Pilate and Josephus

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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by Ben C. Smith »

rakovsky wrote: Sun Mar 11, 2018 6:26 pm I assume and trust you are right, but I feel obtuse on this whole dating debate....
Well, it is rather complicated! And I am quite new to this whole idea, as well. I had heard of the theory that Pilate started in AD 19 or so, but had never analyzed it, which is what I am beginning to do now.
.like when Mary writes:
" Josephus does not say Gratus had two terms of office in Judea - but he also did not give the date for the death of Germanicus in 19 c.e.....an omission that contributed to the 26 c.e. dating for Pilate."

I don't know how failing to give the 19 ad date for Germanicus contributed to dating Pilate's appointment to 26 ad, unless, as I guessed, somehow Josephus had linked the two directly.
Remember that our extant text of Josephus tells us that Gratus governed for eleven years and Pilate for ten years. If those two lines are correct, then Gratus started in around AD 15, after the death of Augustus, and that means that Pilate started in around AD 26. The lack of explicit dates in Josephus for other events, especially the death of Germanicus and the Mundus and Paulina debacle, allows us to assume that Josephus has narrated those events out of order, since both are narrated in connection with Pilate rather than with Gratus, whereas Tacitus dates them both to around AD 19. What Eisler and Schwartz point out is that, without those two chronological notices (Gratus eleven years, Pilate ten), Josephus' text actually makes sense as it stands, in its current order, in which case Gratus actually governed for four years, Pilate for 17. They both point out that Gratus and Pilate are the only two governors of Judea for whom Josephus gives us such numbers at all (he does not tell us how long Festus governed, for example), and that a motive for adding those two chronological notices can be found in the urge to contradict the spurious Acts of Pilate being circulated under Maximinus.

Feel free to disagree, by all means. It is an hypothesis, not an established theory of the text. Just make sure you know what you are disagreeing with.
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Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by maryhelena »

rakovsky wrote: Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:25 pm
maryhelena wrote:

Either the forgery was a very bad job - or it was no forgery at all. Changing the dates for Gratus and Pilate do not prove the Acts of Pilate a hoax. Dating Pilate (accepting his historicity) is a matter for history not the pen of forgery. Consequently, either those devising such a forgery were disillusion or the years stated for Gratus and Pilate were not intended as a rejection of the 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion story in Acts of Pilate.
Could you please rephrase or expand on this? What do you mean by disillusion?
OK - wording could be clearer - *delusional*.
If the purpose of the proposed forgery of 11 and 10 years (for Gratus and Pilate) was to make the 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion in Acts of Pilate look false, make it look like a hoax, then they were delusional because anyone with access to Tactius or Roman history re Tiberius and Germanicus would be able to expose the forgery. Perhaps not many had that access but to rely on ignorance of the masses is no way to insure non-exposure of the forgery.
There seems to be alot of what are for me complicated issues that arise surrounding Schwartz's thesis, which I am inclined to doubt.
Well, as I quoted Helen Bond - you have company :)

He is saying that since Josephus put Pilate's appointment in with events of 19 ad, and the pagan Acta Pilati dated Jesus' death to the fourth consultancy of Pilate (was that in 19 ad?), therefore Josephus's passages on the procurators' dates and the story of events under Vitellius must have been inserted by Christians.
The fourth consulate of Tiberius is 21 c.e.

Why did the late 1st century Bible writers make it look like Jesus got killed in c. 33 ad when everyone would know or could easily prove that he got killed in c. 19 ad, 14 years earlier, and expect to get away with it?
Methinks the gospel writers were fully aware of what they were doing with allowing for different birth and crucifixion dates for their literary Jesus figure. It's only historicists that have problems with the birth and crucifixion data.

To acknowledge a 19 c.e. dating for Pilate brings back into play the crucifixion story set in the 7th year of Tiberius - a story contained in the Acts of Pilate. Unfortunately, those with a historicist agenda fail to see what is in clear view - their Jesus figure is literary not historical.
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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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The TF crucifixion story in Antiquities is in a context of 19 c.e.
Acts of Pilate has a crucifixion story in the 7th year of Tiberius, 21 c.e.

Does this difference in years have any significance? Perhaps.....

