Steven Carr

Of course it is a parable.

You want context? Jesus is speaking about someone who goes away and returns to be made king.

Clearly, the wicked king of the parable, the one who wants his enemies put to death in front of his eyes, that wicked king is a metaphor for Jesus.

Steven Carr

Passover and Easter do not always conincide.

Isn't Easter the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox?

Geetarmoore

1 Cor. pre-dates the Gospel tradition by many years. Paul is very clear that he got his info regarding this meal directly from the Lord, a person he has never actually met. Whoever wrote the book of Matthew got his Eucharist information from whoever wrote the book of Mark. It is therefore easier to believe that Mark got the information from Paul, than the reverse.

Inventing new fictions, indeed!

:wave:

andrewcriddle

This pasage in Epiphanius is rather puzzling I've been trying to make some sense of it.

The Migne Greek text with Latin translation of the Panarion is online http://www.christianhospitality.org/ref-index.htm I don't have current access to a full English translation.

The main issue is that Epiphanius doesn't seem to be saying that some Jewish-Christians claim or claimed that Jesus was born under Alexander Janneus (obit 76 BCE) he seems to be saying that Jesus was born under Alexander.

Section 29:1-5 in the Panarion seems to be discussing how all Christians were originally called Nazoreans before they were called Christians at Antioch and what the history of early Jerusalem-based and/or Jewish Christianity was. 29:6 starts talking about anti-Pauline contemporary Nazoreans and 29:7 about a mysterious Nazorean group who are claimed to be both prior to and independent of Christianity.

("Nazoraeans, who confess that Christ Jesus is Son of God, but all of whose customs are in accordance with the Law," seems to have be added by the Latin editor with no parallel in the Greek. )

29:1-5 is full of often dubious information that Epiphanius seems to be putting forward as true. The claims about Jesus being born under Alexander seem to fall in this category.

The problem is how could Epiphanius believe that Jesus was born before the death of Alexander Janneus and also believe that he was tried by Pilate (see 29:4) ? He clearly had theological grounds based on Genesis 49:10 for wishing to hold that Jesus was born before the line of Hasmonean priest-kings ended but would this allow him to ignore the chronological problem ?

I'm not yet ready to speculate about an answer but I do think that some sort of major chronological blunder by Epiphanius himself is what is at issue here.


Andrew Criddle

sunspark

Thanks Richard. I've really enjoyed your articles by the way. I hope to be picking up your book soon too.

Uh, hence the word "eve". Matthew, Mark and Luke have Jesus' crucifixion happening on Passover, John has it happening on Passover Eve.

GakuseiDon

Hi Andrew, I've been puzzling over that as well. It is a strange error for a 3rd C Christian to make. I found this translation here:
http://people.uncw.edu/zervosg/PR238...htm#Epiphanius
29.3.4 After Alexander this office, which had existed since the time of Salina, also called Alexandra, ceased, this being the time of King Herod and the Roman emperor Augustus. This Alexander even put a diadem on himself, being one of the anointed ones and rulers. 5. For once the two tribes, the royal and the priestly, meaning Judah and Aaron and the whole tribe of Levi, had been joined together, the kings were also made priests. For no prophecy in sacred scripture can prove false. 6. But from then on King Herod, a foreigner, and not those of David's stock wore the diadem. 7. Now when the royal chair was changed, the royal dignity was in Christ transferred to the church from the house of Judah and Israel which is of the flesh, but the throne is established in God's holy church forever

My speculation: Epiphanius is not talking about Christ being born under Alexander Janneus but under the "office of Alexander", which ceased in the time of King Herod and Augustus. This would match how he can also talk about Jesus being tried by Pilate. But I agree that the passage is confusing.

Rick Sumner

You can't use Gal.1.11-12, Eph.3.3 or Rom.16.25 as parallels here, because they patently aren't. To suggest that Paul's description of the "Last Supper" in 1Cor has anything to do with the "gospel" or "mystery" revealed to him is to utterly miss Paul's point--a hopeless anachronism, retrojecting our understanding of the word "gospel" (a narrative) to Paul's (the good news). To Paul, the term clearly had two meanings, one meaning is found in 1Cor.15, the meaning of which is quite clear. But in most other instances (and, indeed, indirectly even in the previously mentioned passage), it takes quite a different meaning.

Paul's "good news" is that the Gentiles can now be righteoused. In Galatians it is clear that this is the news he is leading up to--Gal.1.11-12 is part of building to that. In Romans, he has just spent thousands of words explaining that good news. In Ephesians, he makes it explicit but three verses later (Eph.3.6). To read Paul's "gospel" as referring to anything else is to read each of Paul's letters as a collection of disjointed thoughts, rather than as a homogenous unit; It is to presume that Paul was simply babbling half the time rather than arguing a point.

Paul received this good news from scripture and from God (interchangable voices to the antiquitous Jew)--where else would you expect him to get it? Judaizing opponents? His "good news" is the very fulfillment of that scripture, at least in Paul's mind. The admission of Gentiles to the people of Abraham was, to Paul, promised to Abraham, prophesied by Isaiah, Amos and Hosea--that is Paul's gospel, and those are his sources for his "revelation."

Paul's good news to the Gentiles has nothing to do with the ritual meal he describes. You cannot assume that what he says clearly in one instance is implied in the next.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Rick Sumner

"Directly" is your own addition, and one not found in the text. Appeals to authority are customary of ancient rhetoric (see the comment of the master of ancient rhetoric, Quintilian, 3.8.12--"But what really carries the greatest weight in deliberative speeches is the authority of the speaker"). Paul, no slouch as a rhetor, is surely aware of this--indeed he employs such appeals throughout his epistles. If Paul was drawing from a teaching or event in the life of an historical Jesus--even if only second-hand, this is how we should expect him to make his case--by establishing his own authority as coming from no less than Jesus himself.

This isn't to say that the Last Supper is historical--and personally I'm quite convinced it's not--rather it's to say that reading words into the text is questionable method.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

andrewcriddle

Hi GakuseiDon

The core pasage is
( IMO 'which had existed since the time of Salina, also called Alexandra' even if possible Greek has to be wrong. IIUC the Alexandra involved is the wife of Alexander Janneus who ruled in his place after his death for c 9 years. Also EPI TOIS ChRONOIS hHRWDOU.. is IIUC 'to the time of Herod..' not 'in the time of Herod..')

I tend to agree that what Epiphanius means is that Jesus was born around the time when the heritage of Alexander Janneus had been entirely overthrown in the reign of Herod. (According to another passage in the Panarion Epiphanius seems to have held that Jesus was born in the 42nd year after the death of Julius Caesar ie c 3 BCE which probably means around the time when Epiphanius thought Herod's reign came to an end. )


The most difficult pasasge is he [Christ] was born in Bethlehem of Judea under Alexander, who was of priestly and royal race the Greek for 'under Alexander, who was of priestly and royal race' is EPI ALEXANDROU TOU APO GENOUS hIERATIKOU KAI BASILIKOU I am tempted to translate it as 'in the days of the priestly and royal descendants of Alexander' which would refer to his descendants down to the last Hasmonean high priest murdered by Herod.

However I have doubts whether EPI ALEXANDROU TOU APO GENOUS hIERATIKOU KAI BASILIKOU can really be translated in such a way.

Andrew Criddle

blastula

The other day I noticed on The Beast message board an interview Flemming gave that mentioned Beddru.

Actually I think that OP is the same as this thread's OP.