On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

[Giuseppe]

My answer is here.

[Giuseppe]

A genuine jem of the book:

The children of those who were witnesses of the facts did not entirely misinform those who gathered their statements and put them in form, and the error in the chronology, which ascribes the main event to the era of Pontius Pilate, is easily accounted for by reference to the historical fact that a pretender to prophecy had been executed by that procurator, in a way to afford presumptive evidence that those who got up the story had no actual intention to falsify the facts. We therefore exempt those who supplied the traditional accounts from the serious charge of fraud, which we are forced to prefer against the compilers of a later period, where the perversions which sprung out of the tradition itself were fraudulently and unjustly used as reliable evidence in proof of the truth of gross errors.

(ibidem, p. 145, my bold)

[rakovsky]

My problem with this point is that the two thieves detail are part and parcel of the same anti-marcionite polemic behind the titulus crucis, identifying univocally the principal victim as the Jewish Messiah. When at contrary for Marcion the true Jesus was the "Jesus Son of Father" (parodied by the Judaizers as 'Jesus Bar-Abbas').

So, if the Joseph of Arimatea is Josephus and the two thieves are derived from the Josephian episode described above, then the point that is going to be made is always anti-marcionite and therefore not original of the Earliest Gospel Passion Story, that included only the following episode :

I am thinking that Josephus uses the story of his trying to save three friends to allude to Joseph taking down Jesus from the cross and in effect getting the other two convicts a quick death.

I remember seeing a chart of all such Christian motifs and allusions in Josephus (eg. Simon the rebel vs. Peter Simon), but I can't find it now.

Thanks for writing back to me though about it.

[Giuseppe]

I am thinking that Josephus uses the story of his trying to save three friends to allude to Joseph taking down Jesus from the cross and in effect getting the other two convicts a quick death.

really do you think this? Impossible. Josephus didn't know no Gospel and no Joseph of Arimathea.

Rather the contrary: "Mark" (author) knew Josephus.

But even so, "Mark" didn't know why his Joseph of Arimathea was secretly a Christian. Josephus says us the reason: during his Zealot period, Josephus had secret dealings with Jesus ben Sapphat.

Too much impossible as coincidence. Too much impossible that "Mark" (author) knew it.


In Doudna's words:

The force of the Josephus three-and-one crucifixion-survival story is difficult to weaken.The similarity to the Gospel Passion story is too alike to be unrelated coincidence, and the Josephus story is certainly presented as Josephus first-hand account with no sign that it is Josephus covertly inventing that story to counter Christianity. The Passion story of Jesus’s crucifixion is so central to the Jesus story, and Josephus dates it that story as being a story of something which occurred securely and narrowly dated some time between 68 and 70 ce. And the identification of Joseph “of Arimethea” as Josephus bar Matthias, both carrying out the same respective functions of appealing for permission to have the body taken down from the cross of the one who is resurrected/given medical treatment and survives, nails the case further. Josephus’s story of the three and one is correctly dated, and that is the correct original date of Jesus in the story of the crucifixion which became so central to the Christian gospel.

[maryhelena]

I am thinking that Josephus uses the story of his trying to save three friends to allude to Joseph taking down Jesus from the cross and in effect getting the other two convicts a quick death.

really do you think this? Impossible. Josephus didn't know no Gospel and no Joseph of Arimathea.

Rather the contrary: "Mark" (author) knew Josephus.

But even so, "Mark" didn't know why his Joseph of Arimathea was secretly a Christian. Josephus says us the reason: during his Zealot period, Josephus had secret dealings with Jesus ben Sapphat.

Too much impossible as coincidence. Too much impossible that "Mark" (author) knew it.

The force of the Josephus three-and-one crucifixion-survival story is difficu lt to weaken.The similarity to the Gospel Passion story is too alike to be unrelated coincidence, and the Josephus story is certainly presented as Josephus first-hand account with no sign that it is Josephus covertly inventing that story to counter Christianity. The Passion story of Jesus’s crucifixion is so central to the Jesus story, and Josephus dates it that story as being a story of something which occurred securely and narrowly dated some time between 68 and 70 ce. And the identification of Joseph “of Arimethea” as Josephus bar Matthias, both carrying out the same respective functions of appealing for permission to have the body taken down from the cross of the one who is resurrected/given medical treatment and survives, nails the case further. Josephus’s story of the three and one is correctly dated, and that is the correct original date of Jesus in the story of the crucifixion which became so central to the Christian gospel.

