Bernard Muller

Spin:
The middle thirties? Where do you get that dating?
The ensuing battle between Herod & Aretas did not have to, and did not, occur right about Herod divorce & remarriage. I put the later at 27 and the former in 36 (explanations in HJ-1b)
Furthermore, the Romans turned back half way. So Aretas was never defeated. The Roman army also never got into Aretas' territory, either just conquered or not, because it was advancing through Judea.

I know, no external evidence to support 2Cor11:32, but I think there is a good possibility Damascus was leased to Aretas in 37-40, in exchange of him vacating Herod's territories like Perea, never reconquered. And Caius was the new emperor. He certainly did not force Vitellius into continuing the campaign. It is likely an agreement was reached between Caius' men and undefeated Aretas, some kind of exchange.

Possibly a later Christian interpolation, I admit. I do not make much use 2Cor11:32 anyway, just that the return of Paul in Damascus from somewhere in Arabia (under the control of Aretas) would make more sense is Damascus got under the same ruler as the place where Paul disappeared for a while.

Best regards, Bernard

spin

Yup.

The connection between John the baptist's complaint and the date of Aretas's action. Aretas did not wait nearly a decade to attempt to take his revenge.

It was sufficient for the Romans to get involved. This forced the Nabataeans back. Just as Scaurus's involvement in 64 BCE drove them back.

This is not particularly reflective of Roman policy with regard to their clientele, especially when one initiates a crisis.

The divination against Vitellius AJ 18,5,3 indicated that Aretas IV was at Petra.

What makes it likely that the Romans knuckled under to Aretas when he had invaded a long-time Roman friend?

(Arabia had a different meaning then. Philip's tetrarchy included Arabs.)

The geographical term, Arabia, included territory rather near Damascus.


spin

capnkirk

Agreed. The earliest surviving manuscripts all, with the possible exception of P52 date to around 200 CE, based on paleographic analysis. Since both these documents were recovered from Egypt, it does demonstrate that Paul's letters and GJohn were available there in that time-frame.

It's a shame that no one will sacrifice a piece for C14 dating.

rlogan

Ahh...

I was wondering about that very thing. Carbon 14 dating for P52. Yes, that would certainly settle some things.

Vorkosigan

I don't think it would matter, cap'n. The time frame of the NT writings, about a century, is within the margin of error of the measurement.

spin

Depending on the size of the piece and the how clean it is of carbon based contaminants, it could be helpful as showing that a particular fragment/text does, or does not, falsify an argument. A C-14 dating supporting the traditional dating of P52 would falsify the proposition that the gospels were a mid 2nd c. development -- and datings are more precise these days than they were a decade ago. A dating confirming the more recent analysis that P52 was late 2nd c. would put the ball in the court of those who want to argue that the gospels were older.


spin

rlogan

Here's a little release on the Dead Sea Scrolls and radiocarbon vs. Paleographic dating. What you are saying Vork, seems to be so:

http://www.physics.arizona.edu/physi.../dead-sea.html

(also: Only milligrams of a sample are needed for radiocarbon age dating by accelerator mass spectrometer technique)

Yeah, it could falsify things if the radiocarbon range didn't overlap one or the other hypothesis.

Hmmm. Edited to add - In that article some of the ranges are narrower. That might be what spin is saying about the quality of the sample.

capnkirk

Bernard,

I think that we are actually closer together than that (and, no I haven't yet made up my mind about it). The period that Acts allegedly covers is about 30 years...from the pentecost experiences in the early chapters to Paul's appearance before Festus near the end. My reference to 80 years (from the earliest 'events') only places Acts at around 110 CE, and that is someone else's figure (Mack's). Of course, if one were to accept Mack's thesis en toto, then any dating based on Acts would based solidly on thin air.

As for the earliest extrabiblical referencing to the gospels, Tacitus' entry in Annals (15.44), c 108-115 CE specifically references Christ's crucifixion by Pontius Pilate, implying that at least one of the Synoptics was in circulation by then (which, incidentally strains Doherty's dating pretty seriously). Tacitus also consistently refers to them in that passage as Xtians, implying that that term was in general use in the first and second decades of the 2nd century.

These are representative of the kinds of extrabiblical dating references I am asking about, and why I am asking you how you came up with some of the dates in the links you provided. I'm asking you to peel another layer off the onion, so to speak, and share some of your development with us.

__________________
Enterprise...OUT.

capnkirk

The whole account of JBp is fraught with temporal inconsistencies. GMark claims that Herod Antipas was told that Jesus had raised JBp from the dead. This is the preamble that introduces the account of JBp's execution, so we are led to believe that JBp's execution took place before Jesus'. Yet there is fair extrabiblical evidence that the trouble that brought Aretas IV to Herod's territory came before JBp's execution.

__________________
Enterprise...OUT.

capnkirk

Bernard,

My apologies; exegetical analysis is a very valuable tool for research of ancient documents. My comparison with the dating by virtue of "begats" was meant as a general observation relating to the limitations of exegetics, not its worthiness. Besides, I am not claiming that there are no extrabiblical date hooks, only that without them, only the sequencing of events may be reasonably checked, not specific dating. Though this is also a HB-specific example: Consider how erroneous early 20th century archaeologists' dating of specific Canaanite sites turned out to be (according to Finkelstein) because they relied on HB myth for their chronological anchors.

What I am currently trying to determine is just how much the currently accepted dates for Paul's letters depend on other NT references. The conflicting JBp references (per my previous post) serve to illustrate the endemic danger in relying on scripture as the foundation layer for date analysis.