dominated the Papal government: ‘women on top’. Second, John VIII who died in 882 seems to have been effeminate and to have been mocked as such by the population: or was this effeminacy posited on him by an attempt to transfer the legend? Third, the legend developed in a period of growing tensions between the Pope and the rulers of Germany: this story was useful ammunition in the context of the growing war of words that would end at Canossa. Any other explanations? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Of course, what Joan has given the modern world is a Catholic Orlando without Virginia Woolf’s chewed up prose and naturally Joan has starred in several books and two films: John Huss also brought Joan up at this trial that took balls. For reasons that Beach has never understood the later legend tried to make Joan into a Englander (‘anglica’). Beachcombing has never read but has heard interesting things about Pardoe and Pardoe’s The Female Pope (1988). Very kindly the authors have put the book on the net and Beach hopes himself to glance through it this summer.
More Christ Confusion April 20, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient
Beach wrote a few days ago of the most moving source for the historical Christ, a source that perhaps dates back to a decade after Jesus’ death. Today, instead, he thought he would look at the most amusing source for Christ’s death, a fragment from Josephus, the turncoat who supported the Jewish resistance and then became a Hellene intellectual.
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ [i.e. the Messiah]. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. Antiquities of the Jews 18, 3.
At first glance this source looks like the very best wholewheat bread. Here we have Josephus writing in c. 94 AD, just within living memory of Jesus’s death, recalling a spiritual leader from two generations before. And what is better Josephus is clearly not a Christian, so surely this source can be trusted?
However, that is precisely where the problems began. No non-Christian Jew would have described Christ as ‘the messiah’, nor, surely, would Josephus have described Christ rising on the third day, which after all, would have confirmed Jesus as the messiah. A casual reader in the twenty-first century reading this passage is the equivalent of a thirty-first century historian finding a passage in the Communist Manifesto extolling the virtues of the market.
These words then cannot be by Josephus. And yet they are to be found in every part of the manuscript tradition of that writer. The only sensible explanation is that sometime, long before the earliest surviving manuscript of Josephus, a Christian copier, saw a mention of Christ in Josephus’s work and added some words of his or her own. It is an object lesson in how even the best established passages cannot be trusted blindly: and a warning, perhaps, over the passage in Paul’s epistles described last week. In other words, is that verse as old as Paul’s letter or was it a later interpolation?
While on the subject of amusing sources for Christ here is one that is an object lesson how partial history can be. This appears in an early second-century Jewish text. It would be fascinating to know the origin of some of these traditions.
It is taught: On the eve of Passover they hung Jesus and the crier went forth for forty days beforehand declaring that ‘[Jesus] is going to be stoned for practicing witchcraft, for enticing and leading Israel astray. Anyone who knows something to clear him should come forth and exonerate him.’ But no one had anything exonerating for him and they hung him on the eve of Passover. Ulla said: Would one think that we should look for exonerating evidence for him? He was an enticer and God said (Deuteronomy 13:9) ‘Show him no pity or compassion, and do not shield him.’ Jesus was different because he was close to the government.
‘Because he was close to the government‘?!? A Hellenistic version of this – at least in tone – is perhaps what we would have originally found in Josephus.
Any other men and women caught between history and legend in inadequate sources: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Newspaper Archives as Controls or Filters April 18, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Contemporary, Modern
Beachcombing spent more time than was strictly necessary last summer looking at nineteenth- and twentieth-century newspaper archives. It is an extraordinary world. You constantly find yourself caught up on headlines (‘Sea-monster seen in the Channel’, ‘Germans eat the French’) that cannot easily be ignored and then you take one last look over the page and are struck by yet another title and so it goes on. In the end, after thirty minutes, you are still on p. 2, 4 May 1901, the Torrington Herald with nothing but curiosities to show for your troubles. So much virgin territory, so many jigsaw pieces that fit nowhere…
Beachcombing was so struck by the experience that he still uses the newspaper archives to try and verify material found elsewhere. Take, for example, the rolling head story from yesterday, or the Benbecula mermaid story from c. 1830 or, for that matter, the Robert Stephen Hawker’s mermaid fake from 1825. All three stories describe events that were explosive in their communities. All these stories rely on non-newspaper accounts. And, most confusingly, all these stories are absent from contemporary newspapers.
