aa5874

But, the sun becoming dark during the daytime can also be found in Plutarch's Romulus when the legendary Romulus disappeared or died.


See http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/romulus.html

mountainman

In Plutarch's "the sun was darkened" the sun is the object of action.

Here is the Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews - Book XIV, Chapter 12, 3

In Josephus (above) and in Arius (as cited by Athanasius) the events surrounding the sun are not reported in the third person, but with the sun as the first person.

In Josephus: we suppose it was that the sun turned away his light from us, and that
"[the sun] was unwilling to view the horrid crime they were guilty of in the case of Caesar.

Here sun is made the subject of the action.

In Arius: the sun, with greater horror, impatient of the bodily contumelies, which the common Lord of all voluntarily endured for us,
turned away, and recalling his rays made that day sunless.

Here the sun is again made the subject of the action.

The sun is given the first person in Josephus citing Mark Antony talking about the "passion of Caesar" and Athanasius citing Arius talking about the "passion of Jesus Henry", but the sun is referred to in the "third person" in Plutarch.

Aquila Pacis

There is no darkness from the 6th hour, no earthquake, no moon of blood, no rent stones, no temple entrance rent in twain, no resurrected dead walking through the holy city. There is no relation to the accounts in the Synoptics and Acts. This we only find in the Caesar sources. In Plut. Rom. it's just a generic thunderstorm: darkness, strong wind, and thunder.

Aquila Pacis

No, that's just another false translation. Plutarch uses the verb ἐκλείπω ("to die", "to cease", "to stop", "to fail", "to suffer an eclipse", ergo "to darken") as ἐξέλιπε, which is in the indicative strong aorist 3rd person singular active, so the correct translation can only be "the sun darkened" or "the sun died" etc. [The strong (or perfect) aorist refers to a singular event in the past.]

storytime

As the writer wrote it, what if the writer simply wanted to show disgust and therein the centurian's mockery was to insult the Jewish inability to provide an authentic god-man as compared to the Roman/Greek gods. So the centurian looks upon the dead Jew and snidly remarks, "truly this was the son of the Hebrew god", dead as a door-nail, no life in him, no power, no greatness, not having any worth as a man to be honored. ?? :huh:

PhilosopherJay

Hi Aquila Pacis,

Good catch.

We should note that in the Gospel of John there are no supernatural events at the death of Jesus, except for some blood and water pouring out from his side. We may take this as the earliest version. The water refers us back to the baptism and John.

In Mark, we get 1) the darkness from six to nine and 2) the Temple curtain being rent. This seems to me to be a reference to a split in Judaism and Christianity.

In Matthew,we get 1) the darkness from six to nine and 2) we get the Temple curtain split. As an extra special bonus, we get 3) Earthquakes, 4) Rocks splitting and 5) zombies walking.

In Luke, as in Mark, we get 1) the six to nine darkness from the Sun's light failing and 2) the temple curtain split.

We may suppose two different additions to the story. The first addition was the 1) solar eclipse and 2)Temple curtain tearing. The second addition was 3) earthquakes, 4) Rocks splitting and 5) zombies walking.

I think it reasonable to assume that Roman literary sources regarding Julius Caesar's death could have been influencing the additions.

If we work backwards, we may suppose that John and Mark give us the original story:

John:19.34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 19.35 He who saw it has borne witness--his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth--that you also may believe.

Mark:15.39And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"

There is a gap in John. The soldier pierces Jesus and in the next statement it says he gave testimony, but there is no testimony by the soldier in John. The testimony of the soldier is in Mark. We my suppose that the testimony was in the original gospel and it has been cut out of John and pasted into Mark (or Matthew, perhaps).

Reconstructed, we get:

Quote:

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"He who saw it has borne witness--his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth--that you also may believe.

This we may take as the original ending of the gospel story. Thus it is the Roman centurion who is revealed to be telling the tale. This is designed to give some authority and authenticity to the story.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

renassault

I don't know how much this has in connection with the Passion Narrative's "vorlage", but by the time Christian traditions were being written down like this (60's earliest) there were Resurrection stories, so nobody would have written anything intending to have it end with the death of Jesus. One could always look on that part as a seemingly fitting end to the "original" story of Jesus, but that's just misleading as per the above (and as can be done for pretty much any portion of the Gospel, as the numerous opinions about the beginning of the Passion Narrative and the two halves of Acts show).

