Paul as a Herodian?

[DCHindley]

You do realize that what you are doing, ebion, is renaming everyone on the flimsiest basis so that you can force everything to "fit" historically as you want it to have been.

Are you familiar with member yakovzutolmai? He has a similarly active imagination when it comes to the intrigues of Ptolemy Menneus (former ruler of Damascus) and his relationship with the ruling families of Roman-Parthian client states.

The region's politics are not especially closely studied in biblical scholarship, so we are not as familiar with the sources as we should be, but really ... yakov could not tell me anything about his sources other than to say "standard references" or something.

DCH

[lclapshaw]

You do realize that what you are doing, ebion, is renaming everyone on the flimsiest basis so that you can force everything to "fit" historically as you want it to have been.

DCH

Isn't that the default around here?

Eisenman anyone?

[ebion]

According to Josephus, Herod was the son or grandson of an Idumean convert.

Josephus tells us that Herod Antipas was an Idumean and a half Jew. His father was Herod the Great was an Idumean and his mother was a Nabatean Arab. Herod's first wife was much more than that: she was a princess of the Nabateans/Idumeans.

You do realize that what you are doing, ebion, is renaming everyone on the flimsiest basis so that you can force everything to "fit" historically as you want it to have been.

Is that the best you can do? Wouldn't you be safer sticking your "Paul as a manumitted slave" line?

Are you familiar with member yakovzutolmai? He has a similarly active imagination when it comes to the intrigues of Ptolemy Menneus (former ruler of Damascus) and his relationship with the ruling families of Roman-Parthian client states.

I just discovered his writings yesterday: I'm slowly combing through his works. There's a lot of good and original work in there.

The region's politics are not especially closely studied in biblical scholarship, so we are not as familiar with the sources as we should be, but really ... yakov could not tell me anything about his sources other than to say "standard references" or something.

Perhaps you assumed he "renamed' people?

[ebion]

I credit the original idea of Paul being closely related to Herod, to Eisenman; perhaps someone with a copy of his book on James could do a short summary of his findings.

I only have access via archive.org, but I've taken out snippets regarding Paul being a Herodian. These are scattered throughout his book:

Thanks for that: I find Eisenman very hard to read: the volume is so large and the prose is so muddy, but I like to mine the gems.

It is also clear from the Antiquities’ sequencing of the assassination of Ananus' brother, the High Priest Jonathan, by 'Robbers' or 'Sicarii' around 55 CE, leading to the Temple Wall Affair and the conspiracy by Ananus and Agrippa II to remove James in 62 CE, that James is seen as being at the centre of these disturbances, at least in the eyes of the Establishment High Priest and the Herodian King. If the relationship of Saulus - 'a kinsman of Agrippa' - with Paul can be confirmed, it is legitimate to ask just what Paul's repeated conversations during two years of protective custody in Caesarea with Agrippa II's brother-in-law, the Roman Governor Felix and with Festus and Agrippa II himself, were really about (Acts 24:24-26:32).

Eisenman is using the term "protective custody" in Caesarea which is the same conclusion I came to. But the phrase you highlighted "the relationship of Saulus - 'a kinsman of Agrippa' - with Paul can be confirmed" is the key one, and I take it as confirmed that Paul was the son of the first wife of Herod - but is he Herod's son or by a second husband?

17 years of marriage is lots of time to have sons, but we have no idea of the dynamics of a family relationships where the husband divorces the first wife and remarries: how does he treat his children of his first wife? Is Paul to old to be born after Herod divorced her? Either way, Paul is an Idumean and a Herodian, which makes his relationship to Christianity more likely to be that of oppressor, which is how he started, or as an infiltrator/controlled opposition which is what he becomes in Acts. The Ebionaens were right all along.

In your reading of Eisenman, does he shed any light on the fact that the "Establishment High Priest" was installed by the "Herodian King"? What I'm seeing in what I'm reading is that Herod overthrew the HPs of his day and installed his own men, so we can't treat the Sadducees as independent of Herod. Which is what we see in the murder of James.

