Was Julius Caesar the real Jesus Christ?
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Re: Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity
Finished another and wrote review. My reviewer rank is rising... hope peeps vote for my reviews and also get busy reviewing stuff you read too!
******
Simple and elegant, February 17, 2015
By Laura Knight-Jadczyk (France)
This review is from: Marcion and the New Testament (Hardcover)
I purchased the used book that this page advertised for 64 bux. There is another one for 88 bux on amazon which indicates that the book seems to be out of print. With the new developments in Biblical criticism such as that brought forward by Richard Pervo in his "Dating Acts" and Joseph Tyson's "Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle", what John Knox was saying back in the late 30s and early 40s of the 20th century is even more relevant today.
Knox is a pleasure to read because he is so clear and careful in his explanations such that even a non-specialist can follow him. He is also extremely gentlemanly and even if he disagrees with others, he approaches them and their ideas with respect and tries to find the most positive spin to frame his objections.
In a way, this last factor, though it makes for pleasant reading - no heart thumping upset in the presence of confrontation - it is also disheartening when you think about the implications: that the texts and authors of the Bible are so privileged by those who study them that almost no progress has been made in the last 300 years.
What Knox has done here, however, is that he has taken a rather bold leap in thinking and understanding (not to mention drawing totally logical conclusions) despite the fact that he has had to couch everything in the most appeasing of terms.
Knox points out the obvious fact that the author of Acts was familiar with, and used, the writings of Josephus. That eliminates the earlier consensus of a very early date for Luke-Acts. He also proposes that both Acts and the final version of the Gospel of Luke were written and published at the time when Marcion of Pontus was beginning to proclaim his version of the Christian gospel. This was a "Gospel and Apostle" (super Luke and a Life of Paul conforming to Catholicity) to counter Marcion's "Gospel and Apostle" (Luke and the letters of Paul). He further proposes that the version of Luke that Marcion was using was not a "cut-down" or heavily edited text, but was rather a more primitive version of Luke before the author of Luke-Acts got ahold of it and put his own spin on everything. At a couple of points, he seems to suggest that it could even have been something very similar to the gospel of Mark that Marcion used.
After the production of Luke-Acts in response to Marcion's "canon", it was seen by certain persons that a definitive response was needed and so the New Testament itself was created. Interestingly, Knox proposes that the heretical use of a gospel and the letters of Paul forced the emerging institutional church to preserve Paul almost intact though they got busy writing some additional epistles to counter the radical nature of the authentic Pauline writings.
Knox's simple and elegant explanations for all this "creation of the New Testament under pressure" make a lot of sense and it is hoped that some publishing house will undertake to make this volume available again at a reasonable price. It is easily read by anybody with a few sprinklings of Greek that a future publisher could include translations for, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the early Christian church, how it organized itself, and how certain writings came into the canon and why.
Finished another and wrote review. My reviewer rank is rising... hope peeps vote for my reviews and also get busy reviewing stuff you read too!
******
Simple and elegant, February 17, 2015
By Laura Knight-Jadczyk (France)
This review is from: Marcion and the New Testament (Hardcover)
I purchased the used book that this page advertised for 64 bux. There is another one for 88 bux on amazon which indicates that the book seems to be out of print. With the new developments in Biblical criticism such as that brought forward by Richard Pervo in his "Dating Acts" and Joseph Tyson's "Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle", what John Knox was saying back in the late 30s and early 40s of the 20th century is even more relevant today.
Knox is a pleasure to read because he is so clear and careful in his explanations such that even a non-specialist can follow him. He is also extremely gentlemanly and even if he disagrees with others, he approaches them and their ideas with respect and tries to find the most positive spin to frame his objections.
In a way, this last factor, though it makes for pleasant reading - no heart thumping upset in the presence of confrontation - it is also disheartening when you think about the implications: that the texts and authors of the Bible are so privileged by those who study them that almost no progress has been made in the last 300 years.
What Knox has done here, however, is that he has taken a rather bold leap in thinking and understanding (not to mention drawing totally logical conclusions) despite the fact that he has had to couch everything in the most appeasing of terms.
Knox points out the obvious fact that the author of Acts was familiar with, and used, the writings of Josephus. That eliminates the earlier consensus of a very early date for Luke-Acts. He also proposes that both Acts and the final version of the Gospel of Luke were written and published at the time when Marcion of Pontus was beginning to proclaim his version of the Christian gospel. This was a "Gospel and Apostle" (super Luke and a Life of Paul conforming to Catholicity) to counter Marcion's "Gospel and Apostle" (Luke and the letters of Paul). He further proposes that the version of Luke that Marcion was using was not a "cut-down" or heavily edited text, but was rather a more primitive version of Luke before the author of Luke-Acts got ahold of it and put his own spin on everything. At a couple of points, he seems to suggest that it could even have been something very similar to the gospel of Mark that Marcion used.
After the production of Luke-Acts in response to Marcion's "canon", it was seen by certain persons that a definitive response was needed and so the New Testament itself was created. Interestingly, Knox proposes that the heretical use of a gospel and the letters of Paul forced the emerging institutional church to preserve Paul almost intact though they got busy writing some additional epistles to counter the radical nature of the authentic Pauline writings.
Knox's simple and elegant explanations for all this "creation of the New Testament under pressure" make a lot of sense and it is hoped that some publishing house will undertake to make this volume available again at a reasonable price. It is easily read by anybody with a few sprinklings of Greek that a future publisher could include translations for, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the early Christian church, how it organized itself, and how certain writings came into the canon and why.
Re: Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity
The Truth That Sets you Free, February 19, 2015
By Laura Knight-Jadczyk
This review is from: The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really Said and Did (Paperback)
As the author says in the introduction, this book is just a "taste" of a fuller exposition of the topic in a much larger work, "Jesus After 2000 Years: What He Really Said and Did" which is over 700 pages. Obviously, in this short version, there is not going to be extensive, detailed analyses. Nevertheless, for the lay reader who is interested in the very basic ideas behind historical criticism, it's a good, fast, overview.
Of more interest, is Ludemann's account of what happened to him after years of research when he finally came to the unavoidable conclusion, that Christianity as we know it, was basically a fraud. The Confederation of Protestant Churches in Lower Saxony tried to have Ludemann dismissed from his position within the theological faculty of a major university. It seems that theological faculties in German universities are governed by TREATIES between the state and the different Christian groups!!! I find that astonishing. But then, probably something similar is true in the US since Princeton has a theological seminary. The problem here is the obvious, glaring contradiction between the claims for "scientific" academic theology and the necessity to be bound to a "confession of faith". In other words, in NO WAY is theology as taught at the university level even remotely scientific. Theologians make claims about things that need to be PROVED and that is NOT what they are doing at the university level which is where it should be done!
As it is, theology is rather ridiculous because it REQUIRES the sacrifice the intellect since it is inevitably based on revelation and must privilege its texts and the alleged authors of those texts. Ludemann points out "in their research and teaching, most of my colleagues have long since left the principles of the church behind them but (want to) attach themselves to this tradition by symbolic interpretation and other interpretative skills. Hardly one of them shares the eschatological presuppositions of the church's tradition, and very few expect, for example, the return of Christ in judgment. To keep quiet about this could similarly be described as a tactic."
This is a damning statement about theologians today: they KNOW there's something rotten in their field, but to keep their jobs, to keep the power of the church, they keep quiet. Obviously, Ludemann was too honest and sincere to play this game, unlike Bart Ehrman who folded to the pressure and wrote a ridiculous book about the "Historical Jesus". But that's another subject.
The main thing here is that, if the teaching of theology at the university level is to be supported by public funds, then it MUST devote itself to doing real, science-system based research, and MUST inform its students of the results of that research. Public institutions should NOT be used to "reveal and preach", leading another generation of the naive and gullible into servitude to ancient superstitions. What would happen if a group of physicists and mathematicians proved that the Big Bang never happened? Are they required to "believe" in it? Would they lose their jobs for writing books and papers about it? Obviously not though it is certain that even science follows trends and one is more likely to get published if supporting the current mainstream view. But when those paradigms begin to break down, science is able to correct itself; theology must be free to do the same. Theology must become scientific, it must stop evading the real issues and plastering over the cracks in the nonsense that has passed for religion the past 2000 years.
Thus, I recommend this book to the lay reader. If they wonder about the more technical details of how a text can be evaluated as being authentic or inauthentic, then I suggest they read "Jesus After 2000 Years: What He Really Said and Did". Additional good reads along the same line are Richard Pervo's "Dating Acts" and Tyson's "Marcion and Luke-Acts" and Robert Price's "The Case Against the Case for Christ". That should get your neurons firing and you can follow references from there!
After all, it is KNOWING THE TRUTH that sets one free.
The Truth That Sets you Free, February 19, 2015
By Laura Knight-Jadczyk
This review is from: The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really Said and Did (Paperback)
As the author says in the introduction, this book is just a "taste" of a fuller exposition of the topic in a much larger work, "Jesus After 2000 Years: What He Really Said and Did" which is over 700 pages. Obviously, in this short version, there is not going to be extensive, detailed analyses. Nevertheless, for the lay reader who is interested in the very basic ideas behind historical criticism, it's a good, fast, overview.
