Ecrasez L'infame

The eating babies business has already been conceded by the OP, so I offer this just for interest. Of course, it doesn't mean anything...

Josephus BJ book 6 has a story of a woman ("Mary daughter of Eleazar") of Jerusalem caught in the siege in 70. Food was desperately short, and what little food she had had just been looted. So "while hunger was eating her heart out and rage was consuming her still faster" - I love Jos when he's in full stylistic gallop! - "she killed her [baby] son, then roasted him and ate one half, concealing and saving up the rest."

(Some commentators regard this story as the origin the racist conspiracy theory of the blood-libel. Me, I don't think anything is that simple.)

Vorkosigan

At least two scholars have identified that as a parody of Christianity. A son of Mary who is eaten?

Michael

Ecrasez L'infame

Doubtless. Except from a mythicist POV that's putting the cart before the horse.

Regards

Robert

Vorkosigan

How mean you? From a mythicist point of view the existence of a parody of Christianity in 95 is of no consequence. I can't think of a single mythicist who denies the exist of Christianity in the late first century.

Michael

Ecrasez L'infame

Hi Michael.

BJ is 75 or thereabouts. You're thinking of Antiquitates.

To say that the baby-breakfast scene is a parody therefore assumes the religion was organised AND that it was based around a sacrificed innocent whose mother was named Mary AND that the Eucharist was in place (possibly based on the last supper) AND that Jos knew about all that in the mid-70s. In effect, it's assuming that here's a third Josephus passage pointing straight at Jesus besides the TF and the stoning of James episode... and twenty years before those! But from a mythicist POV, there's no need to assume that - and indeed, good reason not to, since it isn't really likely that Jos can parody a religion in such detail that he nowhere otherwise even mentions.

Actually, I find it interesting how that any (presumably historicist) scholars can say Jos is referring to Christianity here. Seems to me the parody wouldn't have worked unless the baby eating story was already common; are they conceding that?

Regards

Robert

Ecrasez L'infame

On the other hand, suppose the incident really happened. Fuck knows, bad stuff happens in war, and other than the fanciful monologues the incident reads realistically. So suppose it really happened, more or less the way Jos describes. Soon "the entire city could think of nothing else but this abomination", and the "dreadful news" even reached the Romans. Might that not be the kind of incident that, transformed, inspired a new religion?

:devil2: