jgibson000

You do realize, don't you, that in pointing to how precise and accurate Luke is with his use of titles, you are actually making the case that Mark and Matthew were wrong in speaking of Antipas as a BASILEUS?

If it was true that TETRACHS was interchangeable with BASILUEUS, why doesn't Luke ever call Antipas BASILEUS? If he is precise in his use of terms, and he was using Mark, then his refusal to do what Mark did, and his substitution of TETRARCHS for Mark's basileus in his re-write of Mark, shows that he thinks Mark is wrong in his use of BASILEUS for Antipas.

And if Matthew and Mark used Luke, then why -- unless they were mistaken about Antipas -- do they not follow Luke whom you claim was always and unerringly correct in the titles he uses to describe the stations people held in the Roman world?

Yes, you will claim that Matthew and Mark were doing what was conventional for both Palestinians, members of Herod's court, and historians and epigraphers in the ancient world to do. But curiously, we are back again to the questions not only of why then Luke did not follow this "convention" and does not give us any reason for thinking that it was conventional, but of where outside of Matthew and Mark we have any evidence whatsoever that this "convention" actually existed.

You claim that what Matthew and Mark do was conventional (i.e., wide spread, generally accepted, and indisputably and widely evidenced). But when you are asked to show that it was conventional, you not only ignore the counter evidence of the testimony of Luke in this regard, but the only hard evidence that you produce to show that thinking that a TETRARCH was a kind of king and was given/addressed with/known under the title BASELIUS was conventional in the Greco-Roman world is the "data" in Matthew and Mark.

Can you say circularity?

JG

spin

You mean you can demonstrate that the writer of Luke and the writer of Acts were the same person? If you want to open a thread to demonstrate it, go ahead, but Luke here is the gospel. You love being irrelevant, praxeus.

So we'll just hack out the Acts stuff, as totally nothing to do with the topic.

And naturally it's correct. But then I don't have the presupposition that the writer of Luke was the writer of Acts.

Yep, it's amazing what sort of contortions you'll go through.

Incredibly accurate!

• Down to inserting another name, Kainan, in the genealogy because the other sources left it out.
• He has someone called Neri as father of Shealtiel when every man and his dog knows that Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel.
• And relating the census of Quirinius to an order by Augustus to enrol the world.
• Of course Quirinius was ordered to make a tax assessment of Judea.
• He puts Jesus's birth when Quirinius was ruler of Syria which was at least 11 years after Matt has this birth.
• Luke's precision goes so far as to say Quirinius ruled Syria and Pontius Pilate ruled Judea. That's really accurate, right? Ummm, not really.
• He has Caiaphas and Annas together as for the high priesthood, despite the fact that the latter was the father of the former and served over a decade before Caiaphas, who was high priest from 18-36CE.
• He misreads his source and makes Lysanias alive 75 years after his death.

Gosh with accuracy like this he could have written the Historia Augusta.

What I like about this is how disturbed praxeus gets when his pipe-dreams go up in smoke.

Then we get another zealous spattering of Acts. Don't you find the lack of anything serious from Luke quite telling?

Look we're back here at last:
Lysanias, as I said, had been dead for 75 years. Pilate ruling Judea was really accurate, right?

So we've finished the short litany of tetrarchs. Wasn't that compelling?

And now we get back to Acts, which needs no comment so snip...

Yeah, wish it were relevant.

Rubbish.

Rubbish. I said that you got it wrong when you added that he was king of Syria. Got it?

Ooops, we've seen that one before.

Inaccurate as ever. While Matt uses hgemwn, Luke has the verb hgemoneuw, meaning "to rule", along with Quirinius who ruled Syria and we should note that he talks of the reign (hgemonia) of Caesar Tiberius. So we have an emperor, a legate and a prefect all under the same lexical indication. Talking about accuracy.

epitropos has been overgeneralized. We know that Pilate was a prefect. We know that Claudius was responsible for putting procurators in charge of provinces. In fact it was he who gave them the magisterial power to act as governor of a province. (I've shown this in the archives.) One cannot assume that, because epitropos was used after the time of Claudius for procurators, the same word meant procurator before Claudius.

We know

1. procurators didn't have the magisterial powers to act as governors before the time of Claudius,
2. Pontius Pilate was a prefect, and
3. Claudius appointed the first procuratorial governors.

