Author Topic: I N R I Marking under N Beyer Barrel  (Read 4688 times)

Offline spgordon

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Re: I N R I Marking under N Beyer Barrel
« Reply #25 on: September 26, 2019, 03:43:39 PM »
Thanks for all these replies to my puzzlement. I appreciate it.

I just didn't know that these initials, which do appear in many images of the crucifixion but are usually understood as an instance of the Romans mocking Christ, had been co-opted as expressions of faith. But they must have been if these gunsmiths were engraving them on their barrels...
Check out: The Lost Village of Christian's Spring
https://christiansbrunn.web.lehigh.edu/
And: The Earliest Moravian Work in the Mid-Atlantic: A Guide
https://www.moravianhistory.org/product-page/moravian-activity-in-the-mid-atlantic-guidebook

Offline Bob McBride

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Re: I N R I Marking under N Beyer Barrel
« Reply #26 on: September 26, 2019, 04:04:57 PM »
It has been ‘co-opted’ by definition, as a statement of fact, as opposed to a mockery, but that was done in the first few centuries AD, and is now seen by virtually every practicing Christian as part of a fuller representation of the cross, and by extension, the Passion, much as the ‘hill’ (Calvary), the two crosses belonging to the other two ‘criminals’ that were executed at the same time are. 

Offline PHILADa

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Re: I N R I Marking under N Beyer Barrel
« Reply #27 on: September 27, 2019, 05:09:35 PM »
Hello everyone:

I would like to suggest reading Braucherei and the Ritual of Everyday Life, " Powwowing in Pennsylvania" by Patrick J. Donmoyer.  This modern interpretation, 2017, is full of photo examples and documentation of the use of symbols and INRI inscriptions and their possible purpose.  This information would be contemporary with Beck, Beyer and others.  It is not unreasonable in my opinion that we need to be aware of how Pennsylvania German localisms including Lebanon County folks may have seen and used these inscriptions on everyday tools, barns and personal items.  If you were not born into a Pa. German family who mentions such things then you would not have the basic knowledge provided by Patrick Donmoyer.

Hope this proves to be interesting.


Offline spgordon

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Re: I N R I Marking under N Beyer Barrel
« Reply #28 on: September 27, 2019, 11:48:23 PM »
Awesome suggestion. Thank you.
Check out: The Lost Village of Christian's Spring
https://christiansbrunn.web.lehigh.edu/
And: The Earliest Moravian Work in the Mid-Atlantic: A Guide
https://www.moravianhistory.org/product-page/moravian-activity-in-the-mid-atlantic-guidebook

Offline Loudy

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Re: I N R I Marking under N Beyer Barrel
« Reply #29 on: September 28, 2019, 12:51:29 AM »
Related website link...

https://glencairnmuseum.org/newsletter/2017/3/2/powwowing-in-pennsylvania

Very interesting topic. 

Loudy

Offline smart dog

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Re: I N R I Marking under N Beyer Barrel
« Reply #30 on: September 28, 2019, 04:23:59 AM »
Hi,
Wonderful link and scholarship.  So my take away about "INRI' is that it is a blessing that was a hold over from the Catholic  or earlier "Universal" church traditions.  Many southern Germans were Catholics and the 30-years war split the Germanic principalities as northern Protestant Germans warred with southern Catholic Germans.  Of course it was not so clear cut as the Catholic French came in on the side of the Protestant Germans and Swedes, and Scottish mercenaries fought on both sides. 

dave
« Last Edit: September 28, 2019, 04:27:27 AM by smart dog »
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Offline Karl Kunkel

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Re: I N R I Marking under N Beyer Barrel
« Reply #31 on: September 28, 2019, 04:56:57 AM »
What an interesting thread.  You can learn so much here.
Kunk

Offline Elnathan

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Re: I N R I Marking under N Beyer Barrel
« Reply #32 on: September 28, 2019, 05:53:10 PM »
Related website link...

https://glencairnmuseum.org/newsletter/2017/3/2/powwowing-in-pennsylvania

Very interesting topic. 

Loudy

I haven't read the whole article, but the section on warts is near identical to what I've read concerning the folk medicine re: warts here in the Appalachians. Evidently the Scots-Irish had some of the same beliefs, though I can't recall any mention of INRI being used as a talisman here.

Incidentally, some of these things might have actually worked after a fashion, via the placebo effect. Back in college I knew a girl that once told me that her father used to buy warts for a penny from small kids. He was a doctor, IIRC.
A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition -  Rudyard Kipling

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Re: I N R I Marking under N Beyer Barrel
« Reply #33 on: September 28, 2019, 11:10:47 PM »
Let me guess, he was a doctor from Hogwarts.