[DCHindley]

I've interacted with Robert Eisenman two or three times over the years, going back to about 1992 when he guest hosted an online discussion @ Prodigy.com after the publication of his book The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered.

At that time the buzz was about two DSS legal treatises known as MMT (4Q394-398 & 4Q397-399), and he had also translated a couple already-published translations of other DSS fragments, which I was happy to compare to the older ones. His style is very interesting, not trying to make the language conform to some already preconceived framework. Reading some of the earlier DSS translations often sounded stodgy with all flowery "church" language, so I found these refreshing. Just pulled it out (the book that is ) of my bookshelf and will have to dust it off. It's been a long time.

Anyhow, I exchanged e-mails with him sometime after 1996 as we discussed a possible 2nd volume on James the Brother of Jesus, and I think it was around the time of the James Ossuary controversy (2003). He was the first "name" scholar who thought the ossuary was fake. When he stated that publicly in some interview, he started to receive harassing e-mails, or his employer & colleagues would receive spoofed e-mails as if from him that would include lewd statements.* I had expressed sympathy on Crosstalk2 as I had been dragged into the brawl when I offered a link to a local original newspaper article. Eisenman contacted me & he explained what problems he had. He thought someone with links to the industry was behind it. There were maybe 2 e-mails for that last conversation. At that time he had a whole 2nd volume written, but wanted to wait for the hype to build up again after the ossuary fiasco. Anyhow, he finally published it as The New Testament code: the cup of the Lord, the Damascus covenant, and the blood of Christ (2006).

Anyhow, both James the Just and NT Code were so big (about 1,000 pgs each) they were published in "condensed" versions in 2013. The reason they were so big was, I think, because he looks at every possible combination of literary facts, compares bible versions to get at factoids, and gets a bit of blood out of that turnip. I had read James the Just myself (of the James & related NT Code) and felt he could have organized and summarized all those facts more efficiently. "Code" refers to the early Christian version of the Damascus Code, not one of those crazy books of secret codes in scripture.

I guess he realized that too and thus the condensed volumes:
*James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I: The Historical James, Paul the Enemy, and Jesus’ Brothers as Apostles (2013)
*James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II: The Damascus Code, the Tent of David, the New Covenant, and the Blood of Christ (2013)

I might look at that condensed two-volume book.

Below find a link to his 2013 Huffington Post summary of his beliefs about Paul:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pauls-co ... _b_3862879

DCH

*I am reminded of Raphael Golb's anonymous harranging of opponents of his father Norman Golb, who had published Who wrote the Dead Sea scrolls? - the search for the secret of Qumran, around 1995. What a stink that raised, eh? IMHO, I think he may have touched a nerve with the idea that the DSS could actually represent Judaism of the masses, not the idealized way Josephus, or the editor of the Mishna, had presented them. Norman has done some other research on Khazarian Hebrew documents of the tenth century (1982) which I will have to look up as I am interested in kingdoms where pagans convert to Judaism, Adiabene style, why the conversion of the upper classes occurred, and how the transition was accomplished.

[ebion]

I've interacted with Robert Eisenman two or three times over the years, going back to about 1992 ... His style is very interesting, not trying to make the language conform to some already preconceived framework. Reading some of the earlier DSS translations often sounded stodgy with all flowery "church" language, so I found these refreshing.

I appreciate the non-stodgy part of his work.

... When he stated that publicly in some interview, he started to receive harassing e-mails, or his employer & colleagues would receive spoofed e-mails as if from him that would include lewd statements.* I had expressed sympathy on Crosstalk2 as I had been dragged into the brawl when I offered a link to a local original newspaper article. Eisenman contacted me & he explained what problems he had. He thought someone with links to the industry was behind it. ...

That shocks but doesn't surprise me. The D$$ industry has been horribly deceptive, and it shocks me that they would try to suppress him. It has made me avoid the D$$ entirely, and just focus on the NHL.

