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Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2018 2:19 am
by Secret Alias
Ethan you exemplify the adage, a little knowledge is dangerous. Your posts are rambling odes to sheer nonsense.
Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2018 3:18 am
by Giuseppe
I think about this different possibility:
Suetonius's Chrestus is a Christian interpolation, but the interpolator wanted to invent a false Christ (so, a Chrestus) in opposition to the true Christ. And to the Emperor.
Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2018 6:51 am
by Giuseppe
The sequence of events:
Luke talks about an expulsion of Jews from Italy.
Luke says that the Jews accused Paul & co of following a riotous rebel and/or of being themselves riotous ''nazarenes''.
So the interpolator of Suetonius invented a false Christ, a ''Chrestus'', instigator of the same Jews who according to Acts denigrated Paul.
Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius
Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2018 11:46 am
by andrewcriddle
Secret Alias wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:55 pm
Andrew is saying (as best as I understand it)
1. A (Suetonius) and B (Tacitus) are not the same event
2. Andrew is saying that Acts is independently corroborating A
3. Adamczewski is saying that Acts is taking bits from A and B to make C (= that A is a Christian event)
Andrew might be right. But i don't think that anything in A leads us to accept his conclusion that an expulsion in Rome would lead to an expulsion from Italy and to the East. I think Acts got that from Tacitus.
My point is that if Aquila is a Christian Jew from the Eastern Mediterranean who is working in Rome until he is expelled by imperial order, then he is more likely to go back East than to move somewhere else in Italy,
Andrew Criddle
Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius
Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2018 12:19 pm
by Secret Alias
Well maybe. But we don't know how attached the real Aquila of Pontus was to Sinope. It is worth noting this too:
The Latin original version of this statement is as follows (in Ihm's edition):[12]
Iudaeos impulsore Chresto[note 1] assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit
The brief Latin statement has been described as a "notorious crux"[14][note 2] and William L. Lane explains that the Latin text is ambiguous, giving two ways of interpreting it:
"He expelled from Rome the Jews constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus"
"Since the Jews constantly make disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome."
The first indicates that Claudius only expelled those Jews who were making disturbances.[17] Boman (2012) uses the following translation, which he "consider[s] non-committal and adequately close to the original Latin": "From Rome he (Claudius) expelled the perpetually tumultuating Jews prompted by Chrestus."[18]
The idea then that Aquila actually left Rome because of a likely limited persecution seems to be tied to a particular reading of Suetonius - one were all the ducks line up in a row and thus one that had little to do with actual history.
Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 2:55 am
by hakeem
Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Apr 25, 2018 3:18 am
I think about this different possibility:
Suetonius's Chrestus is a Christian interpolation, but the interpolator wanted to invent a false Christ (so, a Chrestus) in opposition to the true Christ. And to the Emperor.
There was no true Christ in the time of Pilate in the writings attributed to Suetonius or any other non-apologetic sources. Even Christian writers admitted that the Jews did not claim at anytime that the Christ had come in the time of Pilate or in the 1st century.
It is admitted in writings attributed to Suetonius, Tacitus and Josephus that the Jews expected their Christ or Messianic ruler in the time of Nero.
It is not likely that a Christian would invent a false Christ to contradict their own claim that their Christ had come.
Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:55 am
by MrMacSon
hakeem wrote: ↑Fri Apr 27, 2018 2:55 am
It is admitted in writings attributed to Suetonius, Tacitus and Josephus that the Jews expected their Christ or Messianic ruler in the time of Nero.
.
How was that admitted in each of those chronicler's writings?
Those writings may give hints as to the placing of events or people in the times of Nero, or may even reflect some shadows of Nero being associated with a Christ, at some point, but the texts attributed to them may not be by them.
hakeem wrote: ↑Fri Apr 27, 2018 2:55 am
It is not likely that a Christian would invent a false Christ to contradict their own claim that their Christ had come.
Early Christians may have reflected a false Christ or narratives of one.
Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 5:58 am
by Secret Alias
I think the passage is genuine. A Christian would not have thought that Christ was alive at the time of Claudius other than Irenaeus and his circle and it is unlikely the passage would have been corrupted so early.
Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 6:16 am
by Giuseppe
hakeem wrote: ↑Fri Apr 27, 2018 2:55 am
It is admitted in writings attributed to Suetonius, Tacitus and Josephus that the Jews expected their Christ or Messianic ruler in the time of Nero.
It is not likely that a Christian would invent a false Christ to contradict their own claim that their Christ had come.
Do you think that Chrestus = Christus even if this "Chrestus" was not the same Messiah of the Christians?
Re: Did Acts 18:2 Use Suetonius
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 6:24 am
by Giuseppe
Pliny the Younger could have persecuted the Christians (even if he didn't know that they were pacifists) because he had to persecute the followers of Chrestus.