Philip

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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DCHindley
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Re: Philip

Post by DCHindley »

I'd not agree that the Judean pilgrims who were migrating from Parthian territory to Herod's Judean kingdom had picked up non-Judean ways. Everyone who lived outside of Judea proper had no way to avoid corpse impurity or observe all the laws. I'm sure they were much like "non-observant" Jews in modern times.

When this troop, along with their wives and children, saw an opportunity to leave Parthian service (maybe they deserted, as they still had their horses and bows, etc.) and return to their homeland, they could now participate in Judean worship. That many had become sages suggests to me that they were maintaining traditions but without ability to practice. Now that they could, they did.

Just like Herod most certainly considered himself a full Jew, he also felt the demands of kingship of all people in his territory (there were tens of thousands of non Judeans living in his kingdom) allowed him to exercise his discretion in interpreting those laws. He likely had legal advice from established religious teachers.

Just as not every Islamic cleric is a hot tempered killer, with many Muslims listening to much milder clerics, especially if they live abroad, so there were Judean sages who were not all 4th philosophy like Osama bin Laden.

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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

DC wrote:
Just as not every Islamic cleric is a hot tempered killer, with many Muslims listening to much milder clerics, especially if they live abroad, so there were Judean sages who were not all 4th philosophy like Osama bin Laden.
But not all Fourth Philosophers were like Osama bin Laden. Some were more moderate, like Niger of Perea, who was killed by more extremist Fourth Philosophers ("zealots") for his moderation. As the Jewish Virtual Library notes:
During the reign of terror in Jerusalem after the triumph of the Zealot extremists, he was among the moderates who were executed, apparently on suspicion of wishing to come to terms with the Romans (Jos., Wars, 2:520, 566; 3:11–27; 4:359–63).

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/niger-of-perea


And I would add Josephus, Jesus, John the Baptist, James, Peter and Paul to the list. I'm thinking that Jesus' moderation could have been part of his appeal to someone like Josephus' Philip, who was pro-peace (and served as a messenger for it in groups of "twelve" and "seventy"). As Jesus says in Mt. 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

I was looking at translations of Mt. 5:47 and noticed that the one I used above doesn't seem to fully convey what I think Jesus means:
And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?
Since other translations say "brothers" or "friends," I thought I'd check the Greek, and not only do "brothers" or "friends" seem to be a more accurate translation of ἀδελφοὺς (adelphous), it reminds me of the word chaverim (brothers/friends) used in Rabbinic Judaism. As Oppenheimer puts it:
In observing the commandments and restrictions relating to tithes and to purity the Pharisees and haverim were scrupulous, contrary to the 'ammei ha-aretz who disregarded their observance. The strict observance of the former, and the disregard by the latter, of the separation of tithes, and more especially of the various degrees of purity, led to a social division between the Pharisees and haverim on the one hand and the 'ammei ha-aretz on the other ... By the nature of things, the haverim were very close to the Pharisees ...

https://books.google.com/books?id=384UA ... es&f=false
So I see Jesus' word choice here as being yet another attack against the Pharisees, which makes all the more sense given what he says before this in Mt. 5:20:
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

Not only are the large crowds that Jesus attracted in keeping with what Josephus says about the Fourth Philosophy in Ant. 18.1.1 (it ""had a great many followers" and "the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree"), but so is Acts 21:20:
Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law.


And while Christians may have been a relatively moderate Fourth Philosophic faction, Acts goes on to present them as having to deal with these more extremist elements (who I reckon may not have been met with approval by James and other Christian leaders but which they also seem unable to control).

Acts 21:21-22:
They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. What shall we do?
.

Acts 21:27-32:
When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help us! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.” (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple.)

The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut. While they were trying to kill him, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. When the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.

