Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

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Secret Alias
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Re: Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

Post by Secret Alias »

And the author of the forgery was ...
Consequently God punished and abandoned them. The destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. served the Christians as historical proof for this view. Origen and Eusebius drew especially on Josephus's destruction of the Second Temple in order to legitimize these Christian claims. as such, Eusebius excerpted long passages from Jewish War to underscore Christian arguments about the rejection of the Jews (Hata 2007) https://books.google.com/books?id=YmXKC ... f+the+Jews+(Hata+2007;+%22&source=bl&ots=CSDRlbzhV3&sig=ACfU3U376NCJTC-DNIlyozIQ24Wwk-TcIg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjRqKzPkuLiAhXyN30KHdMpAkQQ6AEwAHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22arguments%20about%20the%20rejection%20of%20the%20Jews%20(Hata%202007%3B%20%22&f=false
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Secret Alias
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Re: Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

Post by Secret Alias »

The reason why you don't see it is (a) because you have been brainwashed from birth into accepting the 'appropriateness' of the 'promise' coming over to the Gentiles and (b) you don't know much about Jews.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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davidlau17
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Re: Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

Post by davidlau17 »

I think I may have given you the wrong impression. I meant that Josephus seemed to have come, in his own mind, to view the Romans more favorably than the Zealots and Sicarii of the 1st century. At times, he seems to insinuate that these latter had poisoned Jerusalem. Josephus was viewed as a traitor because he betrayed the Jews; this does not mean all "his people" were traitors. In fact, there are stories of Zealots committing suicide before submitting to Roman rule... but Josephus came from an elite family of Pharisees. Zealot peasantry hardly were Josephus' "people".

Eusebius was anti-semitic, no doubt about it. Like many Christians, he saw the destruction of Jerusalem as "the avenging of the Savior", with a chilling satisfaction toward it.
I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it. - Hans Eysenck
davidlau17
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Re: Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

Post by davidlau17 »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 11:19 am And the author of the forgery was ...
Consequently God punished and abandoned them. The destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. served the Christians as historical proof for this view. Origen and Eusebius drew especially on Josephus's destruction of the Second Temple in order to legitimize these Christian claims. as such, Eusebius excerpted long passages from Jewish War to underscore Christian arguments about the rejection of the Jews (Hata 2007) https://books.google.com/books?id=YmXKC ... f+the+Jews+(Hata+2007;+%22&source=bl&ots=CSDRlbzhV3&sig=ACfU3U376NCJTC-DNIlyozIQ24Wwk-TcIg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjRqKzPkuLiAhXyN30KHdMpAkQQ6AEwAHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22arguments%20about%20the%20rejection%20of%20the%20Jews%20(Hata%202007%3B%20%22&f=false
Or maybe some authors of the NT had read Josephus' Wars, and wrote that Jesus had predicted one or two of the minor details it described.
I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it. - Hans Eysenck
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 11:19 am And the author of the forgery was ...
Consequently God punished and abandoned them. The destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. served the Christians as historical proof for this view. Origen and Eusebius drew especially on Josephus's destruction of the Second Temple in order to legitimize these Christian claims. as such, Eusebius excerpted long passages from Jewish War to underscore Christian arguments about the rejection of the Jews (Hata 2007) https://books.google.com/books?id=YmXKC ... f+the+Jews+(Hata+2007;+%22&source=bl&ots=CSDRlbzhV3&sig=ACfU3U376NCJTC-DNIlyozIQ24Wwk-TcIg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjRqKzPkuLiAhXyN30KHdMpAkQQ6AEwAHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22arguments%20about%20the%20rejection%20of%20the%20Jews%20(Hata%202007%3B%20%22&f=false
And Eusebius got the idea for these omens from Tacitus? Or how does that pan out?
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Secret Alias
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Re: Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

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I don't know. Nevertheless Eusebius, the librarian, has a strange habit of using material from books in his library which happens to support his POV. He's either the most loyal reader or the best forger.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 2:00 pm I don't know.
Well, the question has to be answered if anything is to be done with your conjecture. Eusebius certainly knew Josephus; he probably did not know Tacitus. So the recounting of an event which both Josephus and Tacitus describe is surprising only if one surmises that Eusebius made up the relevant passage in Josephus. And suddenly we find ourselves having to explain Tacitus.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

Post by GakuseiDon »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 5:39 am Still find it hard to believe a Jew wrote that. We may give up believing in God but our hatred of "the man" never goes away
I think it is the opposite of giving up belief in God. I simply can't imagine any Jew of the time thinking that God was on their side in the war against the Romans, but the Jews lost anyway. The natural explanation is that God allowed the Jews to lose, which is consistent with what we see in Josephus.

From my earlier link: http://josephus.org/causeofDestruct.htm

War 4.5.2 323
I cannot but think that it was because God had doomed this city to destruction, as a polluted city, and was resolved to purge his sanctuary by fire, that he cut off those who clung to them with such tender affection.

Antiquities 20.8.5 166
And this seems to me to have been the reason why God, out of his hatred to these men's wickedness, rejected our city; and as for the Temple, he no longer esteemed it sufficiently pure for him to inhabit therein, but brought the Romans upon us, and threw a fire upon the city to purge it; and brought upon us, our wives, and children, slavery - as desirous to make us wiser by our calamities.

War 5.1.4 19-20
Oh most wretched city, what misery so great as this didst thou suffer from the Romans, when they came to purify thee from thy internal pollutions! For thou couldst be no longer a place fit for God, nor couldst thou longer survive, after thou hadst been a sepulchre for the bodies of thine own people, and hast made the Holy House itself a burying-place in this civil war of thine. Yet mayst thou again grow better, if perchance thou wilt hereafter appease the anger of that God who is the author of thy destruction.

It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
Secret Alias
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Re: Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

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I simply can't imagine any Jew of the time thinking that God was on their side in the war against the Romans, but the Jews lost anyway.
What should have been more convincing than the Holocaust? Very few survivors became atheists.
“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
Secret Alias
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Re: Did Josephus describe the Titus conquest of Jerusalem as also a spiritual conquest/ascending?

Post by Secret Alias »

Well, the question has to be answered if anything is to be done with your conjecture.
No it doesn't. 1. it doesn't sound like something a Jew would say 2. Eusebius finds it very attractive and 3. Josephus likely survives because of Eusebius and 4. Eusebius forged other parts of Josephus which he likes and cites equally fervently. Look at you. Because Morton Smith wasn't married you bought into the forgery nonsense. Don't tell me what apparatus has to be followed when you apparently take just as loose a view of 'evidence of forgery' as I do. Scholarship comes down to a popularity contest. The evidence for Eusebius forging Josephus IS A LOT STRONGER than Morton Smith secret Mark. At the very least, it wasn't Morton Smith's library ...
“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
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