Beachcombing feels that this should be significant. One of the most fascinating questions about newspapers, particularly for ‘bizarre’ stories is how receptive these publications are to tales from their heartlands. Given some of the junk that they publish it seems almost impossible that mermaid sightings or the decapitated head of the devil could escape their notice especially given that it involved (allegedly) an important part of the community.
So what are we seeing in these three instances? There seem to be two possibilities. First, the anecdote is false and the newspaper can act as a control: Beachcombing certainly has his suspicions about the two mermaid stories and Invisible this morning has sent an email (just put up) that calls the Owens’ account into question.
The second possibility is that newspapers just were not interested. In the case of the Benbecula mermaid perhaps the newspapers in question were too far away. In the case of the Cornish mermaid perhaps, say, the editor had illusions of grandeur and wanted to avoid Fortean tat.
Beach can’t help thinking that it would be useful to gather together twenty nineteenth-century anecdotes that involve community reactions and to search for them through the newsprint. Whether we are dealing with false stories or just the ability of peculiar happenings to escape the notice of the print barons would be something of great interest. History, after all, is what happens when no one is looking. The problem, of course, would be to divide the false anecdotes from the overlooked ones. That would be – Beach suspects – impossible and so an interesting exercise would become an ambiguous one.
Any thoughts on this search for anecdotes through newsprint? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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22 April 2012: Invisibile writes in: Invisibile writes in: ‘You mention using the newspaper archives to try and verify stories such as the mermaid tales. I should think that the reverse would obtain: that anything found in a 19th century newspaper should be regarded with the utmost suspicion. It was the golden age of hoax stories, the best of which are difficult to distinguish from true forteana even today. I’ve been wrestling for some time with the veracity question and still haven’t got the hang of it. I’ve enjoyed obvious hoaxes, but have also verified stories that seemed patently impossible. It’s the more reasonable, plausible hoaxes that drive me mad. To state the obvious, some caveats in using 19th century newspapers: Distrust and verify. Damnably, hoax stories often contain names of real people and places. Context can be everything. One doesn’t cite an apparently serious account of an early flying machine if the author was known to have previously written only tall tales. Local knowledge can be invaluable. When a newspaper article mentions secret treasure caves in a place called “Mt. Nebo” in the northeastern corner of Ohio, it’s useful to know that a) Mt Nebo is in the southeastern part of the state and b) the caves, as situated by the article, do not exist and cannot exist due to the local geology. Recurring lurid stories about neighboring communities may reflect rivalry, rather than reality. Genealogy sites are useful, if tedious, for verifying the reality of persons mentioned in a story. However, they are not infallible. It is astonishing how far tales traveled–even the smallest of small town newspapers have articles about killer meteor showers in Persia or the habits of ostriches in South Africa. The degree of exaggeration is a natural tip-off. I think it is safe to say that the 200-foot-long Hideous Ice Worm was a journalistic invention. But what about the Two-Headed Baby of Morrow County? Or the Girl Buried Alive For Three Weeks? (Both actual events, although the burial was a publicity stunt for a “fakir.”) Sometimes, maddingly, stories will have no endings. I’ve been collecting stories about panics and local sensations (“Ghostly Woman in White Seen Again!” “Women Fear the Gum-Shoe Man!”) Some run over a series of weeks or even months. Others run for a few days and then stop. Nothing is ever heard on the subject again. Are these just hoaxes that had run their course? Newspapers weren’t shy about exposing supernatural hoaxers, as you might have gathered from the file of “joke” ghost stories I sent you a while back—they were very severe on sheeted young men jumping out of the bushes, scaring the womenfolk. So why did these stories have no official end? Or did they merely trail off in real life with no satisfactory ending? That said, I’m very grateful I can search and retrieve 18th- and 19th-century newspapers without going through microfilm motion-sickness. And sometimes you just want to enjoy a good yarn. To use a much later example, in response to your suggestion about studying historical anecdotes in the light of newspaper reports, I was struck by the irregular media coverage of a tragic local story. The story went that a number of teenagers had been hit by lightning at a mysterious stone structure known as Frankenstein’s Castle or Witches’ Tower. Naturally the marks of the burns were still visible on the stones and the ghosts of the victims were to be seen at the tower on stormy nights. It was an excellent ghost story, but I assumed it was the sort of folkloric tale that is told about any strange castle-like structure—except that I kept hearing it from librarians and public officials who had remembered it for 30 years and who swore that it was true. So I went in search of documentation. There was absolutely no news coverage in the Dayton/Kettering papers, even though the tower stands on the edge of downtown. I spoke with some older local firefighters and police officers who said they remembered the case, knew it had happened in the 1960s, but nobody had any specifics. Eventually I wrote about it as a local legend. It wasn’t until several years ago that Curt Dalton, a local historical researcher, found a small article about the tragedy in a Van Wert paper—a community over 90 miles north of Dayton. Armed with the names in that article, Curt located this article http://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/frankenstein.html in a Xenia paper—a community about 30 miles from the death site and about 10 miles from the dead girl’s Bellbrook home. It is a mystery to me why this sensational story never made it into the local papers. Thanks Invisibile!
