Rick Sumner

What part of "putting aside the historicity argument" did you find particularly troubling? Let me know, and I'll make sure I phrase it even more carefully next time around. Thanks in advance.

As to Paul's position on the executing authorities, Paul believes he knows why Jesus was crucified, and does not believe the authorities had any control over it whatsoever.

Toto

Interesting comparisons.

Hillel

plus:

The Jewish Encyclopedia states that one of the references to Pollion actually refers to Hillel Dio Cassius did not name the leader of the Jewish Revolt, possibly for political reasons. But he did describe the war. We have no contemporary accounts of a Jesus movement.

Jeffrey Gibson

And what would these political reasons be? Is this typical of Dio -- to give an account of a war/rebellion and not note who these were started by or who the leaders of a rebellion were?

And why would we expect that Dio would speak of the Jesus movement? Does he does describe any Jewish religious reform movement in Palestine? And is Dio a contemporary of Bar Kochba?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

The JE does not say that that one of the references to Pollion is actually a reference to Hillel.

And in any case, this only underscores my point that there is no explicit reference to Hillel in Josephus.

Jeffrey

Toto

Dio talks about the Jewish war and does not name any leader. Maybe he didn't know the name, or didn't want to give any honor to the rebel leader.

Based on your analogy, is there any historian who describes something like Jesus' followers but does not name their leader?

I'm not actually a big proponent of the simple argument from silence. But no historian, comtemporary or later, writes about the Jesus movement until later Christians projected it back into history.

Jeffrey Gibson

The hidden (and question begging) assumption here is that the EC movement was as monumental to Roman historians as the Bar Kochba revolt was. Is there any reason to believe that Dio would have thought of the Christian movement as anywhere nearly as important as he thought the war (which he describes as "neither of small proportions nor of short duration") to be?

In any case, it's interesting to see you admit that there are reasons that Greco Roman historians might not name or mention a figure of whom they were aware.

Ummm ... besides Dio? and not just with reference to the leader of the rebels in the 2nd revolt but of the Zealots in the 1st who, when Titus breached the Temply walls, fought as if ""they had discovered a piece of rare good fortune in being able to fight near the temple and fall in its defense" (see his Historia Romana LXVI, 4-7) and of the rebels in the uprisings in Cyrene and Cyprus. There's Tacitus in book 5 of his Histories who mentions Christiani but not their founder. There's Suetonius reference to the Christian movement in Nero 16.2

During [Nero's] reign many abuses were severely punished and put down, and no fewer new laws were made: a limit was set to expenditures; the public banquets were confined to a distribution of food; the sale of any kind of cooked viands in the taverns was forbidden, with the exception of pulse and vegetables, whereas before every sort of dainty was exposed for sale. Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing the people. The pantomimic actors and their partisans were banished from the city.

Except that you used it above. And I note that you did not answer my question about whether Dio mentioned any Jewish religious reform (as opposed to revolutionary) movement in Palestine, let alone their founders or leaders. Why is that?

Leaving aside the possibility that you don't want to admit that you aren't all that familiar with Dio's History, perhaps it's because you are aware that if the answer is he didn't, then you'd have to allow that the fact that he (or other contemporary historians of Dio's ilk) doesn't mention Jesus or Christianity is not evidence that Jesus didn't exist.

Jeffrey

Solo

Evidently, the remark tickled personal incredulity in you, Jeffrey. You are not seriously asking me to compare the lionizing of Hillel and Bar Kochba, such at it was, with the breathtaking hagiography of the Galilean carpenter presently considered. Are you ? Because if you are, I can't be of service.

Jiri

Toto

I don't claim to be familiar with all of Dio Cassius' work. I am not trying to argue that Jesus didn't exist based on an argument from silence.

I am just trying to answer your original question about Josephus not mentioning Hillel and Dio Cassius not mentioning Bar Kochba. I don't find these analogous at all. Josephus apparently makes some indirect references to Hillel; Dio Cassus refers to the Jewish revolt but does not name its leader - and the revolt presumably had a leader. In contrast, no contemporary history mentions Jesus, and none mentions a movement that would require that a leader like Jesus existed. (The Suetonius reference has been analyzed on these boards before.)

But I agree that an argument from silence alone is not very persuasive. It needs more.

Unless, of course, you believe that the gospels are real history and Jesus had masses of followers and was so upsetting to the Jewish and Roman establishments that they disregarded all of their own laws and practices and common sense and crucified him on the Passover. . .

Jeffrey Gibson

Do you think you could beg the question even more than you do when you speak (presumably) of Gospels as "breathtaking hagiography"?

And how can you say that Bar Kochba

-- who was said to have blown burning tow from his mouth (Jerome, "Apol. ii. adv. Ruf.") and who was regarded as being able "to hurl back with his knees the stones discharged from the Roman ballistæ (Lam. R. ii. 2)", who was said to have tested the valor of his soldiers by ordering each one to cut off a finger; and when the wise men beheld this, they objected to the self-mutilation involved, and advised him to issue an order to the effect that every horseman must show that he could tear a cedar of the Lebanon up by the roots while riding at full speed, with the result that he eventually had 200,000 soldiers who passed the first ordeal, and 200,000 heroes who accomplished the latter feat (Yer. Ta'anit iv. 68d), who was reported to have performed miracles of valor, and who R. Akiba, who died for his cause, proclaimed him to be "the King Messiah" (ib.) and said "God: "We pray Thee, do not give assistance to the enemy; us Thou needst not help!" (ib.; Lam. R. ii. 2; Giṭ. 57a et seq.; Yalḳ., Deut. 946) --

was not also the subject not only of such hagiography as was given to Jesus , but of a sort even more resplendent than that given to Jesus?

Jeffrey

No Robots

Isn't that precisely what most of us presume in the case of Christianity, that there was a leader?