maryhelena

Ah, but nothing by the man himself - just speculation - thought so. And on top of all that the rabbinic literature has only one Agrippa - and history and the Herodian coins have Agrippa I and Agrippa II - so no way to link Marcus Julius Agrippa II with any speculative musings in the rabbinic literature.

stephan huller

Most of our information on any subject in antiquity in based on second hand sources. To demand only first hand accounts or autograph copies of things written in the past is to raise the bar to the level of absurdity of some prominent Australians at this forum. If the purpose of carrying out one's 'scholarship' is to demolish everything left standing from antiquity I would suggest burning down all the libraries. That way evidence would get in the way of one's speculative musings.

The rabbinic accounts survive. They are no better or worse than much of the Christian material that has survived from antiquity. In fact both Acts and Josephus acknowledge Agrippa's erudition. It should not be surprising that he fancied himself as something of a 'philosopher king' given what is written about him in ALL the source and the kinds of people he surrounded himself by (the famous Platonist Justus of Tiberias was his secretary after all)

maryhelena

I'm sure that Marcus Julius Agrippa II played a very big role in the development of early christian thinking - problem is that neither I nor you have any evidence to support that idea. And no, second hard sources will not do. Words can be misunderstood, written text can be interpolated. Building a case for Marcus Julius Agrippa II is going to require more than speculation. Particularly, much more than theological speculation.

stephan huller

But by that logic we should investigate anything in earliest Christianity. We should just leave it up to those of faith to intuitively 'know' that the religion they believe in went back to Jesus. For there is nothing as certain as habit.

maryhelena

That's nonsense - and has no relevance to anything I have ever said....

Yes, we can all work on our theories, our speculation. But that's all they are - attempts at understanding how early christianity got going. If there is to be a break-through - it's not going to be someone's theory that makes that break-through. Ideas, as I keep saying, have to have some connection with reality, some physical connection or relevance. Hard evidence is what is needed - something physical - a new inscription, a new coin, an archaeological finding etc. Ideas are too a penny - and if we think that there was more to early christian thinking than 'Paul's' vision - then, we can't now, ourselves, fall into the trap of thinking our own vision is the vision to end all visions. So, although we don't have a time machine to get an accurate picture of what went on 2000 years ago - who knows but we might just, somehow, somewhere, get a blast from the past....Without it, all the theories and speculation in the world will not get us to an understanding of early christian history.