Did Christ Exist? April 14, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient
***Dedicated to Larry***
Beach should start this piece with a disclaimer: he is not a Christian – ‘not that there is anything wrong with that’ – and is unlikely to ever become one. And with this bit of initial hand-wringing out of the way on to today’s question, provoked by some recent internet articles, did Jesus exist?
Well, here there are about forty sources from the apocrypha to the gospels, from Suetonius to an extraordinarily confusing passage in Josephus. Each deserve a long academic article and some tell us important things about our perceptions of the founder of Christianity. But another thing that almost all these sources have in common is that they are late: even the Gospel of Mark was written a long generation after Christ’s supposed death, ‘c.70′ to use the formulation of New Testament scholars. However, one source cannot be described as ‘late’, namely the bundle of Paul’s letters that have made it through into the New Testament, texts that long predate the Gospels and as such are, in some senses, more valuable.
Before we get onto Paul’s letter though let’s define what we mean by Christ’s ‘historical existence’. This does not mean that Christ did everything that was claimed for him in the Gospel accounts: God forbid! It does not even – to take a very extreme position – mean that Christ did anything that was claimed for him in the Gospel accounts. What it does mean is that lurking behind the stories we can see the limbs or perhaps the shadows of the limbs of a real man.
Paul’s letters are the proof that such a man existed whether or not the reader agrees with what Paul did to Jesus: Paul certainly wouldn’t be Beach’s first choice as an official biographer. And Paul was writing from the 50s-60s that much closer to Christ’s death than anyone else. What may have been his first letter, I Thessalonians, had likely been written by 52. If we accept the normal wide margin for Christ’s death of 30-36 then this means that Paul was writing his letter a mere sixteen to twenty-two years after Christ’s death. Paul may even have witnessed the crucifixion: memories of the attempts by A.N.Wilson to put Paul in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before the trial. He certainly came across those that had done so.
Perhaps most exciting is that verse in I Corinthians where Paul writes: ‘I told you the most important part of the message exactly as it was told to me. That part is: Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures say. He was buried, and three days later he was raised to life, as the Scriptures say’.
Meditate on this passage for a moment. I Corinthians was probably written in the middle of the 50s, let’s say c. 55, nineteen to twenty-five years after the crucifixion.
This is the verse where we come closest to Christ the man. Paul’s key words are ‘as it was told to me’. This looks very much like, to use a later term, a declaration of faith taught to Paul sometime after his conversion in the mid-late 30s. Here then we have a text written in the 50s but one that contains, like a fly in aspic, an earlier text, one that dates back to the 40s or perhaps the 30s, one that was possibly circulating already in the decade after Christ’s death.
Beach as a non-Christian has to believe that this is all myth making, of course. But it would be nothing less than bad manners towards respectable sources to claim that this myth making was a ‘later sediment’. Myth was already being blown like the sand of dreams on Christ in the year immediately after his death. And if anyone ever tells you that Christ didn’t exist throw the Pauline Epistles at them.