SO Luke was not alone in its inaccuracy.

Nothing strange when I tell you that Aretas was not the king of Syria. He was Nabataean. This is what I said:

(Oh, and Aretas was king, but not of Syria. But then he wasn't mentioned in Luke, but in 1 Cor.)

You've just got the whole thing wrong. Too busy trying to score holy points.

Attempting to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. Luke's terms relating to hgemwn could refer to prefects, legates and even emperors. "And all of these are 100% accurate, all that spin can try to claim is that in a few positions Luke had some additional precision available. !"

And now we wander back to Acts, which obviously gets snipped for irrelevance.

So we end with a sum total of a few tetrarchs and a few mixed hegemons. And praxeus gets all creamy.

Note:

1. praxeus has wisely dropped the crap about the interchangeability of "tetrarch" and "baslieus".
2. He hasn't told us what he means by "technically kings in the Roman title sense".
3. He hasn't been able to document who would have "considered [a tetrarch as] a minor king" either.

spin

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000 Corrected? It never was a reference to another Archeleaus. It was always a reference to the father of Glphyra and never a reference, as you claimed it was, to the son of Herod. The only thing that needed to be corrected was your claim about who the Archelaus was.

Sure. I extracted it from the original JW quote, and it was not the proper Josephus quote. Nonetheless Josephus has been shown to use basileus in reference to Archelaus directly in one quote.

"The like to what Herod did was done by his son Archelaus,
who was made king after him"

And indirectly in the quote discussed below.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000 point to the recognition on his part that one who was an ETHNRACHS was not BASILEUS?

As an official Roman title. That has been pointed out here many times. Yet we see both NT writers and Josephus referring to a Roman ethnarch as a basileus. Essentially closing the substantive issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000 you have skaked over and failed to mention that the "multitude" here are the citizens of Commange, not of Judea or Galileee:

I wrote "as in another situation", indicating that Josephus was using the concept of 'desiring a king' but not the identity. To prevent the Gibson kvetch I could have put ""as in another situation in another locale".

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000 This is pretty strange for one who thought that there really was no distinction in the Palestinian mind between "kings" and "tetrarchs".

More strawman. Even in the mind of a commoner who might view a tetrarch as their basileus, their supreme ruler, their minor king, there could be an awareness of the technical Roman positions of king and tetrarch and ethnarch and the differences from the Roman perspective. Even much more so those who were in the political world - as is the context in your quote.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000 Hmm. By your logic, we'd have to say that Simon the Essene and the royal born Glphyra "kings", since they are also included within this "discourse concerning kings".

Please, Jeffrey. Archelaus is the principle character in the proceeding paragraphs. You might include Caesar as being considered a basileus or supreme ruler in the section (going along with the identical NT usage) and again that would also destroy your attempt to straightjacket basileus. And your false claim of an error by Mark and Matthew in the Gospels in the references to Herod as king.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000 does the Greek of Josephus 17. 354 actually state, as you are here claiming it does, that the "discourse" Josephus refers to there concerned only kings?

Strawman claim again, your specialty.
Notice that Josephus even sums up the section.

"because my discourse now is concerning kings... So Archelaus's country was laid to the province of Syria; and Cyrenius, one that had been consul, was sent by Caesar to take account of people's effects in Syria, and to sell the house of Archelaus."

Surely looks like Josephus is not using basileus in a technical Roman title sense. And including Archelaus and likely Caesar and very possibly even Cyrenius as all being supreme rulers or kings. The problem you have is that this destroys your whole argument against the NT which is largely based on an appeal to Josephus as the primary counter.

Oops.

As you know one source says that Cicero does likewise,
which you say you have not found.

Now since I didn't put "only" in the English there is no need
to go to the Greek. Context is basileus.

Since I want to stay on the principle issue, your mistaken accusation against the NT text, and time is limited this AM, I will stick with this for now.

=========

However I do wonder if your claim is that Matthew was redacting the
Markan text but forgot to redact the very first verse in the section
because of 'fatigue' ?

Would you be so helpful as to answer -
a) whether that is your contention
b) if so, any other scholars you know who share that view

This should also help us with the rest of your posts.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin So we'll just hack out the Acts stuff, as totally nothing to do with the topic.