Greg Doudna sees a connection between the Josephan crucifixion story and the gospel crucifixion story i.e. around 70 c.e. three figures crucified, all three taken down from their crosses, two died but one survives. The gospel story crucifixion story dated around 30/33 c.e. However, to use this connection as an argument to time-shift the gospel story away from the time of Pilate is unwarranted. I'm quite surprised that Greg is going in this direction....Particularly in view of his work on the DSS.

ALLUSIONS TO THE END OF THE HASMONEAN DYNASTY
IN PESHER NAHUM (4Q169)
Gregory L. Doudna

There is only one context in the first century bce with which this
portrayal of violent death at the hands of gentiles for a ruler of Israel
corresponds, and that is the Roman invasion which ended the Hasmonean dynasty in 37 bce.
That Roman invasion was an army sent
by Mark Antony to install Herod as king, and it brought a violent and
horrific end to the regime of the last Hasmonean king and high priest,
Antigonus Mattathias. There was a siege and a massacre in Jerusalem
and the temple was looted by Roman soldiers. Antigonus Mattathias
was captured in Jerusalem and killed by gentiles in a foreign country.
And of particular interest in light of the allusion in Pesher Nahum is
the fact that Cassius Dio, the Roman historian, says that Antigonus
Mattathias was hung up alive on a cross and tortured in the process of
being executed by Mark Antony.3 In his death at the hands of gentiles
Antigonus Mattathias corresponds with the portrayal of the death of
the Wicked Priest, and Antigonus Mattathias is the only Hasmonean
ruler of the first century bce who does.
.....
And in asking how Antigonus Mattathias was missed I am
including myself, for I too missed this in my study of Pesher Nahum
of 2001. Now let us return to Pesher Nahum again.

https://www.academia.edu/12144236/_Allu ... 4Q169_2011_

Josephus says Antigonus was beheaded. Dio says:

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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigonus_II_Mattathias

If writers of the DSS are alluding to the execution of Antigonus by the Romans - then why not Josephus in his crucifixion story, a story connected to a later siege of Jerusalem. A ruler hung up alive says the DSS. Antigonus bound to a cross says Dio. Josephus says Antigonus beheaded. Josephus also tells the story about a man taken down from the cross alive and recovers. Antigonus was executed in Antioch. The Josephan crucifixion story takes place near Thecoa, near Bethlehem not Jerusalem.

History is what it is. The gospel writers had no need to wait upon Josephus for their JC crucifixion story. They had no need to wait for the tragedy of 70 c.e. There is no need for a time-shift for the gospel story. The gospel story is not history. It is placed where it is - in the time of Pilate. That's it's setting, that's it's context. Why? We can explore options but moving the story serves only to negatively question it's authors placement of the story.

(The gospel JC is a composite figure - the crucifixion is only one element of that literary figure).

Doudna: Antigonus: Wicked Priest hung up alive on a cross

viewtopic.php?t=513

[Giuseppe]

Greg Doudna sees a connection between the Josephan crucifixion story and the gospel crucifixion story i.e. around 70 c.e. three figures crucified, all three taken down from their crosses, two died but one survives. The gospel story crucifixion story dated around 30/33 c.e. However, to use this connection as an argument to time-shift the gospel story away from the time of Pilate is unwarranted.

Please don't misrepresent Doudna on this point. His conclusion is derived from what you have just described, and in addition from the impossible "coincidence" of having:

• Joseph of Arimathea as a secret disciple of Jesus in Mark...

• ...and Josephus having secret dealings with Jesus ben Sapphat in the real History.

It is precisely the latter coincidence that cannot be easily explained on the hypothesis of midrash (from Josephus to Mark). Can we seriously imagine that "Mark" (author) had made Joseph of Arimathea a secret disciple of Jesus because he read in Josephus's Vita that Josephus was in secret league with Jesus ben Saphat? Impossible.

The impossibility of a midrash on that precise point, and the impossibility of a banal coincidence, makes the Doudna's case that the historical Jesus was Jesus ben Sapphat.

[maryhelena]

Greg Doudna sees a connection between the Josephan crucifixion story and the gospel crucifixion story i.e. around 70 c.e. three figures crucified, all three taken down from their crosses, two died but one survives. The gospel story crucifixion story dated around 30/33 c.e. However, to use this connection as an argument to time-shift the gospel story away from the time of Pilate is unwarranted.

Please don't misrepresent Doudna on this point. His conclusion is derived from what you have just described, and in addition from the impossible "coincidence" of having:

• Joseph of Arimathea as a secret disciple of Jesus in Mark...

• ...and Josephus having secret dealings with Jesus ben Sapphat in the real History.