Any other thoughts on the historic Christ: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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15 April 2012: SY writes in with this link to a controversial argument about this controversial passage alleging that it is a later interpolation. Phil P comes close to this as well: While I am not a Christian either, I tend to treat Jesus much like the Buddha: as someone who had a great awakening. That having been said, Your quote from Paul troubles me in that he says, “He was buried, and three days later he was raised to life, as the Scriptures say’. What scriptures could he be referring to in 50 CE? A messiah is foretold in Hebrew scriptures but not the resurrection. Is this a translation error? Something added in by the church later?’ The great Ashley Pond writes in with more general thoughts: I haven’t seen the God Movie but keep meaning to: I have read all the original drafts and excerpts of The Rejection of Pascal’s Wager: A Skeptic’s Guide to the Bible and the Historical Jesus and know the author (the way I “know” you): (academically really sound with deeply detailed citations and sources; embarrasses me for how lazy my “scholarship” is). I of course have my own opinions on the Hebrew! Huge tracts of both story outline and even verbatim text attributed to and about THE CHRIST are anything from Babylonian to Egyptian—a laundry list of paganism’s perpetual and uncomfortable grafting onto theunderstand, not a single document of any variety supporting Jesus of Nazareth’s literal existence outside the gospels which, as I’m sure you know, don’t bear up well historically under disinterested scrutiny.’ And finally KMH A problem with the scholarly approach is that it is so difficult to empathetically enter in to epochs existing thousands of years in the past. The attitude toward written documents and the ease of their creation has changed substantially with advancing technology, so the likelihood of deliberate or inadvertent written falsehoods can be difficult to assess by modern standards. We know that the 20th century’s propensity for deliberately false statements and documents is without parallel in recorded history. This, unfortunately, affects the attitude toward any and all historical writings. In considering whether Christ actually existed, we need to determine whether any religious figure qualifies for existence according to the standard applied. If Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, or even Muhammad, etc., are accepted as actually existing, it can strengthen the implicit case for Christ. Of course, I believe there is no doubt that Muhammad existed, so there is some additional documentary evidence from the Koran concerning Christ’s existence, besides Christian documents. From my point of view, the important question isn’t whether Christ existed, but whether he really is who he said he is. This will be where the battle rages as false christs, false prophets, and anti-christs gain more and more of the public’s attention.’ Thanks Ashley, KMH, Phil and SY!
30/04/2012: Greg writes in: ‘I just thought I would throw out some suggested reading on the existence of Christ. I’m sure you have heard of N T Wright. His series on Christian Origins and the Question of God series is massive and stimulating. Maybe some of your readers would like to check them out. N T Wright is a Christian Anglican Bishop of course, but his examinations especially in the first book (The New Testament and the People of God) of the various approaches to the early Christian sources and Roman Palestine are fascinating for anyone. Lots of great philosophy of history in there. As well as an interesting case for the resurrection based on readings of the ghost mythology of Romans and Jews.’ Thanks Greg!
Churchill, De Gaulle and Waterloo March 15, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Contemporary
Today a bit of modern British history/myth. Beach will write it out as it was told to him. He would be interested to see whether there is any basis to the tale: it sounds very Churchillian, but it also has the exquisite stench of cobblers.
Towards the end of his life Churchill was visited by a young official to discuss the details of his state funeral. The official showed Churchill the planned route that his coffin would take from his home to London and was surprised that, though Churchill proved flexible and uncomplaining about most details, here he demurred. Churchill suggested various other routes and when the young official finally asked why Churchill tapped his fingers on the map of London and one of the capital’s most important stations. ‘If I outlive De Gaulle, there is no problem. But if he is still alive I want him to be part of the group that greets my body as it comes into Waterloo!’
It is a beautiful story. However, is it true? Beachcombing has found no confirming details. Churchill was one of those rare Britons, perhaps even rarer among the aristocracy, who loved France. He did though have a lasting and fond antipathy for De Gaulle who had often made his life a misery in the war years. While Churchill with an operational Empire had to creep and crawl before Roosevelt, De Gaulle, without an acre of France to his name, calmly antagonised the US at every turn with undeniable style.
De Gaulle had a similarly doubtful attitude towards Churchill. Here were, after all, two alpha males whose personalities had too many commonalities to make any form of friendship possible. And how Waterloo would have irked De Gaulle much as the general loved battlefields!