Wow. So now, after dozens of posts (including the original list of the Lukan precision of Roman titles posted three weeks ago) we find that spin assumes that Luke and Acts are different authors. spin yet again is the master of the methodology of manipulation.

Absolutely amazing.

Then spin goes way off of the Roman title issue as well, such as the discussion of Luke 3:26 Cainan, or the issue of Caiaphas and Annas referenced as high priests. Both have their own wonderful discussion, and if they are included here, then I can expand the other list from Luke and Acts (Acts simply ignored by spin) with dozens of other examples of historical and geographical and cultural and roman law precision.

Then most of the rest of his complaint is back to the two issues that are discussed separately in their own large threads, Cyrenius and Lysanias. In fact, these issues are looking for the rest of the discussion to help determine Luke's reliability .. which is extremely high to the max, as noted in the historian quotes (snipped) by spin.

So with spin we are going around in circles. He assumes his own theories, as he does in the interpolation and non-redaction issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin Inaccurate as ever. While Matt uses hgemwn, Luke has the verb hgemoneuw, meaning "to rule", along with Quirinius who ruled Syria and we should note that he talks of the reign (hgemonia) of Caesar Tiberius. So we have an emperor, a legate and a prefect all under the same lexical indication. Talking about accuracy.

Apparently spin doesn't even know the difference between accuracy and precision and makes another false accusation. Clearly if I say that Spitzer is governing New York or Chavez is governing Venezuela this is accurate.

In fact this was the very point made in my post. Not only did spin miss it, he stumbles over himself to make yet another false accusation against the Bible text.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin One cannot assume that, because epitropos was used after the time of Claudius for procurators, the same word meant procurator before Claudius.

The interesting question in all this is what word spin would like Matthew and Luke to use for prefect. eg. Is there any specific word that Josephus uses that he would like them to use. If not, then there is no complaint against them either on precision, and we know that their accuracy is fine.

spin makes the same mistake mistaking accuracy and precision later in the post.

On Aretas we find that spin agrees that the Romans text is fine.

2 Corinthians 11:32
In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city
of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me:

Apparently spin was going back to my earlier summary list.

King
Tiberius Caesar
Herod the Great
Aretas (Syria)

And pointing that Aretas was king of the Nabeteans and the king who ruled over Syria. Excellent. And the most important point .. the Romans epistle describes this excellently as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin And now we wander back to Acts, which obviously gets snipped for irrelevance.

That is the amazing thing about this whole discussion. After all his rants against Luke on this thread, we now find out, ooops .. that spin was excluding Acts ! .. Clearly that has the bulk of Lukan historicity, so it is not surprising to see spin play this game.

And clearly, there is little dialog here. This is similar to spin's claiming that verses that refute his case must be interpolations in Corinthians. Here he simply excludes the bulk of Lukan historicity, making his claims of no consequence.

Now to his "summary".

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin the interchangeability of "tetrarch" and "baslieus". He hasn't told us what he means by "technically kings in the Roman title sense". He hasn't been able to document who would have "considered [a tetrarch as] a minor king" either.

Matthew does use tetrarch and basileus interchangeably for Herod Antipas. I even posted on that yesterday. As well I discussed a lot of background about context and usage, and showed how Josephus uses the term basileus in a general way. See the post above.

The issue of the Roman title basileus seems pretty obvious. As when Archelaus was hoping Caesar to grant him the Roman title basileus. (Yet Josephus refers to him as basileus.) What more spin wants is the puzzle.

And the term 'minor king' is used by a few historians and translators that I documented uphill.

And that was a summary that misses the major issue.

spin's accusation against Mark and Matthew are all dependent on spin's own strained and individualistic arguments and convolutions and now are against Josephus as well.

Both spin and Jeffrey Gibson are simply false accusers of the Mark and Matthew NT texts. That is the real summary.

That you Lord Jesus for your pure and perfect word .

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

spin

That'll teach you not to fall over your own assumptions.

Yup. It's all about Luke's accuracy. And that was the basic topic we were discussing.

You will remember that the accuracy discussion did involve other things such as Lysanias being dead for 65 years, when he was supposed to have been tetrarch of part of Philip's territory.

Yup. It's all about accuracy and you have been falling all over accuracy and getting weak in the knees over Luke's accuracy.

