The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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spin
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by spin »

John T wrote:Spin is entitled to his opinion of denial but he is not entitled to deny the facts.
You are entitled to be as fact free as the post I responded to.
John T wrote:The Dead Sea Scrolls do exist and they have been translated into English and the doctrine of the expected messiah is well documented.

The gospel of Mark does exist and has been translated into English and the doctrine of the expected messiah is well documented.
Oh, a parallelism!! Two things are made parallel by the writer so they must be dealing with the same thing. Gosh. All you need to do is stretch your analysis enough and you can get it to fit anything.
John T wrote:The twisted logic of spin is: If ancient historians, Josephus, et al, of the 1st century write as spin would have them write then it is true but if they do not, well...they are all a bunch of liars.
I deal with the sources, neither gullibly nor dismissively. I don't impose strictures on them, but I don't trust them easily. I don't project theories onto them. And I have certainly never indicated that our sources are liars. You'd be an idiot if you thought that. I've recommended that people stop using such terms as lies, fraud, and fiction regarding our sources.

As you seem not to have paid any attention to what I think and say, you can only speak nonsense in my regard. It doesn't reflect on me: it blows back on you, buddy. I try to work on evidence, not wishes and in the last two posts I've responded to of yours I've found no sign of your being able to recognize evidence.

:tomato:
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John T
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John T »

spin wrote: I've recommended that people stop using such terms as lies, fraud, and fiction regarding our sources.

As you [John T] seem not to have paid any attention to what I think and say, you can only speak nonsense in my regard. It doesn't reflect on me: it blows back on you, buddy. I try to work on evidence, not wishes and in the last two posts I've responded to of yours I've found no sign of your being able to recognize evidence.

:tomato:
Yet, you use terms like falsification, fudge, ad hoc appeal to ignorance, etc., when the facts don't agree with your opinion. :scratch:

As a compromise, how about we use the word "misleading" instead of lie?

For example: The statement by spin; "I try to work on evidence"...is misleading.

Does that work for you?

As far as not paying attention to what you say, well...it is just the opposite. Been there done that. Try to remember, I have already done the research on the limits of C14 testing and actually read the paper of Atwill and Eisenman (several times over the years). All I did was point out that your opinion of the facts is well...misleading .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_da ... ea_Scrolls

http://roberteisenman.com/articles/Reda ... he_DSS.pdf


If you like, we can do it all over again but what would be the point?

The fact is, if you look at the plus and minus range of C14 dating, some of the Dead Sea Scroll fall within the time frame of Jesus.
To deny that fact is well...misleading.

All I'm saying is perhaps it is time to move on and compare and contrast the writings of the DSS with the gospel of Mark and see if it can shed some light on the Jerusalem church after 70 A.D.

Just a thought, you don't need to get ugly about it. :roll:
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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spin
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by spin »

John T wrote:
spin wrote: I've recommended that people stop using such terms as lies, fraud, and fiction regarding our sources.

As you [John T] seem not to have paid any attention to what I think and say, you can only speak nonsense in my regard. It doesn't reflect on me: it blows back on you, buddy. I try to work on evidence, not wishes and in the last two posts I've responded to of yours I've found no sign of your being able to recognize evidence.

:tomato:
Yet, you use terms like falsification, fudge, ad hoc appeal to ignorance, etc., when the facts don't agree with your opinion. :scratch:
Perhaps if you'd concentrated you would have noted the phrase "regarding our sources".
John T wrote:As a compromise, how about we use the word "misleading" instead of lie?

For example: The statement by spin; "I try to work on evidence"...is misleading.

Does that work for you?

