Giuseppe wrote: ↑Sat Apr 10, 2021 11:45 pm
With all his propagandist interests, Josephus
is a true historian. The Gospel writers are
not historians. This for me is a
fact. And surely the First Jewish Revolt was much more connected with the genesis of Christianity than any your preferred last asmonean king.
The origins of christianity lie within a Jewish context. Hence, Jewish and Hasmonean history is important to christian origins. That history does not begin with the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 c.e. That history goes back to Roman control of Judaea in 63 b.c. when Pompey entered the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem temple, thereby desecrating it. Pompey removed one Hasmonean King and replaced him by another. At the siege of Jerusalem in 37 b.c. Herod removed the Hasmonean King and High Priest - the Roman Marc Antony had him executed. To deny this history any relevance to the gospel story - and hence to the origins of christianity - is very shortsighted.
JD54982. Bronze AE 25, Meshorer TJC 40, Hendin 1164, Sofaer Collection 437, SNG ANS 192, HGC 10 649, SNG Cop -, aVF, Jerusalem mint, weight 13.415g, maximum diameter 25.3mm, obverse Paleo-Hebrew inscription: Mattatayah the High Priest and Council of the Jews, around and between the horns of a double cornucopia; reverse BACIΛEΩC ANTIΓONOY (of King Antigonus), ivy wreath tied with ribbons; scarce; SOLD
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/catal ... om/Coins2/
Jewish History |
Josephus |
Gospels and Acts. |
King Antigonus Mattathias II High Priest of the Jews: 4 b.c.e. – 37 b.c.e. Hasmonean Bilingual Coins, Hebrew and Greek. |
Antigonus enters Jerusalem: Antigonus himself also bit off Hyrcanus's ears with his own teeth, as he fell down upon his knees to him, that so he might never be able upon any mutation of affairs to take the high priesthood again, for the high priests that officiated were to be complete, and without blemish. War: Book 1.ch.13 |
John 18.10; Mark 14.47; Matthew 26.51; Luke 22.50. John and Luke specifying right ear, Mark and Matthew have 'ear'. gJohn stating that Peter cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant. |
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Now as winter was going off, Herod marched to Jerusalem, and brought his army to the wall of it; this was the third year since he had been made king at Rome; War: Book 1. ch.17 (37 b.c.).. Herod on his own account, in order to take the government from Antigonus, who was declared an enemy at Rome, and that he might himself be king, according to the decree of the Senate. Antiquities Book 14 ch.16. |
gJohn indicates a three year ministry for JC. |
Cassius Dio: Antigonus. These people Antony entrusted to one Herod to govern, and Antigonus he bound to a cross and flogged,—treatment accorded to no other king by the Romans,—and subsequently slew him. Roman History, Book xlix, c.22 |
Then it was that Antigonus, without any regard to his former or to his present fortune, came down from the citadel, and fell at Sosius's feet, who without pitying him at all, upon the change of his condition, laughed at him beyond measure, and called him Antigona. Yet did he not treat him like a woman, or let him go free, but put him into bonds, and kept him in custody.... Sosius ......went away from Jerusalem, leading Antigonus away in bonds to Antony; then did the axe bring him to his end..War: Book 1.ch.18. .. |
The soldiers mock Jesus: Mark 15.16-20; Matthew 27:27-31.Jesus flogged: John 19:1; Mark 15:15; Matthew 27:26. JC crucified. Trilingual sign over cross: Aramaic, Latin and Greek. gJohn 19.19-21. JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Other variations: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS; THE KING OF THE JEWS; THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. |
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..and then but Herod was afraid lest Antigonus should be kept in prison [only] by Antony, and that when he was carried to Rome by him, he might get his cause to be heard by the senate, and might demonstrate, as he was himself of the royal blood, and Herod but a private man, that therefore it belonged to his sons however to have the kingdom, on account of the family they were of, in case he had himself offended the Romans by what he had done. Out of Herod's fear of this it was that he, by giving Antony a great deal of money, endeavoured to persuade him to have Antigonus slain. Antiquities: Book 14 ch.16. |
Judas betrays JC for 30 pieces of silver. Matthew 27.3. |
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Now when Antony had received Antigonus as his captive, he determined to keep him against his triumph; but when he heard that the nation grew seditious, and that, out of their hatred to Herod, they continued to bear good-will to Antigonus, he resolved to behead him at Antioch, for otherwise the Jews could no way be brought to be quiet. (37 b.c.) Antiquities: Book 15 ch.1. |
Acts: 11:16.The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. |
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''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)
Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), scholar and novelist
http://collections.americanjewisharchiv ... wealth.pdf
Historical artefacts, such as coins, are testimony to the fact that certain individuals were historical figures. That is the bare bones of historical evidence. However, history requires a story; a narrative, to joins up the facts and present a meaningful picture. The picture could be cloudy and unclear or it could be a reasonable explanation of what happened. In the chart, Josephus is the primary source for building that historical narrative. Did Josephus himself, writing after the events, have accurate material to work with? Or is Josephus creating his own narrative - and without a secondary source there is no way to be sure. All one can do is work with his material and question his story when it presents problems.
And no, Giuseppe, the gospel writers did not place their Jesus crucifixion story in the time of Pilate because of a Josephan account regarding the Samaritans and Pilate. They placed their Jesus crucifixion story in the time of Pilate as a remembrance of the history of the last King and High Priest of the Jews - executed in 37 b.c. Antigonus's history being from 40 b.c. to 37 b.c. - as the gospels place their Jesus crucifixion story somewhere around 30/33 c.e. 70 years from the end of Hasmonean rule in Judaea. There is no assumed backward time-shift here - there is history remembered 70 years after the event. Just as we today remember the wars of the past and those fallen in them.
(From the position of a composite literary gospel Jesus, the above argument relates only to the crucifixion element in that composite gospel figure.)