Pilate and Josephus

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
StephenGoranson
Posts: 2312
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:10 am

Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by StephenGoranson »

I may have missed something, but I think the question--"Why can't there be both a literary gospel Jesus and a historical Jesus crucified under Pilate?"--still stands.
For example, perhaps we can agree, Alexander the Great was historical, and there are literary tales about him.
User avatar
maryhelena
Posts: 2897
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:22 pm
Location: England

Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by maryhelena »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 4:56 am I may have missed something, but I think the question--"Why can't there be both a literary gospel Jesus and a historical Jesus crucified under Pilate?"--still stands.
For example, perhaps we can agree, Alexander the Great was historical, and there are literary tales about him.
I think you missed something ;)
This is what you missed:

And for those historicists who just want to have a flesh and blood Jesus crucified under Pilate but without any theology or allegory - a man crucified on a cross has no value - not even historical value. Such a man blows in the wind like the thousands before him who suffered at the hands of oppressors. In other words; a flesh and blood Jesus crucified under Pilate is useless for history - can never be historically identified - and useless and unnecessary for theology or allegory.

Before one can begin to fashion miracle man out of human man one has to identify what man one is doing the magic tricks with. So...find me the man and perhaps we can begin to talk about dressing him up in the gospel finery....Until such time as you can do that - talk about creating literary or legendary stories about him is premature. You would also have to argue that the gospel writers were using euhemerism as a method of deifying a human man... methinks a very big job ahead for you.... :)
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
StephenGoranson
Posts: 2312
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:10 am

Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by StephenGoranson »

I did read that assertion, but was unpersuaded.
User avatar
maryhelena
Posts: 2897
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:22 pm
Location: England

Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by maryhelena »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 6:29 am I did read that assertion, but was unpersuaded.
OK - that puts up on a similar footing as I'm unpersuaded by the assertion for a historical flesh and blood gospel Jesus crucified under Pilate.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by Secret Alias »

I agree with Stephen. You often frame your position like a judge at a fashion show or a movie critic ('the plot was unbelievable). The arbiter of some primitive 'aesthetic.' The bottom line is that it can't come down to which one of two possibilities you or a collective 'we' like better. We have to deal with arguments, facts, known commodities etc. To go back to my main point - a point you simply ignored inexplicably:
all Christians thought Jesus lived at the time of Pilate
This is the starting point. Your POV assumes on some level that this 'belief' was delusional or mistaken. I am not sure you can come up with any persuasive arguments to help us ignore the beliefs of the first people acquainted with the message. Again this doesn't mean that there was an actual Jesus. But this 'starting point' surely opens the door to that possibility at the very least.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
User avatar
maryhelena
Posts: 2897
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:22 pm
Location: England

Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by maryhelena »

Secret Alias wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 9:18 am
all Christians thought Jesus lived at the time of Pilate
This is the starting point. Your POV assumes on some level that this 'belief' was delusional or mistaken. I am not sure you can come up with any persuasive arguments to help us ignore the beliefs of the first people acquainted with the message. Again this doesn't mean that there was an actual Jesus. But this 'starting point' surely opens the door to that possibility at the very least.
'all' Christians - that is one very big assertion... :banghead:

The starting point, Stephan, is the gospel story about a figure called Jesus who was crucified under Pilate. What anybody believes about the Jesus gospel story is not my concern - and should not be the concern of anyone who is seeking historical origins of early christianity. In that context beliefs are for the faint of heart who are so ready to settle for the assumed safety of numbers.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by Secret Alias »

Can you point to any Christians who didn't think that Jesus lived at the time of Pilate?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
User avatar
maryhelena
Posts: 2897
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:22 pm
Location: England

Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by maryhelena »

Secret Alias wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 2:13 am Can you point to any Christians who didn't think that Jesus lived at the time of Pilate?
Stephan, I already told you that belief is not a concern of mine. If every christian who had ever lived believed that the gospel Jesus was a flesh and blood historical figure crucified under Pilate, that belief is not relevant for historical research into the origins of christianity. Belief might be important to the one holding it - to anyone else it is irrelevant. Belief and historicity are two very different things.

