Philip

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John2
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

As I plug slowly along through Matthews' Philip, he points out something I had never noticed before that I think confirms a relatively early date for Papias. He notes on pages 30-31:
There has been a propensity among modern scholars to date Papias' writing during the reign of Hadrian (117-138 GE) or later rather than earlier, although the reasoning behind such estimates is often not spelled out. Eusebius considers Papias in connection with his treatment of Polycarp, Ignatius, and Clement of Rome during the reign of Trajan (98~117 GE). As Vernon Bartlet has pointed out, in the third book of the Historia ecclesiastica, Eusebius nowhere goes beyond Trajan's time, and in fact still treats this period at the start of book four. "Eusebius . . . saw no reason . . . to infer from internal evidence that Papias wrote after rather than before A.D. 110, though he is at pains to refute Irenaeus's statement that Papias was actually 'a hearer and eye-witness of the sacred Apostles.' " Bartlet's view has recently been confirmed by Ulrich Kortner, whose interpretation of the Papias fragments substantiates the early date suggested by Eusebius' relative chronology. Kortner argues persuasively that the polemical function of Papias' work, the Tradentenkreis of the presbyters, and Papias' association with the daughters of Philip are all more suited to a time around 110 than the middle of the second century. Since there is no convincing reason to dispute Papias' contact with the daughters of Philip, a date before 110 CE for his writing is to be preferred, lest we find ourselves constantly rewarding early Christian figures with extraordinary life spans.
I'm becoming a big Papias fan of late, mainly for what he says about Mark (the gospel and gospel writer) and Matthew (which I take to be a narrative gospel and not just a collection sayings). And now I'm becoming intrigued by the report that he knew the daughters of Philip, because if it's true then it would of course ultimately mean that there was an historical Christian Philip (who, by Matthews' reckoning, would be Philip the apostle of Jesus). So let's take another look at EH 3.39.8-9:
8. But it is fitting to subjoin to the words of Papias which have been quoted, other passages from his works in which he relates some other wonderful events which he claims to have received from tradition.

9. That Philip the apostle dwelt at Hierapolis with his daughters has been already stated. But it must be noted here that Papias, their contemporary, says that he heard a wonderful tale from the daughters of Philip. For he relates that in his time one rose from the dead. And he tells another wonderful story of Justus, surnamed Barsabbas: that he drank a deadly poison, and yet, by the grace of the Lord, suffered no harm.


I had originally taken the reference to "one rose from the dead" to mean that one of Philip's daughter's had risen from the dead, but now I see that it more likely refers to someone who was not one of Philips' daughters, and Matthews persuades me that it refers to someone from Philip's time (i.e, "for he [Papias] relates that in his [i.e., Philip's] time one rose from the dead"), not his daughters' (and Papias') time.

In other words, Papias heard a story from the daughters of Philip that someone in Philip's time had risen from the dead. Now, while this story (and the other one about Justus) would be (from my point of view) at best "pious fiction," I see no reason (yet) to discount the possibility that Papias really did know Philip's daughters (and that thus a Christian Philip actually existed).

I like to think that the kind of stories that Philip's daughters told Papias (which more or less all Judeo-Christian writings exhibit) are ancient "special effects." I mean, what else would people promoting a religion say about their founder(s)? "He was a normal guy and nothing out of the ordinary ever happened"? Of course not. So I expect to see (and reckon that ancients expected to see) some explosions and car chases. So I suppose the worst I can say is that the daughters are guilty of embellishment, but I see no reason to deny their existence. There are made up stories in more less all Judeo-Christian writings, but it of course doesn't follow that the people who created them didn't exist. So I'm willing to entertain the idea that Philip's daughters existed and actually talked to Papias (and sometime during Trajan's reign).
Last edited by John2 on Sat Oct 20, 2018 6:31 pm, edited 8 times in total.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Philip

Post by Ben C. Smith »

These kinds of fantastic claims are still made in modern charismatic/Pentecostal circles. The claims do not imply that Benny Hinn or Paul Cain or whoever does/did not exist; they are simply embellishments and exaggerations of the world view that such people share.
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perseusomega9
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Re: Philip

Post by perseusomega9 »

I'm partial to the idea that the 'Daughters of Phillip' were a women's religious order.
The metric to judge if one is a good exegete: the way he/she deals with Barabbas.

