Ben C Smith

Well, that was easy.

Thanks for the parallel. I have heard of him, but never looked into his life and times.

Ben.

jakejonesiv

It fits.
The bar Kochba rebellion (ca 135 CE) fits the Little Apocalypse better than 70 CE. That indicates that at least this portion of GMark is after 135 CE.

Jake Jones IV

Ben C Smith

Have you perchance read Theissen on his proposed date for Mark 13?

Ben.

jakejonesiv

Hi Ben,

Yes. Prof. Gerd Theissen, argues to the effect that the Synoptic Apocalypse was a document from the time of the “Caligula Crisis”, about 40 CE.

H. Detering reveiws and rejects Theissen's thesis here, for reasons too lengthy to reproduce in its entirety.

Very briefly, the reference to the plural false Christs is difficult for Theissen because other than Simon Magnus, none other can be named that claimed "I am he" in this time period (36-41 CE). All of the candidates in Josephus besides Simon Magus appear after 41 CE. "The pseudo-prophets of Celsus cited by Theißen, by contrast, proclaim themselves to be “God” or the “Son of God,”but not the Messiah. That is a decisive difference not considered by Theißen, which also speaks against his thesis that the Apocalypse should be dated to 40 CE." H.Detering, SYNOPTIC APOCALYPSE, page 179.

Theißen also overrates the significance of the one-year long Nabataean war (36-37). It was not viewed by the Jews as a war that threatened the existence of Israel, that would usher in the end.

Thanks again for the reference.

Jake Jones IV

Ben C Smith

Okay, just checking.

I too see the Nabataean war as overstated in Theissen. However, I do not see the problems associated with the messianic claimants in the same way as you and apparently Detering see them.

Thanks for the link; I shall take a look.

Ben.

krosero

There are also the miracles currently being claimed for Sai Baba.

Thanks for your post, Matthew. It shows Price and Till, two skeptics, taking the position that is usually taken by the non-believer in these debates, namely that miracle claims, in principle falsifiable, involving third parties and performed by godmen, can rise up quickly and spread rapidly.

Rlogan, this debate has been confusing to me, partly because you seemed not to be taking the customary skeptical position; you claimed instead that such claims could not be made by fervent believers.

Well, obviously, there are people today who call Sai Baba a "crackpot," but it hardly follows that Sai Baba has "nobody who can" back him up. He has all his followers who can back him up. That's all you need to get a spectacular claim started.

So I'm telling you that I was honestly confused. Also, like Ben I had no clue that, for you, god-man miracles are the falsifiable ones. I'm suggesting that there's plenty of possibility here for someone to be confused, that you've misunderstood someone’s confusion as -- what did you call it? – “disengenous garbage” and "games."

Let me explain my confusion. If I say to you that Superman came into town yesterday, but I don't say that he did anything, just that he came, how can you possibly falsify that? It's unfalsifiable.

What if I also say to you that soldiers and chariots were seen by residents of the city in which I live some time ago? And I also say that a cow gave birth to a lamb at a large festival in the city, that the cow was led by whatever equivalent we have today for "high priest." These are, in principle, falsifiable. You can ask the high priest. You can ask residents of the city if they saw anything (let's make it a small modern city equivalent in size to ancient Jerusalem, so that we're not dealing with a city as large as New York where anything in principle can be said to happen). These are all falsifiable, yet no god-man was involved. In principle, the high priest might tell you, No, that story about a cow giving birth to a lamb is a lie; it didn’t happen here. Or the residents of the city might tell you, No one here saw chariots and soldiers in the clouds; that story is a lie promulgated by liars.

Ben asked you why this god-man criteria was the crucial difference, and I'm telling you that he was not the only one who was confused; and I was not even debating you so I could not have been trying to be disengenuous. I just note that when Ben asked you, in relation to his examples from Josephus, whether you thought miracles without an agent were not falsifiable while miracles with an agent were falsifiable, your reply was only that you can’t falsify God.

Well, it may be true that you can’t falsify God, but you can certainly falsify any miracles involving people; and with miracles involving large crowds you can certainly have success finding people who will call the miracle false.

So how does the god-man criteria make a miracle falsifiable while miracles lacking a godman are not falsifiable?

Do you grant the possibility at all that someone could be confused here about the position you were taking and not trying at all to be disengenuous or to play games with you?

Kevin Rosero

Ben C Smith

Ha. Turns out I had printed that very essay up a good while ago to read, and never got around to it. It got lost in a pile of folders.

At any rate, I have read it now (though not yet gone over it all in depth), and at least one thing really puzzles me. If the synoptic apocalypse originated after Bar Kokhba, and the abomination of desolation was intended to be the statue of Hadrian or Zeus standing on the temple grounds, why do our texts so pointedly relate the contents of the apocalypse to the fall of the temple (not one stone upon another)? It seems that if the writer is situated in the middle of century II he has to be saying that the abomination would be set up at about the same time (when will these things happen?) as the destruction of the temple, and he would surely know that to be false. It seems a little like standing after WWII and retrojecting a prediction to before WWI that straightforwardly links the defeat of the Nazis with the shooting of Archduke Ferdinand.

BTW, I agree with Detering that the apocalypse of Peter has to do with the bar Kokhba incidents. Richard Bauckham makes the same point, and of course lists his predecessors, in his 1985 JBL article, The Two Fig Tree Parables In the Apocalypse of Peter. However, it seems to me that this apocalypse has done exactly what it had to do in order to make the fit; it has eliminated the reference to the fall of the temple and speaks only of the parousia and the end.

Ben.

Clivedurdle

http://www.vaticaninexile.com/Prophe...esolation.html

I am now very confused!

Was the temple actually destroyed in 70 AD? Where exactly did Hadrian put his statue if the temple was not there?

What is this above about Pilate doing something?

Ben C Smith

Yes.

He erected it on its ruins.

It looks like Jerome has (A) conflated the incident of the standards under Pilate with the incident of the statue under Caligula and (B) assumed incorrectly that one or both of these plans actually came about. But there may be a better explanation.

Ben.

aa5874

It is also interesting to note that Josephus did not mention either the book called Mark, John or any other Gospel. There is also no mention of the sect called 'Christians'. Josephus mentions the sects called the Pharisees, the Saddusees, the Essenes and one other sect whose author was Judas.

Now if 'Antiquities of the Jews' was written around 93 CE, it should mean that any sect of 'Christians' would have been a growing phenomena and should have developed a large following so that Josephus would have at least noted this new and strange religion.

So although it is almost certain the Testamoniun Flavium is interpolated, there is a another major problem. Why is it Josephus fails to mention any text from any of the Gospels and why he also fails to mention the so-called sect of 'Christians', since ,at least, these should be very evident during the lifetime of Flavius Josephus himself?