The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another, and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. When Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great he had to be carried by the soldiers. The crowd that followed kept shouting, “Get rid of him!”
Acts 22:22-24:
The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”

As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this.
Acts 23:12-15:
The next morning some Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. More than forty men were involved in this plot. They went to the chief priests and the elders and said, “We have taken a solemn oath not to eat anything until we have killed Paul. Now then, you and the Sanhedrin petition the commander to bring him before you on the pretext of wanting more accurate information about his case. We are ready to kill him before he gets here.”
And I think it's interesting that 21:27 mentions "Jews from the province of Asia," since Asia was a hotbed of Jewish Christianity to judge from 1 Peter and Revelation.

1 Peter 1:1-2:
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood.
Rev. 1:4:
John,

To the seven churches in the province of Asia.
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

I was catching up with Larry Hurtado's blog and found a link to an interesting post discussing why Paul had persecuted Christians prior to his conversion, which is serendipitous for me since I've been thinking about this lately myself and have a different idea.

Hurtado writes:
In sum, it seems to me that both the nature and the cause(s) for Paul’s initially violent opposition to the Jewish Jesus-movement were somewhat different from the nature and cause(s) for the synagogue floggings that he later received in the course of his ministry as apostle. I’m inclined to think that Paul’s initial Pharisaic zeal was incited, at least in part, by the christological claims and accompanying devotional practices that he later came to embrace, and that are reflected in his letters. Indeed, his zealousness for his religious traditions may have even made him particularly sensitive to the implications of the christological claims and devotional practices of the early Jesus-circles ...

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2014 ... re-causes/
I'm thinking Paul's persecution of Christians could have more to do with the Christian rejection of the Pharisees' oral Torah (as per, for example, Mk. 7:13: "you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that”), since Paul says he was "extremely zealous" for this tradition right after saying that he had persecuted Christians in Gal. 1:13-14:
For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
As Josephus says, these traditions were the law of the land (and presumably considered divine, as per rabbinic writings) during Jesus' time.

Ant. 13.10.6:
... the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers. And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side.


One might ask why the Sadducees weren't similarly persecuted for rejecting the oral Torah, but Josephus does say that "great disputes and differences have arisen among them," and that they were "able to persuade none but the rich," and, what I think is the key, bearing in mind the large crowds that Jesus attracted and the popularity of the Fourth Philosophy, they "have not the populace obsequious to them." Being rich, they were in a better position to defend themselves, and being unpopular, they weren't much of a threat. And as Josephus says in Ant. 18.1.4, they were also willing to go along with the Pharisees' program:
But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them.
Contrast this attitude with Jesus', who over and over is not afraid to tell the Pharisees (and their cohorts) exactly what he thinks of them and their oral Torah (while emphasizing the written Torah). And as he says in Mt. 5:19-20:
Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the scribes, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
So I reckon that for someone like Paul, who was "extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers," this position would have been quite offensive. And I don't see why, as a Pharisee, he would have had any issue with their "christological claims" when the Pharisees (to judge from rabbinic writings) were messianic too. The situation is similar to the Fourth Philosophy, which rejected the oral Torah but otherwise "agree[d] in all other things with the Pharisaic notions" (Ant. 18.1.6), which presumably included messianism given what Josephus says in War 6.5.4:
But now, what did the most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how, about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth.


I'm unaware of anything in Josephus that indicates that the Pharisees had an issue with the use of this oracle (aside from perhaps the timing of it and the militancy behind it). So why would Paul, especially considering the relatively peaceful position of Christians (e.g., Mk. 14:48 and 1 Peter 2:13-17)?

And Josephus himself was a Pharisee (who had joined and then rejected the Fourth Philosophy), and he used the same "ambiguous oracle" and applied it to Vespasian! Yet he over and over castigates the Fourth Philosophers for their "innovations" ("which we were before unacquainted"), such as their rejection of sacrifices on behalf of Gentiles, which he says was "customary" for Jews to offer in War 2.17.2:
... Eleazar, the son of Ananias the high priest, a very bold youth, who was at that time governor of the temple, persuaded those that officiated in the Divine service to receive no gift or sacrifice for any foreigner. And this was the true beginning of our war with the Romans; for they rejected the sacrifice of Caesar on this account; and when many of the high priests and principal men besought them not to omit the sacrifice, which it was customary for them to offer for their princes, they would not be prevailed upon. These relied much upon their multitude, for the most flourishing part of the innovators assisted them.


