Misdating Jesus to Jannaeus' era may be due to a confusion of Jesus with the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness...

[StephenGoranson]

The Damascus or Zadokite Work was written before the time of Jesus.

[Ken Olson]

The Damascus or Zadokite Work was written before the time of Jesus.

Right.

Let me rephrase the question:

Misdating Jesus to Jannaeus' era may be due to a confusion of Jesus with the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness...

Could you identify who has misdated Jesus to the era of Jannaeus, and cite where have they made this claim, and explain how their misdating can be plausibly explained by supposing they confused Jesus with the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness?

Best,

Ken

[StephenGoranson]

Though I have published on the three contemporaries, Jannaeus (Wicked Priest), Absalom (the acquiescent brother of Jannaeus), and Judah the Essene (Teacher of Righteousness), the proposal, "Misdating Jesus to Jannaeus' era may be due to a confusion of Jesus with the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness, who did live during the time of Jannaeus," is a work in progress.

Attempting to date and identify authorship of some Jewish literature and also to discuss sources of Epiphanius, among other things, are such that I will not today try in a post.

I can say that books I have at hand include R. T. Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash; M. Goldstein, Jesus in the Jewish Tradition; J. Carmignac, Christ and the Teacher of Righteousness; various 19th-century German works. Online, Sefaria.org. To the 1903 book (i.e., written before the Damascus Document, with "Jannes and his brother" and Moreh Zedek, was published) by G.R.S. Mead, Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? I can reply, no.

[StephenGoranson]

Has anyone before proposed that
"Misdating Jesus to Jannaeus' era may be due to a confusion of Jesus with the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness, who did live during the time of Jannaeus" ?
Thanks.

[StephenGoranson]

Provisionally, about dating, though not a simple subject--nor is naming unnamed ancient authors!--I note that it is rather widely agreed that Celsus used a previously-written Jewish source about Jesus, and it may turn out that some baraitot (early traditions) are relevant.

[DCHindley]

Stephen,

I think there were some widespread fears when the DSS first started to slowly reach publication, maybe a little before, that folks were making rash interpretations to identify Jesus within the array of names mentioned in the sectarian scrolls.

I always thought this was due to the common belief that the scrolls "must" have been deposited around 68 CE.

Now before then, long before the scrolls had even been recovered, G R S Mead had suggested - only half-seriously IIRC - that Jesus could have lived in Jannaeus' time on the basis of seemingly the same story preserved in both Palestinian & Babylonian Talmud. While the key character seems to be different in these two stories, but this was the story where someone who travels with an exiled Pharisee teacher, makes a comment about one of their hosts ("narrow eyes") which the teacher takes as a sexual comment rather than a critique of their host's POV, and severely rebukes the student. In the end, the student apostatizes and the teacher expresses regret.

I had read the passages in Herford's book, again done long before DSS's were discovered, and my conclusion was that the story of the earlier teacher and his apostate student from an earlier era was applied to the problem of Jesus drawing Judeans away from the traditional beliefs to apostasy (worshiping Jesus as a divine figure). If this story became associated with Jesus, perhaps it was to suggest that it is better to push away with one hand, but pull towards with the other. In other words, the lament was to suggest that Judean scholars had been too rash in their condemnation. IIRC, rash vows can be cancelled by someone with authority over the vow maker. While this is usually a husband or father cancelling the rash vow of a child or spouse, it could be an expression of remorse that the authorities of Jesus' day and following had pushed some Judeans away without trying hard enough to win them back.

I do not think Mead was being serious, only using it as his excuse to review Judean depictions of Jesus from early Christian heresy hunters though Talmud and the Toledhoth Jeschu stories.

Did anyone really seriously propose that Jesus was really from Jannaeus' period? The c14 tests kind of made that unlikely, but there was a while that speculation reigned supreme.

Maybe there is something in C Roth's articles from the 1950's-60s that might shed light. However, he connected the DSS to factions in the 1st Judean revolt, not to Jesus, but Jesus may have got a passing reference.

The following list of articles and books from Cecil Roth and Godfrey Driver: was from a PhD Thesis by Kevin O'Donnell (presented at Jesus College, Oxford, November 1977), HISTORICAL ALLUSIONS IN THE PESHARIM: A Systematic Attempt to Determine Their Credibility and to Identify the Principal Historical Characters:

ROTH, C.,
The Historical Background of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1958) Oxford;
Evidences (70/1958) pp 13-18;
PEQ (90/1958) pp 104-121;
Jewish Life (26/1958-59) pp 45-49;
RQ (1/1958-59) pp 417-422;
JTS (10/1959) pp 87-93;
PEQ (91/1959) pp 122-129;
Judaism (8/1959) pp 33- 40;
JSS (4/1959) pp 332-355;
RQ (2/1959-60) pp 81-84; 261-265;
VT (10/1960) pp 51-68; Eretz-Israel (6/1960) pp 13-15;
VT (11/1961) pp 452-455;
JSS (7/1962) pp 63-80;
IEJ (12/1962) pp 33-46;
VT (13/ 1963) pp 91-95;
HTR (57/1964) pp 60-61;
RQ (5/1964-1965) pp 81-87;
The Dead Sea Scrolls. A New Historical Approach (1965) New York;
DRIVER, G. R., The Hebrew Scrolls from the Neighbourhood of Jericho and the Dead Sea (1951) Oxford;
The Judaean Scrolls (1965) Oxford;
ALUOS (6/1966-68) pp 23-48.
http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid%3A10b8 ... TTACHMENT1 ).