Aquila Pacis

Several points on PhilosopherJay's post:

(1) If I recall correctly, the rent curtain is commonly interpreted not as a symbol for the schism between Christianity and Judaism, but as the destruction of the previous distance/separation between god and mankind, also symbolized by Jesus being god incarnate on Earth. Many interpretations are possible, but whatever the theological/philosophical meaning construed later, it's irrelevant, because in reality and historically it is just a diegetic transposition of the rending of the temple valves of the Ops temple in the Caesar sources. If you're looking for (religious) interpretations of the catastrophe you should look into the contemporary sources, e.g. all those Roman sources and later ones like Orosius, and the darkness and destruction are clearly interpreted as a divine force coming over a godless age that had just murdered their god and the light of the world (Caesar), a "great sin" toward the gods (because you do not kill God!), with the gods (incl. Helios) being horrified, in mourning, in seclusion, unwilling to watch, feeling pity, their temples destroyed, bringing fear of eternal darkness upon the whole world. What more interpretation do you need?

(2) How do we know that Matthew added something? It's not implausible that Mark and Luke left out the rent stones, the earthquake and the dead people resurrecting. We see from the Caesar-article that the original Roman sources mentioned every single one of the cataclysmic characteristics, and only Matthew chose to include all of them. Alternatively (and more likely), Matthew used a different manuscript or source, which was a little more elaborate and included these additional incidents. (But that's not really "adding something", isn't it? He would've just been faithful to his original sources.)

(3) The Roman sources are what is called the "hypotext" of the Gospel narrative. The sources on Caesar's death did not only influence the "additions", they are the source for the whole cataclysm account. It's what renassault called the "vorlage". And sources mentioning these incidents were already existent in the 40s BCE, so naturally they were rewritten and transposed over the subsequent generations. At any rate, how can Matthew have Caesarian "additions", while Mark and Luke are allegedly independent of the Caesar sources. This notion is all the more illogical since the Caesar sources also contain the darkness, the darkness from the sixth hour and the rent temple entrance. If you assume that Matthew used the Caesar sources (which he obviously did!), it is the only logical theory that Mark and Luke used these or related Roman sources as well. They aren't called "synoptics" for nothing! Or do you know of any other historical, but non-Caesarian source that contains the darkness from the sixth hour in conjunction with an earthquake, rent stones, a rent temple entrance, resurrected dead and a moon of blood?

(4) John and Mark do not give us the original story. All of the Evangelists give the original story—but in a transposed mode. They worked from different Roman manuscripts or different sources, with different agendas (e.g. Mark giving us only a digest, because his readers obviously still knew more of the actual events). If there are discrepancies, they can easily explained by errors in transmission.

(5) Generally: Why would we arrive at John's account if we "work backwards". John wrote late, and Mark was the earliest gospel. Working backwards we can only arrive at Mark. (But that's only a sidenote, because all accounts are important. And John is a different tradition anyway.)

(6) The testimony by the Kentyriôn is the testimony of Kikerôn, i.e. Cicero who was the first to declare Octavian "Son of God" (Divi filius). John's Gospel belongs to a different tradition, which is especially influenced by Augustan sources. This explains why he so heavily emphasizes that the testimony of the "Kentyriôn" (Cicero) is true: The repetition and emphasis is meant to seal and underline the political succession of Caesar by Octavian—and to leave no doubt about it—, from the mouth of an Anti-Caesarian. It's especially connected to the adoption of Octavian by Caesar. (Cf. Jesus on the Cross with John, the disciple: woman, behold your son, a direct reference to the adoption, with Ioannes a diegetic transposition of Iuuenis, the "young" Caesar, as Octavian was called.)

(7) The soldier piercing Jesus is (in the apocryphal source and in tradition) Longinus, who is nobody but Cassius Longinus, who inflicted the final deadly wound in Caesar's side. (Btw: feast day of Longinus is 15 March, the Ides.)

mountainman

Thanks AP - what is the apocryphal source ?

Aquila Pacis

You're welcome. It's in the Gospel of Nicodemus. Other sources have apparently retained Cassius and Gaius.