Peter Kirby

Hi Thomas.

I've investigated this primarily in terms of whether a report would have to be sent to Rome about the death of Jesus. The short answer is 'no'.

Now, I imagine that Pilate, like many governors, would have kept a record of his day to day rulings. But, Jesus not being a citizen, Pilate was not under any obligation to escalate it to the attention of the emperor or anyone else higher up.

kind regards,
Peter Kirby

Thomas II

Yes,you are right, he was procurator cum porestate, so he did have civil,militar,and criminal jurisdiction...
Now, Vitellius fired him from his position, and sent him to Rome to stand trial for ordering the killing of some innocent Samaritans. Is there anything archived from that in Syria or in Rome?
Also, apparently , Tertullian talks about Pilatus sending a letter to Tiberius explaining what had happened at Jesus's trial. How would he know that?
In any case, Tiberius dies just before Pilatus can reach Rome, and so Pilatus goes awol.
Any idea of where he went after Tiberius died?

Peter Kirby

*prefect?

As you must know, no such archives from Syria or Rome survived the ravages of time.

Tertullian? I presume he's been duped by an apocryphon.

No.

All we know of Pilate basically comes from Josephus; with some corroboration found in the NT, Philo, Tacitus (perhaps), and a Caesarea Maritima inscription. I wish we knew more.

--
Peter Kirby

mountainman

Eusebius tells us not how
but that "he did".




Pete

Thomas II

Yes,prefect(praefectus). I think it's Claudius who changes the name of that position to Procurator, when it takes a more civilian than military status. (And the word on the stone that bears Pontius Pilatus name, even though it is half erased,says under his name"....ectus", which stands for "praefectus".

Regarding Tertullian, I think it is in Apology 21, that he mentions a letter to Tiberius about Jesus' case...Where would such records be kept in Rome?

Denis Giron

Greetings!

I was invited to give my thoughts on this thread by a post in another forum. I confess that I have only read the initial post of this thread (by the thread-starter, Gstafleu), so I apologize if my comments overlap with the responses of others.

I'm not an expert on the origins of this date, but I wanted to note that if "the Church" refers to what early Christians called "this one church called Catholic," the fragments of that church (e.g. the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek or "Eastern" Orthodox Church, and, to a lesser degree, the non-Chalcedonian or Monophysite, so-called "Oriental Orthodox" churches) have differing dates, and if I am not mistaken, only the RCC has 25 December as the date, while the others have theirs in early January.

Why March 21 for the passover? Please realize that the Hebrew callendar is not the same as our own, and pesach often falls in an entirely different month of our callendar (i.e. April).

With all due respect, this strikes me as nothing more than guesswork on your part. Note that early Church historians/fathers (admittedly centuries after Jesus allegedly lived) tried to determine the date by speculating as to when Zechariah was in the temple (as per Luke 1), since Jesus' birth can be determined to have taken place 15 months after that (i.e. if one is a believer in the text of Luke, as Christians happen to be). Suppose, for example, that the priest Zechariah was in the temple alone (as Luke claims) because it was Yom Kipoor (a time when the priest went in alone). That would place the event in the Hebrew month of Tishrei, which is roughly September or October, which would put Jesus' alleged birth in December or January, precisely as the early churches claimed. So, as you can see, we can speculate in any direction we wish, and I repeat that your appeal to the winter solstice was nothing more than speculation.

While I am not endorsing the arguments found therein as wholly true or fool-proof, the following blog offering a Catholic explanantion for the date is worthy of note:

http://markshea.blogspot.com/2006_12...11119750997638

Wait a second, are you actually considering the crucifixion? Or are you considering the interpretation the post-Easter church applied to the crucifixion? Do you understand the difference?

Perhaps, but I wonder why you believe a 4th century dating system employed to determine the best time to commerorate a first century tradition about the rising from the dead of a crucified Jew sheds light on whether that Jew was actually crucified. Do you believe that the claims of people from the first century should be held accountable to the beliefs of those who interpret those claims four centuries later?