As far as not paying attention to what you say, well...it is just the opposite. Been there done that. Try to remember, I have already done the research on the limits of C14 testing and actually read the paper of Atwill and Eisenman (several times over the years). All I did was point out that your opinion of the facts is well...misleading .
Eisenman is clueless about C14, as is Atwill. I've been through this stuff with Atwill on an earlier incarnation of this forum.
John T wrote:If you like, we can do it all over again but what would be the point?
If you like you can learn something about the topic rather than depending on people who are proven to be not experts in the field, yet try to attack the findings.
John T wrote:The fact is, if you look at the plus and minus range of C14 dating, some of the Dead Sea Scroll fall within the time frame of Jesus.
To deny that fact is well...misleading.
I wish you'd read up on the discussions rather than say dull things that show you don't have the groundwork. Significant texts such as Pesher Habakkuk and Qumran copies of CD are completely before the reputed time of Jesus.
John T wrote:All I'm saying is perhaps it is time to move on and compare and contrast the writings of the DSS with the gospel of Mark and see if it can shed some light on the Jerusalem church after 70 A.D.

Just a thought, you don't need to get ugly about it. :roll:
It's not a matter of ugliness: it's a matter of attempting to be scholarly. You must read the standard literature on the subject before going to non-standard material so that you can judge that material on its merit, not on your desire.
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John2
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

Hey, this is my thread. ;)

spin has given me a lot to think about (and usually does). I wish there was a spin ap I could click.

Regarding the DSS, in the big picture I fall back on what they say, and if they "can't be" Jewish Christian because of carbon dating then they can at least be similar to Jewish Christianity, and I don't see any harm in pointing out these similarities. Would it not be at least interesting if there was a community similar to Jewish Christians before the first century CE?

To get back to Hegesippus, who I'm becoming convinced is our best source for Jewish Christianity, John T, what do you make of his statement in EH 4.22 that:
The same writer also records the ancient heresies which arose among the Jews, in the following words: “There were, moreover, various opinions in the circumcision, among the children of Israel. The following were those that were opposed to the tribe of Judah and the Christ: Essenes, Galileans, Hemerobaptists, Masbothæans, Samaritans, Sadducees, Pharisees.”
I used to think that maybe Jewish Christians developed out of the Essenes and this statement used to give me pause. The best I could think of at the time was that I hoped no one noticed this statement, or maybe Hegesippus was wrong, since he lived in the second century CE. But as I reexamine Hegesippus I find that he holds up well in other matters (there is only one other issue I want to bring up, regarding the death of James in his and Josephus' accounts, which I'm still mulling over) and I'm inclined to take the above statement at face value now. Maybe the Essenes still had some influence on Jewish Christians, but according to Hegesippus they were opposed to "the Christ."

My view these days is that Jewish Christians were one of the various factions that developed out of the Fourth Philosophy over the course of the first century CE (like Theudas, the Egyptian, or Simon bar Giora). Not every "Fourth Philosopher" followed these people, but according to Josephus the Fourth Philosophy attracted more followers than the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes combined. As he says in Ant. 18.1.1, "the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree" and it "had a great many followers therein," especially "among the younger sort, who were zealous for it". In my view, Jesus was just another one of these young guys "who were zealous for it" in his particular way.

So there were various factions of the Fourth Philosophy (not that I think anyone went around saying, "We're the Fourth Philosophy"), and Josephus presents them as being hostile towards each other, and I used to take this as part of his pro-Roman/anti-"Zealot" propaganda, but now I don't. Isn't this what Hegesippus is saying in the above statement as well, that all these other groups (whoever some of them may have been) "were opposed to the tribe of Judah and the Christ"? In other words, in his view only Jewish Christians were "true" Jews, and I reckon other Fourth Philosophic factions would have felt the same way about their particular group. The 66-70 CE war (and everything leading up to it and even after) was just as much about internecine conflict as it was anti-Roman (similar to the Maccabee revolt). And I think this is the picture Hegesippus paints in the above statement as well.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

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I think of it this way. According to Josephus, one of the founders of the Fourth Philosophy was a Pharisee, but this doesn't necessarily mean that the Fourth Philosophy (or all "Fourth Philosophers") developed out of the Pharisees. I reckon people came to the Fourth Philosophy from the various other groups that preceded it and some may have been unaffiliated with any of them. This is the way I see Jewish Christianity. Sure, some Jewish Christians may have had roots in (or been influenced to whatever degree by) the Essenes, but in the big picture I see it as a conglomeration of people from all the sects (or from none of them), like the Fourth Philosophy was. Acts 15:5, for example, says that there were Pharisee Christians ("Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, 'The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses'”), just like the Fourth Philosophy.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