Of more interest, is Ludemann's account of what happened to him after years of research when he finally came to the unavoidable conclusion, that Christianity as we know it, was basically a fraud. The Confederation of Protestant Churches in Lower Saxony tried to have Ludemann dismissed from his position within the theological faculty of a major university. It seems that theological faculties in German universities are governed by TREATIES between the state and the different Christian groups!!! I find that astonishing. But then, probably something similar is true in the US since Princeton has a theological seminary. The problem here is the obvious, glaring contradiction between the claims for "scientific" academic theology and the necessity to be bound to a "confession of faith". In other words, in NO WAY is theology as taught at the university level even remotely scientific. Theologians make claims about things that need to be PROVED and that is NOT what they are doing at the university level which is where it should be done!
As it is, theology is rather ridiculous because it REQUIRES the sacrifice the intellect since it is inevitably based on revelation and must privilege its texts and the alleged authors of those texts. Ludemann points out "in their research and teaching, most of my colleagues have long since left the principles of the church behind them but (want to) attach themselves to this tradition by symbolic interpretation and other interpretative skills. Hardly one of them shares the eschatological presuppositions of the church's tradition, and very few expect, for example, the return of Christ in judgment. To keep quiet about this could similarly be described as a tactic."
This is a damning statement about theologians today: they KNOW there's something rotten in their field, but to keep their jobs, to keep the power of the church, they keep quiet. Obviously, Ludemann was too honest and sincere to play this game, unlike Bart Ehrman who folded to the pressure and wrote a ridiculous book about the "Historical Jesus". But that's another subject.
The main thing here is that, if the teaching of theology at the university level is to be supported by public funds, then it MUST devote itself to doing real, science-system based research, and MUST inform its students of the results of that research. Public institutions should NOT be used to "reveal and preach", leading another generation of the naive and gullible into servitude to ancient superstitions. What would happen if a group of physicists and mathematicians proved that the Big Bang never happened? Are they required to "believe" in it? Would they lose their jobs for writing books and papers about it? Obviously not though it is certain that even science follows trends and one is more likely to get published if supporting the current mainstream view. But when those paradigms begin to break down, science is able to correct itself; theology must be free to do the same. Theology must become scientific, it must stop evading the real issues and plastering over the cracks in the nonsense that has passed for religion the past 2000 years.
Thus, I recommend this book to the lay reader. If they wonder about the more technical details of how a text can be evaluated as being authentic or inauthentic, then I suggest they read "Jesus After 2000 Years: What He Really Said and Did". Additional good reads along the same line are Richard Pervo's "Dating Acts" and Tyson's "Marcion and Luke-Acts" and Robert Price's "The Case Against the Case for Christ". That should get your neurons firing and you can follow references from there!
After all, it is KNOWING THE TRUTH that sets one free.
Re: Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity
Sometimes, ya hafta read nonsense just to know that the apologists haven't got a leg to stand on. So glad to finish this one:
Sugaring over the Devil, February 23, 2015
By Laura Knight-Jadczyk
This review is from: Paul and the Heritage of Israel: Paul's Claim upon Israel's Legacy in Luke and Acts in the Light of the Pauline Letters (The Library of New Testament Studies) (Paperback)
A most unsatisfying, tedious and pedestrian book. Basically, it is apologetics disguised as scholarship. "Paul and the Heritage of Israel" announces grandiosly in the intro that it will make "seven current, cutting-edge French language essays available to an English-speaking audience". It takes half a page to tell us how marvelous this is and that it cost a lot to get this done. Well, hooh-hah! I live in France and have had a number of close interactions with a few "cutting edge" French intellectuals/academics, and I'm afraid I'm underwhelmed. Geezus! This country still runs itself on Freud!!! They don't even know about the cutting edge research in cognitive psychology! The much touted French essays in this book have not changed my mind. These people live in a fantasy where their commonplace apologetic ideas, wrapped up as new "theories", make them legends in their own minds. (Sorry for the commonplace!)
However, you notice that I didn't give the book a one star rating; that's because there are a couple of pieces in it that were not entire wastes of ink and paper. A piece by David Moessner is of some interest since he approaches the topic almost as a classical historian. Christopher Mount is also obviously chafing at the true-believer bit/muzzle. But, in general, this namby-pamby walking on eggshells because the texts and putative authors are "sacred" is exhausting. Why the heck can't anybody just come out and say something obvious, fer cryin' out loud!?!
Well, they do come right out and say something at the end but it is so stupid it almost doesn't deserve acknowledgement. The editors write:
"The older dichotomy between Paul's reliable intent of thought versus the tendentious construals of him in 'later' literature disappears. F. C. Baur's elevation of the undisputed Paulines as the norm for all things 'Paul', no longer holds validity." (p. 319)
Well, too bad. It seems that the past 30 years of NT scholarship has been aimed at coming up with the cleverest ways to refute Baur and in so doing, I'm afraid, the discipline has dived directly into denial: a pit of terminal Dunning-Kruger Effect. Obviously, apologists NEVER question themselves.
You know the terms "casuistry"? "Specious"? "Sophistry"? "Meretricious"? "Fallacious"? Well, you'll find loads of all that and more between the covers of this book. Reminds me of Polonius' lines in Hamlet:
Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
So, don't waste your bux on this one. You'll be bored AND misled. But then, what can you expect from a gaggle of Authoritarian Followers?
Sometimes, ya hafta read nonsense just to know that the apologists haven't got a leg to stand on. So glad to finish this one:
Sugaring over the Devil, February 23, 2015
By Laura Knight-Jadczyk
This review is from: Paul and the Heritage of Israel: Paul's Claim upon Israel's Legacy in Luke and Acts in the Light of the Pauline Letters (The Library of New Testament Studies) (Paperback)
A most unsatisfying, tedious and pedestrian book. Basically, it is apologetics disguised as scholarship. "Paul and the Heritage of Israel" announces grandiosly in the intro that it will make "seven current, cutting-edge French language essays available to an English-speaking audience". It takes half a page to tell us how marvelous this is and that it cost a lot to get this done. Well, hooh-hah! I live in France and have had a number of close interactions with a few "cutting edge" French intellectuals/academics, and I'm afraid I'm underwhelmed. Geezus! This country still runs itself on Freud!!! They don't even know about the cutting edge research in cognitive psychology! The much touted French essays in this book have not changed my mind. These people live in a fantasy where their commonplace apologetic ideas, wrapped up as new "theories", make them legends in their own minds. (Sorry for the commonplace!)
However, you notice that I didn't give the book a one star rating; that's because there are a couple of pieces in it that were not entire wastes of ink and paper. A piece by David Moessner is of some interest since he approaches the topic almost as a classical historian. Christopher Mount is also obviously chafing at the true-believer bit/muzzle. But, in general, this namby-pamby walking on eggshells because the texts and putative authors are "sacred" is exhausting. Why the heck can't anybody just come out and say something obvious, fer cryin' out loud!?!
Well, they do come right out and say something at the end but it is so stupid it almost doesn't deserve acknowledgement. The editors write:
"The older dichotomy between Paul's reliable intent of thought versus the tendentious construals of him in 'later' literature disappears. F. C. Baur's elevation of the undisputed Paulines as the norm for all things 'Paul', no longer holds validity." (p. 319)
Well, too bad. It seems that the past 30 years of NT scholarship has been aimed at coming up with the cleverest ways to refute Baur and in so doing, I'm afraid, the discipline has dived directly into denial: a pit of terminal Dunning-Kruger Effect. Obviously, apologists NEVER question themselves.
You know the terms "casuistry"? "Specious"? "Sophistry"? "Meretricious"? "Fallacious"? Well, you'll find loads of all that and more between the covers of this book. Reminds me of Polonius' lines in Hamlet:
Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
So, don't waste your bux on this one. You'll be bored AND misled. But then, what can you expect from a gaggle of Authoritarian Followers?
Re: Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity
I finished reading F.Baur’s “Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ”, volume 1. THAT was interesting.
I am an absolute layman, never read the bible, just heard the ‘stories’ in (catholic )church and at school.
After reading Carotta’s “Was Jesus Julius Caesar” it took me some time to recover from the shock.
Ehrman ‘s “Jesus interrupted” taught me to read the Gospels horizontaly.
Enjoyed very much Mc Donald’s “The Homeric Epics and the Gospels”. Just wondered where Homer got his ideas from.
And now after reading Baur I got soo angry I suprised myself. Why this anger?
I liked the way he writes and asks the questions, the way he looks at his colleagues work. And although it was a bit of an academic read and confused me with the not-translated quotes ( what language was he quoting from? Not only Latin ) I enjoyed his book.
Still a bit angry I reread Laura’s review and realized that looking for truth needs facing your own programming. So, I ‘m busy with that.