19 c.e. is 49 years from 30 b.c
. In that year the last Hasmonean King and High Priest Hyrancus II was killed by Herod. (7x7 years)

Herod’s other affairs were now very prosperous; and he was not to be easily assaulted on any side. Yet did there come upon him a danger that would hazard his intire dominions, after Antony had been beaten at the battel of Actium by Cesar [Octavian.]
....
As for Herod himself he saw that there was no one of royal dignity left but Hyrcanus, and therefore he thought it would be for his advantage not to suffer him to be an obstacle in his way any longer; for that in case he himself survived, and escaped the danger he was in, he thought it the safest way to put it out of the power of such a man to make any attempt against him, at such junctures of affairs, as was more worthy of the kingdom than himself; and in case he should be slain by Caesar, his envy prompted him to desire to slay him that would otherwise be king after him.
....
Now Herod, as soon as he had put Hyrcanus out of the way, made haste to Caesar. Antiquities 15.ch.6

21 c.e. is 70 years from 49 b.c. In that year the Hasmonean King and High Priest, Aristobulus II was killed, believed to have been poisoned.

Now upon the flight of Pompey, and of the senate beyond the Ionian sea, Cæsar got Rome and the empire under his power, and released Aristobulus from his bonds. He also committed two legions to him, and sent him in haste into Syria, as hoping that, by his means, he should easily conquer that country, and the parts adjoining to Judea. But envy prevented any effect of Aristobulus’s alacrity, and the hopes of Cæsar; for he was taken off by poison given him by those of Pompey’s party, and for a long while he had not so much as a burial vouchsafed him in his own country; but his dead body lay [above ground], preserved in honey, until it was sent to the Jews by Antony, in order to be buried in the royal sepulchres. War Book 1 ch.9

What is being remembered in the years 19 c.e. and 21 c.e. is past Hasmonean history - history in which two Hasmonean Kings and High Priests were killed via Roman agents. In our time big historical events are remembered 70 or 100 years after the events. During Roman occupation of Judea Hasmonean history was being remembered via allegory and symbolism.

gLuke, likewise, has brought past Hasmonean history into his crucifixion story. A Jesus crucifixion in the early 30s (a 1 b.c. birth narrative and his JC around 30 in the 15th year of Tiberius) is around 70 years from the historical events of 40 b.c. gLuke using Lysanias of Abilene to identify this 70 year period.

It seems that all these crucifixion dates are linked, via symbolic numerology, to important events in Hasmonean history.

Numbers
Philo frequently engages in Pythagorean-inspired numerology, explaining at length the importance of religious numbers such as six, seven, and ten
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo#Numbers

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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Mar 11, 2018 6:59 pm [

Remember that our extant text of Josephus tells us that Gratus governed for eleven years and Pilate for ten years. If those two lines are correct, then Gratus started in around AD 15, after the death of Augustus, and that means that Pilate started in around AD 26. The lack of explicit dates in Josephus for other events, especially the death of Germanicus and the Mundus and Paulina debacle, allows us to assume that Josephus has narrated those events out of order, since both are narrated in connection with Pilate rather than with Gratus, whereas Tacitus dates them both to around AD 19. What Eisler and Schwartz point out is that, without those two chronological notices (Gratus eleven years, Pilate ten), Josephus' text actually makes sense as it stands, in its current order, in which case Gratus actually governed for four years, Pilate for 17. They both point out that Gratus and Pilate are the only two governors of Judea for whom Josephus gives us such numbers at all (he does not tell us how long Festus governed, for example), and that a motive for adding those two chronological notices can be found in the urge to contradict the spurious Acts of Pilate being circulated under Maximinus.

Feel free to disagree, by all means. It is an hypothesis, not an established theory of the text. Just make sure you know what you are disagreeing with.
Ben, notice that if 21 ad is the date for the crucifixion, then that too is out of order chronologically, since it is listed before the stories of Paulina, Mundus, the 4 Jewish swindlers, and the Jewish banishment that occurred in 19 ad. Maybe Josephus gave the dates for the reigns of Gratus and Pilate because he intentionslly was narrating out of order in this section. The Paulina and Mundus story itself seems clearly to me to be made up or used by Josephus as a literary allusion to the Testamonium. As such Josephus in Chapter 3 was aiming for a partly literary style rather than a strict chronological historical one.

