spin

As you've been banging your own pet theory here for donkey's years, do you think you'll make an impression with this projection?

This will never get through to you. It doesn't matter who I am. What matters is the evidence for the information provided.

Asking non sequiturs is no response.

Another non sequitur. Because I was reading Josephus for a purpose, you conclude, oh bright star, that I am familiarizing myself with Josephus. You haven't noticed for years that I have used Josephus, explained Josephus, and you conclude, as though the typewriter carriage has left its track, that I am merely "familiarizing myself with Josephus." Stop flirting with logic.


spin

judge

You didn't read what I wrote. I said which you were doing.

But again you have no real answer to this

You set out with good intention I believe, to improve the article but (unwittingly perhaps) were subverting the due process of WIKI, then reacted when this was pointed out. Get over it.

spin

You don't seem to understand the implications of what you wrote. That augurs well.

You have difficulty judging yourself, let alone anyone else. Pierce merely abused Wiki in order to try to gain his apologetic ends and couldn't even see that his source was overtly apologetic and a merely unsubstantiated opinion. He likes authorities rather than evidence. That's how he could vandalize the entry. If you really want apologetics, and stuff the historically verifiable, you don't need a reliable standard Wiki.


spin

judge

Do you think there is just the slightest chance you are taking this all too personally? Just a teeny chance.

Do you think there is the slightest chance your supposed critique was actually crap and the best thing was to take it down?
Any chance that your critique, that you developed here, in an amatuer internet forum, was not what you saw it to be?

Any chance at all?

spin

As you continue to have nothing to say for yourself, judge, thanks for your lack of effort.

andrewcriddle

The problem with the "Narrative of Events that happened in Persia on the Birth of Christ" is that its status as an authentic work of Julius Africanus is at best uncertain see Julius Africanus

I think I have tracked down the (questionable) basis for the idea that Julius Africanus in the Chronography dated the conception of Christ on the 25th of March (and hence the birth on the 25th of December). Much of our knowledge of the Chronography of Julius Africanus comes from the later Chronography of George Synkellos and it is sometimes disputed how far we can reconstruct Julius Africanus from the critiques of his work by George Synkellos.

George says concerning the chronology of Christ (Chronography 394-395 translation by Adler and Tuffin) George clearly believed that the conception happened on March 25th, and that Julius Africanus was correct (at least about the year) for the date of the conception, although two years wrong about the date of the Passion. It is not entirely clear whether Julius Africanus agreed with George about the precise date of the incarnation, or just about the year of the incarnation with the precise date left undetermined. However a number of scholars have interpreted George here as meaning that he and Julius Africanus agreed exactly about the date of the Conception and were only in disagreement about the date of the Passion. If so then Julius Africanus dated the conception on the 25th of March and the birth on the 25th of December.

Andrew Criddle

spin

Sorry, Andrew, it seems "abundantly clear" to me (I guess that's a bad sign) that the central section represents the thought of Syncellus and in no way reflects on Africanus. To be sure I'd have to look at the context, but as the material appears, we have a statement of Africanus's error (being two years out), followed by Syncellus's reasoning, and concluded with restatement of original idea.

The Philocalian Martyriology, 354CE, seems to have been the first which nominates 25th Dec.


spin

andrewcriddle

Hi Spin

I tried to give as much of the context as possible (short of quoting the whole chapter). Immediately previous to the quoted passage George is quoting Eusebius' Chronicle about the Passion. Immediately following the quoted passage George is disagreeing with Eusebius' chronological framework.

You may be right that this is George not Africanus (I was mainly trying to explain the origin of the claim in the secondary literature that Africanus dates the conception to March 25. I noted that this claim is questionable.)

However, scholars discussing Africanus and Synkellos seem to agree that if Africanus had given a precise date of the calendar for the conception, other than March 25, then George would have mentioned it in explaining where Africanus went wrong. The disagreement is IIUC between those scholars who think Africanus gave a calendar date for the conception of March 25 and those who think he just gave a year without anymore precise dating.

Andrew Criddle

vid

Andrew: thanks a lot, finally someone found it :]

spin

In dealing with the dating issue on Wiki I posted this:

Bruce Metzger, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Sep., 1954), p. 176, tells us of a [modern] analysis [of important dates and years] by Lazzarato, "in the same sentence he affirms that Julius says that Jesus was conceived on March 25, in the 5500th year of the world, and was born December 25, 5500 (p. 73) - oblivious that this last is nothing more than de Lagarde's opinion (Mittheilungen, IV, 317; cited by Lazzarato) of what Julius [Africanus] may have held and ought to have written!"

That was the case in 1954. Has there been later discussion?


spin