Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Neil wrote: The John the Baptist in the gospels is a theologial-literary construct with no correlation to anything or anyone historical. The John the Baptist in Josephus is quite a different character. He is not an apocalyptic prophet and did not even live at the same time as the John the Baptist of...

MrMacson wrote (in response to this comment): Josephus works for me. I appreciate Neil's objections, but I'm comfortable interpreting what Josephus says about the Fourth Philosophy in a messianic light and that "about that time" means during the first century CE (since the sect* was founde...

Regarding Tacitus' statement that "under Tiberius all was quiet," I suppose it depends on what Tacitus means by "quiet." I don't see how this means that no one was arrested or executed or that there weren't any disturbances. Here is Tacitus' statement: The royal power, which had ...

Neil wrote: As I think I pointed out in the OP, the context of Josephus's "ambiguous oracle" is a non-canonical source. We simply do not know where it came from. It is debatable whether it is related to Numbers 24:17. Further, if Josephus knew of messianic hopes we would expect him to exco...

Cool. Thanks, spin.

MrMacson, Josephus works for me. I appreciate Neil's objections, but I'm comfortable interpreting what Josephus says about the Fourth Philosophy in a messianic light and that "about that time" means during the first century CE (since the sect was founded in 6 CE) and not specifically 66 CE...

Hey, John T. This recent book gives the carbon dating of 4Q521 as 50 BCE to 80 CE: https://books.google.com/books?id=w6-oBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA40&dq=4q521+carbon+dating&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwig3oOy0vXRAhVlz1QKHcAeAP0Q6AEIKDAB#v=onepage&q=4q521%20carbon%20dating&f=false And Joseph...

MrMacson wrote: Can you elaborate on what you mean by "Daniel 9:24-26 is commonly applied to Jesus outside of the NT"? Stuff like this, for example: http://www.bible.ca/H-70-weeks-daniel.htm But the NT are mid-1st C at the earliest, and possibly later. Not sure what you mean, but I think s...

Neil wrote: Daniel 9:24-26, the source of supposed interest in messianic time-tables, is absent from Qumran and the Gospels. Mk. 13:14/Mt. 24:15 at least refer to the abomination of the desolation, which is mentioned in Dan. 9:27, and Daniel 9:24-26 is commonly applied to Jesus outside of the NT. An...

Neil wrote: (One can believe in the resurrection of the dead without being emotionally on fire expecting it to happen "within months or years".) I agree. I don't get the impression that the Pharisees were expecting the messiah (if they were) to come right this second. They certainly weren'...