I also ordered Ludeman, Pervo and Price to learn more.
Thank you Laura for your guidance in this direction
I finished reading F.Baur’s “Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ”, volume 1. THAT was interesting.
I am an absolute layman, never read the bible, just heard the ‘stories’ in (catholic )church and at school.
After reading Carotta’s “Was Jesus Julius Caesar” it took me some time to recover from the shock.
Ehrman ‘s “Jesus interrupted” taught me to read the Gospels horizontaly.
Enjoyed very much Mc Donald’s “The Homeric Epics and the Gospels”. Just wondered where Homer got his ideas from.
And now after reading Baur I got soo angry I suprised myself. Why this anger?
I liked the way he writes and asks the questions, the way he looks at his colleagues work. And although it was a bit of an academic read and confused me with the not-translated quotes ( what language was he quoting from? Not only Latin ) I enjoyed his book.
Still a bit angry I reread Laura’s review and realized that looking for truth needs facing your own programming. So, I ‘m busy with that.
I also ordered Ludeman, Pervo and Price to learn more.
Thank you Laura for your guidance in this direction
Re: Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity
Just a quick note. Something that struck me as odd when reading a bit of Ludemann. He quoted Galatians. In it, Paul says he has been entrusted with taking the 'good news' to the uncircumcised "just as Peter had been entrusted with taking it to the circumcised." Then 2 sentences later, he says: "When they realized that God had given me this special role, James, Cephas and John, the reputed pillars [of the Movement]..."
Well, I just got Bernard Brandon Scott's "Real Paul" (just came out), and he's got a short cameo essay on this which voiced my question. Were Cephas and Peter really the same person?? Maybe not. When I read the first quoted part, the image that came to mind was that Paul was talking about someone further back in the past: as in, "back when Peter originally took the news of the gospel to the Jews". And THEN he refers to the 'pillars' alive NOW: James, John and Cephas. In other words, perhaps he's not just claiming equality with the pillars (e.g., Cephas), but supremacy, with someone who preceded them. Of course, no serious scholar would suggest such a thing, because Paul allegedly was 'called' soon after 'Jesus' death, but if no Jesus died in 30 AD, that's not a problem. So, if they're not the same person, who was Peter?
Some other options are that a scribe replaced Cephas with Peter (the instance in Galatians is the only time Paul refers to someone named Peter), or that the punning on 'petros' was in vogue when Paul was writing, and not just later, when the gospels were composed. But I still find it curious.
Also, another problem. All explicit mentions of "the collection" for Jerusalem are missing from Marcion's versions of the letters. The only reference is the vague agreement for Paul to "remember the poor in Jerusalem".
One of the mentions of the collection is in Romans, in a full chapter missing from Marcion's version. But in that same chapter, Paul mentions his intention to go to Spain. So what's going on here? Were the collection bits added later (using knowledge of Paul's intention to go to Spain for verisimilitude)? Or did Marcion edit them out for some reason? Pervo suggests there was some controversy over the nature of the collection in later tradition, so something's going on there.
Maybe part of the controversy was that there WAS a collection, but Paul, after writing Romans, decided NOT to go to Jerusalem (as the C's suggest). This might create some conflict, and perhaps whoever collected Paul's letters felt it prudent to cut those bits out. Or...?
Just a quick note. Something that struck me as odd when reading a bit of Ludemann. He quoted Galatians. In it, Paul says he has been entrusted with taking the 'good news' to the uncircumcised "just as Peter had been entrusted with taking it to the circumcised." Then 2 sentences later, he says: "When they realized that God had given me this special role, James, Cephas and John, the reputed pillars [of the Movement]..."
Well, I just got Bernard Brandon Scott's "Real Paul" (just came out), and he's got a short cameo essay on this which voiced my question. Were Cephas and Peter really the same person?? Maybe not. When I read the first quoted part, the image that came to mind was that Paul was talking about someone further back in the past: as in, "back when Peter originally took the news of the gospel to the Jews". And THEN he refers to the 'pillars' alive NOW: James, John and Cephas. In other words, perhaps he's not just claiming equality with the pillars (e.g., Cephas), but supremacy, with someone who preceded them. Of course, no serious scholar would suggest such a thing, because Paul allegedly was 'called' soon after 'Jesus' death, but if no Jesus died in 30 AD, that's not a problem. So, if they're not the same person, who was Peter?
Some other options are that a scribe replaced Cephas with Peter (the instance in Galatians is the only time Paul refers to someone named Peter), or that the punning on 'petros' was in vogue when Paul was writing, and not just later, when the gospels were composed. But I still find it curious.
Also, another problem. All explicit mentions of "the collection" for Jerusalem are missing from Marcion's versions of the letters. The only reference is the vague agreement for Paul to "remember the poor in Jerusalem".
One of the mentions of the collection is in Romans, in a full chapter missing from Marcion's version. But in that same chapter, Paul mentions his intention to go to Spain. So what's going on here? Were the collection bits added later (using knowledge of Paul's intention to go to Spain for verisimilitude)? Or did Marcion edit them out for some reason? Pervo suggests there was some controversy over the nature of the collection in later tradition, so something's going on there.
Maybe part of the controversy was that there WAS a collection, but Paul, after writing Romans, decided NOT to go to Jerusalem (as the C's suggest). This might create some conflict, and perhaps whoever collected Paul's letters felt it prudent to cut those bits out. Or...?
Re: Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity
This is a bit problematical and what I think was that, yes, I think that Cephas and Peter were the same person and there is some interpolation. If you firmly fix in your mind that Paul's agenda was altogether different from the Jerusalem peeps - it wasn't even a "church" and it was messianic only in the sense of the 4th philosophy of Judas the Galilean.
Notice that Paul, a pharisee/Herodian was said to have persecuted the "early church". Notice that "pharisee/Herodian" bit... that means he was a supporter of Rome as were the pharisees. So, who/what was he "persecuting"??? Obviously, rebel bands that were using a strict form of Judaism to rally support to their rebellion.
The issue of who/what Paul saw as the Messiah is vexing and I think I have a solution. I'll have to transcribe my notes which are written by hand in order to explain it all.
Not so curious when you find all the OTHER mess in there.
I think that the collection was undertaken at the beginning, but that Paul completely threw up his hands and walked away from them after some sort of kerfuffle in Antioch where he called Cephas/Peter on the carpet about his hypocrisy. I think that is when he decided to go to Rome and he did, and never returned to Jerusalem a third time. The events depicted as happening in Jerusalem are an adaptation of what happened in Rome when Paul arrived there in either 41 or 49 (most likely 49), when Suetonius and others record an expulsion of Jews because of the incitement of some "Chrestus". THAT is probably a real historical reference to the activity of Paul.
That chapter was missing from many early MSS, not just Marcions. Read DeBuhn's book about Marcion; he defends him against the charges of editing very effectively. Paul probably did go to Spain and that was known in the tradition so when the chapter was added, the collection (to get him to Jerusalem for the Acts story) and the intended trip to Spain were included.
No, the chapter was added along with the appending of chapter 16 which was a completely separate letter.
Here's one that will frost the cake. If you read Romans 9-11 carefully, you can easily imagine that it was written in response to the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of a million Jews. If it is definitely Pauline, that means that Paul was not martyred and lived at least until the time of the destruction and shortly after.
Also, Marcion was certain that Ephesian (known to him as Laodiceans) and Colossians were Pauline and I'm sorta inclined to think that he may have been right. Yes, there are interpolations. I think the author of Luke/Acts did a LOT of fast maneuvering to get "their" New Testament out there to do a one-up on Marcion. Read Richard Pervo's "Dating Acts."
I'll get my notes typed up so you can see where I'm going. Prolly not until tomorrow.
Approaching Infinity said:
This is a bit problematical and what I think was that, yes, I think that Cephas and Peter were the same person and there is some interpolation. If you firmly fix in your mind that Paul's agenda was altogether different from the Jerusalem peeps - it wasn't even a "church" and it was messianic only in the sense of the 4th philosophy of Judas the Galilean.
Notice that Paul, a pharisee/Herodian was said to have persecuted the "early church". Notice that "pharisee/Herodian" bit... that means he was a supporter of Rome as were the pharisees. So, who/what was he "persecuting"??? Obviously, rebel bands that were using a strict form of Judaism to rally support to their rebellion.
The issue of who/what Paul saw as the Messiah is vexing and I think I have a solution. I'll have to transcribe my notes which are written by hand in order to explain it all.
Approaching Infinity said:
Not so curious when you find all the OTHER mess in there.
Approaching Infinity said:
I think that the collection was undertaken at the beginning, but that Paul completely threw up his hands and walked away from them after some sort of kerfuffle in Antioch where he called Cephas/Peter on the carpet about his hypocrisy. I think that is when he decided to go to Rome and he did, and never returned to Jerusalem a third time. The events depicted as happening in Jerusalem are an adaptation of what happened in Rome when Paul arrived there in either 41 or 49 (most likely 49), when Suetonius and others record an expulsion of Jews because of the incitement of some "Chrestus". THAT is probably a real historical reference to the activity of Paul.