But concerning the "ambiguous oracle," he says that "God takes care of mankind, and by all ways possible foreshows to our race what is for their preservation," so he clearly did not regard messianism as something "which we were before unacquainted."

So I think that Paul, as a Pharisee (and one who was "extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers"), would have been more offended by the Christians' rejection of the oral Torah than by their "christological claims." The two go hand in hand: he says he persecuted the church and was extremely zealous for the oral Torah.
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

And the same situation is in the Damascus Document. It rejects the oral Torah and emphasizes the written Torah and calls the teachings that are based on the latter "the new covenant" while the Pharisees (aka the "Seekers of Smooth Things") and their cohorts (which included "the kings of the peoples") "banded together against the life of the righteous and loathed all who walked in perfection; they pursued them with the sword and exulted in the strife of the people."

This is like a nutshell version of what happens in the gospel of Mark. The Pharisees and their cohorts "banded together against the life" of Jesus (3:6: "Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus") and "exulted in the strife of the people" (15:11-15).

I used to think that the Damascus Document could have been written by Jewish Christians because of these kinds of similarities (e.g., "Damascus," "the new covenant," "the way," the belief that God had visited them, messianism, the rejection of the oral Torah), and while I still lean towards that possibility (since all parts of the Damascus Document that mention the Teacher of Righteousness are datable by paleography to the Herodian era), I now think that these elements could be just as applicable to other Fourth Philosophic factions and that just about any Fourth Philosopher could have been the Teacher of Righteousness. They all more or less could have made use of "the land of Damascus" for their activities, all more or less rejected the oral Torah and practiced "innovations," and all more or less were "pursued ... with the sword" by the Pharisees and their cohorts.
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Re: Philip

Post by andrewcriddle »

I think it unlikely that Paul would have been given authority to persecute Christians over positions that were only objectionable to the Pharisees.

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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

andrewcriddle wrote: Fri Nov 02, 2018 11:38 am I think it unlikely that Paul would have been given authority to persecute Christians over positions that were only objectionable to the Pharisees.

Andrew Criddle
That's a great issue to bring up. My first thought is was Paul ever really given authority to persecute Christians or did Acts make it up? I don't know if we can say that he was from what he says in his letters, can we?

And then I factor in the idea (which is admittedly "fringe" but I find it to be plausible) that Paul was Josephus' Saul, and while Saul is related to the Herodians and appears to have used that to his advantage, in Josephus' description of him he sounds like a renegade thug.

Ant. 20.9.4:
Costobarus also, and Saulus, did themselves get together a multitude of wicked wretches, and this because they were of the royal family; and so they obtained favor among them, because of their kindred to Agrippa; but still they used violence with the people, and were very ready to plunder those that were weaker than themselves. And from that time it principally came to pass that our city was greatly disordered, and that all things grew worse and worse among us.
But of course he may not be Paul. But I think he at least sounds like Paul, including the Herodian relationship, since in any event I think Paul was related to them (and which is a fairly "mainstream" idea).
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

I intend to eventually circle back to Philip (I'm still trying to sort out Josephus' Philip's association with twelve and seventy messengers, for one thing), but as I take another look into the issue of whether Paul was given authority to persecute Christians in Damascus (as per Acts), Holladay (in Acts: A Commentary) mentions something on page 193 that could perhaps be relevant to the old question of whether or not a high priest in Jerusalem had the authority to arrest Jews in Damascus.

War 1.24.2:
Herod was also become terrible, not only to his domestics about the court, but to his friends abroad; for Caesar had given such a privilege to no other king as he had given to him, which was this - that he might fetch back any one that fled from him, even out of a city that was not under his own jurisdiction.