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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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maryhelena wrote: Mon Mar 12, 2018 12:32 am
rakovsky wrote: Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:25 pm
maryhelena wrote:

Either the forgery was a very bad job - or it was no forgery at all. Changing the dates for Gratus and Pilate do not prove the Acts of Pilate a hoax. Dating Pilate (accepting his historicity) is a matter for history not the pen of forgery. Consequently, either those devising such a forgery were disillusion or the years stated for Gratus and Pilate were not intended as a rejection of the 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion story in Acts of Pilate.
Could you please rephrase or expand on this? What do you mean by disillusion?
OK - wording could be clearer - *delusional*.
If the purpose of the proposed forgery of 11 and 10 years (for Gratus and Pilate) was to make the 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion in Acts of Pilate look false, make it look like a hoax, then they were delusional because anyone with access to Tactius or Roman history re Tiberius and Germanicus would be able to expose the forgery. Perhaps not many had that access but to rely on ignorance of the masses is no way to insure non-exposure of the forgery.
Can you please explain what exactly in Tacitus about Tiberius would expose the fraud?

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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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rakovsky wrote: Mon Mar 12, 2018 6:56 amBen, notice that if 21 ad is the date for the crucifixion, then that too is out of order chronologically, since it is listed before the stories of Paulina, Mundus, the 4 Jewish swindlers, and the Jewish banishment that occurred in 19 ad.
True, but the date of AD 21 comes from the Acta Pilati, not from Josephus. And I myself am inclined to regard the Testimonium as a wholesale forgery. (I have no desire whatsoever to debate that particular point here and now, though.)
Maybe Josephus gave the dates for the reigns of Gratus and Pilate because he intentionally was narrating out of order in this section.
Maybe.
The Paulina and Mundus story itself seems clearly to me to be made up or used by Josephus as a literary allusion to the Testimonium.
What convinces you of this?
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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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rakovsky wrote: Mon Mar 12, 2018 7:06 am
maryhelena wrote: Mon Mar 12, 2018 12:32 am
rakovsky wrote: Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:25 pm
maryhelena wrote:

Either the forgery was a very bad job - or it was no forgery at all. Changing the dates for Gratus and Pilate do not prove the Acts of Pilate a hoax. Dating Pilate (accepting his historicity) is a matter for history not the pen of forgery. Consequently, either those devising such a forgery were disillusion or the years stated for Gratus and Pilate were not intended as a rejection of the 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion story in Acts of Pilate.
Could you please rephrase or expand on this? What do you mean by disillusion?
OK - wording could be clearer - *delusional*.
If the purpose of the proposed forgery of 11 and 10 years (for Gratus and Pilate) was to make the 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion in Acts of Pilate look false, make it look like a hoax, then they were delusional because anyone with access to Tactius or Roman history re Tiberius and Germanicus would be able to expose the forgery. Perhaps not many had that access but to rely on ignorance of the masses is no way to insure non-exposure of the forgery.
Can you please explain what exactly in Tacitus about Tiberius would expose the fraud?

Daniel Schwartz: Reading the First Century: On Reading Josephus and Studying Jewish History of the First Century

''Those who read Josephus all by himself will never know, for example, that Germanicus died in 19 CE
(a point that is quite clear in Tacitus’ annalistic narrative but not at all indicated by Josephus), hence never have the occasion to wonder why Josephus juxtaposed that death with the beginning of Pilate’s tenure, something that apparently contradicts Josephus’ dating of that tenure – a point which we may pursue as we like, whether to learn more about Pilate or, rather, more about Josephus.''


Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals book 2

There meantime, when the illness of Germanicus was universally known, and all news, coming, as it did, from a distance, exaggerated the danger, there was grief and indignation. There was too an outburst of complaint. "Of course this was the meaning," they said, "of banishing him to the ends of the earth, of giving Piso the province; this was the drift of Augusta's secret interviews with Plancina. What elderly men had said of Drusus was perfectly true, that rulers disliked a citizen-like temper in their sons, and the young princes had been put out of the way because they had the idea of comprehending in a restored era of freedom the Roman people under equal laws."
This popular talk was so stimulated by the news of Germanicus's death that even before the magistrate's proclamation or the Senate's resolution, there was a voluntary suspension of business, the public courts were deserted, and private houses closed. Everywhere there was a silence broken only by groans; nothing was arranged for mere effect. And though they refrained not from the emblems of the mourner, they sorrowed yet the more deeply in their hearts.
......