Approaching Infinity said:
That chapter was missing from many early MSS, not just Marcions. Read DeBuhn's book about Marcion; he defends him against the charges of editing very effectively. Paul probably did go to Spain and that was known in the tradition so when the chapter was added, the collection (to get him to Jerusalem for the Acts story) and the intended trip to Spain were included.
Approaching Infinity said:
No, the chapter was added along with the appending of chapter 16 which was a completely separate letter.
Here's one that will frost the cake. If you read Romans 9-11 carefully, you can easily imagine that it was written in response to the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of a million Jews. If it is definitely Pauline, that means that Paul was not martyred and lived at least until the time of the destruction and shortly after.
Also, Marcion was certain that Ephesian (known to him as Laodiceans) and Colossians were Pauline and I'm sorta inclined to think that he may have been right. Yes, there are interpolations. I think the author of Luke/Acts did a LOT of fast maneuvering to get "their" New Testament out there to do a one-up on Marcion. Read Richard Pervo's "Dating Acts."
I'll get my notes typed up so you can see where I'm going. Prolly not until tomorrow.
Re: Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity
And who were doing so by claiming a 'messiah' (or messiahs) who was killed. Well, as Knohl (and Scott) point out, a dead messiah invalidates the claim. In Knohl's view, this led to a kind of retrospective catastrophic/apocalyptic "suffering servant" type messianism. Scott points out that, just based on Paul's letters, we can't know the exact nature of Paul's "pursuing/persecuting" "to the full measure". He thinks it probably wasn't violence/killing, because "Rome tended to have exclusive control of that kind of violence". But if Paul was Herodian, that gives him an official reason to persecute rebels AND a Jewish reason to refute them (proclaiming a false messiah). Does that make sense?
Cool!
Aha!
Yeah, that was my preferred option. It's tough though, when reading books on Paul, because NONE of them take into account Marcion. You really have to pay attention to what evidence they marshal to back their theories. Every time I see "Rom. 15" or "Rom. 16" I'm skeptical (e.g., all the sections Knox writes about in reference to the collection and the 'third trip to Jerusalem"). And it doesn't help that despite his pretty careful approach, Ludemann too uses these chapters, and the two "hard dates" in Acts to build his Paul chronology. What do you think about that Gallio reference? Should it be disregarded completely, or could there be something to it? Ludemann seems willing to trust it simply because it is surrounded by other aspects of 'tradition' in that section, but it could just have easily been thrown in by Luke.
So you think 9-11 was a later letter of Paul (like 20+ years after his visit to Rome) added into Romans, kind of like 2 Corinthians?
Laura said:
And who were doing so by claiming a 'messiah' (or messiahs) who was killed. Well, as Knohl (and Scott) point out, a dead messiah invalidates the claim. In Knohl's view, this led to a kind of retrospective catastrophic/apocalyptic "suffering servant" type messianism. Scott points out that, just based on Paul's letters, we can't know the exact nature of Paul's "pursuing/persecuting" "to the full measure". He thinks it probably wasn't violence/killing, because "Rome tended to have exclusive control of that kind of violence". But if Paul was Herodian, that gives him an official reason to persecute rebels AND a Jewish reason to refute them (proclaiming a false messiah). Does that make sense?
Cool!
Aha!
Yeah, that was my preferred option. It's tough though, when reading books on Paul, because NONE of them take into account Marcion. You really have to pay attention to what evidence they marshal to back their theories. Every time I see "Rom. 15" or "Rom. 16" I'm skeptical (e.g., all the sections Knox writes about in reference to the collection and the 'third trip to Jerusalem"). And it doesn't help that despite his pretty careful approach, Ludemann too uses these chapters, and the two "hard dates" in Acts to build his Paul chronology. What do you think about that Gallio reference? Should it be disregarded completely, or could there be something to it? Ludemann seems willing to trust it simply because it is surrounded by other aspects of 'tradition' in that section, but it could just have easily been thrown in by Luke.
So you think 9-11 was a later letter of Paul (like 20+ years after his visit to Rome) added into Romans, kind of like 2 Corinthians?
Re: Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity
Well, being a "Herodian" just means a supporter of their "party", not necessarily implying an official status. I would say that most likely his persecution was refuting/harassing them in synagogues or talking against them in the temple, etc. Until you read Josephus and get a really good picture of what was going on there and then, you just have no idea what a SOUP it really was. He may also have informed on them. And it may have been Paul who was stoned by the followers of of the Revolutionaries. I just think of the "Jerusalem Church" as "The James Gang" and it all clears up in my head.
Yeah, for the early ones, like Knox, I just mentally adjust for that sort of thing. What is SOOOO frustrating is reading all this alleged "scholarly" work where the researchers treat the texts with kid gloves. They have a pre-formed opinion about what the timeline was/is and what "happened", and if the text absolutely contradicts that in some way, they just gloss it. And notice how Knox writes; he's SUCH a nice guy and he has to super-soft-sell what he is saying just to get anybody to listen and not fall over in cardiac arrest at the daringness of his suggestions! It's utterly ludicrous!
I don't think you can trust ANYTHING from Acts. It's better just to work without it. I think the Gallio reference is a complete, deliberate, red herring planted there for the express purpose of transposing the dates.
Unterbrink is right: Judas the Galilean must have been the subject of the "Testimonium Flavianum" in Josephus, and that doesn't mean he was crucified. Paul got the cross bit from Caesar. Thing is, the TF is in a context that MUST be dated to 19 AD, i.e. the FIFTH year of Tiberius. Note that in Luke, Jesus' ministry begins ex nihilo in the FIFTEENTH year of Tiberius. That is a deliberate transposing, an insertion of ten years. Remember the stories that follow the TF that we discussed when you were here? There is a LOT more fishy going on there than I even supposed at that time. There is a huge insertion of folderol taken from a story dating to 58 AD, found in Tacitus, followed by the notice of the expulsion of the Jews and the Egyptian worship. That happened in 19 AD.
You can't believe ANYTHING in the gospels or ANYTHING in Acts.
So you think 9-11 was a later letter of Paul (like 20+ years after his visit to Rome) added into Romans, kind of like 2 Corinthians?
[/quote]
Approaching Infinity said:
Well, being a "Herodian" just means a supporter of their "party", not necessarily implying an official status. I would say that most likely his persecution was refuting/harassing them in synagogues or talking against them in the temple, etc. Until you read Josephus and get a really good picture of what was going on there and then, you just have no idea what a SOUP it really was. He may also have informed on them. And it may have been Paul who was stoned by the followers of of the Revolutionaries. I just think of the "Jerusalem Church" as "The James Gang" and it all clears up in my head.
Approaching Infinity said:
Yeah, for the early ones, like Knox, I just mentally adjust for that sort of thing. What is SOOOO frustrating is reading all this alleged "scholarly" work where the researchers treat the texts with kid gloves. They have a pre-formed opinion about what the timeline was/is and what "happened", and if the text absolutely contradicts that in some way, they just gloss it. And notice how Knox writes; he's SUCH a nice guy and he has to super-soft-sell what he is saying just to get anybody to listen and not fall over in cardiac arrest at the daringness of his suggestions! It's utterly ludicrous!
Approaching Infinity said:
I don't think you can trust ANYTHING from Acts. It's better just to work without it. I think the Gallio reference is a complete, deliberate, red herring planted there for the express purpose of transposing the dates.
Unterbrink is right: Judas the Galilean must have been the subject of the "Testimonium Flavianum" in Josephus, and that doesn't mean he was crucified. Paul got the cross bit from Caesar. Thing is, the TF is in a context that MUST be dated to 19 AD, i.e. the FIFTH year of Tiberius. Note that in Luke, Jesus' ministry begins ex nihilo in the FIFTEENTH year of Tiberius. That is a deliberate transposing, an insertion of ten years. Remember the stories that follow the TF that we discussed when you were here? There is a LOT more fishy going on there than I even supposed at that time. There is a huge insertion of folderol taken from a story dating to 58 AD, found in Tacitus, followed by the notice of the expulsion of the Jews and the Egyptian worship. That happened in 19 AD.
You can't believe ANYTHING in the gospels or ANYTHING in Acts.
So you think 9-11 was a later letter of Paul (like 20+ years after his visit to Rome) added into Romans, kind of like 2 Corinthians?
[/quote]
Re: Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity
Okay, first installment of my notes:
Real World and Text influence flow chart. (I'll try to make a graphic of this and add later.)
Caesar, “hope of the world”, “savior”, betrayed and martyred. The entire Roman World, is stunned. Tens of thousands of soldiers who spent years with Caesar carry his memory throughout the empire and follow his cult.
Caesar cult, official deification, astonishing appearance of a comet, transformation to mysteries?
Caesar cult mystery play written.