In fact, Churchill’s body did come to Waterloo – on its homeward voyage – which might mark the beginning of this particular tale. One BBC report that Beachcombing has just chased down states:
The funeral cortege was accompanied by a 19-gun salute and an RAF fly-past as it began the journey to Sir Winston’s final resting place. At Tower Hill, the coffin was piped aboard the launch Havengore for the voyage up the Thames. From Waterloo, it was placed onto a train drawn by a Battle of Britain locomotive named Winston Churchill. Thousands gathered to pay tribute at wayside stations. At many football matches a two-minute silence was observed. Sir Winston was finally laid to rest in the Oxfordshire parish churchyard of Bladon, close to Blenheim Palace where he was born 90 years before, with only family members present.
De Gaulle was still alive and, indeed, he was present at the funeral: see picture. But did he follow the coffin to Waterloo? Did Churchill ever insist on a Waterloo route – that seems, looking at the map to have been the obvious one? Beachcombing fears not… drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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16 March 2012: Wade did a lot of the necessary spade work here, though as he notes still no real sources. First website Wade links has: ‘On January 15, 1965 Churchill suffered another stroke — a severe cerebral thrombosis — that left him gravely ill. He died nine days later on January 24, 1965, 70 years to the day of his father’s death. His body lay in State in Westminster Hall for three days and a state funeral service was held at St Paul’s Cathedral. This was the first state funeral for a commoner since that of Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar in 1914. It was Churchill’s wish that, were de Gaulle to outlive him, his (Churchill’s) funeral procession should pass through Waterloo Station. As his coffin passed down the Thames on a boat, the cranes of London’s docklands bowed in salute. At Churchill’s request, he was buried in the family plot at Saint Martin’s Churchyard, Bladon, near Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England.’ Beach loves the ideas of the cranes of London bowing to their dead master. And another site that is sceptical. Beach can’t help but thinking someone with a good knowledge of British railways could kill this legend – not that we would want to, of course: As his coffin passed down the Thames on the Havengore, the cranes of London’s docklands bowed in salute. The Royal Artillery fired a 19-gun salute (as head of government), and the RAF staged a fly-by of sixteen English Electric Lightning fighters. The state funeral was the largest gathering of dignitaries in Britain as representatives from over 100 countries attended, including French President Charles de Gaulle, Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, Prime Minister of Rhodesia Ian Smith, other heads of state and government, and members of royalty. It also saw the largest assemblage of statesmen in the world until the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. It has been suggested it was Churchill’s wish that, were de Gaulle to outlive him, his (Churchill’s) funeral procession should pass through Waterloo Station. This is complete myth. Though President de Gaulle did attend the service and the coffin departed for Bladon from Waterloo Station, there is absolutely no connection. In fact, Churchill did not plan his own funeral as commonly believed; he made a few suggestions, but there was a private committee which made the plans, and he was not on it.’ Thanks Wade!!!
17 Mar 2012: FP writes in ‘Hello, After reading your recent post “Churchill, De Gaulle and Waterloo” and particularly the line that a railway expert could kill the myth, I thought I would write in with a comment. At first sight, railway geography would seem to support the myth. To get from London to Bladon, Waterloo would not be your first choice of station. The obvious departure station would be Paddington, from which a train can get to central Oxfordshire very directly. However, if the organisers definitely wanted to include a journey down the Thames, the problem is that Paddington is a long way from the river: it would be a case of a road procession from St Pauls to Tower Hill, a barge from there to the West End followed by a second road procession through Mayfair and Bayswater. Waterloo is not only almost on the riverbank, but there is a fairly direct rail route from there to Reading, where the train can join the main line from Paddington and on to Oxfordshire. Moreover, for obvious reasons the train was hauled by the locomotive “Winston Churchill”. Although the railways were nationalised in 1947, in England and Wales the former railway companies had survived as largely-autonomous “Regions” within British Railways. “Winston Churchill” was built by the Southern Railway, and in 1965 (although only a few months from withdrawal) was based at Salisbury, on the Southern Region’s lines out of Waterloo. It is probably safe to say that at that time there were no loco crew at all on British Rail who were qualified both to drive “Winston Churchill” and to drive trains from Paddington to Reading; on the other hand almost all Waterloo-Reading line steam crews would have been able to handle the engine. It is also likely that special work would have been needed to make sure that a Southern Region engine would even have been able to run on the Paddington-Reading line safely. In other words, using Waterloo solved two issues: how to get the procession from boat to train easily, and also how to ensure the right engine could be used on the train with minimal special effort. I hope the above is helpful to you. On balance, I think it is highly unlikely that the use of Waterloo was purely to annoy De Gaulle – although I can imagine that when it became apparent that Waterloo would be the most straightforward terminus to use, it would have raised a few wry smiles on the planning committee!’ Thanks FP!!!!