That same year the profligacy of women was checked by stringent enactments, and it was provided that no woman whose grandfather, father, or husband had been a Roman knight should get money by prostitution. Vistilia, born of a prætorian family, had actually published her name with this object on the ædile's list, according to a recognised custom of our ancestors, who considered it a sufficient punishment on unchaste women to have to profess their shame. Titidius Labeo, Vistilia's husband, was judicially called on to say why with a wife whose guilt was manifest he had neglected to inflict the legal penalty. When he pleaded that the sixty days given for deliberation had not yet expired, it was thought sufficient to decide Vistilia's case, and she was banished out of sight to the island of Seriphos.

There was a debate too about expelling the Egyptian and Jewish worship, and a resolution of the Senate was passed that four thousand of the freedmen class who were infected with those superstitions and were of military age should be transported to the island of Sardinia, to quell the brigandage of the place, a cheap sacrifice should they die from the pestilential climate. The rest were to quit Italy, unless before a certain day they repudiated their impious rites.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... apter%3D82

Germanicus (Latin: Germanicus Julius Caesar; 24 May 15 BC – 10 October AD 19) was a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and a prominent general of the Roman Empire, who was known for his campaigns in Germania.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanicus

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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Mar 12, 2018 7:14 am
The Paulina and Mundus story itself seems clearly to me to be made up or used by Josephus as a literary allusion to the Testimonium.
What convinces you of this?
Ben,
I read all Josephus' works and the Paulina and Mundus story has the most common literary elements with Jesus' story and the Testamonium of any other story that he narrates, and it also happens to immediately follow the Testamonium. It even opens in a similar manner of speech. Unlike Jesus' story, Paulina's story's shared elements are in the reverse and in a kind of tragic prurient comedy, for example, the priests and the deceiver "Ida" are crucified by Rome, whereas in Jesus' story, it is the victim of the priests and of "Iuda", Jesus, who is crucified. Josephus seems to be using Paulina's story as a mirror, opposing, antithetical literary allusion to Jesus's story.

Numerous other writers like Eisenman have noticed the similarity between the two stories, and it's one major reason why I think that Josephus wrote either the Testamonium or Jesus' story in the location of the Testamonium.

I invite you to my thread where in my first two posts I wrote about this at length:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3915

I think it's an interesting issue.

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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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Mary Helena, I still don't understand how the fact that Germanicus died in October 19 ad, as you just posted, would, as you said, expose the Acts Pilati, which narrated Jesus's killing in 21 ad. Tiberius ruled from about 14 ad onward, making his 7th year of rule 21 ad, agreeing with a claim of a 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion.

Do you think that you could please explain at more length in your own words how "If the purpose of the proposed forgery of 11 and 10 years (for Gratus and Pilate) was to make the 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion in Acts of Pilate look false, make it look like a hoax, then they were delusional because anyone with access to Tactius or Roman history re Tiberius and Germanicus would be able to expose the forgery"?

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Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by Charles Wilson »

rakovsky wrote: Mon Mar 12, 2018 3:40 pmJosephus seems to be using Paulina's story as a mirror, opposing, antithetical literary allusion to Jesus's story.
Joseph Atwill, Caesar's Messiah, p. 240:

"While this new story is still a satire, it is one whose meaning can easily be grasped. The translation that I offer is as follows:

"Rome desires Judea but cannot tempt it with wealth because of the staunch religious convictions of its people. Therefore, a Roman fools the Jewish Zealots into believing that he is the Christ. He pays wicked priests to help him carry out the plot. The authors of Christianity "enjoy" the experience of pretending to be the Messiah.

"The unnamed Jew in the final tale who "professed to instruct men in the wisdom of the laws of Moses' is identified as Paul in the parallel description in Acts 25 given above. Josephus also assists the reader with this identification by beginning the parallel stories with descriptions of the genders of "Paulina" and the "Jew at Rome." Once the reader knows that the stories are designed to have interchangeable elements, it is not difficult to see that by switching their genders Paulina can become Paul, which completely clarifies the identity of the "Jew at Rome."

"The story created by solving the puzzle reveals how Caesar fooled the Jews into calling him "Lord" without their knowing it by simply switching his name to Jesus — the great secret of Christianity..."
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