Phineas (Nb 25:7) == Pilate ?

[Giuseppe]

"Woe unto him who maketh himself alive by the name of God....A sectarian said to R. Chanina: Do you know how old Balaam was? [R. Chanina] replied: It is not written. However, since it says (Psalms 55:24) "Men of bloodshed and deceit will not live out half their days..." he was 33 or 34. [The heretic] said: You said well. I have seen the chronicle of Balaam and it said "At 33 years Balaam the lame was killed by Pinchas (Phineas) the robber."

(Sanhedrin 106b)

Phineas is called a «robber» (aramaic listaa, from the Greek λῃστής)

Someone has argued that Lista'a is a caricature-name for P'lista'a : Pilate.

Pilatus means 'one armed with pilum' (javelin).


Phineas is armed with a javelin, too, in Numbers 25:1-11:

25 While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, 2 who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. 3 So Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor. And the Lord’s anger burned against them.

4 The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the Lord’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.”

5 So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”

6 Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand 8 and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; 9 but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

10 The Lord said to Moses, 11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. 12 Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. 13 He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”

14 The name of the Israelite who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family. 15 And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Kozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

[Giuseppe]

[Giuseppe]

Midrash in action?

• Phineas is zealous for YHWH and atones for Israel's sin by his act of violence.

• Pilate is a instrumentum of YHWH and makes Jesus an expiation for Israel's sin by his act of violence.

[Giuseppe]

So Josephus on Phineas:

However, the mischievous attempt had proceeded farther, if Zimri had not been first slain. Which came to pass on the following occasion: Phineas, a man in other respects better than the rest of the young men: and also one that surpassed his contemporaries in the dignity of his father: for he was the son of Eleazar the High Priest; and the grandson of [Aaron] Moses’s brother. This man was greatly troubled at what was done by Zimri. So he resolved in earnest to inflict punishment on him, before his unworthy behaviour should grow stronger by impunity; and in order to prevent this transgression from proceeding farther: which would happen if the ring­leaders were not punished. He was of so great mag­nanim­ity both in strength of mind and body, that when he undertook any very dangerous attempt, he did not leave it off till he overcame it, and got an intire victory. So he came into Zimri’s tent, and slew him with his javelin; and with it he slew Cosbi also. Upon which all those young men that had a regard to virtue, and aimed to do a glorious action, imitated Phineas’s boldness, and slew those that were found to be guilty of the same crime with Zimri. Accordingly many of those that had trans­gressed, perished by the magn­animous valour of these young men. The rest all perished by a plague: which distemper God himself inflicted upon them. So that all those their kindred, who, instead of hindering them from such wicked actions, as they ought to have done, had persuaded them to go on, were esteemed by God as partners in their wickedness, and died. Accordingly there perished out of the army no fewer than fourteen (13) [twenty-four] thousand at this time.

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-4.html

[neilgodfrey]

Someone has argued that Lista'a is a caricature-name for P'lista'a : Pilate.

I like your enthusiasm, but does not this interpretation run against the way "midrashic" word plays worked? I'm thinking of Greg Doudna's explanation at https://vridar.org/2020/12/10/another-p ... ent-125448 --

In my experience with Qumran texts such as the pesharim in which there is a lot of wordplay, that wordplay happens with words that sound alike or similar in hearing: they may sound exactly the same but are different words (homonyms); or they may sound similar or only slightly altered to give very different meanings (puns; extraction of hidden meaning from quotations from ancient prophetic books as a form of divination) … double-entendres … all of that phenomena is intentional in composition, and all of those phenomena are retained in the text no matter how many times that text is accurately recopied, to be appreciated by future hearers–hearing those texts read aloud–any time that text is heard. It is based on similar sounding words with turns of meaning to produce the pun or insult or nickname or double-entendre or hidden mystery revealed or whatever.

Pilate with its distinctively different opening consonant sound and its lack of "st" sound is not easily derived from a "slight alteration" of "lestes" or "lista'a"

[Secret Alias]

For Giuseppe's imagination Tom Cruise could be a substitute name for Pilate.

[Giuseppe]

I had thought about this scenario:

• before the 70, a celestial Jesus.

• the early post-70 Gospels had an earthly but atemporal crucifixion where the killers were the 'Jews' with total absence of Herod or Pilate.

• The Jews answered by accusing Jesus of heresy and idolatry, and they introduced the rumor that the true killer of Jesus was Phineas son of Eleazar of Numbers 25:7:
  
  At 33 years Balaam the lame was killed by Pinchas (Phineas) the robber."
  
  (Sanhedrin 106b)

• ''Mark'' (gentilizer) replied by introducing Pilate in virtue of the fact that Pilatus means 'one with javelin' and Phineas was with the javelin.