The gospel Jesus story is often referred to as the greatest story ever told. Such an accolade might be striving to express some beauty in that story, some saving grace for a world filled with sorrow, but it also inhibits a rational approach to the story. Undoubtedly, for some people, to loose the comfort that story brings them would be unwelcome. For others losing that story, losing the historicity ascribed to that story, can be liberating. Yep, sometimes ideas can be as comforting as an old pair of slippers and a new pair of shoes difficult to wear in.......Ideas are the same, old ones give us comfort and new ones might scare us for a while.....but that's the way of knowledge as it moves ever forward.

Thankfully, the days of church dogma are long gone....By all means read early church fathers but expecting anything besides belief from them is surely misguided.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
User avatar
maryhelena
Posts: 2897
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:22 pm
Location: England

Why Pilate?

Post by maryhelena »

Why Pilate?

Pilate is connected with a crucifixion in Josephus, Slavonic Josephus, Acts of Pilate (Eusebius) Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Dating Pilate early, 18/19 c.e. to 36/37 c.e. gives a range of years of about 18 or 19. If the gospel figure of Jesus is a historical figure then this range of Pilate years requires that one date, one year, become the accepted date for the Jesus crucifixion. A consensus date seems to be around 29/30 c.e. but other dates have been put forward.

If, however, the gospel Jesus is viewed as a literary figure then the question does arise as to why the writers of the Jesus story were interested in placing a crucifixion within the years Pilate was in Judea. In other words why were the years 18/19 c.e. to 36/37 c.e. relevant to the writers of the gospel Jesus story?

One way to approach this question is to consider the use of Daniel ch.9 and it’s 70 weeks. Considered not for any ‘fulfillment’ but simply as a numerical device used to connect an event deemed important with either another such event or simply a remembrance of the past event. Even today, it’s often that 70 year anniversaries of historical events are remembered. This year sees the 100 anniversary of Armistice Day. In other words we remember important past historical events. Were the years of Pilate relevant in this way to the gospel writers? Did these years hold particular remembrance days?

In the Slavonic Josephus story regarding Herod’s siege of Jerusalem in 37 b.c. the priests make reference to Daniel and the 70 weeks:

Slavonic Josephus:

In reply the priest Ananus told them:
“I know all the Writings. When Herod was
fighting in front of the city,
I never imagined that God would allow him
to reign over us. But I now understand
that our devastation is <already> at hand.
And consider Daniel’s prophecy. For he
writes that after the Return, the city of
Jerusalem will stand for 70 weeks of
years, that is 400 years and 90, and will
lie waste after those years”.
And they calculated the years and it was so.

Josephus’ Jewish War and Its Slavonic Version: A Synoptic ComparisonH. Leeming (editor) K. Leeming (editor)

Herod’s siege of Jerusalem in 37 b.c. is 483 years from 520 b.c., the start of temple rebuilding with Ezra. Ezra ch.4.24.

Slavonic Josephus gives a birth narrative for an ‘anointed one’ prior to 15th year of Herod. From 40 b.c. the 15th year would be around 25 b.c.. This is 490 years back to 515 b.c. when temple building finished. Ezra ch.6.15.

The Slavonic Josephus has a crucifixion story re the wonder-doer in the time of Pilate. Below are various crucifixion dates:

19 c.e. is the context in which Josephus, Antiquities, places the TF crucifixion story. This date is 49 years (7x7) from 30 c.e. death of Hyrcanus II. (charged with plotting by Herod and put to death).

21 c.e. is the crucifixion date in Acts of Pilate (Eusebuis). This date is 70 years (7x10) from the death of Aristobulus II in 49 b.c. (poisoned by Rome/Pompey’s army)

29/30 c.e. a gLuke 15th year of Tiberius crucifixion date would be 70 years back to 40 b.c. and the start of the rule of Antigonus II.

33 c.e. crucifixion would be 70 years since the Roman execution of the last King and High Priest, Antigonus II in 37 b.c.