Major elements:
Crossing the Rubicon – Baptism
Astonishing victories against major odds – miracles
Triumphal return to Rome
Last Supper
Betrayal and assassination
The dramatic funeral with Caesar’s effigy mounted on a trophaeum and the is the dramatic re-enactment of Caesar’s funeral. The trophaeum, being a Roman symbol of victory, thus becomes, at one and the same time, the symbol of death/victory, or a victorious death.
The Account from Suetonius:
Here is Appian’s account of the funeral:
Thus, as Carotta and Gary Courtney suggest (particularly Courtney), the earliest form of the Book of Mark was the stage direction for the Caesar Cult Mysteries/Passion Play.
Meanwhile, the most important thing to remember about Judea is its volatile social and political conditions in the years following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC. Eventually, Rome took over directly and what had been just simmering came to a fast and explosive boil. Anyone who ignores these conditions in trying to figure out the Jesus problem will get nowhere.
So, in Judea, in addition to a strong revolutionary undercurrent that kept erupting here and there and being beaten back by troops of various tetrarchs, governors, prefects, whatever, there was a parallel and cross-pollinating current of religious innovations especially in respect of messianic ideas, theories, hopes. There was also a great ferment of Greek ideas being re-cast by Jewish thinkers and mystics including ideas about other worlds, noumenal worlds of Plato, ontology, angels, demons, and more.
At this point, Herod the Great dies and there is the “Golden Eagle Temple Cleansing” by Matthias and Judas. At the same time, there is the death of the new “King of the Jews”, Simon of Peraea. Josephus is unclear about the several Judases. He says first that Matthias and Judas are executed by being burned alive. But then, Judas keeps popping up over and over again for some years more. He is credited with creating the uber-strict Judaism “Fourth Philosophy” which probably relates closely to the Essene groups.
As Knohl develops the idea which seems to have originated during Macabbean times, the “blood of martyrs” can not only appease god’s wrath against the entire people, but, rather like the expression in Genesis, the blood can create a direct link between this world and the “heavenly” world, as in “the voice of your brother’s blood cries from the ground.” So, apparently, these mystic revolutionaries (there was no separation between religion and politics for ancient peoples, most particularly the Jews) came up with the idea that the shed blood of a martyr would actually create a sort of “fiery path” or road between earth and the heavens, sort of like the ascension of Elijah who was taken up in a “chariot of fire”. It seems that, in the face of Roman abuses and their overpowering presence, there was an evolving image of an Elijah like messiah who would be sacrificed and ascend and bring back god and the angels to drive the Romans out and even destroy Rome. So, it is important to keep in mind the military/revolutionary/vengeance and destruction ideology behind all of this. That’s why I call the mythical Jerusalem Church the “James Gang”. The only extent to which this could be considered a “church” was that they were fanatical Jews; what we, today, would call terrorists. And that’s not to say that they didn’t have real grievances against Rome!
So, Simon of Peraea, Matthias and Judas of the 4th philosophy gang became martyrs whose deaths were attractors for god’s vengeance on Rome.. They had a REAL following, i.e. just about everybody in Judea who wanted to throw off the Roman yoke.
Now, Judas the Galilean, who I think is the same Judas associated with Matthias above, and who managed to not be executed at that time, and who Josephus credits with the founding of the Fourth Philosophy Fanatical Judaism cult, was, in the beginning, pretty much as the tradition describes “Jesus” – a teacher and interpreter of the law. But after the deaths of Matthias and Simon of Peraea, and others, he was radicalized along with his gang, his multiple brothers, including James, and his buddy Cephas. They continued to function in the Temple society of Jerusalem because that was the hub of their religion and religion was the hub of their resistance. They were busy creating a revolutionary network and Josephus, himself, may very well have been a part of it at some point.
This brings us to the Testimonium Flavianum. Now, Unterbrink gives many reasons why he thinks that this was originally the notice of the death of Judas the Galilean and a number of reasons why. Works for me, only the issue I have is with the date that is generally assumed for this event.
The real problem in Antiquities 18.3 is what follows the Testimoneum: the pathetic story about PAULina married to SATURNINUS and the night of love in the temple of Isis, followed by the equally hokey story about FULVIA - ALSO married to a SATURNINUS (duplication to call attention in a subtle way?) and the hoax played by the 3 Jews, both of which stories were supposed to explain the expulsion of the Jews WHEN? During the time of Pilate? That is what the beginning of the chapter talks about. Josephus specifies that the time of Pilate is the same as the time of the TF and then following, says that at the same time, the expulsion of the Jews happened. We can certainly date this expulsion to 19 AD. That’s 10/11 years earlier than Jesus or whoever is supposed to have been crucified. (And we don’t even know for sure that there was a crucifixion here though it is possible since Pilate was, by all accounts, a bastard.)
But here’s the main problem: in Tacitus Annals 13.44, there is a story about Octavius Sagitta who was "enamored to a frenzy of Pontia, a married woman..." The story has a somewhat different outcome but the principal elements are all there. So, I re-read it and then my eye was caught by something on the facing page in chap. 43, just a few paragraphs up: the name SATURNINUS. I believe the date of this event was around 58.
Obviously, Josephus could have gotten the idea for his tale from anywhere, but marrying the two women - suspiciously named PAULina (think apostle Paul) and a FULVIA (think Mark Anthony and Clodius and then Caesar's funeral) to a SATURNINUS when that name is just a few paragraphs away from the tale of Octavius Sagitta and Pontia just strikes me as more than coincidence. The creative author’s eye just fell on this name and used it in doublet to “send a message”. I would say s/he also used the names “PAULina” and FULVIA for the same reason: those with eyes to see would see.
As Unterbrink points out in his examination of the text (he is clueless about the Caesar connection so really doesn’t get it completely), the name of the lover in Josephus' variation of the tale, Decius Mundus, is also peculiar and this is something that another guy has noticed who has written about Judas the Galilean being the "real Jesus" (Dan Unterbrink). He points out that the name is similar to Decius Mus, the namv of three Romans who sacrificed (devotio) themselves in battle for the victory of their armies. (Livy 8.9)
Another interesting event in 19 AD was the death of Germanicus following which there was the debate in the senate about expelling BOTH Egyptian and Jewish worshippers from Rome. (Annals 2.85 And it was done.) Interestingly, "Tacitus refers to the magic charms uncovered in connection with the poisoning of Germanicus as "devotiones", indicating that the word had expanded its meaning to include other ritual acts in which an individual sought to harm and even kill another." (Rives, "Magic, Religion, and Law," pp. 47, 61.)
So, if Josephus is being at all chronological here, he means to say that this TF thing belongs to the year 19 AD which, as Unterbrink suggests, might fit a crucifixion of Judas the Galilean. (Josephus records the crucifixion of his sons by Tiberius Alexander some years later.)
There are two historical events that are something like pegs: the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in 19 AD in the fifth year of Tiberius and then a similar episode in the reign of Claudius in either 41 or 49. (I think it was 49.) The first "hook" strikes me as odd when I consider that Marcion's version of Luke began with the fifteenth year of Tiberius. So, we have an expulsion in the Vth year of the reign and the "crucifixion" in the XVth - Ten years difference.
Then, in Josephus, the same troubling ten year period of Archelaus and Pilate that seem so much like doublets.
So, for the myth of Jesus, just add ten years and you've shifted the whole thing forward and who would know? Assuming that Judas the Galilean was the one crucified in 19 AD... and someone didn't want anybody to relate that to "Jesus".
Obviously, something happened at those two times – 19 AD and 49 AD - recorded in REAL history and whatever it was, it really riled up the Jews.
Recall that my problem with Josephus was those two stories that followed immediately on the Testimonium Flavianum... that is, they are associated with the text about the alleged crucifixion IN TIME. But, as I pointed out, the stories in Josephus appear to have been adapted/rewritten based on a legal case mentioned by Tacitus belonging to the year 58. Sure, Josephus could have gotten it from another source, but it is very curious that the name of the husbands of the two women, Saturninus, is just a few paragraphs up from the tale itself IN TACITUS. Reminds one of the Theudas-Judas problem. Which makes one wonder if the same person suffering from ADD who wrote Acts was diddling with the MS of Josephus.
In any event, clearly, the conversion to Judaism of a noble Roman woman and the somehow related embezzlement of expensive gifts for the Jewish temple by Jewish rascals, could hardly be the reason for Tiberius to expel the Jews.
My guess is that something happened in Judea that caused the unrest in Rome. Was it the crucifixion of SOMEBODY important to the Jews? Someone who was later amalgamated with the whole Jesus story in some way? It is curious that the TF is placed along with the expulsion of the Jews that occurred in 19 AD in Josephus and there is no indication (despite the episodes borrowed from 58 AD and creatively re-written to give an excuse for the expulsion) that Josephus was not being somewhat chronological in placing the TF with the expulsion time-wise. The upshot is that if this was one of the "important events" - like some sort of model of a crucifixion of SOMEbody - it is around 10 years off from the accepted chronology.
