Lena Einhorn's ideas

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Lena Einhorn
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2016 1:15 pm

Re: Lena Einhorn's ideas

Post by Lena Einhorn »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Dec 07, 2018 8:20 am The link above to Wikipedia refers the source of the info.
I saw it, Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary. I looked it up. Hitchock's just gives the translation "flowing with water". But it doesn't give any other info. Really curious ...
Lena Einhorn
Posts: 168
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2016 1:15 pm

Re: Lena Einhorn's ideas

Post by Lena Einhorn »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Dec 07, 2018 8:20 am
Also relatively surprising is the name θεοδωρος. Doesn't it mean 'gift of God' ?

Just as Dositheos. Coincidentially (!) a disciple of the Baptizer.
Not only that, but what does "John" (Yochanan in Hebrew) mean?
"Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names does not treat Johanan separately and refers to the name Jehohanan, which Jones takes to mean The Lord Graciously Gave."
So not only does "Dositheos" seem to have the same meaning as "Theudas". "Theudas" seems to have the same, or at least analogous, meaning as "John"!
Lena Einhorn
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2016 1:15 pm

Re: Lena Einhorn's ideas

Post by Lena Einhorn »

I read through the last section of this discussion, especially the segment concerned with ”holes” in the theory of Jesus and the Egyptian being the same person (Ulan, Ben C. Smith, Hakeem, Secret Alias), and I realized I may not have been very clear in my response.
Yes, there are on the face of it both similarities and differences when comparing the NT accounts of the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus with the events described by Josephus pertaining to the Egyptian (A.J. 20.169-172; B.J. 2.261-263). In brief summary, the obvious similarities are:

* Like Jesus, the Egyptian had lingered in “the wilderness” or “desert” (ἐρημία), before coming to Jerusalem.
* Both Jesus and the Egyptian had lived in Egypt.
* Both Jesus and the Egyptian proclaim doom and destruction from the Mount of Olives (cf. Mark 13:1-7; Matthew 24:1-6).
* Both Jesus and the Egyptian speak of tearing down the walls of Jerusalem (cf. Luke 19:43-44).
* Both Jesus and the Egyptian are described as messianic leaders with a great following.
* Both Jesus and the Egyptian are perceived as major threats by the authorities.
* The Egyptian is defeated on the Mount of Olives, which is where Jesus was arrested.

And the following are the obvious differences:

* Jesus was active late 20s to mid 30s CE. The Egyptian was active early 50s.
* Jesus was arrested on the Mount of Olives by the officers of the Jewish Council, in the presence of a few disciples. The Egyptian was defeated in battle on the Mount of Olives by a Roman cohort, in the presence of a great multitude.
* Jesus went through trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. The Egyptian escaped out of the fight on the Mount of Olives, and ”did not appear any more”.

Now, I do believe that the hypothesis accounts for those differences. The critical element is, I believe, that Jesus does not bear the names of several people in Josephus’s texts, but, rather, bears the name of several people in the New Testament. And the New Testament itself gives us clues to this.
Acts 21:33-38 describes what happens when Paul is discovered in the Temple, leading to a tumult (emphasis mine):
'Then the tribune came, arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains; he inquired who he was and what he had done.
Some in the crowd shouted one thing, some another; and as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks.
When Paul came to the steps, the violence of the mob was so great that he had to be carried by the soldiers.
The crowd that followed kept shouting, "Away with him!"
Just as Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, "May I say something to you?" The tribune replied, "Do you know Greek?
Then you are not the Egyptian who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand Sicarii out into the wilderness?"'

So by some in the crowd, Paul was identified as the Egyptian. This is the only time we hear this name, the Egyptian, in the New Testament.
Interestingly, the crowd does not say Jesus is the Egyptian. They say Paul is the Egyptian. This is immensely clever, as the text, without stating it, pulls three people into the equation. Someone reading this sentence, on the face of it just thinks the Roman tribune is utterly misinformed. Because Paul, as far as we know, never stood on the Mount of Olives preaching, he had not been to Egypt, he had not spent time in the wilderness, he did not partake in a battle with the Roman authorities, etc. So why would he be the Egyptian?

Interestingly, also, Acts here says that the Egyptian was a leader of the Sicarii, which Josephus never does.

Another clue is provided by the name Barabbas, and especially in Matt 27:16-17, where Barabbas has the name Jesus Barabbas. Now Barabbas is, unlike Jesus, a militant rebel, partaking in an insurrection. He is, just like Jesus, threatened with crucifixion, but is let free, and is not heard from again. Jesus Barabbas means ”Jesus son of the Father”, a very curious name for someone threatened by crucifixion at the same time as Jesus from Nazareth. And it has long been suggested that they – Jesus from Nazareth and Jesus Barabbas – are one and the same man (Söderberg (1928); Söderberg (1932); Rigg (1945); Maccoby (1969); Maccoby (1980); Davies (1981).)

Now, if we look at the differences between Jesus and the Egyptian, and they are, on the face of it, significant, they tend to dissolve if we take the NT clues into account:

* Jesus was active late 20s to mid 30s CE. The Egyptian was active early 50s.
The time shift is the basis of the hypothesis, and it does not rely on equating Jesus with the Egyptian. On the contrary, whereas Josephus’s account of the 30s provides almost no parallels to the NT account (in names of dignitaries, yes, in action, no), the late 40s and 50s provide a whole slew of parallels – most of them, in Josephus’s text, pertaining to actions of or reactions to the Jewish rebels and messianic leaders. The similarities between Jesus and the Egyptian is only the last parallel. For details, I would refer to the paper, the youtube presentation or the books presented earlier in the thread.

