Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Lena Einhorn
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Re: Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Post by Lena Einhorn »

Peter Kirby wrote:
No, please point out each and any such difficulty, in detail and with a battery of supporting argument
I don't know about others, but I would really like that, Peter.
Lena Einhorn
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Re: Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Post by Lena Einhorn »

iskander wrote:
The reformer ignores the atoning sacrifice of the temple and the commandments ordained by the priesthood of the temple ; instead, the reformer warns him against the Oral Law and he insists that only the Decalogue comes from God and hence keeping the 10 statements, utterances of God is the way .
External confirmation.
The change of the Jewish Liturgy confirms that the statement found in Mark 10 is a historical fact. ( or one/several statements meaning the same as in Mark)
There is no doubt that much changed in Judaism after the Jewish war. The war was the ultimate catastrophe, and there was a huge risk that Judaism (if not the Jews) would vanish with it. I think the reasons for the subsequent changes and adaptations are many. And for sure, the emergence of Christianity must have influenced this process.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Lena Einhorn wrote:Although not relevant to this particular question, I still, more generally, have to wonder about certain changes in translation. I have already mentioned the case where, in John 18:3 and 18:12 speira and chiliarchos in translation become "the band" and "the captain," and the like. Those words do not in the least convey that a speira is a Roman cohort of 600 to 1,200 men. And that it completely changes what happened on the Mount of Olives.
It is certainly not my purpose to excuse all decisions made in the translations. There are certainly examples of tendentiousness to be found. But I do not want to invent examples unnecessarily. In your specific example, I agree that a translation reflecting Roman military organization would be more appropriate.

You stated somewhere that you have trouble imagining why John might add a cohort of soldiers to the narrative, but might it not merely be to highlight Jesus' complete control over the situation? Might it not be the Johannine equivalent of the twelve angelic legions in Matthew 26.53? Jesus could have defeated (and did briefly defeat in 18.6) an entire contingent of trained soldiers (just as he could have summoned a heavenly army to his aid), but he chose instead to go to the cross willingly.

I am very interested in seeking out the potential undercurrents of sedition in the gospels, as in this thread of mine about Bermejo-Rubio's recent work: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2203. But that means I am also interested in eliminating the false positives. Why should this detail from John not be considered as a false positive: a Johannine detail added precisely in order to pay off in 18.6?
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Charles Wilson
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Re: Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Post by Charles Wilson »

Ben C. Smith wrote:Why should this detail from John not be considered as a false positive: a Johannine detail added precisely in order to pay off in 18.6?
One reason might be that the verse means what it says. Again, from the fact that the "Jesus Stories" come from Sources, it does not follow that the Sources were about "Jesus".
The extended Analysis shows that "Judas the Betrayer" is the Commander of the 12th Legion, Cestius.

I thank you Lena for this one. I've got some thinkin' to do on this one. There is an immediate Match-Up (tm) with Cestius leaving several hundred soldiers at a camp after the Beth Horon Debacle and high tailin' to Caesarea. The switch to "Jesus Language" is interesting.

I don't think it's a False Positive. Not sure but I won't give up on it.

CW
Lena Einhorn
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Re: Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Post by Lena Einhorn »

Ben C. Smith wrote:
You stated somewhere that you have trouble imagining why John might add a cohort of soldiers to the narrative, but might it not merely be to highlight Jesus' complete control over the situation? Might it not be the Johannine equivalent of the twelve angelic legions in Matthew 26.53? Jesus could have defeated (and did briefly defeat in 18.6) an entire contingent of trained soldiers (just as he could have summoned a heavenly army to his aid), but he chose instead to go to the cross willingly.