Christ’s Execution in a Marble Jar March 6, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient, Modern
Beachcombing must yet again apologise to his readers for a brief post, but the last exams before spring break need to be corrected (hurrah! hurrah!) and in any case the Huntsville Daily Times (29 Jan 1911: MO) wanted to do all the talking for him.
George Carter, son of the late I. M. Carter and nephew of Uncle Joe Carter of this city has handed us a newspaper clipping which as been in the Jackson-Carter families for about ninety years. George says his father came in possession of the copy of the ‘warrant’ in 1874; Will Jackson gave it to him and that Mr. Jackson’s father brought it from Kentucky to Missouri in an early day and that it had been in the Jackson family long before they came to Missouri. The clipping shows age all right and reads as follows: ‘Death Warrant of Christ’.
The what? The newspaper continues with a quotation from this extraordinary artefact (ahem!). Beach could have cut and run with the Missouri connection but he loved the yellowing paper being passed from father to elder son as the family crowded around the death bed. Anyway, back to the actual death document.
Chance has just put into our hands the most imposing and interesting judicial documents to all Christians, that every has been recorded in human annals; that is the identical death warrant of our Lord Jesus Christ. We transcribe the document as it has been handed us. Sentence rendered by Pontius Pilate acting governor of lower Galilee, stating that Jesus of Nazareth shall suffer death on the Cross.
The document is then quoted from.
In the year seventeen of the empire Tiberius Caesar, and the 25th day of March, in the City of Holy Jerusalem, Anna and Caiophas being priest sacrifactors of the people of God, Pontius Pilate, Governor of Lower Galilee, sitting on the presidential chair of the practory, condemn Jesus of Nazareth to die on the Cross between two thieves, the great and notorious evidence of the people saying:
1. Jesus is a seducer.
2. He is seditious.
3. He is an enemy of the law.
4. He calls himself also the Son of God.
5. He calls himself falsely the King of Israel.
6. He entered into the temple, followed by a multitude bearing palm branches in their hands.
Order the first centurian, Quillus Cornelius, to lead him to the place of execution.
Forbid to any person whatsoever, either poor or rich, to oppose the death of Jesus.
The witnesses who signed the condemnation of Jesus are viz: 1.—Daniel Bobana, a Pharisee; 2. Joannus Hoabable; 3. Raphael Robani; 4. Capet, a citizen.
Jesus shall go out of the city of Jerusalem by the gate of Stuenur.
The above sentence is engraved on a copper plate; on one side are written these words: A similar plate is sent to each tribe.
Other sources – there are many – claim that the plate was found in a marble jar ‘while excavating in the ancient city of Aquila in the kingdom of Naples in the year 1810’: no mention is made of which tribe the artifact was sent to and, in any case, sending a copy to each tribe seems to so third-century-BC. Also it was discovered ‘by the Commissioners of Arts of the French Army. At the expedition of Naples, it was enclosed in a box of ebony and preserved in the sacristy of the Chartem (Certosa). The French translation was made by the Commissioners of Arts. The original is in the Hebrew language.’
The ‘original’ is ‘peculiarly’ close to the Gospel account: if someone faked a document today they’d at least have the decency to throw in some reference to Christ’s bloodline or Jack the Ripper. Anyway, enough moaning. The newspaper report concludes with the following interesting addition.
At the sale of his collection of antiquities, etc., it was bought by Lord Howard, for 2,800 francs.
So a Lord Howard in the early nineteenth century: who could this be? Did this sale ever take place? Who put this honestly-not-very-imaginative fake together? And does the death warrant still survive today? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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30 April 2012: Rayg brings up a reference: I just had a brief search: the story kicks off around 1839 in French journals (see Google Books – “Lord Howard” “Denon” – for that period). The sale itself did exist: this must be the 1826 sale of the Baron Vivant Denon’s museum collection after his death. See Museum Masters, page 104), which says there was a catalogue … and here it is: Jay meanwhile has a wanted poster to go with this. Thanks Jay and Rayg!