Who disagrees with me on this precise point is by definition an idiot.
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John2
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

perseusomega9 wrote: Sat Oct 20, 2018 6:27 pm I'm partial to the idea that the 'Daughters of Phillip' were a women's religious order.
Why?
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John2
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

I'm still slowly going through Matthews' Philip (which is excellent but I have limited access to it) and want to make a note of something he writes in chapter two on pages 38-39:
It is highly likely that the role Philip plays in 8:5-13 as the first missionary to Samaria depends on pre-Lukan tradition. The surprising
fact that Philip should be the first one mentioned to conduct such unprecedented evangelizing activity, given his rather inauspicious
introduction in 6:5, lends plausibility to this assumption. Whether such a tradition reached Luke in oral or written form can no longer be determined. One cannot assume that in Acts Luke simply worked from a library of preexisting sources. Given the diaphanous character of the report in 8:5-8, it may be that Luke has given this piece of tradition its first written form. In any case the possibility of reconstructing any putative underlying written source for these verses has been foreclosed by the thoroughly Lukan nature of the existing narrative. As the succeeding analysis will demonstrate in some detail, Luke fleshes out the traditions he takes up in his own language and according to his own interests.
Since Matthews (and MacDonald) persuades me that Papias pre-dates Acts, and MacDonald persuades me that Acts used Papias, and since Papias is said to have known the daughters of Philip (which I think is plausible), I wonder if this "Lukan-ized" story about Philip was derived from Papias rather than from an oral tradition (If Luke didn't simply make it up). It seems like a pleasingly simple solution. If Papias knew Philip's daughters and Luke knew Papias, then maybe the Philip story in Acts was derived from Papias (and "Lukan-ized" in the same way as Jospehus' story about Simon who had a run in with Agrippa in Caesarea, like Peter does in Acts 12).
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perseusomega9
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Re: Philip

Post by perseusomega9 »

Why can't scholars just straight out say this writer lied/made it up/etc? No instead we get trivial apologetics like [church writer] takes up the traditions in his own language and according to his own interests
The metric to judge if one is a good exegete: the way he/she deals with Barabbas.

Who disagrees with me on this precise point is by definition an idiot.
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John2
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

And I've been thinking about Josephus' Philip being a general in Agrippa's army in the 60's CE and how it would square with having been a follower of Jesus, and in the big picture, as I've noted, not only do I think that Paul was related to the Herodians and sounds like Josephus' Saul, Acts itself says there was a leader in the early Antioch church who had been "brought up with Herod the Tetrarch" (13:1) and that Paul had nearly converted Agrippa to Christianity (26:28), and Acts 10 discusses the conversion of "a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly." So it wouldn't necessarily be weird if Jesus had a follower who was or later became a soldier, and perhaps the appeal for a pro-peace and pro-Herodian person like Philip was that Jesus was a moderate (e.g., Mk. 14:48) with at least a modicum of respect for the Romans (e.g., Mk. 12:17; cf. 1 Peter 2:13-17).
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DCHindley
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Re: Philip

Post by DCHindley »

John2 wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 12:25 pm And I've been thinking about Josephus' Philip being a general in Agrippa's army in the 60's CE and how it would square with having been a follower of Jesus, and in the big picture, as I've noted, not only do I think that Paul was related to the Herodians and sounds like Josephus' Saul, Acts itself says there was a leader in the early Antioch church who had been "brought up with Herod the Tetrarch" (13:1) and that Paul had nearly converted Agrippa to Christianity (26:28), and Acts 10 discusses the conversion of "a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly." So it wouldn't necessarily be weird if Jesus had a follower who was or later became a soldier, and perhaps the appeal for a pro-peace and pro-Herodian person like Philip was that Jesus was a moderate (e.g., Mk. 14:48) with at least a modicum of respect for the Romans (e.g., Mk. 12:17; cf. 1 Peter 2:13-17).
I think a closer look at this Philip you'll find that he was considered a "Babylonian," which means that he was descended from the troop of Parthian mounted archers who had migrated from Mesopotamia to settle in Judea. Herod had learned of them and offered them tax immunity if they would act as a police force to quell bandits plaguing the luxury goods trade caravans from Damascus and Arabia in the region that later became Agrippa's tetrarchy.

AFAIK, there is not so much of a hint in the NT that any of Jesus' immediate followers were "Babylonians" (Judeans who had settled in Parthian controlled Mesopotamia, which had historically been part of Babylonian territory).

DCH
John2
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

DCHindley wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:34 pm
John2 wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 12:25 pm And I've been thinking about Josephus' Philip being a general in Agrippa's army in the 60's CE and how it would square with having been a follower of Jesus, and in the big picture, as I've noted, not only do I think that Paul was related to the Herodians and sounds like Josephus' Saul, Acts itself says there was a leader in the early Antioch church who had been "brought up with Herod the Tetrarch" (13:1) and that Paul had nearly converted Agrippa to Christianity (26:28), and Acts 10 discusses the conversion of "a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly." So it wouldn't necessarily be weird if Jesus had a follower who was or later became a soldier, and perhaps the appeal for a pro-peace and pro-Herodian person like Philip was that Jesus was a moderate (e.g., Mk. 14:48) with at least a modicum of respect for the Romans (e.g., Mk. 12:17; cf. 1 Peter 2:13-17).
I think a closer look at this Philip you'll find that he was considered a "Babylonian," which means that he was descended from the troop of Parthian mounted archers who had migrated from Mesopotamia to settle in Judea. Herod had learned of them and offered them tax immunity if they would act as a police force to quell bandits plaguing the luxury goods trade caravans from Damascus and Arabia in the region that later became Agrippa's tetrarchy.