The other place I'd look is in journalist A Powell Davies' The meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1956). The type is small due to being a "pocket book," and so hard for me to read, except with a magnifying glass, which is not the preferred way to read a book. I thought that his more or less impartial take was that a lot of smoke was being raised on the question of connection to Jesus, but no fire was to be seen.

DCH

[StephenGoranson]

A. Powell Davies was a Unitarian minister.
Not sure why you mention Kevin O'Donnell (page number?--I have it) and C. Rabin in this regard.
If Mead wasn't serious he might have chosen a different book title.
C14 was not available when some of the mistaken suggestions were made.

[DCHindley]

A. Powell Davies was a Unitarian minister.

I don't remember there being a reaction to his Unitarianism, but the fact that he was a mere journalist (although the articles were usually, but not always, about religion). Unitarians are not predisposed to defending mainstream ideas, so I liked his approach.

Not sure why you mention Kevin O'Donnell (page number?--I have it) and C. Rabin in this regard.

Didn't mention C Rabin as far as I can tell. I ran across O'Donnell's PhD thesis while researching the figures, as he was also interested in this, but I did not think he was suggesting that Jesus was one of those figures. I cited the footnotes (#60) on Roth as Roth published a lot. I do not currently seem to have this thesis saved, but the citation was in an older post here on BC&H, and there was a link. Have not followed up to see if the link still worked. Do you disagree with his paper?

If Mead wasn't serious he might have chosen a different book title.

Theosophic types liked to ask rhetorical questions, I guess. As I suggested, he only asked to pique interest and then lecture about Jewish tradition as found in church fathers, Talmuds & toledhoth. It seems that I remember him admitting his proposal is not likely to hold water. I thought he did a nice thorough review, and probably drew some incorrect assumptions from the data he reviewed. Join the club I guess ... we all do it.

Mead concluded (pages 413 & 414, if it matters)

As we said at the outset, most Christians, whether they be unlearned or learned, will not hesitate for one instant to answer the amazing question: Did Jesus live 100 B.C. ? with an indignant No.

We shall, therefore, have accomplished as much as we can reasonably hope for, if an impartial consideration of the evidence should persuade the reader that some cause has been shown why the asking of such a question should not as a matter of course be impatiently condemned on sight as the fantastic conceit of a disordered mind.

As far as I can tell, the 100 BCE idea is found only in Jewish Toledhoth, but there are umpteen things that were stated in these Toledhoth that are fantastical, yes? Same goes for church fathers. The Talmud may have been a source for this, referring to the Jannaeus story and interpreted, as myth does. [/quote]

C14 was not available when some of the mistaken suggestions were made.

Exactly, so the early interpretations were wrong. They were for the most part looking too late, so that was why I suggested that I did not see very much Jesus 100 BC ideas discussed after the DSS were coming out. There is Eisenman, who was still stuck on later than earlier even after C14 testing showed their dating to be an outlier.

[StephenGoranson]

Yes, I mis-typed Rabin instead of Roth, though neither seems on-point regarding the OP.
O'Donnell's dissertation does deal with dating proposals, for the Teacher, but not Jesus.
Toldot Yesu, I think, is not the only source of the mistake, the misdating.

[andrewcriddle]

Provisionally, about dating, though not a simple subject--nor is naming unnamed ancient authors!--I note that it is rather widely agreed that Celsus used a previously-written Jewish source about Jesus, and it may turn out that some baraitot (early traditions) are relevant.

Celsus' Jew according to Origen says

And it is a Jew who addresses the following language to Him whom we acknowledge to be our Lord Jesus: "When you were bathing," says the Jew, "beside John, you say that what had the appearance of a bird from the air alighted upon you."

and

After these matters this Jew of Celsus, instead of the Magi mentioned in the Gospel, says that "Chaldeans are spoken of by Jesus as having been induced to come to him at his birth, and to worship him while yet an infant as a God, and to have made this known to Herod the tetrarch; and that the latter sent and slew all the infants that had been born about the same time, thinking that in this way he would ensure his death among the others; and that he was led to do this through fear that, if Jesus lived to a sufficient age, he would obtain the throne."

The association of Jesus with John the Baptist and Herod the Tetrarch (as distinct from Herod the Great) implies that Celsus' Jew associated Jesus with Herod Antipas.

Andrew Criddle