For example, suppose I start a cult where we teach that December 21 is the darkest day of the year spiritually, and we tell stories of how just as the sun is at its least apparent point around this date (and, according to our cult, the sun dies on that date), so too light and life is snuffed out, and thus people are especially prone towards committing murder on this date. Then my cult speaks of how the horrible explosion of Pan-Am flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland is one such example (Dec 21, 1988). Should we conclude, therefore, in light of my cult's beliefs, that the Lockerbie bombing never happened? Would the Lockerbie bombing be any less a reality if my cult becomes the most populous religion in the world, complete with reinterpretations and meta-reinterpretations of that event?

Does it? It seems to me that it ties it to Passover (i.e. the early Christians claimed Jesus was crucified near passover, and they interpreted that event). We are provided with a very good explanation right there (one accepted by a large cross section of serious NT scholars).

Well, there are the various texts that claim the crucifixion happened, which now are part of the NT. You wave them off as being written by Christians. But that comes off to me as analogous to waving off the writings of Plato as any sort of evidence that Socrates existed since Plato himself believed Socrates existed and was therefore biased in this regard. Perhaps the Christians claimed that Jesus was crucified near the passover because, well, Jesus was crucified near the passover. That strikes me as a very sensible position to hold to, and it is one most serious NT scholars hold to. It is borne out of the question of whether there is any historical core to the NT writings, and if there is, what is it? The claim that Jesus was crucified near the passover strikes me as part of some of the earliest strata of the NT.

With all due respect, I do not believe you have provided sufficient reason to consider this proposition true.

gstafleu

Hi Denis!

That link doesn't seem to work right now, the server cannot be found. Maybe it's just my IP provider?

I'm going by the Christian definition of Easter: the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the March equinox. Hence Mar 21, although Easter (and I suspect, Passover) is a moveable feast that gets determined via a mix-and-match from both solar and lunar calendars.

It is a bit more than just guesswork. Please see this thread about the relation between many of our festivities and the solar cycle. So we have the situation that in many cultures on the Northern hemisphere the Winter solstice is an important event (on of the later posts in that thread points to various lists). We then see that in Christianity a major festivity falls on (or near, see my remarks about calendar accuracy in that thread) that date. The connection is not difficult to make. Furthermore, the symbology seems to fit: evergreen Christmas tree, lights, Jesus, "the hope of mankind" born as the light, etc. Even the Christmas mass is traditionally held at midnight, the time when the sun is at its lowest point. So it is a bit more than just speculation. It is at least speculation based on some facts and some reasoning.

You mean the crucifixion could have been a historical event without the soteriological connotations that Christianity has attached to it? I'm reasoning from a Christian point of view, though: why does Christian mythology place the crucifixion at that time?

I'm not using the fourth century dating system. I'm saying that the crucifixion is tied to the vernal equinox. The vernal equinox is an event independent of any dating system (hat is not independent is of course on which actual date in a dating system the equinox falls).

If we were living 2K years later, and the only evidence for the Lockerbie bombing was scripture from your cult, then yes, that would be a reasonable assumption. The reason that it is not a reasonable assumption in the circumstances you sketch is all those news tapes.

To summarize, my position is the following. We know that in many mythologies the vernal equinox is an important event. We then see that in Christian mythology a major event is tied to the vernal equinox: the vernal equinox appears in the (effective) definition of the date of Easter, the word Easter comes from the dawn goddess Eoster, plus the symbology that Christianity gives to the event seems to fit. That makes it likely that what we have here is a mythological event, like e.g. Adam and Eve. Could there have been a real person called Jesus who was crucified on that day? Of course there could, but we don't need that in order to explain Easter and the crucifixion as presented by Christianity.

Gerard Stafleu

Denis Giron

Greetings Gerard...

Hmmmm... it works for me. However, it doesn't matter a great deal, as you're not missing much. It is a post in an Islamic forum in which a person links to your thread and states that they would like to see me offer a response. I don't know who the person is, but, because it is an Islamic forum, I *suspect* that the person is a Muslim. In the past couple years or so, I have argued in discussions with Muslims that if there is an historical core to the NT, then there is good reason to believe the crucifixion narrative is part of it (which flies in the face of Islamic theology, which holds that Jesus existed, was the Messiah, but was not crucified). As a result, I occasionally get invitations by Muslims to visit or comment upon this or that thread posted by this or that critic of Christian history (hence the reason I suspect the person who invited me to comment in this thread was a Muslim). By the way, in case anyone is wondering, I'm an agnostic, not a Christian.