36/37 c.e. crucifixion date would be 483 years (69 x7) back to the 20th year of Artaxerxes in 446 b.c. when Nehemiah returns to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah 2.1. This year is also 100 years since the 63 b.c. siege of Jerusalem by Pompey. (Josephus places the death of Agrippa I around 44/45 c.e. This is 490 years (70 x 7) back to the 20th year of Artaxerxes in 446 b.c. Agrippa, re Josephus wanting to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem).
============

All of the crucifixion dating under Pilate in Judea, 18/19 c.e. to 36/37 c.e., are either remembrance day of past Hasmonean history, (deaths of three Hasmonean Kings executed by Roman agents. Aristobulus II, Antigonus II and Hyrancus II), or reference dates dealing with the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple. All the dates under Pilate are numerically connected using the number structure of Daniel, i.e. variations of the 70 weeks.

This, I would suggest, is the reason why the gospel writers found the time of Pilate in Judea useful in the composition of their Jesus story: The numbers worked for them. Of course, exact years are not the issue - it is the correspondence, the connection to past events that have meaning - for us today and for the gospel writers. What interested the gospel writers was not simply the time of Pilate - it was that the years of Pilate were significant years in their remembrance of past history, Hasmonean history.

The gospel writers were not writing a biograph of an itinerant preacher, a nobody crucified by Roman agents. They were writing a political allegory about the end of Hasmonean rule in Judea. In a sense it is Hasmonean history that is nailed to that cross. And yes it would rise again but not in it’s nationalistic form but as a Jerusalem ‘above’. A spiritual kingdom free from the constraints of the flesh.

As of now that’s my way of looking at things regarding Pilate and Josephus. :)
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
Charles Wilson
Posts: 2100
Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2014 8:13 am

Re: Why Pilate?

Post by Charles Wilson »

1. Maryhelena and I got off to a perfectly terrible start on this site but she does see things quite properly at times. :problem:

2.
maryhelena wrote: Wed Apr 11, 2018 7:41 amAll of the crucifixion dating under Pilate in Judea, 18/19 c.e. to 36/37 c.e., are either remembrance day of past Hasmonean history, (deaths of three Hasmonean Kings executed by Roman agents. Aristobulus II, Antigonus II and Hyrancus II), or reference dates dealing with the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple.
Here, she is QUITE CORRECT in regards to Hasmonean History and you should take a little walk down this aisle to see what this implies. Our differences are less important than the result. When she started, she was all over Antigonus. Using her methods, she saw the importance of his death. I saw that, as above, the Hasmonean History of the Rulers and Governing Structures were written into the NT. Yes, even the Temple, given as the "Woman Bent Over for 18 Years", which, with a little research, can be shown to align with the Opening of the Cloister in 10 BCE. Pilate, as a Literary figure, becomes less important than Herod.

The important date becomes the Passover of 9 CE. It is important because the Story of Peter is Foundational and it is based on the Mishmarot Priesthood. If you do not understand the Priestly Courses and the Priestly Cycles, you will Logic Loop to a Dead End from which you will not recover.

3.
What interested the gospel writers was not simply the time of Pilate - it was that the years of Pilate were significant years in their remembrance of past history, Hasmonean history.

The gospel writers were not writing a biograph of an itinerant preacher, a nobody crucified by Roman agents. They were writing a political allegory about the end of Hasmonean rule in Judea. In a sense it is Hasmonean history that is nailed to that cross.
True, True and as a change of pace, True.

4.
And yes it would rise again but not in it’s nationalistic form but as a Jerusalem ‘above’. A spiritual kingdom free from the constraints of the flesh.
'N the "Nationalistic Form" of Jerusalem from above is the Romanized Version of a Cheek Turnin', Kind Hearted, Tax Payin' Roman Citizen. As given in John 11 - 12+. It ain't Love that conquers all, it's Rome.

Pilate was a prop. It didn't matter why they chose him or when the "Jesus" character died. Maryhelena is correct in her analysis of the Literary Devices.

CW
Post Reply