Loomis

Thanks. I didn't know about Sanhedrin 43a.

Greek xulon "wood, tree" = Acts 5:30, 10:39, 13:29; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24.

Loomis

It looks to me like the author of Acts did the same thing as the author of Hebrews 13:12. He used Deuteronomy 21:18-23 as a proof text for the divinity of Jesus.

Acts 13:29

And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.

Q: Fulfilled what was written where?

A: The stuff in Dt. 21:18~23 about the father and mother (Romans and Jews ) taking the “rebellious son” to the city gate and hanging him on a tree.

See?

I think Acts 13:29 is midrash. It is not written around a historical event. It’s written around Dt. 21:18~23.

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Hey Malachi151, you should be eating this shit up.

spamandham

Interesting that you point out this particular passage. In "The Pre-Nicene New Testament", 2006 hardback, p. 333, footnotes m and n, Price points out that the the first portion of this sentence is found in Mark8:11-12 + Acts17:21, (adding my own interpretation now) suggesting either that 'Paul' got this idea from those works, they got it from Paul, or it may be a later addition.

Note how it flows more smoothly without this sentence:

For it is written "I will destroy the wisdom of the sophisticates, and the prudence of the judicious I will nullify". And hasn't he done it? Find me a sophist! Find me a scribe! Find me one of the debaters of this worldly age! Has any joined us from their ranks? Has not God in fact exposed the wisdom of the world for nonsense? For since, by the hidden plan of God, the world in its vaunted wisdom failed to arrive at knowledge of God, God thought it good sport to use the nonsense of the proclamation (note this refers back to vs 19 rather than forward to verse 23 if vs 23 is removed) to save the ones believeing it {snip}, but to the ones summoned from the ranks of both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's power and wisdom.

The scholarly translation of this is "O senseless Galatians! Who is it who cast a spell on you? The crucifixion of Jesus-Christ was plainly demonstrated from scripture before your eyes".

Doherty uses this verse to show that the idea of crucifixion was derived from esoteric exegesis of scripture rather than history. But I think just as simple an explanation, is that it's an anachronism inserted by a clumsy later redactor who had come to view the Gospel as scripture.

aa5874

In the Epistles the words "crucify" and "cross" are used many times, the word "hang" is used only once in Galations 3.13. It would appear to me that author wants the reader to believe Jesus was crucified.

spamandham

True, but how many of those were in the original texts?

aa5874

Do you know if "hang" was in the original text?

And the "most ancient text found" and "original text" might not be the same.

spamandham

No. My suspicion is that all historicizing aspects are later additions, since at least several of them have been reasonably demonstrated to be.

There would be little motive to have Paul 'clarify' that he's referring to a historical person who was recently crucified if Paul had already made that clear.

I agree with that. I use the word 'original' to mean 'closest thing we can determine to the original based on a combination of the best scholarly translation combined with extracting portions for which there is solid basis for suspecting as a later addition'.

perfectidius

Oh geez, I don't think throwing around that sort of accusation against somebody would work. "He said he was king of the Jews, crucify him, oh Roman curator."

"You mean the beggar in the rags, who is remaining perfectly silent?"

"Yeah thats the one. HE claims to be a king."

"Umm....okay, I am all for killing a random Jew who looks pious and nonthreatening, but I need a little more to go on than he is a threat to Roman sovereigny."

"Well then. Umm. He said....urr...that he was the MEssaih coming to destroy the romans."

"Okay, I've met plenty of them by now. Where's his troup of would be conquistadors?"

"They ran away when they saw us come up with torches and pitchforks."

"I see...."



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Daniel

perfectidius

Wow, you must learn to be more skeptical. MANY aspects of the story of the crucifixion are implausible. If you just list off a set of improbabilities and implausibilities in the scenario given, you could make a claim that the narratives were mostly invented afterwards, even if he was crucified, which is not necessarily the case.

The earliest Christian writings, the Q document, have no tradition of him being crucified.

Daniel

jules?

I still have a problem with the whole cross = crucify.
Tertullian wondered on the origin of the Sign, being made by the faithful in all activities and presumed it derived from Jesus making the sign on the Apostles as he ascended. But why would the instrument of death be the sign ? Other early writers referred to the tau cross or T. The cross as representing the world makes some kind of sense. this does not negate the suffering of Jesus, the crucifixtion is about painful death to absolve all sin and need not be assumed to be death on a cross.

incidently what is the differance between the scape goat that took away sin and the sacrificial lamb?