* Jesus was arrested on the Mount of Olives by the officers of the Jewish Council, in the presence of a few disciples. The Egyptian was defeated in battle on the Mount of Olives by a Roman cohort, in the presence of a great multitude.
The assumption of the ”resting” Jesus being peacefully arrested by the Sanhedrin rests on the accounts in the synoptic Gospels. When one reads the Gospel of John, however, and especially in its Greek original, an entirely different picture emerges. In John 18:3 and 18:12, the officers of the Jews are on the Mount of Olives accompanied by a speira and a chiliarchos. A speira is a Roman cohort of six hundred to one thousand soldiers. And chiliarchos means ”commander of one thousand”.
The underlying message that a battle ensued on the Mount of Olives, between the Romans and the followers of Jesus, is further stressed by Jesus, before going to the Mount of Olives, admonishing his disciples that “the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:36), and by Peter cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest.

* Jesus went through trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. The Egyptian escaped out of the fight on the Mount of Olives, and ”did not appear any more”.
The dissolution of this difference rests on the assumption above, that Jesus bears the name of several people in the New Testament.
Jesus Barabbas – Jesus son of the Father – was a militant rebel, who escaped crucifixion, and afterwords vanished, at least from the story. His verdict parallels that of Jesus – in time and in its details. His name does too. But his fate is different, and like that of the Egyptian.
So what about the trial? Well, obviously Josephus does not describe a trial in the case of the Egyptian, the Egyptian simply ”vanished”. But there is an almost exact replica of the trial of Jesus – not in Josephus’s texts, but in the New Testament. As outlined earlier in this thread, when Paul is arrested in Jerusalem (following his discovery in the Temple, and identification, by some in the crowd, as the Egyptian) a trial ensues, which is so similar to the trial of Jesus that it cannot be a coincidence. The verdict is different, the proceedings are almost identical (albeit dragged out). And the question is: Were there really two trials? And were there really two defendants?
The proposition that Jesus and Paul are the same man is detailed in my first book, The Jesus Mystery, where the arguments for and against are listed (sixteen for, six against). The proposition does not rest only on Acts 21:38 – as there are fifteen other arguments – but it is, and remains, only a suggestion. And the suggestion is, thus, that the Egyptian of Josephus in the New Testament is one person, appearing under three (or rather four) names: Jesus from Nazareth, Jesus Barabbas, Paul, and the Egyptian.
The other major rebel leaders of the first century, beside the Egyptian, also appear in the NT narratives, but under other names: Theudas parallels John the Baptist, Menahem parallels Peter.
It is a suggestion, for anyone to evaluate, and compare to other suggestions.

So did anybody get crucified? Well, obviously some people did, although it was not the Egyptian, or Jesus Barabbas. In this case, I agree that the story in the New Testament might rest on other – perhaps several – tales in the books of Josephus. The person crucified could be Judas the Galilean (Judas Iscariot? – Judas Sicarios? – also crucified), or it could be an image of all the other followers of the Egyptian, who, unlike him, were killed by the authorities (”He [procurator Felix] also slew four hundred of them, and took two hundred alive. But the Egyptian himself escaped out of the fight, but did not appear any more.” (AJ 20.169-172); “But as to the number of the robbers whom he [procurator Felix] caused to be crucified, and of those who were caught among them, and whom he brought to punishment, they were a multitude not to be enumerated” (B.J. 2.253))

With this, I hope I have addressed the issue of ”holes”.
Charles Wilson
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Re: Lena Einhorn's ideas

Post by Charles Wilson »

Hello Lena --

I've stayed out of this one - I've got my own problems with the NT these days - but some attention has been recently been paid to "Jesus Barabbas" and I think the language has led some astray. Perhaps not you but I believe that there is another possibility:

Josephus. Antiquities..., 18, 2, 4:

"When Phraates had had legitimate sons of his own, he had also an Italian maid servant, whose name was Thermusa; who had been formerly sent to him by Julius Cesar, among other presents. He first made her his concubine: but he being a great admirer of her beauty, in process of time having a son by her, whose name was Phraataces, he made her his legitimate wife, and had a great respect for her. Now, she was able to persuade him to do any thing that she said; and was earnest in procuring the government of Parthia for her son. But still she saw that her endeavours would not succeed, unless she could contrive how to remove Phraates’s legitimate sons [out of the Kingdom.] So she persuaded him to send those his sons, as pledges of his fidelity to Rome. And they were sent to Rome accordingly: because it was not easy for him to contradict her commands...
***
"But as the best sort of Parthians agreed together, that it was impossible they should be governed without a King; while also it was their constant practice to choose one of the family of Arsaces: (nor did their law allow of any others: and they thought this Kingdom had been sufficiently injured already by the marriage with an Italian concubine, and by her issue:) they sent ambassadors, and called Orodes [to take the crown.] For the multitude would not otherwise have born them. And though he were accused of very great cruelty, and was of an intractable temper, and prone to wrath, yet still he was one of the family of Arsaces. [A.D. 8.] However, they made a conspiracy against him, and slew him: and that, as some say, at a festival, and among their sacrifices; (for ’tis the universal custom there to carry their swords with them.) But as the more general report is, they slew him when they had drawn him out a hunting. So they sent ambassadors to Rome; and desired they would send one of those that were there as pledges, to be their King..."

So, the "Son of the Father" is possibly a rewrite of the Parthians demanding a King. There is a pool of "Pledges" living in Rome as hostages and the Parthians, barbarians all, ask politely, Pretty-Please if the Romans would send one of them back so they could have a King.

Best to you,

CW
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