RogueBibleScholar

It is understandable how Christians would have misread Josephus to make Philip Herodias' first husband. The fact that Josephus makes Miriamne of Simon and Miriamne of Sirah, not Cleopatra of Jerusalem, Herodias' previous husband, and only ever calls Herodias' first husband Herod, but never Herod Philip in the Greek, are also facts which must be dealt with - which I have brought out, perhaps for the first time.

You are saying the Gospels are more reliable and less prophetic than Josephus? Get real. Both the NT and Josephus have things "known in the spiritual sense" and naturalistic passages, but with Josephus, it is about 95% naturalistic-sounding narrative (once you get into the First Century), and 5% mythological-sounding; whereas with the NT, it is about 20% verifiable facts, and 80% unverifiable mythological-sounding passages. You have the very tendentious Gospels and the one reference in the Slavonic Josephus, which has far more extensive Christian interpolations, against the four passages in the Western Josephus which has genealogical data which are internally self-consistent. The NT passages can be understood to be misreadings of Josephus, as the passage on Herodias and Herod Antipas follows the death of Philip the tetrarch, and the Slavonic Josphus can be understood to be corrections toward the orthodoxy. The passages I am pointing to in the western text of Josephus are not likely edits of Christians revising texts to be in line with orthodoxy; nor can they be understood as misreadings of anything. Your pet theory about Glaphyra is just forcing the data to fit into a mold that my observations that Herodias' previous husband being the daughter of Miriamne of Simon does not fit with.

The Gospels have NO in-depth understanding of the genealogy of the Herods. The Western version of Josephus has extensive genealogical information on the Herods, which is repeated, and is self-consistent. True, I am looking for places where the Gospels are wrong, but I work very hard not make such claims without evidence which I believe stands on its own.

aa5874

Can't you see your error? Slavonic Josephus is a late writing and details about Jesus and John the Baptist were NOT quoted by any known Christian sources even up to the 4th century.

Slavonic Josephus ONLY shows that the Jesus stories were most likely written AFTER the original writings of Josephus.

RogueBibleScholar

Here's a question for you, maryhelena:

What is the earliest record we have of the Wars ever mentioning John the Baptist? By contrast, Origin recounts that it is specifically the Antiquities which mentions him. Since that passage assumes the destruction of Herod's army in the previous section, that previous section also probably predates Origin. Yet, the passage in the Slavonic Josephus has Philip as Herodias' previous husband is intertwined with the passage on John the Baptist, in a way that the section preceding that on John the Baptist in the Western, received version of the Antiquities is not.

RogueBibleScholar

Er, yeah. My post is essentially saying what aa5874 is saying.

maryhelena

The earliest record? Slavonic Josephus. Now, we either deal with it or we cast it aside. My choice is to deal with it. Dating the translation of this material is immaterial. It is the wonder-worker storyline, and the JtB, storyline, that is what is relevant. Storyline development - and the Slavonic Josephus storyline is a storyline that does explain that early 'heresy' re the crucifixion in the 7th year of Tiberius, ie 21 ce.

:huh:

maryhelena

My pet theory re Glaphyra - what I have done is set down her history re her three husbands, her marriage to her third husband being a violation of brother in-law marriage. The similarities with what Josephus has done with his story re his brother in-law marriage between Herodias and Antipas, does at the very least allow for some serious questions to be raised. Herodias, knowing full well what happened to Glaphyra, and the follow on re her two sons giving up their Jewish heritage and religion, would surely, at the very least, have given Herodias pause to ever consider such an un-Jewish marriage. And I never said the gospels had any "in-depth" understanding of Herodian history. And Josephus? Try that one on Stephan Huller.

You are on a very different track than I am on. I am not "looking for places where the Gospels are wrong". My goal is to get to ground zero in early christian history. That means I don't reject, out of hand, any mention of historical figures because their placing in a narrative is out of place with some 'consensus' reconstruction of the JC storyboard - or Josephan 'historical' reconstructions for that matter.