You use the term "historical" in an unknown way.

Going around in circles here is a praxeusism for trying to deal with the topic.

Yawn.

I'm glad you can remember the point of your post. It usually seems like the only point you have is apologetic.

Check out what Josephus used for Coponius.

I'm sorry, there's nothing I can find that actually has a point to it to respond to.

Same as my previous comment.

I guess it means nothing that Matt got rid of basileus three times. And that the last time is already noted in another case of fatigue.

You showed nothing of the kind. WHat you showed was your incapacity to demonstrate your silly claim about the interchangeability of "tetrarch" and "king". It took the efforts of Joe Wallack to find one dubious example relating Archelaus to kingship.

Yup.

I want you to justify your silly interchangeability claim. This is what you said:

I already showed about that historically the two words were often used interchangably totally negating your presumption that one method is "preferred".

You made the absurd generic claim that "historically the two words were interchangeable" and what did you show? Everything but this assertion of interchangeability. Joe Wallack found you one possibility you could cling to.

To err is human. The gospels writers were human. I don't hold it against them.


spin

Amaleq13

That is not accurate.

There is a significant difference between assuming that Luke and Acts have different authors and refusing to assume they have the same author.

In fact, he clearly indicated that such an assumption would require substantiating groundwork and invited you to start a thread on it.

neilgodfrey

Fwiw and just to come in from left field here on the significance of Luke's census and linking it with Quirinius --- Joseph Tyson in his "Marcion and Acts" (2006) cites Pervo's view that the reason Luke linked the birth of Jesus to the census cum Quirinius was that he was following Josephus on the significance of this event. Josephus interpreted this date/event as the beginning of the new era of Jewish history, the beginning of the end -- and Luke picked this up and ran with it in his own gospel.

In support of this view of course are the other apparent Josephus-Luke borrowings, in particular the nonchronological reference to Theudas-Judas and the common interpretation of Theudas as an insurrectionist.

I know, this also assumes a common author, another point of contention, but Tyson to my mind presents a pretty plausible case for canonical Luke being created out of an earlier Luke used by Marcion, and smoothed over (though with enough wrinkles still remaining) to be unified "narratively" with Acts.

Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

jgibson000

Sorry, but you are equivocating here. To use the noun BASILEUS "in reference" to Archelaus is not the same thing as declaring that Basileus was a title that anyone (including Jospehus) attributed to Archelaus , let alone that he bore and was known by.

On what grammatical and syntactical grounds do you claim, as you do, that the expression επικτασταθεὶς αὐτω βασιλεὺς means that Archelaus was given the title "king", let alone that he was called king. On what grammatical grounds can you justify that the expression actually means more than "was made ruler", especially in the light of the use of equivalent expressions in, say Polybius Hist 2.2.11.2; 3.106.2.3?

But the problem here is that Josephus does no such thing. And where do any NT writers refer to an EQNARCHS as a BASILIEUS??

Are you now saying that the title EQNARCHS was (or was believed in the first century to be) interchangeable with the title TETRARCHS, let alone that they were viewed as the same office??? If so, can you please provide us with actual primary evidence that this was the case?

What claim? In case you didn't notice, I asked a question (which by the way, you dodged answering), and a question is not a claim, let alone a straw man claim!

Does he now? I find it very interesting that to support you claim you have to (once again) selectively quote Josephus.

Here's the text. I've underlined what you've quoted. I've left not underlined what you left out of what you quoted.

εγὼ δὲ οὐκ ἀλλότρια νομίσαs αὐτὰ τω δε τω λόγw εἶναι διὰ τὸ περὶ τῶν βασιλέων αὐτὸν ἐνεστηκέναi καὶ ἄλλωs ἐπὶ παραδείγματι φέρειν τοῦ τε ἀμφὶ τὰs ψυχὰs ἀθανασίαs ἐμφεροῦs καὶ τοῦ θείου προμηθείʹ τὰ ἀνθρώπεια περιειληφότοs τῆ αὐτοῦ, καλῶs ἔχειν ἐνόμισα εἰπεῖν. ὅτώ δὲ ἀπιστεῖται τὰ τοιάδε γνώμηs ὀνινάμενοs τῆs ἑαυτοῦ κλυμα οὐκ ἂν γένοιτο τώ ἐπ' ἀρετὴν αὐτω προστιθεμένώ. τῆs δ' ἀρχελάου χώραs ὑποτελοῦs προσνεμηθείσηs τῆ σύρων πέμπεται κυρίνιοs ὑπὸ καίσαροs ἀνὴρ ὑπατικὸs ἀποτιμησόμενόs τε τὰ ἐν συρί καὶ τὸν αρχελάου ἀποδωσόμε νοs οἶκον.

