Fernando Bermejo-Rubio

[StephenGoranson]

That, of course, is not what I wrote, sigh.

[maryhelena]

That, of course, is not what I wrote, sigh.

Glad to hear that you view Golgotha as relevant to the gospel crucifixion story. That was the point of my post.

Consequently, it seems to me that your response indicated not a desire to deal with the content of that post..... but to find some means to get a dig at me...

Don't always seek the negative is good advice....

[StephenGoranson]

The Jerusalem-located name is arguably more likely Aramaic than Syriac.
If so, the proposed jumping from "Syrian" in a 1874 text
to "Syrian Antioch" in an earlier century
may be an imaginative leap that is not justified.

[maryhelena]

The Jerusalem-located name is arguably more likely Aramaic than Syriac.
If so, the proposed jumping from "Syrian" in a 1874 text
to "Syrian Antioch" in an earlier century
may be an imaginative leap that is not justified.

.. may be..... but then again..... may be not...



Ah... Let's not forget Philo..... He had the people mocking Carabbas saying Agrippa was a Syrian..... Agrippa who had an Hasmonean ancestor beheaded in Syrian Antioch.....

[maryhelena]

I found Bermejo-Rubio’s book interesting in his detailing of the various story elements he views as reflecting a seditious Jesus . However, coming to the book, not only from an ahistoricist position on the gospel Jesus, but also from outside the gospel timeframe of Tiberius and Pilate, I ended up being rather frustrated by his limited historical approach.

Implausibilities in the Crucifixion Scene

The crucifixion accounts are riddled with all kinds of incongruities, to the extent that some of them were already remarked upon in the work of several ancient authors. Once more, the problem involves not only the highly mythological character of several supernatural events, such as the curtain of the Temple being torn from top to bottom in Mark 15:38 or the earthquake and the tombs that broke open, according to Matt 27:51–52. I refer to quite a few details that, although seeming to be straightforward historical narrative, are unveiled by a closer scrutiny to be contrived.

Bermejo-Rubio, Fernando. They Suffered under Pontius Pilate: Jewish Anti-Roman Resistance and the Crosses at Golgotha (p. 49). Lexington Books. Kindle Edition.

The former remarks convergently support the contention that the reports about the crucifixion(s) at Golgotha are historically reliable, and are relevant enough to dispel any remaining doubts about the fabricated character of the episode. Although most details of those accounts are, as we have already seen, untrustworthy and the outcome of pious fantasy, the core of the scene remains true.

Bermejo-Rubio, Fernando. They Suffered under Pontius Pilate: Jewish Anti-Roman Resistance and the Crosses at Golgotha (p. 209). Lexington Books. Kindle Edition.

Bermejo-Rubio uses the word *Golgotha* 56 times in his book. Yet, surely, if history is ones aim in searching for Christian origins, then this word, used as the place of the claimed historical crucifixion of the gospel Jesus, needs to be addressed. Viewing the gospel Jesus crucifixion as historical, as he does, yet passes over Golgotha as though it was a historical place outside Jerusalem - is to leave history by the wayside.

Calvary

Location

There is no consensus as to the location of the site. John 19:20 describes the crucifixion site as being "near the city". According to Hebrews 13:12, it was "outside the city gate". Matthew 27:39 and Mark 15:29 both note that the location would have been accessible to "passers-by". Thus, locating the crucifixion site involves identifying a site that, in the city of Jerusalem some four decades before its destruction in AD 70, would have been outside a major gate near enough to the city that the passers-by could not only see him, but also read the inscription 'Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews'.[39]

Does it matter that the exact position of Golgotha is unknown ? Well, over the years Christians have tried their uppermost to identify it’s position - in order to, as it were, venerate their saviour. But is that enough for an historian? Obviously not.

A literal crucifixion required a plot of ground. But the plot of ground named by the gospel writers, named Golgotha, is not a known place - as Rabbi Wise observed in an earlier post.