If the author of Acts was misled by this ten year shift forward, and was borrowing like crazy from Josephus, he probably inventively put Paul in front of Gallio. But, if we postulate that Acts is also starting from such a displacement in time, (in addition to all his other sins of omission and commission), we simply have to give up any idea of Gallio having anything to do with Paul at all. There is also the possibility that the author of Acts was associated in some way with a corporate decision of the church in Rome to modify Josephus and a lot of other texts.
Anyway, having released Paul from the bondage of Acts, he is free to do some much more interesting things that I think are suggested by his character and the letters. That is, what if the "conference" occurred as Paul described it, the agreement to leave each other alone was made, and afterward, the James Gang, in bad faith respecting the alleged agreement, invaded his mission field? What would he do? Well, possibly, he just simply sat down and wrote Romans and embarked shortly thereafter to Rome and to heck with the collection.
Which brings up another point: What were they collecting for anyway? To fund their revolutionary movement (described by Josephus who was probably part of it)? What if, then, Paul was in Rome in 49 and was the cause of the Claudian kerfuffle that resulted in another expulsion of Jews? And the "exiling" of Paul who headed for Spain? What if this event recorded by Suetonius is a real, live, historical report of the activity of Paul in Rome? What if the ridiculous story about Paul being arrested in Jerusalem when he went to deliver the collection (which he probably wouldn't have wanted to do after those crazy people went poaching on his territory) didn't happen at all - or, if it did, it actually happened in ROME, more or less? What if the James Gang sent emissaries to Rome to confront Paul and a riot ensued?
19 to 41 AD is 22 years, plenty of time for the Paul timeline from death of the Messiah figure to him adopting it along with some sort of Mystery play thing that may have originally been based on the death of Caesar, to a whole bunch of missionary work. It's even better if it is 19 to 49, which gives Paul 30 years to do a LOT before he heads for Rome.
The so-called "Jerusalem church" headed by James/Cephas/whoever was more likely to have been the Fourth Philosophy gang described so lovingly by Josephus and headed up by Judas of Sepphoris/the Galilean (and others, obviously). Josephus is pretty fast and loose with his identifications of individuals and one gets the strong impression that he's hiding something, possibly even his own involvement in the group that fomented the rebellion, i.e. the James gang.
If there was an already existing "Chrestus Cult" based originally on the worship of Caesar, then it was Paul who took these doings, combined them, and transformed them into Christianity - creating it, literally. And obviously, the James gang didn't like it one bit because their spiritually resurrected guy was supposed to be coming back and bringing fire from heaven to destroy the Romans and they needed him dead and on his chariot of fire for their revolutionary poster boy. (Israel Knohl's "The Gabriel Revelation" supports this interpretation as possibly applying to Simon of Perea and could have as easily been applied to a few others of the same ilk including Judas the Galilean.)
What fascinates me is that Josephus alternates terms for all these revolutionary types, most often calling them "robbers" and once or twice "pirates". That's what got me into this mess: tracking down those darn pirates who were reported to be the first worshippers of Mithras according to Plutarch. That led me straight to Caesar and Anthony. And one cannot help but recall the dramatic passion play of Caesar's funeral and the fact that he was known primarily for his clemency, and he was loved most of all by the people. Additionally, Caesar was victim of the most heinous betrayal of all time... and this appears to have been the model for the betrayal of Judas. Both of them ended up in Dante's lowest circle of Hell together.
Anyway, as I said, I think the answers are right there in history, in the dynamics of real people, wars, revolutions, betrayal and untimely death. Paul's letters are historical documents. The histories and annals of Tacitus are histories. Josephus wrote histories though you have to be a little careful there: it was apologetic history. But that's really all you can use. Acts is so corrupted by agenda and late date that you just can't use it as a historical source. Period. And you have to be careful with the letters because they were often edited to bring them into line with theology and even the last bit of Acts.
Okay, first installment of my notes:
Real World and Text influence flow chart. (I'll try to make a graphic of this and add later.)
Caesar, “hope of the world”, “savior”, betrayed and martyred. The entire Roman World, is stunned. Tens of thousands of soldiers who spent years with Caesar carry his memory throughout the empire and follow his cult.
Caesar cult, official deification, astonishing appearance of a comet, transformation to mysteries?
Caesar cult mystery play written.
Major elements:
Crossing the Rubicon – Baptism
Astonishing victories against major odds – miracles
Triumphal return to Rome
Last Supper
Betrayal and assassination
The dramatic funeral with Caesar’s effigy mounted on a trophaeum and the is the dramatic re-enactment of Caesar’s funeral. The trophaeum, being a Roman symbol of victory, thus becomes, at one and the same time, the symbol of death/victory, or a victorious death.
The Account from Suetonius:
Here is Appian’s account of the funeral:
Thus, as Carotta and Gary Courtney suggest (particularly Courtney), the earliest form of the Book of Mark was the stage direction for the Caesar Cult Mysteries/Passion Play.
Meanwhile, the most important thing to remember about Judea is its volatile social and political conditions in the years following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC. Eventually, Rome took over directly and what had been just simmering came to a fast and explosive boil. Anyone who ignores these conditions in trying to figure out the Jesus problem will get nowhere.
So, in Judea, in addition to a strong revolutionary undercurrent that kept erupting here and there and being beaten back by troops of various tetrarchs, governors, prefects, whatever, there was a parallel and cross-pollinating current of religious innovations especially in respect of messianic ideas, theories, hopes. There was also a great ferment of Greek ideas being re-cast by Jewish thinkers and mystics including ideas about other worlds, noumenal worlds of Plato, ontology, angels, demons, and more.
At this point, Herod the Great dies and there is the “Golden Eagle Temple Cleansing” by Matthias and Judas. At the same time, there is the death of the new “King of the Jews”, Simon of Peraea. Josephus is unclear about the several Judases. He says first that Matthias and Judas are executed by being burned alive. But then, Judas keeps popping up over and over again for some years more. He is credited with creating the uber-strict Judaism “Fourth Philosophy” which probably relates closely to the Essene groups.
As Knohl develops the idea which seems to have originated during Macabbean times, the “blood of martyrs” can not only appease god’s wrath against the entire people, but, rather like the expression in Genesis, the blood can create a direct link between this world and the “heavenly” world, as in “the voice of your brother’s blood cries from the ground.” So, apparently, these mystic revolutionaries (there was no separation between religion and politics for ancient peoples, most particularly the Jews) came up with the idea that the shed blood of a martyr would actually create a sort of “fiery path” or road between earth and the heavens, sort of like the ascension of Elijah who was taken up in a “chariot of fire”. It seems that, in the face of Roman abuses and their overpowering presence, there was an evolving image of an Elijah like messiah who would be sacrificed and ascend and bring back god and the angels to drive the Romans out and even destroy Rome. So, it is important to keep in mind the military/revolutionary/vengeance and destruction ideology behind all of this. That’s why I call the mythical Jerusalem Church the “James Gang”. The only extent to which this could be considered a “church” was that they were fanatical Jews; what we, today, would call terrorists. And that’s not to say that they didn’t have real grievances against Rome!
So, Simon of Peraea, Matthias and Judas of the 4th philosophy gang became martyrs whose deaths were attractors for god’s vengeance on Rome.. They had a REAL following, i.e. just about everybody in Judea who wanted to throw off the Roman yoke.
Now, Judas the Galilean, who I think is the same Judas associated with Matthias above, and who managed to not be executed at that time, and who Josephus credits with the founding of the Fourth Philosophy Fanatical Judaism cult, was, in the beginning, pretty much as the tradition describes “Jesus” – a teacher and interpreter of the law. But after the deaths of Matthias and Simon of Peraea, and others, he was radicalized along with his gang, his multiple brothers, including James, and his buddy Cephas. They continued to function in the Temple society of Jerusalem because that was the hub of their religion and religion was the hub of their resistance. They were busy creating a revolutionary network and Josephus, himself, may very well have been a part of it at some point.
This brings us to the Testimonium Flavianum. Now, Unterbrink gives many reasons why he thinks that this was originally the notice of the death of Judas the Galilean and a number of reasons why. Works for me, only the issue I have is with the date that is generally assumed for this event.
The real problem in Antiquities 18.3 is what follows the Testimoneum: the pathetic story about PAULina married to SATURNINUS and the night of love in the temple of Isis, followed by the equally hokey story about FULVIA - ALSO married to a SATURNINUS (duplication to call attention in a subtle way?) and the hoax played by the 3 Jews, both of which stories were supposed to explain the expulsion of the Jews WHEN? During the time of Pilate? That is what the beginning of the chapter talks about. Josephus specifies that the time of Pilate is the same as the time of the TF and then following, says that at the same time, the expulsion of the Jews happened. We can certainly date this expulsion to 19 AD. That’s 10/11 years earlier than Jesus or whoever is supposed to have been crucified. (And we don’t even know for sure that there was a crucifixion here though it is possible since Pilate was, by all accounts, a bastard.)
But here’s the main problem: in Tacitus Annals 13.44, there is a story about Octavius Sagitta who was "enamored to a frenzy of Pontia, a married woman..." The story has a somewhat different outcome but the principal elements are all there. So, I re-read it and then my eye was caught by something on the facing page in chap. 43, just a few paragraphs up: the name SATURNINUS. I believe the date of this event was around 58.