RogueBibleScholar

Well, although a 21 CE crucifixion of Jesus is definitely not mainstream Christianity, it is not enough to prove the work old. Shall we then favor Talmudic materials that have Jesus being executed 30-40 BCE on that same basis? The thing that gives me pause about the Slavonic Josephus is the great amount of Christian interpolation in it, and the lack of ancient corroboration of its existence. Yes, there should have been an Aramaic Josephus which read differently from the Greek Josephus, and yes, some of it might possibly be preserved in the Slavonic Josphus; but I am not willing to put much historical weight on passages in the Slavonic that read like Christian insertions.

My method has been, from the beginning, to understand the story leading to the formation of the Christian scriptures, and not merely find fault with them - but I am extremely skeptical of the miracle stories. Yes, I am looking for places where they are wrong; but that is only a first step toward assessing what sources you can and what sources you can't trust. It is far more interesting and compelling to be able to give the correct story, and not just find fault with a narrative. One of my pet theories is that they concern events related to the destruction of Jerusalem 67-70 CE in their first drafts, not 20 CE. I am not trying to force them into a mainstream mold. If I were, I would just accept the Gospel claim that Philip was Herodias' previous wife. From a point of view of known early texts, I have come to the opinion that the Gospels and Acts are often following Josephus; although I think they are sometimes unaware of his later works. (If I can nail that down, it would give me a good idea of when they were really written.) Principles of criticism of historical sources say that earlier sources are favored over later ones; and ones with extensive knowledge on a subject should be favored over those without such knowledge. The principle of preferring people who were present on the scene doesn't help us much, since if we take Mt. to be written by Mt. the tax collector, he wouldn't know the genealogy of the Herods better than the former priest Josephus, necessarily; nor do we have great confidence that the surviving version of Mt. resembles the "Hewbrew" original, nor that it is not necessarily following Josephus.

Atwill interprets the life of Jesus as loose, allegorical retellings of the actions of Titus Caesar (and in a few cases, Vespasian) during the Jewish War, projected some 40 years back in history; generated by Rome's P.R. department, which was in the business of recasting native religions as versions more friendly to Rome; just as Alexander the Great would have himself enthroned as e.g. pharaoh in Egypt, and would pay homage to Egyptian gods. Later, Alexander would trump himself up in the religious regalia of other conquered nations.

There are suggestions in the Patristic literature, I don't remember where offhand, that Jesus was crucified much more recently before the fall of Jerusalem than orthodox chronologies now have it; such that Christians at first were asking if Rome wasn't mistaken about the sequence of Caesars, so that Tiberius could have reigned more like 45 CE. Interestingly, sources that put the crucifixion at about this time frame would synchronize Jesus Crucifixion roughly with the execution of James and Simon, the sons of Judas the Galilean by Tiberius Alexander.

I am not dogmatic on the chronology, and am willing to entertain other chronological proposals. I just don't see likely Christian interpolations in Slavonic Jospehus as especially solid sources to favor over passages that are less probable interpolations, and more genealogically detailed, in the received Josephus.

On my webpage, I do point out that the Slavonic has the advent of John at about the turn of the era, at just about the time the Mandaean scriptures have his advent. I think it very well possible that John had begun his preaching about that time. It may even be possible that he left about the time of the Destruction of Jerusalem; with the rest of the Mandaeans - an event that one might be tempted to associate with the Pella Flight.

maryhelena

Now, that’s interesting, do you have the quote re the 30-40 b.c. execution? Historically, it was the last King and High Priest of the Jews, Antigonus, who was bound to cross, crucified and flogged and beheaded, in 37 b.c. Wow, maybe the Jews already realized that the Christians, or Jewish Christians, were using Antigonus as a model for their JC crucifixion story...Christians placing the birth of JC prior to the 15th year of Herod the Great, ( ie 25 b.c.) and John the Baptist doing his thing in 6 c.e? The only way that argument would work is that all three of the other gospels, gJohn, gMark and gMatthew were all written prior to gLuke. And then, of course, one would have to face the question why did these Christians change their minds re dating the nativity of JC and JtB to 6 ce., ie gLuke.