AFAIK, there is not so much of a hint in the NT that any of Jesus' immediate followers were "Babylonians" (Judeans who had settled in Parthian controlled Mesopotamia, which had historically been part of Babylonian territory).

DCH
My understanding is that Josephus' Philip was a Babylonian Jew. As Cresswell noted above:
This Philip was from what Josephus describes as a colony of 'Babylonian Jews' established by King Herod in the hills east of the Sea of Galilee (not far from Bethsaida, where the gospel Philip is supposed to have originated). Herod's purpose was to establish a buffer zone between outside forces, specifically the Babylonians, and Jerusalem, the core of his kingdom. These colonists were not ordinary Jews in Israel but people whose ancestors had been exiled and who had in exile absorbed some of the ways of their hosts.


And the Jewish Encyclopedia notes that:
... Phillip fled to Jerusalem, narrowly escaping death on the way at the hands of Menahem and his retainers. A severe fever which seized him in the vicinity of Gamala saved him from the plots of Varus, who was aiming at the throne; but the trickery of the latter compelled Philip's fellow countrymen to go to Gamala, which he earnestly endeavored to hold faithful to the Romans ...

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/artic ... of-bathyra
And Encycolpedia.com says regarding Philip's grandfather:
ZAMARIS (Zimri ; late first century b.c.e.–early first century c.e.), Babylonian Jew ... His [grand]son Philip remained a close associate of Agrippa. Some are of the opinion that the Benei Bathyra, who held high office in the administration of the Temple, came from these Babylonian settlers of Bathyra.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/e ... ps/zamaris
And Wikipedia notes regarding the Bnei Bathyra:
Bnei Bathyra (Hebrew: בני בתירא‎, lit. "The Children of Bathyra"; Also referred to in the Jerusalem Talmud as זקני בתירא, lit. "The Elders of Bathyra") were Jewish sages family that in a certain period of time, headed the religious leadership of the Jewish people, during the Destruction of the Second Temple, and in close proximity to the beginning of the era of the Tannaim. This family is known for its many important Jewish Sages over the course of many generations. A hundred-year before the Destruction of the Second Temple, the family's sages have passed the torch of the Jewish leadership to Hillel the Elder, that made Aliya to the Land of Israel from Babylon and had studied at Sh'maya and Abtalion. The sages of the family are considered "Gedolei Hador", the intellectual giants of the religious world of these generations, even after the Destruction of the Second Temple, and are known to have held a prominent position among the Yavne Sages. The general consensus attributes some Tannaim to this family, and the most known of these attributions is Judah ben Bathyra, who resided in Nusaybin west to Babylon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bnei_Bathyra
I'm coming around to the idea that Jesus' disciples were a motley crew by nature as a Fourth Philosophic faction. For example, the Egyptian prophet alone is said to have had more followers than the three other sects Josephus mentions combined (War 2.13.5). And as Josephus says in Ant. 18.1.1, the Fourth Philosophy "had a great many followers" and "the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree." So by nature all Fourth Philosophic factions were a hodgepodge of people from the other sects (cf. Acts 15:5) and the unaffiliated.

So I'm starting to think that it makes sense that Jesus' disciples were a grab bag of various people, like Levi, who was a tax collector, and (at least in Luke/Acts) Simon "the zealot." As Mk. 2:13-15 describes the situation:
Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.
Last edited by John2 on Tue Oct 30, 2018 9:00 am, edited 4 times in total.
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John2
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

And Josephus' Philip being an aristocratic pro-Roman soldier reminds me of what Jesus says in Mt. 5:41:
If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.
As a comment on the biblehub says regarding this verse:
The Greek word implies the special compulsion of forced service as courier or messenger under Government, and was imported from the Persian postal system, organised on the plan of employing men thus impressed to convey Government dispatches from stage to stage (Herod. viii. 98). The use of the illustration here would seem to imply the adoption of the same system by the Roman Government under the empire. Roman soldiers and their horses were billeted on Jewish householders. Others were impressed for service of longer or shorter duration.

https://biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/5-41.htm
And Mt. 5:43-48:
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
This hodgepodge nature of the Fourth Philosophy and Jesus' disciples reminds me of what Hegesippus says EH 2.23.8-10:
8. Now some of the seven sects, which existed among the people and which have been mentioned by me in the Memoirs, asked him [James], 'What is the gate of Jesus?' and he replied that he was the Saviour.

9. 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.

10. 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.
And Acts 5:35-39 likens Christians to the followers of other Fourth Philosophers (even if it mixes up the chronology):
Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
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