Originally Posted by Toto

There is more than one reference in that novel that endorses the usual time line of Jesus. Check pp 331-2 and this from 165:

But this is still fiction.

Originally Posted by mountainman

There is one single and isolated phrase written and published by Vidal in that work by which Vidal can be said to present the Emperor Julian as thinking that the Galilaeans existed before Constantine. Methodologically, this separates Gore Vidal's presentation of the political situation and my own understanding (which I shall not repeat here). If you are the methodological analyst which you claim to be, finding this phrase might be handy.

Best wishes,


Pete

PS: Truly, I read the book (at least twice) and noted that phrase (once) so fast I lost the marker for the phrase and thus cannot quote it on your behalf. Subsequent skims have failed to find it. It refers to a period of 300 years and the Galilaeans.

Originally Posted by mountainman

I have the hardbacked 466pp version of the book. Can you float me a chapter number? At p331 in th hardbacked edition we have ...

Julian invariably refered to christians as Galilaeans (by this I think he is using a perjoritive term which in those days may have been best translated as "Hebrew gangster") and the Constantinian basilicas as charnel houses.

Quite an insightful greek speaking Roman emperor.

Best wishes,


Pete

Originally Posted by J-D

The passage cited suggests that Vidal's conclusions are different from yours, but it reveals nothing about Vidal's methodology.

Originally Posted by J-D

If the word 'Galilaeans' means 'Hebrew gangsters', what word would you expect to be used to describe people from Galilee?

Originally Posted by X

From here on Josephus about Zealots:

Josephus often uses the word “robber”
as equivalent to “zealot”.
For Josephus, Zealots became gangsters,
killing for personal gain,
killing Jews rather than gentiles
and fighting amongst each other.

It transposed, like the Mafia,
from a liberation movement into gangs of criminals.
Zealots became robbers.
John describes Barabbas as a robber.

We have Jospephus on the sect of Judas the Galilean,
that distinctly links up with Epictetus usage.

"They also do not value dying any kinds of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man lord. And since this immovable resolution of theirs is well known to a great many, I shall speak no further about that matter; nor am I afraid that any thing I have said of them should be disbelieved, but rather fear, that what I have said is beneath the resolution they show when they undergo pain."

Josephus Antiquities of the Jews,Whiston 18:1:1

Yet was there one Judas, a Gaulonite, of a city whose name was Gamala, who, taking with him Sadduc, a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to a revolt, who both said that this taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery, and exhorted the nation to assert their liberty

and again, elsewhere:

"The Galilaeans are warlike from infancy, and always numerous".

From here

Letters written by Bar Kosiba in 135 AD found at Murabba'at, about 12 miles from Qumran, complain about the lack of support he is getting from the Galilaeans and yet he warns one of his generals: "Not to wrong any of the Galilaeans who are with you."

and ...

Judas the Galilaean and his followers were called barjonim—we would say guerrillas. Judas the Galilaean was explicitly called Judas Barjona.

Other sources I have not yet checked include ...

3) Hegesippus says the Galileans are a Jewish sect that are against Christians

4) Hyppolytus, writing about 230 AD, confirms that the Zealots were indeed a branch of the Essenes. The Galilaeans of the gospels were members of the same sect, not just people from Galilee.

5) Justus of Tiberias ?


Historical Commentary and Notes

1) Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)

Galilæans, a fanatical sect, followers of one Judas of Galilee,
who fiercely resented the taxation of the Romans,
and whose violence contributed to induce the latter
to vow the extermination of the whole race.

2) Source: http://www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity...rsecution.html

The common factor between Galilaeans, meaning men from Galilee, and Galilaeans, meaning men that did not recognize any authority but God’s and therefore rejected Roman rule, was that Galilee was a Jewish state not subject to the Sanhedrin. So from the time of Judas of Gamala, rebels who refused to accept the Romans and their puppets in Judaea were called Galilaeans. Since Galilee literally means a region, implying provincial, it also denotes them as barjonim, outlaws—men that live on the outside, in the provinces.

3) The word Galilaean became for the Romans a synonym for Jewish rebel.


4) http://www.searchgodsword.org/com/ts...er=13&verse=33

The Galilaeans are frequently mentioned by Josephus as the most turbulent and seditious people, being upon all occasions ready to disturb the Roman authority. It is uncertain to what event our Lord refers; but is probable that they were the followers of Judas Gaulonitis, who opposed paying tribute to Caesar and submitting to the Roman

and finally to

5) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
By Edward Gibbon

Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians,
From Nero To Constantine. Part II.

"Under the appellation of Galilaeans,
two distinctions of men were confounded,
the most opposite to each other in their manners and principles;

the disciples who had embraced the faith of Jesus of Nazareth,
and the zealots who followed the standard of Judas the Gaulonite.

The former were the friends, the latter were the enemies, of human kind,
and the only resemblance between them consisted in the same inflexible constancy,
which, in the defence of their cause, rendered them insensible of death and tortures."

INDEX NOTE
"Galileans" made a legal appellation, |46.

Originally Posted by mountainman

His methodology was to research the ancient historical ground of the fourth century. It is an historical novel and it is well researched.

Best wishes,

Pete

Originally Posted by mountainman

Probably the same term however it is not as simple as you make out.