And looking at what Josephus says about the Saul who had "used violence with the people," I noticed the detail that he had gotten together "a multitude of wretches" to assist him. And when I consider the strong words that Paul uses to describe his persecution of the church, it strikes me as something that would be difficult for one person to accomplish (or attempt to accomplish). As Dunn notes on page 338 of Beginning from Jerusalem: Christianity in the Making:
... Paul himself describes his persecuting zeal with ... fierceness (Gal. 1:13): he did not simply 'pursue/persecute' the church of God, but he did so kath hyperbolen, 'to an extraordinary degree, beyond measure, extravagantly, in excess'; he had even 'tried to destroy (eporthoun)' the church. As P.H. Menoud observes, the verb porthein when elsewhere applied to things or people always conveys the idea of material assault (destroying and ravaging cities and territories), or even more violent physical or mental destruction.

https://books.google.com/books?id=A_Ngb ... on&f=false


And this level of violence is on par with what Josephus says about Saul (and company):
... they used violence with the people, and were very ready to plunder those that were weaker than themselves. And from that time it principally came to pass that our city was greatly disordered, and that all things grew worse and worse among us.


I know that the Clementine writings are relatively late, but I'm in the (fairly "mainstream") camp that views them as incorporating earlier Jewish Christian writings (and in my view specifically Ebionite), and I noticed a detail in Rec. 1.70 that could lend support to the idea that Paul (aka Saul) had assistance when he had "tried to destroy" the church, like Josephus' Saul did when he "used violence with the people" and "plunder[ed] those that were weaker" (in a chapter labeled as "Tumult Raised By Saul"):
And when matters were at that point that they should come and be baptized, some one of our enemies, entering the temple with a few men, began to cry out ... he began to excite the people and to raise a tumult, so that the people might not be able to hear what was said.

Therefore he began to drive all into confusion with shouting, and to undo what had been arranged with much labour, and at the same time to reproach the priests, and to enrage them with revilings and abuse, and, like a madman, to excite every one to murder, saying, 'What do ye? Why do ye hesitate? Oh sluggish and inert, why do we not lay hands upon them, and pull all these fellows to pieces?'

When he had said this, he first, seizing a strong brand from the altar, set the example of smiting. Then others also, seeing him, were carried away with like readiness. Then ensued a tumult on either side, of the beating and the beaten. Much blood is shed; there is a confused flight, in the midst of which that enemy attacked James, and threw him headlong from the top of the steps; and supposing him to be dead, he cared not to inflict further violence upon him.

http://compassionatespirit.com/Books/Re ... Book-1.htm
This at least seems in keeping with the language that Paul uses to describe his persecution of the church in Galatians and Josephus' description of Saul (which occurs shortly after the James passage in Ant. 20).
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

And this makes me want to take another look at what Acts says about Saul (right before the Philip passage, which Matthews argues derives from an earlier source, which I'm thinking could be Papias), and it also seems to be in keeping with the language that Paul uses to describe his persecution of the church (and with Rec. 1.70 and Josephus' description of Saul).

Acts 8:1-3:
And Saul approved of their killing him [Stephen]. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.
Acts 9:1-2:
Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