Obviously, Josephus could have gotten the idea for his tale from anywhere, but marrying the two women - suspiciously named PAULina (think apostle Paul) and a FULVIA (think Mark Anthony and Clodius and then Caesar's funeral) to a SATURNINUS when that name is just a few paragraphs away from the tale of Octavius Sagitta and Pontia just strikes me as more than coincidence. The creative author’s eye just fell on this name and used it in doublet to “send a message”. I would say s/he also used the names “PAULina” and FULVIA for the same reason: those with eyes to see would see.
As Unterbrink points out in his examination of the text (he is clueless about the Caesar connection so really doesn’t get it completely), the name of the lover in Josephus' variation of the tale, Decius Mundus, is also peculiar and this is something that another guy has noticed who has written about Judas the Galilean being the "real Jesus" (Dan Unterbrink). He points out that the name is similar to Decius Mus, the namv of three Romans who sacrificed (devotio) themselves in battle for the victory of their armies. (Livy 8.9)
Another interesting event in 19 AD was the death of Germanicus following which there was the debate in the senate about expelling BOTH Egyptian and Jewish worshippers from Rome. (Annals 2.85 And it was done.) Interestingly, "Tacitus refers to the magic charms uncovered in connection with the poisoning of Germanicus as "devotiones", indicating that the word had expanded its meaning to include other ritual acts in which an individual sought to harm and even kill another." (Rives, "Magic, Religion, and Law," pp. 47, 61.)
So, if Josephus is being at all chronological here, he means to say that this TF thing belongs to the year 19 AD which, as Unterbrink suggests, might fit a crucifixion of Judas the Galilean. (Josephus records the crucifixion of his sons by Tiberius Alexander some years later.)
There are two historical events that are something like pegs: the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in 19 AD in the fifth year of Tiberius and then a similar episode in the reign of Claudius in either 41 or 49. (I think it was 49.) The first "hook" strikes me as odd when I consider that Marcion's version of Luke began with the fifteenth year of Tiberius. So, we have an expulsion in the Vth year of the reign and the "crucifixion" in the XVth - Ten years difference.
Then, in Josephus, the same troubling ten year period of Archelaus and Pilate that seem so much like doublets.
So, for the myth of Jesus, just add ten years and you've shifted the whole thing forward and who would know? Assuming that Judas the Galilean was the one crucified in 19 AD... and someone didn't want anybody to relate that to "Jesus".
Obviously, something happened at those two times – 19 AD and 49 AD - recorded in REAL history and whatever it was, it really riled up the Jews.
Recall that my problem with Josephus was those two stories that followed immediately on the Testimonium Flavianum... that is, they are associated with the text about the alleged crucifixion IN TIME. But, as I pointed out, the stories in Josephus appear to have been adapted/rewritten based on a legal case mentioned by Tacitus belonging to the year 58. Sure, Josephus could have gotten it from another source, but it is very curious that the name of the husbands of the two women, Saturninus, is just a few paragraphs up from the tale itself IN TACITUS. Reminds one of the Theudas-Judas problem. Which makes one wonder if the same person suffering from ADD who wrote Acts was diddling with the MS of Josephus.
In any event, clearly, the conversion to Judaism of a noble Roman woman and the somehow related embezzlement of expensive gifts for the Jewish temple by Jewish rascals, could hardly be the reason for Tiberius to expel the Jews.
My guess is that something happened in Judea that caused the unrest in Rome. Was it the crucifixion of SOMEBODY important to the Jews? Someone who was later amalgamated with the whole Jesus story in some way? It is curious that the TF is placed along with the expulsion of the Jews that occurred in 19 AD in Josephus and there is no indication (despite the episodes borrowed from 58 AD and creatively re-written to give an excuse for the expulsion) that Josephus was not being somewhat chronological in placing the TF with the expulsion time-wise. The upshot is that if this was one of the "important events" - like some sort of model of a crucifixion of SOMEbody - it is around 10 years off from the accepted chronology.
If the author of Acts was misled by this ten year shift forward, and was borrowing like crazy from Josephus, he probably inventively put Paul in front of Gallio. But, if we postulate that Acts is also starting from such a displacement in time, (in addition to all his other sins of omission and commission), we simply have to give up any idea of Gallio having anything to do with Paul at all. There is also the possibility that the author of Acts was associated in some way with a corporate decision of the church in Rome to modify Josephus and a lot of other texts.
Anyway, having released Paul from the bondage of Acts, he is free to do some much more interesting things that I think are suggested by his character and the letters. That is, what if the "conference" occurred as Paul described it, the agreement to leave each other alone was made, and afterward, the James Gang, in bad faith respecting the alleged agreement, invaded his mission field? What would he do? Well, possibly, he just simply sat down and wrote Romans and embarked shortly thereafter to Rome and to heck with the collection.
Which brings up another point: What were they collecting for anyway? To fund their revolutionary movement (described by Josephus who was probably part of it)? What if, then, Paul was in Rome in 49 and was the cause of the Claudian kerfuffle that resulted in another expulsion of Jews? And the "exiling" of Paul who headed for Spain? What if this event recorded by Suetonius is a real, live, historical report of the activity of Paul in Rome? What if the ridiculous story about Paul being arrested in Jerusalem when he went to deliver the collection (which he probably wouldn't have wanted to do after those crazy people went poaching on his territory) didn't happen at all - or, if it did, it actually happened in ROME, more or less? What if the James Gang sent emissaries to Rome to confront Paul and a riot ensued?
19 to 41 AD is 22 years, plenty of time for the Paul timeline from death of the Messiah figure to him adopting it along with some sort of Mystery play thing that may have originally been based on the death of Caesar, to a whole bunch of missionary work. It's even better if it is 19 to 49, which gives Paul 30 years to do a LOT before he heads for Rome.
The so-called "Jerusalem church" headed by James/Cephas/whoever was more likely to have been the Fourth Philosophy gang described so lovingly by Josephus and headed up by Judas of Sepphoris/the Galilean (and others, obviously). Josephus is pretty fast and loose with his identifications of individuals and one gets the strong impression that he's hiding something, possibly even his own involvement in the group that fomented the rebellion, i.e. the James gang.
If there was an already existing "Chrestus Cult" based originally on the worship of Caesar, then it was Paul who took these doings, combined them, and transformed them into Christianity - creating it, literally. And obviously, the James gang didn't like it one bit because their spiritually resurrected guy was supposed to be coming back and bringing fire from heaven to destroy the Romans and they needed him dead and on his chariot of fire for their revolutionary poster boy. (Israel Knohl's "The Gabriel Revelation" supports this interpretation as possibly applying to Simon of Perea and could have as easily been applied to a few others of the same ilk including Judas the Galilean.)
What fascinates me is that Josephus alternates terms for all these revolutionary types, most often calling them "robbers" and once or twice "pirates". That's what got me into this mess: tracking down those darn pirates who were reported to be the first worshippers of Mithras according to Plutarch. That led me straight to Caesar and Anthony. And one cannot help but recall the dramatic passion play of Caesar's funeral and the fact that he was known primarily for his clemency, and he was loved most of all by the people. Additionally, Caesar was victim of the most heinous betrayal of all time... and this appears to have been the model for the betrayal of Judas. Both of them ended up in Dante's lowest circle of Hell together.
Anyway, as I said, I think the answers are right there in history, in the dynamics of real people, wars, revolutions, betrayal and untimely death. Paul's letters are historical documents. The histories and annals of Tacitus are histories. Josephus wrote histories though you have to be a little careful there: it was apologetic history. But that's really all you can use. Acts is so corrupted by agenda and late date that you just can't use it as a historical source. Period. And you have to be careful with the letters because they were often edited to bring them into line with theology and even the last bit of Acts.
Re: Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity
Part Two of my Notes:
So, to recap:
Simon of Peraea, Matthias and Judas of the Fourth Philosophy gang were a real “organization” in 1st century Judea, but they weren’t exactly a “Christian Church” though they DID promote their messianic deal to recruit more revolutionaries to their cause of destroying Rome or at least kicking them out of their country. It actually seems that they were fomenting rebellion all over the empire based on some of the events reported by Josephus.
Judas was probably executed in 19 AD, the same year that Germanicus died. Germanicus was much loved by the people and it was probably hoped that he would be like Julius Caesar; this created a generalized lament over the Roman world. Probably the news of the execution of Judas the Galilean cause riots and unrest in Rome leading to the expulsion of the Jews.
Emotionally overwrought followers of the revolutionary leader, Judas, either 1) actually had visions of him or 2) pretended to have such visions and spread the stories to incite hatred of Rome and fervor for Jewish priestly rule.