Besides, it must be remembered, there is no such word as Golgotha anywhere in Jewish literature, and there is no such place mentioned anywhere near Jerusalem or in Palestine by any writer

So, did the gospel writers make up the word *Golgotha* themselves ? If, as I’ve argued elsewhere, the gospel crucifixion story is not history but an historical reflection of earlier history, then perhaps one way to look at Golgotha is, as the gospel writers defined it - as a place of a skull or skulls. A place to remember the dead. Which, of course, brings to mind the monuments set up in memory of the unknown soldiers who lost their lives in defence of their county. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier monuments being set up in many countries.



So - the gospel writers place their literary Jesus figure on a cross at Golgotha - a place unknown - reflecting a man whose name, in the gospel story, is unknown. Golgotha a place of remembrance of the dead - a place that today we know as The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_t ... wn_Soldier

[StephenGoranson]

The word Syrian can be misinterpreted.
Syria, as a country, goes way back.
But Syriac, as a language, was not spoken in Antioch in the first century bce--not in 37 bce.
Syriac language started later and to the east of Antioch.

[maryhelena]

The word Syrian can be misinterpreted.

Indeed most words can be misinterpreted - open season for interpretations......

But Syriac, as a language, was not spoken in Antioch in the first century bce--not in 37 bce.
Syriac language started later and to the east of Antioch.

And I never said anything about Syriac being spoken in 37 b.c.

Syriac language

1st century AD; declined as a vernacular language after the 13th century; still in liturgical use[3]

I would assume you would place the gospel writers within that timeframe.....

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Does it matter that the exact position of Golgotha is unknown ? Well, over the years Christians have tried their uppermost to identify it’s position - in order to, as it were, venerate their saviour. But is that enough for an historian? Obviously not.

I'm really amazed at what they've found

So - the gospel writers place their literary Jesus figure on a cross at Golgotha ... Golgotha a place of remembrance of the dead ...

I agree. They also used the Greek word for memorial grave

[StephenGoranson]

Though not all here will agree, I think Joan E. Taylor's article
Golgotha: A Reconsideration of the Evidence for the Sites of Jesus' Crucifixion and Burial
NT Studies 44 (1998) 180-203
is reasonable. From the abstract: "In this study Golgotha is defined as the area of a disused quarry, west of first-century Jerusalem...."
In this article she reconsiders her own previously-published view.
And it helps that she is familiar with the literature, ancient and modern.
And that she has archaeological experience.
And has been there.

(Better, surely, than Antioch.)

[maryhelena]

Golgotha: The Place

Golgotha is mentioned in all four canonical Gospels as being the place where Jesus was crucified (Mk 15:22; 27:33; Lk 23:33; Jn 19:17–18). Luke in fact omits the Aramaic name “Golgotha” and refers to the locality only in Greek translation as “a place called ‘Skull’” (topon kaloumenon cranion). Properly, the Aramaic underlying this would have to be something like meqom-golgolta’, which translates as either “place of the skull,” or “the place of a skull,” or “the place of the skull”; the emphatic ending leaves us with three options. The complete accuracy of the Palestinian Aramaic form is impossible, given the paucity of Aramaic material from this period.2 However, with Hebrew and other Aramaic (including Syriac) equivalents, as well as the “sound” of the word as preserved in the Greek texts of the Gospels, we can suppose that the form was approximately this. Meqom is “place of,” the construct form, which is followed by the nominal emphatic form golgolta ‘(cf. Syriac gagulta’), “(the) skull.”3 In Hebrew the basic root glgl,4 is used in words such as “wheel,” galgal (cf. Is 5:28; Ps 77:19) (Brown, Driver, and Briggs 1996:165). Nouns formed from glgl have to be thought of as round things, which may roll or revolve, i.e., in modern Hebrew, roller skates are "galgilliyyot" In the Bible, a skull might be referred to as “gulgolet” (cf. 2 Kgs 9:35), presumably because it could roll along if it was dropped.

https://biblearchaeology.org/research/c ... BteXRoIl0=

Joan Taylor's conclusion:

Golgotha was an oval-shaped disused quarry located west of the second wall, north of the first wall. It was an area of an old quarry,

Interesting, for me, is the reference *Syriac*

This article has been considered previously on this forum:

viewtopic.php?t=6233

Joan Taylor's Golgotha: A Reconsideration of the Evidence (1998)