The only thing that seems odd to me here is the part about asking the high priest for letters to the synagogues in Damascus. Dunn notes some (admittedly speculative and to me unpersuasive) reasons for thinking there could be something to it on page 337:
Luke's report that Saul was given authority to deal with members of the Way in Damascus by bringing them under arrest to Jerusalem (Acts 9:1-2) is usually regarded as highly dubious. In particular, what authority could the high priest in Jerusalem have in a city under quite another jurisdiction? And it certainly reads as one of Luke's 'over the top' exaggerations. Nevertheless, there may be more to it than initially meets the eye. For one thing, Luke attributes the initiative to Saul himself; it was he who went to the high priest and asked for letters of commission (c.f. 22:5). Moreover, the letters are said to be addressed to 'the synagogues' (of Damascus). Now, it is quite true that the high priest had no formal jurisdiction over synagogues, least of all in other countries. But he had at least two considerable constraints which he could bring to bear on archisynagogoi and synagogue elders. One was that he was responsible for much of the content and timing of lived-out Judaism; he and his councillors were the ultimate authority in matters of dispute, and it is not at all unlikely that Jerusalem authorities occasionally wrote to diaspora synagogues to encourage them to maintain the traditions and possibly to take sides in some dispute on timing of festivals and the like. The high priest might have even been willing to claim jurisdiction over a "greater Judea' which included Damascus. In any case, the high priest was not a person whose envoy could be lightly disregarded or dismissed with his mission unfulfilled. The other is that the Temple in Jerusalem held an amazing range of financial deposits for Jews at home and abroad; it was Judaism's 'central bank'. It is quite conceivable, therefore, that any requests were backed, explicitly or implicitly, with threat of financial sanctions. All this is speculative, of course, but the possibility does give more credibility to Luke's account than it usually receives.
Eh. Maybe. I think I'd give more weight to Rec. 1.71 though (which also re-emphasizes that Saul had assistance when he "tried to destroy" the church):
Then after three days one of the brethren came to us from Gamaliel, whom we mentioned before, bringing to us secret tidings that that enemy had received a commission from Caiaphas, the chief priest, that he should arrest all who believed in Jesus, and should go to Damascus with his letters, and that there also, employing the help of the unbelievers, he should make havoc among the faithful; and that he was hastening to Damascus chiefly on this account, because he believed that Peter had fled thither.
But there's another detail in Rec. 1.70 that reminds me of something Josephus says in the context of Saul being violent with people that might possibly support the idea that Paul had the backing of the high priest (if Josephus' Saul is Paul).
Therefore he began to drive all into confusion with shouting, and to undo what had been arranged with much labour, and at the same time to reproach the priests, and to enrage them with revilings and abuse, and, like a madman, to excite every one to murder, saying, 'What do ye? Why do ye hesitate? Oh sluggish and inert, why do we not lay hands upon them, and pull all these fellows to pieces?'

When he had said this, he first, seizing a strong brand from the altar, set the example of smiting. Then others also, seeing him, were carried away with like readiness. Then ensued a tumult on either side, of the beating and the beaten.
Ant. 20.8.8:
And now arose a sedition between the high priests and the principal men of the multitude of Jerusalem; each of which got them a company of the boldest sort of men, and of those that loved innovations about them, and became leaders to them; and when they struggled together, they did it by casting reproachful words against one another, and by throwing stones also. And there was nobody to reprove them; but these disorders were done after a licentious manner in the city, as if it had no government over it. And such was the impudence and boldness that had seized on the high priests, that they had the hardiness to send their servants into the threshing-floors, to take away those tithes that were due to the priests, insomuch that it so fell out that the poorest sort of the priests died for want. To this degree did the violence of the seditious prevail over all right and justice.
This situation is also discussed in the Talmud in Pes. 57a:
Woe is me due to the High Priests of the house of Baitos, woe is me due to their clubs. Woe is me due to the High Priests of the house of Ḥanin [the family that killed James]; woe is me due to their whispers and the rumors they spread. Woe is me due to the High Priests of the house of Katros; woe is me due to their pens that they use to write lies. Woe is me due to the servants of the High Priests of the house of Yishmael ben Piakhi; woe is me due to their fists. The power of these households stemmed from the fact that the fathers were High Priests, and their sons were the Temple treasurers, and their sons-in-law were Temple overseers. And their servants strike the people with clubs, and otherwise act inappropriately.
So maybe Saul/Paul was similarly acting in cahoots with these violent high priests (and which is perhaps all the more plausible if he was related to the Herodians as some argue).

And Josephus' reference to poor priests dying because of this violence and Saul's assault against priests in Rec. 1.70 seem interesting given what Acts 6:7 says:
And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
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