Re: Re: Josephus, Pilate and Paul
caballero reyes said:
Laura,I was never really interested in the Bible historically so far I've been reading your research, because their parts, especially the Gospels have always seemed a theatrical performance; but there is something about 7 church ages and have failed to understand and therefore do not know if it religious or historically valid and you can clarify something.
7 church ages and their messengers:
Churches:
EPHESUS (53 to -170) -------------- Pablo
SMYRNA (170 to -312) ----------- Irenaeus
PERGAMUM (312 to -606) ------- Martin
THYATIRA (606--1520) ----------- colombo
SARDIS (1520--1750) --------- Luther
PHILADELPHIA (1750--1906) ---- Wesley
LAODICEA: - corresponds to a messenger of America (from USA).
Not if this is historically useful, or if there are any interesting process on dates, but put Paul as part of a process, historically speaking, gives the impression of Paul as a renewal of a structure that no longer believed he could work more and therefore a renewal religiously linked to a political system because for me Paul was more political than anything else and had to do with the progress of Europe, has always taken its cultural foundations and religious either in Africa was required or in the Middle East.
Thanks.
The problem with all of the above is that it is derived from later retrojected faked histories for the most part. That's what I kept finding over and over again: a lot of rewriting and "retroactive continuity" as they put it in the comic book world. That is why I am doing what I am doing: trying to get back to verifiable basics and that means trying to get from Point A to Point B without endless diversions, digressions, and including a lot of material and discussion that may be related, but not necessarily relevant to the point I want to get to. THIS discussion is about the dating of the rule of Pontius Pilate in Judea. Indeed, some background has to be laid, but what I am getting to is the point that it seems that Josephus manufactured history for a period of time about which he knew very little. He was born in 37 AD. He relied on other works to create his history, the main one being that of Nicolaus of Damascus who was the court historian of Herod the Great. His history stops shortly after the death of Herod - during the alleged reign of Archelaus. At that point, until one comes to his own times, Josephus is just making a lot of stuff up. This is VERY evident in the fact that one finds numerous doublets and even triplets, sometimes the very words repeated in the same order. One finds an incident that may have happened in Josephus time, retrojected to a different time and place with a few different characters, but basically the same things repeated over and over again. He mixes things up, too.
For example, the situation surrounding the order of Gaius (Caligula) to erect his statue in the Jerusalem Temple and how Petronius tried to put this off while Herod Agrippa was persuading his Imperial pal to give up the idea. We are told that the appeal succeeded and Gaius cancelled the order, but then got a letter from Petronius asking him to rescind it and this made him so angry that he sent an order for Petronius to commit suicide. But, storms delayed the ship carrying the message to commit suicide, and the news that the emperor had been assassinated came first, so Petronius was off the hook.
When you compare the story of Pilate's face off with the Jews over the standards or shields (depending on whether you accept Josephus account or Philo's) you see not only some similar scene descriptions, but also the lucky death of the emperor just before the Pilate/Petronius has to face the music. Now, how likely is it that two prefects of Judea would be in a situation involving alleged violation of Jewish religious laws who get their buns hauled out of the fire by the death of the emperor???
We note that Philo says nothing about that, but does tell us how furious Tiberius was with Pilate. So the likelihood is that Pilate was ordered to put things right, wait for Germanicus to arrive, at which point he would have been replaced... and probably was. However, Germanicus DID die around that time, so that may have saved Pilate from immediate condemnation. We hear nothing about a trial of Pilate in Rome which Tacitus might have mentioned, so we don't know what happened. There is a later story that he was banished to Viene. But then, that is a doublet of the story of Archelaus!!!
The truth is, no one knows what the heck was going on in Judea from about the time of the death of Herod the Great until around the time of Josephus in 37 AD. He probably was able to query his elders about the immediate past, but we simply cannot rely on his "history". However, those writing biblical texts - gospels and Acts, did rely on Josephus. Big mistake.
Now, turning in another direction, toward your question about the "Seven Churches." Notice that Alvar Ellegard suggests that the book of Revelation was written, most of it, during the great rebellion. Revelation is a certain type of work that uses motifs and type-scenes common to Near Eastern myth. Revelation 12, for example, has much in common with several episodes of Hesiod's version of the Greek creation myth. Hesiod's Theogony is the master text behind several sections of Revelation. However, the monotheistic treatment of Revelation means that characters and episodes are often combined. The parts about the seven churches are added on to the main mythical structure later so there's no point in getting one's knickers in a knot about that. One has to begin at the beginning, carefully verify and build an understanding and not go off half-cocked like most researchers do.
