Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

TedM wrote:200-300 years of ignorance or lack of interest by all of the people who read the passage

Grasping at straws again, eh?

No... I'm not being fair? Either way, though, a conversation is boring which just weaves its way back to some "reason" for dismissing the answer provided by the evidence.

What would make a (former) Pharisee give up what was essential to his tradition and embark on a conscious imitation of everything his former belief system rejected - i.e. becoming a pagan writer with the help of Greek 'assistants in order to defend Judaism'? Greco-Roman culture was superior to barb...

Damascus was the original capital of the region (before conquest by the Greeks moved it to Antioch), an important conquest of Nabatea under Aretas III, and the decisive conquest that gave control over Syria to the Romans when Pompey took the city in 63 BC. Damascus was later attacked by the Parthia...

stephan happy huller wrote:All the coins have Greek not Latin text.

This nineteenth century book was written in Latin (to reach an international scholarly audience).

It does not imply that the contents of the coin's text is Latin.

Even the structure of Antiquities is odd. Why could an Aramaic speaking 'former Pharisee' have embarked on a project to imitate Dionysius's Roman Antiquities for the Jewish people? Fucking strange in itself. The ancient equivalent of a former Taliban deciding to remake the story of the Prophet into...

Do they record the degree to which Syria was 'Roman' at this time? Or the degree to which Rome CARED about this territory? That's a lot of open ground out there... Thanks Peter. I have to wonder how important the territory in which Damascus resided was to Rome? Do we have any evidence of its import...

My interest is why the editor of the New Testament decided to go with the Aretas story. I think Josephus was edited to support a number of ludicrous stories in the New Testament. I just can't figure out why. If you are going to make up shit about Paul why not make up shit within the confines of acc...

For what it's worth, I've tracked down the reference provided in the Wikipedia for their claim (that there is a single coin minted in Damascus by Aretas IV dating to 37 AD)... https://archive.org/stream/descriptiondemd07miongoog#page/n219/mode/2up "Aretas, Damasci rex," this book says. I'd...

It's still a fantasy. It's inferred directly from 2 Corinthians, not from any other source. I would use the term 'reasonable hypothesis'. What Murphy has done is show that there is a basis for the 2 Corin reference to be historical: Client kings existed under Caligula, and Caligula had motive to re...

Maybe reading this paraphrase from Murphy J O'Conners' ( Paul: A Critical Life ) will provoke a sheepish grin? . . . Client Kingdom's, such as an alleged rule of Damascus by the Nabataean's was forbidden by the emperor Tiberius. When Tiberius died in 37A.D., Caligula reinstated client kings such as...