Anyhow, both James the Just and NT Code were so big (about 1,000 pgs each) they were published in "condensed" versions in 2013. The reason they were so big was, I think, because he looks at every possible combination of literary facts, compares bible versions to get at factoids, and gets a bit of blood out of that turnip. I had read James the Just myself (of the James & related NT Code) and felt he could have organized and summarized all those facts more efficiently. "Code" refers to the early Christian version of the Damascus Code, not one of those crazy books of secret codes in scripture.

The little work I did comparing what wrote about the Habakkuk pesher and the document itself left me unconvinced that the text was that clear, athough I accept his conclusions. And the videos I've watched of his makes me unsure I would agree with him on what Christianity is: I exclude the Faulines, as did the Ebionaens.

I might look at that condensed two-volume book.

I want to build on Eisenman's work by getting at the James-Paul conflict, whilst ignoring both the Faulines and Qumran. And I want to cut through the obfuscation of Paul's pedigree.

*I am reminded of Raphael Golb's anonymous harranging of opponents of his father Norman Golb, who had published Who wrote the Dead Sea scrolls? - the search for the secret of Qumran, around 1995. What a stink that raised, eh? IMHO, I think he may have touched a nerve with the idea that the DSS could actually represent Judaism of the masses, not the idealized way Josephus, or the editor of the Mishna, had presented them. Norman has done some other research on Khazarian Hebrew documents of the tenth century (1982) which I will have to look up as I am interested in kingdoms where pagans convert to Judaism, Adiabene style, why the conversion of the upper classes occurred, and how the transition was accomplished.

I feel Churchianity was [url=viewtopic.php?p=163390#p163390]made pagan under Constantine[.url], but am now realizing that the paganization of Christianity may have started earlier, even before the MarcionOrLater Faulines. If Paul-in-Acts was a Herodian in league with the Romans, then he may have been naturally pagan inclined. It's hard to keep the Paul-in-Acts-(and-maybe-Romans) separate from the Faulines to be able to see - I need to mine the Clementines/Travels of Peter.

The "Roman" in Catholic may be from Augustus, to which Mithras and Sol Invictus were later added.

[Peter Kirby]

It has made me avoid the D$$ entirely, and just focus on the NHL.

Do you believe there's some benefit from avoiding the DSS entirely, or are you doing this with no benefit to yourself?

If so, what's the benefit?

[ebion]

It has made me avoid the D$$ entirely, and just focus on the NHL.

Do you believe there's some benefit from avoiding the DSS entirely, or are you doing this with no benefit to yourself? If so, what's the benefit?

It;s because I'm mortal and have only so many years left to me. The media worldwide pushed their fraudulent Essene cover-story and I'll leave them to it: I'm starting a one-man BDS of the DSS :-,).

And there are gems in the NHL for Christians: the Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth to name but 3. The benefit is that I'll have time to look at those.

[Peter Kirby]

It has made me avoid the D$$ entirely, and just focus on the NHL.

Do you believe there's some benefit from avoiding the DSS entirely, or are you doing this with no benefit to yourself? If so, what's the benefit?

It;s because I'm mortal and have only so many years left to me. The media worldwide pushed their fraudulent Essene cover-story and I'll leave them to it: I'm starting a one-man BDS of the DSS :-,).

And there are gems in the NHL for Christians: the Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth to name but 3. The benefit is that I'll have time to look at those.

Isn't there a real danger that the texts you're not studying could be closer to what you're interested in?

[andrewcriddle]

Different grades of citizenship developed during the 2nd century CE and were officially recognized by Caracalla in 212.
IF we accept Acts 22:28

The commander answered, “I acquired this citizenship for a large sum of money.” And Paul said, “But I was actually born a citizen.”

Then Paul in the 1st century CE is claiming full citizenship with all that entailed. Later one would have to distinguish between Honestiores_and_humiliores but not in Paul's time.

Andrew: what translation of Acts is that from?

I find its "I was actually born a citizen." is clearer than the KJV which obscures this essential point:

New American Standard Bible See https://biblehub.com/acts/22-28.htm

Andrew Criddle