This is all in keeping with what Hegesippus says in EH 2.23:
Now some of the seven sects, which existed among the people and which have been mentioned by me in the Memoirs, asked him, ‘What is the gate of Jesus?’ and he replied that he was the Saviour. On account of these words some believed that Jesus is the Christ. But the sects mentioned above did not believe either in a resurrection or in one’s coming to give to every man according to his works. But as many as believed did so on account of James. Therefore when many even of the rulers believed, there was a commotion among the Jews and Scribes and Pharisees, who said that there was danger that the whole people would be looking for Jesus as the Christ.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

As I mentioned, there is only one more issue I have with Hegesippus, regarding his account of the death of James and the one in Josephus (which I think is authentic, including the reference to James being "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ").

I've always heard that these two accounts are incompatible and I've always accepted this without giving it much thought. Take Painter, for example.
At this point Hegesippus has obscured the real opponent of James (the high priest Ananus) by portraying the scribes and Pharisees as responsible for his death. It may be that he simply transposed the traditional opponents of Jesus to the conflict with James.

https://books.google.com/books?id=HQGsx ... us&f=false
First of all, while Ananus was a Sadducee, it is worth pointing out that Josephus says in Ant. 18.1.4 that the Sadducees "are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them."

So in the big picture the Pharisees were running the show.

Second, Hegesippus doesn't say that only the scribes and the Pharisees were responsible for James' death. Here is what he says in EH 2.23:
Therefore when many even of the rulers believed, there was a commotion among the Jews and Scribes and Pharisees, who said that there was danger that the whole people would be looking for Jesus as the Christ.
Surely Ananus would qualify as a Jew. And notice that he says there was "a commotion" among these Jews, which fits with what Josephus says about Ananus in Ant. 20.9.1.
But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity.
Hegesippus then goes on to say:
Coming therefore in a body to James they said, ‘We entreat thee, restrain the people; for they are gone astray in regard to Jesus, as if he were the Christ.
And this fits with what Josephus says regarding Ananus:
... so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James ...
And as I noted in another thread, Hegesuppus appears to be more interested in the details of James' stoning and less so about what happened before it, is all. After all, Josephus doesn't really give any details about James' stoning beyond saying that "when he [Ananus] had formed an accusation against them [James "and some others"] as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned." Hegesippus gives details about (and is apparently more interested in) what happened to James after this, which Josephus does not describe.

Nor does Josephus say why James was killed, only that Ananus accused him of breaking the law (which could mean anything) and that he was then delivered to be stoned. And Josephus doesn't say who did the actual stoning or give any details at all about it, beyond saying that "as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done," which is in keeping with Hegesippus' statement that, "while they were thus stoning him one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of the Rechabites, who are mentioned by Jeremiah the prophet, cried out, saying, ‘Cease, what do ye? The just one prayeth for you.’"

And as I noted in another thread, the manner of James' death is in keeping with stoning in the Talmud.
The place of stoning from which the condemned man is pushed to his death is a platform twice the height of an ordinary person. He is made to stand at the edge of the platform, and then one of the witnesses who testified against him pushes him down by the hips, so that he falls face up onto the ground. If he turned over onto his chest, with his face downward, the witness turns him over onto his hips. And if he dies through this fall to the ground, the obligation to stone the transgressor is fulfilled.

And if the condemned man does not die from his fall, the second witness takes the stone that has been prepared for this task and places, i.e., casts, it on his chest. And if he dies with the casting of this first stone, the obligation to stone the transgressor is fulfilled. And if he does not die with the casting of this stone, then his stoning is completed by all of the Jewish people, i.e., by all the people who assembled for the execution, as it is stated: “The hand of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people” (Deuteronomy 17:7).

http://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.45a?lang=bi
And here is Hegesippus on James in EH 2.23:
And they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah, ‘Let us take away the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings.’ So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to each other, ‘Let us stone James the Just.’ And they began to stone him, for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned and knelt down and said, ‘I entreat thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’
To me Hegesippus simply appears to be more interested in what happened after James was delivered over to be stoned, which is something Josephus does not describe, but they are both ultimately talking about the same thing, the death of James by stoning and that "the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done."
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