It is precisely the latter coincidence that cannot be easily explained on the hypothesis of midrash (from Josephus to Mark). Can we seriously imagine that "Mark" (author) had made Joseph of Arimathea a secret disciple of Jesus because he read in Josephus's Vita that Josephus was in secret league with Jesus ben Saphat? Impossible.

The impossibility of a midrash on that precise point, and the impossibility of a banal coincidence, makes the Doudna's case that the historical Jesus was Jesus ben Sapphat.

[Giuseppe]

I see that dr. Carrier has answered.

[maryhelena]

I see that dr. Carrier has answered.

Oh dear - nothing like a straight talking Richard Carrier....

That’s all just speculation. And speculation is idle.

But if we operate at several steps removed from factual reality, after stacking up a dozen of these unevidenced assumptions, then I would say the scenario proposed is still much less likely than that Paul and Christianity date to the 50s B.C. for which, unlike this stack of conjectures, actually has some evidence in its support—just nowhere near enough to believe. Therefore, a fortiori, this imagined scenario is even less likely.

So, Giuseppe - methinks time to go back to the drawing board on this one.....

[maryhelena]

Richard Carrier, in his reply to Greg Doudna on the Bible and Interpretation webpage (linked to above) made reference to his review of Lena Einhorn's book: A Shift in Time.

I had a look back at an earlier thread on Lena Einhorn's book. She visited this forum for a while to debate her theory. The quote below is from a post of mine to that thread. I had not know about Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise before coming to my own theory on the historical figure utilized by the Gospel writers in the creation of their crucifixion story. (JC, to my thinking, is a composite literary figure - a bit like what Ian Fleming did with James Bond). Methinks the words of Rabbi Wise are of interest in any debate over the assumed historical Jesus.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2536

Time Shift scenarios and the New Testament texts

I recently bought Frank Zindler's book: The Jesus the Jews Never Knew.


I was surprised, and of course delighted - to read this:
Page 412

He writes, ''Dion Cassius says, 'Antony now gave the Kingdom to a certain Herod, and having stretched Antigonus on the cross and scourged him, which had never been done before to a king by the Romans, he put him to death'. The sympathies of the masses for the crucified king of Judah, the heroic son of so many heroic ancestors, and the legends growing, in time, out of this historical nucleus, became, perhaps, the source from which Paul and the evangelists preached Jesus as the crucified king of Judea.'' (History of the Hebrew's Second Commonwealth, 1880, Cincinnati, page 206)

The book is by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), scholar and novelist
Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900) was a Czech-born Jewish American scholar, novelist, playright, rabbi and leader of American Reform Judaism, first president of Hebrew Union College in 1875. Was among the first Jewish scholars to deal with Christian origins, including both Christian and Rabbinic origins in his introduction to "The Hebrews' Second Commonwealth."

http://www.4enoch.org/wiki4/index.php?t ... d_novelist
An historical event, pre-Pilate, viewed by Isaac Wise, as perhaps the source for the gospel Jesus crucifixion story. A time-shift of a sort i.e. an earlier historical event is recorded by the gospel writers in a later time slot, out of it's historical context. Perhaps a remembrance of sorts - as even today remembrance days are part of a nation's identity. Obviously, under Roman occupation, no such public remembrance of Antigonus would be possible - hence the remembrance of this tragedy within the format of a political allegory.

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats

'''The sympathies of the masses for the crucified king of Judah, the heroic son of so many heroic ancestors, and the legends growing, in time, out of this historical nucleus, became, perhaps, the source from which Paul and the evangelists preached Jesus as the crucified king of Judea.'''

The Jewish Roman war of 70 c.e. is an end point. The start point of that tragedy goes back to the infighting among the Hasmoneons. Concentrating, as some time-shift scenarios do, on events close to 70 c.e. are dealing only with the finishing line not the tragic route that got to that point. One does not deal with World War 2 by ignoring World War 1. Likewise, understanding the tragedy of 70 c.e. needs to take account of the siege of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 b.c. and the siege by Herod in 37 b.c.

Consequently, attempts to time-shift the gospel story to events surrounding 70 c.e. do, at best, reflect only half a story. In other words; the events surrounding 70 c.e. cannot simply be back dated to the time of the gospel story and Pilate. The 70 c.e. events are themselves tied up with the consequences of events from 63 b.c. and 37 b.c.

For example: Greg Doudna has proposed that the John, the baptizer figure in Josephus (around 36/37 c.e.) is a displacement of an event related to Hyrcanus in the 30s b.c. The question then becomes - what else in Josephus - particularly in his narrative of the Jewish Roman war - is also a displacement or a reflection of events, and their consequences, from a much earlier siege of Jerusalem.