I am very interested in seeking out the potential undercurrents of sedition in the gospels, as in this thread of mine about Bermejo-Rubio's recent work: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2203. But that means I am also interested in eliminating the false positives. Why should this detail from John not be considered as a false positive: a Johannine detail added precisely in order to pay off in 18.6?
There is much to say about this, and many angles to it. First of all, as I've said before, I don't deny that there are literary and supernatural aspects to the Gospel stories, and that many things can be interpreted in several ways. In fact that they SHOULD be interpreted in several ways. After all, the New Testament is sacred text, with a religious purpose. But it is also history.
Is it ever only one or the other? I'm sure that's the case. But the more time I've spent on this, the more I have come to the conclusion that almost nothing is stated in the the Gospels or Acts without a reason. And whenever we cast aside a statement -- as being illogical, or misinformed, or anachronistic, or simply impossible to understand -- the more we should stop, and try to figure it out. Because that which looks illogical is often meant to look illogical. Or rather: to disguise a revelation.
I've earlier brought up Acts 5:33-37. It is so full of "mistakes" and contradictions, that our first instinct is to scratch our heads, and say that that guy Luke (or whatever his name was) sure as heck didn't know much about history. First he says that Theudas -- who did work similar to the Apostles -- had already been killed when the Apostles are brought to the Jewish Council, when in fact everyone knows Theudas was killed much later, in 44-46 CE.
Then he makes an even stupider mistake, by saying that Judas the Galilean -- who also did similar work -- came AFTER Theudas, when in fact everyone knows Judas started his rebellion against the tax census already in 6 CE. The author of Acts even says Judas came "in the days of the census"! So doesn't he know when the census was??
We scratch our heads, and we shake our heads, and we cast the whole thing aside.
But we shouldn't.
Because not only has the author of Luke/Acts just thrown in the names of two of the major rebel leaders of the first century, he has also told us that the Apostles, and their movement, belong to the same category as that of Theudas and Judas -- who were militant rebels. And he has, on top of that, yet again, provided information telling us that Jesus and the Apostles are active later than we think, that they come later than Theudas.
But then he shows he knows nothing ... by stating that Judas the Galilean came even later ...

This pattern of revelation, followed by disguise, repeats itself again and again in the New Testament (and we can discuss different examples of this).

Now why did I bring all this up? I did because I want to put John 18:3-12 in context. No, I don't believe it's only sacred text. And the reason I don't believe it, is that the story of Jesus and his disciples meeting a Roman cohort on the Mount of Olives fits. It fits not only with Josephus's tale of "the Egyptian", but also with the other Gospel narratives. All four Gospels are at pains to tell us of the use of swords on the Mount -- and of Jesus admonishing his disciples to bring swords up there (Luke 22:36-38). And then they throw in the word "robber", when Jesus meets his adversaries there (“Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a robber?”). But just before then, to make sure we don't start thinking he is really a robber, the author has Jesus say: ""Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword." (And there, again, we have the contradiction/disguise. Hadn't Jesus just told his disciples that "the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one"?).

One can turn it around: yes, the synoptic Gospels are ambiguous and contradictory when it comes to the combative aspects of the meeting on the Mount of Olives. But the Gospel of John is not.

But if the story in John -- about the battle -- fits, or at least is not contradicted by, the other Gospels, it fits like the last piece of the puzzle when compared with Josephus's story of the final battle of "the Egyptian", on the Mount of Olives (discussed in the beginning of this thread). If Jesus engaged in battle on the Mount of Olives -- and if this in reality happened after Theudas was defeated, 44-46 CE -- I think it's almost impossible to look at the two tales next to each other, and not think that they are awfully similar.
Especially in light of the fact that so many other of the parallels between the NT and Josephus seem to be placed by Josephus in the 40s and 50s. AND that there are a number of non-biblical references to Jesus having spent time as an adult in Egypt.

Now with regard to John 18.6: if this is a description of true combat, then what that sentence says is that the battle raged on, and at some point it looked as if Jesus and his men might win.
Don't forget that in War, Josephus says that "the Egyptian" had thirty thousand men!
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Re: Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Post by FJVermeiren »

Lena Einhorn wrote: But Frans, the text says that "the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the water." To me, that is an indication they were right by the lake.

With regard to the actual meaning of the story: neither one of us places it in 20 or 30 CE. Nor, do I think, do we necessarily place it near a lake.
Indeed Lena, they were right by the lake. A good map can clarify a lot. If you google 'decapolis gadara map' you will find some nicely coloured maps of the Decapolis towns and areas. You will see that the Gadarene area borders the southeastern shore of the lake.

The Decapolis was a quite loose union of ten city-states. Every city controlled the villages and hamlets of its territory. I guess the surface of the Gadara city-state was approximately 500-600 square kilometers. As you can see, Gerasa is not a realistic option.

Mark 5, 1 goes as follows: 'They went to the other side of the sea, to the country (χωραν) of the Gerasenes.' Χωρα can as well be translated as 'countryside' (opposed to the city itself), 'region' or 'territory'.