And both accounts arguably happen at the same time, during Passover. As Hegesippus says in EH 2.23:
We entreat thee, restrain the people; for they are gone astray in regard to Jesus, as if he were the Christ. We entreat thee to persuade all that have come to the feast of the Passover concerning Jesus; for we all have confidence in thee. For we bear thee witness, as do all the people, that thou art just, and dost not respect persons. Do thou therefore persuade the multitude not to be led astray concerning Jesus. For the whole people, and all of us also, have confidence in thee. Stand therefore upon the pinnacle of the temple, that from that high position thou mayest be clearly seen, and that thy words may be readily heard by all the people. For all the tribes, with the Gentiles also, are come together on account of the Passover.
This old book argues that James was killed during Passover in Josephus as well.
Our argument has placed Ananus' three months' tenure of the high priesthood from early February to early May, 61. Soon after his deposition, Albinus arrived; and after his arrival the tithes were collected from the threshing floor, as Josephus tells. That would take place around late June or July, and confirms our dating of Aanus' high priesthood. Later than that Josephus mentions the feast (Tabernacles, 61), and afterwards the foundation of Neronias (fixed by coins in 61) ... It was, of course, against the law to put a criminal to death during the feast, but Ananus was bitterly accused by the Jews themselves (as Josephus tells) for illegal and outrageous conduct on this occasion.

https://books.google.com/books?id=n7MnA ... us&f=false
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

I wrote:
Hegesippus then goes on to say:

Coming therefore in a body to James they said, ‘We entreat thee, restrain the people; for they are gone astray in regard to Jesus, as if he were the Christ.

And this fits with what Josephus says regarding Ananus:

... so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James ...
The similarity seems even more apparent to me in Maier's translation:
So they [the Jews, scribes and Pharisees] assembled and said to James: "We call on you to restrain the people , since they have gone astray after Jesus, believing him to be the Christ."

https://books.google.com/books?id=LIgMF ... ry&f=false
I wonder if both accounts use the same Greek word for "assembled."

In any event, I get the impression from this that Hegesippus is simply being succinct, the same way he is when he finishes his account of James by saying, "And they buried him on the spot, by the temple, and his monument still remains by the temple. He became a true witness, both to Jews and Greeks, that Jesus is the Christ. And immediately Vespasian besieged them.”

This is where I started this thread, when I came away with the impression that the word for "immediately" (eutheos) can mean "after this" and not necessarily just "right after this," and broadly speaking this is true for what Hegesippus says above because Vespasian did besiege them after James was killed.

As Hoogterp notes:
Looking at the Louw-Nida Lexicon, it describes the words eutheos and euthus as describing "a point of time immediately subsequent to the previous point of time (the actual interval of time differs appreciably, depending on the nature of the events and the manner in which the sequence is interpreted by the writer)."

https://books.google.com/books?id=e-m0A ... ly&f=false
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

And I agree with Painter when he says:
Either "Immediately" is used rather loosely, or Hegesippus has mistaken his chronology ... It seems likely that Hegesippus used "Immediately" to emphasize the connection between the death of James and the siege of Jerusalem in causal terms. The martyrdom of James was the cause of the siege, and Hegesippus makes this point by stressing to the point of exaggeration the temporal closeness of the events.

https://books.google.com/books?id=HQGsx ... us&f=false
The only quibble I would have with this is that I'm now thinking that it refers to the siege of Judea by Vespasian (which began in early 67 CE) and not just Jerusalem, since Eusebius is the one who interprets this to mean the siege of Jerusalem, not Hegesippus:
These things are related at length by Hegesippus, who is in agreement with Clement. James was so admirable a man and so celebrated among all for his justice, that the more sensible even of the Jews were of the opinion that this was the cause of the siege of Jerusalem, which happened to them immediately after his martyrdom for no other reason than their daring act against him.
But all Hegesippus says is that "Immediately Vespasian besieged them," and since it mentions Vespasian, I take this to mean the 66-70 CE war in general (but which of course culminated with the fall of Jerusalem).
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