Paul, as a Pharisee/Herodian may have already been familiar with the Caesar cult because the Herodian family was intimately linked with the Roman Imperial family and their supporters may well have been also. He may even have been a witness to the Mysteries performed. As a supporter of Rome, he probably persecuted the revolutionary/prophetic preaching of the James gang followers of Judas the Galilean, at least verbally. Judas may have been given an “ascension” name, i.e. Yeshua, after his death as a code to conceal revolutionary activities. Interestingly, Josephus tells us about a “real Jesus”, though not the one of the gospels, (not to exclude that some elements of this individual may not have been part of the mythical patchwork):
Another possibility is that Judas the Galilean had a brother named Yeshua who continued his revolutionary activities after the (possible) death of Judas in 4 BC along with Matthias, though there is no sign of such in the texts.
Josephus has blown so much smoke over some of the revolutionary activities and Judas, in particular, that you suspect he not only knew more than he let on, but that he was also involved.
But anyway, Paul’s vision: Did Paul have some sort of visionary experience in which all these elements came together? Did he become convinced that it was his mission to prevent what he clearly could see was coming if the Jews continued on their revolutionary path? Did he work out his theology, Christology, ecclesiology and anthropology, to service this agenda?
It is obvious from his letters that what Paul received in his visions was rather different from what was being promoted by the James Gang, the revolutionary clan of Judas and friends.
Paul’s preaching about the coming “end” was probably his desperate attempt to forestall the destruction he could see the Jews bringing on themselves. Part of his 2-part strategy was to engage the Gentiles in the worship of the Creator God of Judaism who, he naturally thought of as the only “real” higher god. The second part of the strategy was to persuade the Jews to give up their stand-offish “speshulness” and become part of the rest of humanity, i.e. peaceful members of the Greco-Roman world.
If this was what he was doing, it was brilliant, noble, and desperate.
Paul may also have been convinced, as a result of a Caesar cult experience, that Caesar, too, had actually become a son of God – the Jewish Creator God – and that this meant that God intended for all peoples to be united in one worship. He may have taught this directly as “Christ on the Cross”, the cross/trophaeum being the symbol both of death and victory at one and the same time. Paul may not have seen it as necessary to identify his Christ on the Cross as Caesar; on the other hand, he may not have needed to. In his preaching, he may have tapped into the network of the Caesar cults for his first converts. His letters may have been redacted to remove any such clues which would have been small, if present at all, due to the one-sided conversational nature of letters where a lot of things are understood by both parties that are not explicitly set out in the letter.
What seems to me to be important is that Paul apparently did have some deep and profound visionary experiences from which he distilled his theories of another world, semi-physical and other dimensional, which would be the new reality of the “saved” Christian. What seems clear is that this was partly based on the Roman Clientela system: if you have TRUST – align yourself with – Christ, then you will be saved AT THE END when he returns. On the other hand, the elements of his teaching can also be found among Greek and Jewish religious ideas laying close to hand.
Since Paul was so desperately seeking to counter revolutionary activities and engage the support of the gentiles for the Jews via their mutual worship of the same Creator god, it may be that he only used the idea of an eschatological parousia as both carrot and stick to achieve his ends. He may very well have understood the true nature of this other hyperdimensional reality – and he may have surely seen the “principalities” etc as energetic constructs of information – and that the Jews were almost certainly doomed if something wasn’t done, and quickly.
But he failed. The END did come for Jerusalem and more than a million Jews. After which, it seems to me, he wrote chapters 9-11 of Romans. Funny numbers considering the replay of the dynamic in the present day.
Part Two of my Notes:
So, to recap:
Simon of Peraea, Matthias and Judas of the Fourth Philosophy gang were a real “organization” in 1st century Judea, but they weren’t exactly a “Christian Church” though they DID promote their messianic deal to recruit more revolutionaries to their cause of destroying Rome or at least kicking them out of their country. It actually seems that they were fomenting rebellion all over the empire based on some of the events reported by Josephus.
Judas was probably executed in 19 AD, the same year that Germanicus died. Germanicus was much loved by the people and it was probably hoped that he would be like Julius Caesar; this created a generalized lament over the Roman world. Probably the news of the execution of Judas the Galilean cause riots and unrest in Rome leading to the expulsion of the Jews.
Emotionally overwrought followers of the revolutionary leader, Judas, either 1) actually had visions of him or 2) pretended to have such visions and spread the stories to incite hatred of Rome and fervor for Jewish priestly rule.
Paul, as a Pharisee/Herodian may have already been familiar with the Caesar cult because the Herodian family was intimately linked with the Roman Imperial family and their supporters may well have been also. He may even have been a witness to the Mysteries performed. As a supporter of Rome, he probably persecuted the revolutionary/prophetic preaching of the James gang followers of Judas the Galilean, at least verbally. Judas may have been given an “ascension” name, i.e. Yeshua, after his death as a code to conceal revolutionary activities. Interestingly, Josephus tells us about a “real Jesus”, though not the one of the gospels, (not to exclude that some elements of this individual may not have been part of the mythical patchwork):
Another possibility is that Judas the Galilean had a brother named Yeshua who continued his revolutionary activities after the (possible) death of Judas in 4 BC along with Matthias, though there is no sign of such in the texts.
Josephus has blown so much smoke over some of the revolutionary activities and Judas, in particular, that you suspect he not only knew more than he let on, but that he was also involved.
But anyway, Paul’s vision: Did Paul have some sort of visionary experience in which all these elements came together? Did he become convinced that it was his mission to prevent what he clearly could see was coming if the Jews continued on their revolutionary path? Did he work out his theology, Christology, ecclesiology and anthropology, to service this agenda?
It is obvious from his letters that what Paul received in his visions was rather different from what was being promoted by the James Gang, the revolutionary clan of Judas and friends.
Paul’s preaching about the coming “end” was probably his desperate attempt to forestall the destruction he could see the Jews bringing on themselves. Part of his 2-part strategy was to engage the Gentiles in the worship of the Creator God of Judaism who, he naturally thought of as the only “real” higher god. The second part of the strategy was to persuade the Jews to give up their stand-offish “speshulness” and become part of the rest of humanity, i.e. peaceful members of the Greco-Roman world.
If this was what he was doing, it was brilliant, noble, and desperate.
Paul may also have been convinced, as a result of a Caesar cult experience, that Caesar, too, had actually become a son of God – the Jewish Creator God – and that this meant that God intended for all peoples to be united in one worship. He may have taught this directly as “Christ on the Cross”, the cross/trophaeum being the symbol both of death and victory at one and the same time. Paul may not have seen it as necessary to identify his Christ on the Cross as Caesar; on the other hand, he may not have needed to. In his preaching, he may have tapped into the network of the Caesar cults for his first converts. His letters may have been redacted to remove any such clues which would have been small, if present at all, due to the one-sided conversational nature of letters where a lot of things are understood by both parties that are not explicitly set out in the letter.
What seems to me to be important is that Paul apparently did have some deep and profound visionary experiences from which he distilled his theories of another world, semi-physical and other dimensional, which would be the new reality of the “saved” Christian. What seems clear is that this was partly based on the Roman Clientela system: if you have TRUST – align yourself with – Christ, then you will be saved AT THE END when he returns. On the other hand, the elements of his teaching can also be found among Greek and Jewish religious ideas laying close to hand.
Since Paul was so desperately seeking to counter revolutionary activities and engage the support of the gentiles for the Jews via their mutual worship of the same Creator god, it may be that he only used the idea of an eschatological parousia as both carrot and stick to achieve his ends. He may very well have understood the true nature of this other hyperdimensional reality – and he may have surely seen the “principalities” etc as energetic constructs of information – and that the Jews were almost certainly doomed if something wasn’t done, and quickly.
But he failed. The END did come for Jerusalem and more than a million Jews. After which, it seems to me, he wrote chapters 9-11 of Romans. Funny numbers considering the replay of the dynamic in the present day.
From the quote in the Marcion, Paul, and early Christianity thread.
Sorry if this is noise, but just had the thought. I remember reading from all that has been posted about Caesar, as the above indicates, that he treated Jews really well. Then I thought of Jesus in the bible being name ‘King of the Jews.’
There are also a lot of more references in the bible about such about Jesus being asked about and accused of being King of the Jews. Caesar was also accused of wanted to be a king and/or the title of king offered to him. So maybe this was carried over in terms of this aspect of Caesars life and symbol of crucifixion at his funeral being related in the bible. I don’t remember this being covered in ‘Jesus was Caesar’ or before. If it has, my bad.
Suetonius said:
Sorry if this is noise, but just had the thought. I remember reading from all that has been posted about Caesar, as the above indicates, that he treated Jews really well. Then I thought of Jesus in the bible being name ‘King of the Jews.’
Matthew 27:36 said:
There are also a lot of more references in the bible about such about Jesus being asked about and accused of being King of the Jews. Caesar was also accused of wanted to be a king and/or the title of king offered to him. So maybe this was carried over in terms of this aspect of Caesars life and symbol of crucifixion at his funeral being related in the bible. I don’t remember this being covered in ‘Jesus was Caesar’ or before. If it has, my bad.
Laura said:
I think they can be merged.
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