(25-10-2018, 09:38 AM)Anton wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now it is not that "a***ton" is a kind of wood similar to "thymiamantus", or to the tree of paradise, but "a***ton" is in itself the stuff of which the altar is made, being as such a kind of wood or a thing similar to wood. The latter may look promising in respect of asbestos, but then we need to consult the history of asbestos in Europe (and northern Africa perhaps, since St. Jerome was of there) and check whether they could really imagine asbestos to be wood or a thing similar to wood.
Even if we consider the possibility that the appearance of asbestos could lead it to be confused with some sort of wood, there is a problem with assuming that the phrase means the altar was made of asbestos.
While asbestos cloth was known thousands of years ago, I can find no record of objects made of solid asbestos.
It can be mixed into bricks to build something, or made into a cloth or a coating to cover an object, but I can't find anything anywhere about whole objects, let alone large objects like altars or doors, being made of solid asbestos.
Asbestos has a hardness comparable to that of gypsum, alabaster and calcite. Technically, a solid asbestos altar might be possible, since altars made of gypsum and alabaster are found throughout antiquity in the eastern Mediterranean, but again, I haven't found anything suggesting that was ever done.
Perhaps it might be conceivable to have asbestos mixed with mortar to make an altar, but then there's no way you'd confuse it with wood.