In my last contribution the time frame was too narrow. I correct as follows: I don’t see any information in Josephus or elsewhere about this kind of outburst of ethnic hostilities in the first century CE up to the mid-60's.

And finally, concerning the lake as location: I believe the Sea of Galilee and the cities at its western shore (Tiberias, Magdala, Capernaum) play an even more important role in the real course of events than they do in the Gospels. I hope this will become clear from future contributions.
Lena Einhorn
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Re: Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Post by Lena Einhorn »

To Frans:
To me, the story of the demoniacs in Gerasa/Gadara is symbolic. By that I don't mean symbolic in a non-realistic sense, but rather symbolic in that the story is all in subtext. If, as I have suggested earlier in this thread (page 2) the story is about Simon bar Giora and John of Gischala -- and of how they come out of the caverns at the end of the Jewish war -- then none of it happens near the Sea of Galilee. But the names "Gerasa" and "Gadara" would still mean something, since Simon bar Giora came from Gerasa, and John of Gischala first became known for fighting the Gadarenes.

So to me, the issue of how close Gerasa or Gadara are to the Sea of Galilee is not so important -- other than that if they are placed far from the sea, then that would make it yet another one of those "strange mistakes" in the NT narratives, mistakes that never are mistakes, but rather clues.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Post by MrMacSon »

Lena, when do you think the canonical gospels might or could have been written?
Lena Einhorn
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Re: Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Post by Lena Einhorn »

MrMacSon wrote:
Lena, when do you think the canonical gospels might or could have been written?
I really don't have much of an opinion on this. I just have three thoughts:

1. I think it's reasonable to assume that Luke and Acts were written after Josephus wrote Antiquities of the Jews (ca. 93), since the author seems to be familiar with its contents.

2. As I am of the opinion that Mark 13:1-7, Matthew 24:1-6, and Luke 21:5-9 may well be analogous to the prophecy made by "the Egyptian" in ca 55 CE ("He said further, that he would show them from hence how, at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down" (Antiquities 20.169-172)), I don't necessarily connect them with the Jewish war. They could of course be a combination of both -- the prophecy made in ca. 55 CE, and the actual events of the war, 66-70 CE. But I wouldn't agree that those verses in the synoptic Gospels constitute the proof that the authors knew about the destruction of Jerusalem during the Jewish war.

3. On the other hand, as I am fully convinced that a number of parables and stories in the Gospels -- also in Mark and Matthew -- are based on events occurring during the Jewish war, I would still conclude they were all written post 70 CE.
Now with regard to how much later than 70 CE, I wouldn't have a clue.
Lena Einhorn
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Re: Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

Post by Lena Einhorn »

PS to MrMacSon (on the dating of the Gospels):

But I think your earlier comment about Lucuas of Cyrene, who was a leader in the Kitos war, 115-117 CE, and the similarity to the name mentioned in Acts 13:1 (Lucius of Cyrene) is really interesting. If they are the same person (the other names in that sentence are also reminiscent of names of Jewish rebel leaders; see page 6 in this thread), then that would push the writing of Acts to after 117 CE.
This is how Eusebius describes the events involving Lucuas:
1. The teaching and the Church of our Saviour flourished greatly and made progress from day to day; but the calamities of the Jews increased, and they underwent a constant succession of evils. In the eighteenth year of Trajan's reign there was another disturbance of the Jews, through which a great multitude of them perished.
2. For in Alexandria and in the rest of Egypt, and also in Cyrene, as if incited by some terrible and factious spirit, they rushed into seditious measures against their fellow-inhabitants, the Greeks. The insurrection increased greatly, and in the following year, while Lupus was governor of all Egypt, it developed into a war of no mean magnitude.

3. In the first attack it happened that they were victorious over the Greeks, who fled to Alexandria and imprisoned and slew the Jews that were in the city. But the Jews of Cyrene, although deprived of their aid, continued to plunder the land of Egypt and to devastate its districts, under the leadership of Lucuas. Against them the emperor sent Marcius Turbo with a foot and naval force and also with a force of cavalry.

4. He carried on the war against them for a long time and fought many battles, and slew many thousands of Jews, not only of those of Cyrene, but also of those who dwelt in Egypt and had come to the assistance of their king Lucuas.

Eusebius Church history 4.2.1-4
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