Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 5:48 pm
Is there anything to this?
Tosefta, Sanhedrin 9.7: 7 Rabbi Meir used to say, "What is the meaning of, 'For a curse of God is he that is hung' (= Deuteronomy 21.23)? [It is like the case of] two brothers, twins, who resembled each other. One ruled over the whole world, the other took to robbery. After a time the one who took to robbery was caught, and they crucified him on a cross. And every one who passed to and fro said, 'It seems that the king is crucified.' Therefore it is said, 'A curse of God is he that is hung.'"
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 46b: 46b .... It has been taught: Rabbi Meir said, "A parable was stated, 'To what is this matter comparable? To two twin brothers [who lived] in one city; one was appointed king, and the other took to highway robbery. At the king's command they hanged him. But all who saw him exclaimed, "The king is hanged," whereupon the king issued a command and he was taken down.'" ....
I was reading R. Travers Herford when I came across the first passage, and then I tracked down the second, as well. Herford's own interpretation of this passage, that the king is God the Father while the robber is Jesus the Son (making them "twins" somehow), seems highly unlikely to me. But what especially the first passage immediately made
me think of was Barabbas, not to mention the crucifixion of Jesus between two robbers. The second passage is perhaps less striking in that regard, but still, the robber is crucified and people exclaim that it is the king, instead, so that
some kind of switch is being imagined.
Thoughts?
Ben.
ETA: R. Travers Herford,
Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, pages 86-88.
Is there anything to the story in your two quotes? Indeed there is. My thoughts:
This story of two brothers, two kings, does have reflections of Hasmonean history.
Antiquities Book 14.ch.16
And thus did the government of the Asamoneans cease, a hundred twenty and six years after it was first set up. This family was a splendid and an illustrious one, both on account of the nobility of their stock, and of the dignity of the high priesthood, as also for the glorious actions their ancestors had performed for our nation; but these men lost the government by their dissensions one with another, and it came to Herod, the son of Antipater, who was of no more than a vulgar family, and of no eminent extraction, but one that was subject to other kings. And this is what history tells us was the end of the Asamonean family.
Hyrancus II became King and High Priest in 67/66 b.c. His brother, Aristobulus II removed Hyrancus in 66 b.c. and ruled until Pompey removed him in 63 b.c. Hyrancus was restored as High Priest but not as King.
The son of Aristobulus II, Antigonus, removed Hyrancus II in 40 b.c. (cutting of his ear, re Josephus, thus denying him the High Priesthood) Antigonus was himself removed in 37 b.c. by Rome, taken to Antioch and executed.
Roman historian Cassius Dio says that he was crucified and records in his Roman History: "These people [the Jews] Antony entrusted to a certain Herod to govern; but Antigonus he bound to a cross and scourged, a punishment no other king had suffered at the hands of the Romans, and so slew him. Wikipedia.
Gregory Doudna: What has long been overlooked is that a Qumran text, widely acknowledged to have been authored at about this very time, speaks directly of a Jewish ruler being “hung up alive”—just like Dio Cassius’s account of the fate of Antigonus Mattathias. This is found at 4QpNah 3-4 i 8-ii 1, which is a pesher unit consisting of a biblical quotation followed by its interpretation. The text introduces this unit with the words: “concerning the one hanged up alive on a stake it is proclaimed:”, or “to the one hanged up alive on a stake he (i.e. God) proclaims:”
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/201 ... 8018.shtml
Philo’s Carabbas story in Flaccus:
It’s an allegory: It’s not Agrippa himself that is being mocked. It’s the Hasmonean history of which he is a descendant that is being mocked. (Ancestry, re Josephus via his father Aristobulus IV and his grandmother Mariamne). The Alexandrian crowd say Agrippa is by birth a Syrian: Hasmonean rulership ended with the execution of Antigonus in Syrian Antioch.
Philo has Agrippa state that he has high priests in his ancestors, i.e. Agrippa has Hasmonean decent.
Embassy to Gaius‘ ’And I have kings for my grandfathers and for my ancestors, the greater part of whom have been called high priests, looking upon their royal power as inferior to their office as priests; and thinking that the high priesthood is as much superior to the power of a king’’.
Philo’s Carabbas mocking story of Hasmonean history is interesting. Agrippa has, re Philo, just arrived in Alexandria from Rome. Rome denied Agrippa’s ancestor’s rulership in Judaea but now, through Agrippa, Rome is resurrecting Hasmonean rulership under Agrippa….
The gospel Jesus story? King of the Jews crucified….that’s what happened to Hasmonean rulership in Judaea.
If it’s early Christian origins that’s of interest - then, methinks, more time should be spend on Philo and Josephus than Eusebius ….
(So.....the two Jewish texts quoted look like backing up Cassius Dio.....and Greg Doudna re the DSS,,,great find Ben....)
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats