Iskander

Pre 70

JoeWallack

JW:
Kitos War

JW:
This could be the background for "Mark". It's in between the second Temple destruction and the Bar Kochba conquest of Israel. When trying to date, as The Oracle At Delphi Delphi would say, "Nothing in excess."

My guess is that:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Mark_15

Refers to:

1) The Cyrene revolt

2) Tineius Rufus

Bar Kokhba revolt

3) Tiberius Julius Alexander

Tiberius Julius Alexander



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

aa5874

This makes very little sense.

The Jesus of the NT does not match Bar Kokhba.

In the NT Jesus posed no problem to the Romans and even at his trial, Pilate found no fault with Jesus. He was, in effect, executed because of the Jews.

Simon BarKokhba was a major problem for the Romans. He was executed by the Romans.

Jesus of the NT, as described ,was in fact THE ANTI-CHRIST.

Sheshbazzar

While I am certain that many of the "sayings", and versions of the "stories" to be found in "Mark" are far older than the text into which they were incorporated,
most, many even originating prior to the CE, were simply culled from diverse sources, attributed to, and "put into the mouth of Jesus" by the compositor(s).

No external evidence has ever been provided that can place any actual text of "The Book of Mark" prior to 125 CE.

And short of finding a quite complete text, or several pages of the text, or other as yet unknown mss. containing long quotations, or a collection of indisputable references to the Markan text, such evidence will continue to be lacking.
Finding fragments of a few verses or such, will not suffice, as the "sayings" and "stories" were/are not unique to "Mark".

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

Let me try to be clearer and show how I see it.

The Christians were not opposing what the Romans had done. For them, the Romans got rid of a false Messiah in getting rid of Bar Kokhba. It was the Jews attacking the Christians for their betrayal of the true or at least a living, real Messiah - Bar Kokhba.

The Christians responded by accusing the Jews themselves of betrayal and not supporting the true Messiah (Jesus) when he came. By saying that the Jews did not support the true Messiah (Jesus), one hundred years earlier when he came, they were undercutting their opponent's arguments.

We see this type of position reversal and upside down fantasy history all the time in politics, even today.

It was generally agreed by almost all economists that lack of government regulation of business and lack of government spending on welfare and public works led to the Great Depression of the late 20's and early 30's. It was also agreed that government regulation and government spending on welfare and public works ended the Great Depression. For the next 60 years, there was a greal deal of government regulation and spending on welfare and public works. There was no depression.

When conservatives took control of the government in 1994, they claimed that government regulation and spending on welfare and public works had prolonged the Great Depression. Propagating this myth, they basically ended government regulation of business and stopped spending on welfare and public works over the next dozen years. The results are another Great Depression.

Being impervious to empirical facts, the conservatives now insist that Obama is going to cause a Great Depression by reinstituting government regulation of business and spending on welfare and public works.

Here is the parallelism:

1) In reality, Christians did not support a real living historical Messiah when he (Bar Kokhba) came.

2) In Christian Fantasy World, Jews did not support a real living historical Messiah when he (Fantasy Jesus character) came

1) In reality, it was the conservative government's lack of government business regulation and spending on welfare and public works which caused the Great Depression and the present Depression

2) In Conservative Fantasy World, it was not the conservative's lack of government business regulations and spending on welfare and public works that caused the Great Depression and today's Depression, but such government activities prolonged the Great Depression and will prolong this one.

Sorry for using a controversial political analogy, but it is the best example I can come up with at the moment to clarify my point.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

aa5874

There is a fundamental problem with your analogies. One is American history and the other is Church Fantasy which was propagated by deliberate erroneous information and mythology.

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

I tend to think that groups promoting a certain self-interested ideology act the same today as they did thousands of years ago. They rewrite history to match their party line.

Still, you raise a good point, we need an ancient case of ideology producing a fake character in ancient history to sure up the argument. Perhaps a parallel example would be the case of Helen. The Greeks portrayed her in numerous different ways. Katie Oleska gives a good summary (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/classes/KOp.html):


One important story about Helen was invented by the poet Stesichorus. He wrote that Helen never went to Troy but a phantom went in her place. Euripides and Herodotus played up this theme of the Phantom Helen.

We seem to have four basic phases in the development of the Greek's ideas about Helen and the invention of a phantom Helen.

1) Thesis: Helen as wicked woman who leaves her husband to go to Troy.
The consequences are thousands of dead innocent young men.
2) Antithesis: Helen as innocent victim abducted by Paris
3) Synthesis (Sappho) Helen overcome by Aphrodite and Lust follows Paris. (After the defeat of women's rights and the subjugation of women in marriage in Fifth century Greece, this becomes a shameful position, yet the idea of Helen as abducted innocent victim cannot be upheld either as it cuts too close to home for Greek men)
4) New Synthesis of 1,2, 3 (Stesichorus): A new myth is created: A wicked woman did go to Troy, but it was a phantom false-Helen. the real Helen was abducted and stayed chaste. Herodotus takes this fake-Jesus as a real historical figure.

We end up with two Helens going to Troy - an historical Helen (the one in Homer's Iliad) and a fictional Helen (the one in Stesichorus' poem and later told about in Euripides' play "Helen"

Compare to Christians and Christs

1) First Century Thesis: God will send Jesus/Yeshua Christ to rescue the Jews
2) Second Century Antithesis: Jews respond with God has sent the real, historical Christ (Bar Kokhba) to rescue the Jews
3) Synthesis: Christians say real historical Christ is false Christ, (After defeat of Jews in Second Roman-Jewish War, this becomes a shameful position, but the position that Bar Kokhba was a real Christ cannot be upheld either).
4) New Synthesis of 1,2,3: A new myth is created. Christians say God had sent the real historical Christ to rescue the Jews.

We can say that when a political position becomes shameful due to the political defeat of a group holding that position, and the group holding the opposite position is also defeated, a fake history/myth gets created that synthesizes differently held positions.

This suggests that the phantom Jesus of the gnostics may have been created before the more orthodox historical/mythological Jesus.

aa5874

Let's deal with Jewish history instead of Church fantasy.

1. Based on Josephus, the Jews expected a physical Messiah who would destroy and kill the enemies of the Jews and become ruler of the habitable earth around 70 CE. See also the writings of Suetonius and Tactitus.

2. At around 70 CE, the Jews are destroyed instead and the Temple falls. Josephus now thinks the Messiah was Vespasian.

3. Based on Justin Martyr, there were Jesus believers during the time of the Jewish Messiah, Simon Barcochebas.

4. By around 135 CE, Simon Barcocheba is dead or executed by the Romans.

5. Based on Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Origen, Jesus believers are persecuted and are operating in secret, considered atheists, cannibals and seem to using a "don't ask don't tell" strategy to survive.

Church fantasy would have us believe otherwise.

And it is the Church that want us to believe gMark was written by a writer called Mark. Church Fantasy.

andrewcriddle

The Apocalypse of Peter appears to regard Bar Kokhba as the Antichrist whom God will send Enoch and Elijah to defeat. This probably means that the Apocalypse was written before the anticlimax of the killing of Bar Kokhba by the Romans.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

It should be noted that Simon BarKokhba was not a magician or miracle-worker,

And, the Apocalypse of Peter is complete fictio, so any references to real events or people are purely co-incidental.

And further, the name of Simon BarKokhba is not even in the text.

Apocalypse of Peter has virtually no information to be reasonably dated at the time of BarKokhba.