The problem is that this NOT the date for the Passover. The Bible places Jesus' death around the time of the passover. I imagine many Protestants would find it humorous that you consider it a "Christian" position that Jesus' death was around "the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the March equinox". What you're referring to is a dating system that does not appear in the Bible; rather it is a rough approximation of a fourth century method employed by certain liturgical churches (e.g. the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Catholic -or "Greek/Eastern Orthodox"- churches, and even the non-Chalcedonian Monophysite churches), though even now the liturgical churches offer differing dates for when Easter is.

What I was accusing of "guesswork" was your appeal to the possibility that those Christians who put Jesus' birth on Dec 25 did so because they had a preference for the winter solstice. In reality, you provided no evidence whatsoever that whomever came up with the date of Dec 25 did so because it was close to the winter solstice. Furthermore, as I noted, there are other possible scenarios for how this date, and the Orthodox date, was reached (e.g. dating it based on assumptions regarding when the even in Luke 1 took place).

With all due respect, you're all over the place with these different practices, again possibly holding earlier practices hostage to later practices. For example, can you demonstrate that when the RCC put forth the date of Dec 25 as the date for Christmas, Christians were at that time celebrating the ceremony with evergreen trees? Or are you simply guessing that the way Christians celebrate Christmas now is identical to the way Christians celebrated Christmas more than a thousand years ago?

Believe it or not, that actually seems to be the position of the overwhelming majority of serious NT scholars.

No, you're not. If you were reasoning from a Christian point of view, then you conclude that the crucifixion happened, and it happened near the passover (as the Bible says).

Perhaps because Jesus actually was crucified near the passover?

Phrases like "the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the March equinox," or anything along those lines does not appear in the Bible. That is a fourth century system for dating Easter.

You missed the point. The later interpretations that a religious cult apply to an event tells us nothing about the historicity of the event itself. You're caught up focusing on later reinterpretations of certain events, and holding the events hostage to those later interpretations (e.g. does the Bible say anything about evergreen trees? about dating the resurrection based on the vernal equinox? no).

We also know that history is replete with many instances of people claiming an event happened on date X because it happened on that date. So that provides us with another possible scenario for why the Christian community claimed Jesus was crucified near the passover.

What we see is that *certain* fourth century Christians (and later Christians after that) decided to date a festival commemorating the resurrection via the vernal equinox. The crucifixion itself, however, according to the earliest accounts of the event, never make any mention of the vernal equinox; rather they place it right before the passover.

And the word "Easter" does not appear in the Bible (save for certain English translations of Acts 12:4). The word in Greek and Latin is pascha, which is from Aramaic meaning "the pesach" (i.e. the Hebrew word pesach with the Aramaic definite article as per an alef at the end), or "the passover". The fact that you think the etymology of the *ENGLISH* word Easter is relevant to the crucifixion story is the most glaring example of you meshing together different traditions from different times and cultures.

gstafleu

Denis, I think I see your point now. While I don't have much doubt that the current incarnations of Christmas and Easter have links to the Winter solstice and the Vernal equinox, this could be a later "add on." We do not have evidence that at the time when the crucifixion was first "celebrated" (for lack of a better word) it already held these connotations. Is that roughly your position? If so, I agree, at least in part.

For the crucifixion, we then need to establish when it was first celebrated, and what the ritual circumstances then were. If, for example, we could establish that sacrifices at passover held a ritual meaning at that time, that would better indicate whether the crucifixion derived from mythology or from history.

I am assuming that the current mythology is an extension of the then-mythology. But there is indeed a missing link.

BTW, I have tried to figure out how the date for passover is determined, without much success. Can you point me to somewhere?

Gerard Stafleu

Roger Pearse

The existence of this goddess (not described as 'dawn goddess') is only attested, as far as I know, in Bede's De ratione temporum. The total information given is:

"15. The English Months.

"In olden time the English people -- for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other nations' observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation's -- calculated their months according to the course of the moon. Hence after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans, [the months] take their name from the moon, for the moon is called mona and the month monath.

"The first months, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; Februrary is called Solmonath; March Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath; May Thrimilchi;........" (snip)

"Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance."

(From wikipedia, but I verified that this was correct against the TTH version and added the second passage)

Bede was writing in the 7th century, while Easter has been celebrated since the 1st.

All the best,

Roger Pearse