So I ask again: does the Greek of Ant. 17. 344 -- especially καὶ ἄλλωs ἐπὶ παραδείγματι φέρειν τοῦ τε ἀμφὶ τὰs ψυχὰs ἀθανασίαs ἐμφεροῦs καὶ τοῦ θείου προμηθείʹ τὰ ἀνθρώπεια περιειληφότοs τῆ αὐτοῦ, καλῶs ἔχειν ἐνόμισα εἰπεῖν -- actually state, as you are here claiming it does, that the "discourse" Josephus refers to there [is] concerned only [with] kings?.

If so, then what becomes of your claim that Josephus can be used as an instance that is on par with Matt. 14 and Mk. 6 where, as Luke recognized, BASILEUS is used in the technical Roman sense to show that Matthew and Mark were correct in calling Antipas "king"?

Nope. And it never has been. Nor has it ever been the contention of scholars who speak about "fatigue" in Matt. 14.

No -- and, as I said, it's not because no one has ever spoekn about "fatigue in Matt. 14, but because that forgetting to redact the fisrt verse in tye section is not what those who speak of "fatigue" say is what Matthew did -- as you yourself would know if you were actually familiar with what has been written by scholars on Matt. 14:1, 9.

Speaking of straw man claims ...

JG

JoeWallack

JW:
Exxxcellent. Of course Richard Carrier has written a related article:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...djosephus.html

considering some evidence that "Luke" used Josephus as a source. Possibly more such evidence has been discussed here by our very own Spin who identified "Luke's" assertian of a Tetrarch named Lysanias as probably just a misunderstanding of Josephus. I'll forward this thought to Mr. Carrier to consider addressing in his article. Richard mentions that "Luke" has a Tetrarch Lysanias which Josephus has too but no related discussion of a possible misunderstanding by "Luke". Perhaps our own Dr. Gibson could put forward his opinion as to whether "Luke" misunderstood Josephus based on a detailed consideration of the Greek grammar. We're paying an arm and a leg for Jeffrey so we might as well get our drachmas' worth.

What I see in the big picture here though is for purposes of "Luke's" Narrative "Luke" looks here to have chosen as a source Josephus, over whatever other Gospel Narratives existed at the time. "Luke's" dating of Jesus to about 30 when he began his supposed career seems to be based on notorious events in Josephus. The census of Quirinius in 6 CE (birth) and censorship of John the Baptizer around 36 CE. From a Skeptical standpoint the Gospel Jesus narrative is Impossible so there would not be any Historical witness as a source. Therefore, Gospel authors would need alternative sources, such as Josephus. Exactly what a Skeptic would expect. The time gap between the time reported on and the time written also fits this scenario. The Gospel is written at least a generation after the supposed events and in a different geographical location so that there is relatively little historical witness to dispute the story. After another generation passes no one even knows anyone who was a historical witness and the story can gradually be accepted as Historical.

The point though is that regarding what was Likely history and was likely legend, "Luke", the most historical sounding author, looks to have favored Josephus over whatever Gospels existed at the time as a historical source. And why not, as Josephus presumably was considered the preeminent historian of 1st century Israel by authors of "Luke's" time.



Joseph

STORY, n.
A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Steven Avery

Amaleq, please, use some common sense.

We were discussing Lukan historical accuracy, especially on titles.
So I posted a number of detailed verses from Acts as examples of
Lukan accuracy in Roman titles. In a major post about the historicity
issue.

No comment, no agreement, no disagreement from spin.

Simply diversions in response, and later repeating the same claim
that Luke didn't have many historical precisions on titles.

Then, three weeks after the major post, spin takes the position
that the authors are different and I should prove to him otherwise. :-)
What a dodge. Classic.

Clearly we have moving goal posts and moderators who need
a bit more common sense in looking at a thread.

However perceptive readers should not be snowed.

Shalom,
Steven