Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Rick Sumner · 07-23-2004, 06:31 AM

Before we look at how the play could be preformed, we need to establish that it's likely it was one. It's not enough to state that plays had similar motifs--art, after all, has to have verisimillitude.

What manners of the presentation of the Passion indicate that it might have been a play? What comparisons in presentation could be made between the gospels and plays, and more importantly, are those points of comparison unique to plays? Is there something that is used primarily, or better yet solely, in plays that appears in the gospels?

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Sandslice · 07-23-2004, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

What "Passion events" do you find Paul describing?

Specifically, the Last Supper (1 Cor 11) and the heavy focus on crucifixion/resurrection, the main components of the doctrine of the atonement.

Quote:

There is no indication of that in Paul. You have to wait until the first Gospel story before this claim is made. But the overall point holds true that there does not appear to be any basis for a ministry in Seneca's play. At least not in the parts we've seen so far.

That also depends on the dating of Acts; if AActs did travel with Paul, then Acts 1 contains the claim. If Acts is late, then the specific is conceded.

Quote:

Paul claims there was NO distinction between the basis for his status as an apostle and those who came before him. There is also no indication from him that there ever was a ministry, let alone eyewitnesses to it.

Again, the strongest proof of the distinction depends on the dating of Acts, as well as a reference to the other apostles: "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?" (2 Cor 3:1) These are similar to the LoR's mentioned in Acts 15, which contained James's proclamation concerning Gentile adherence to the Law.
I feel that Galatians is also a particularly strong argument here; its intro begins "Paul, an apostle: not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus..." and generally contains polemics against Jews and Judaisers.

Quote:

Not according to Paul:

"For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible." (2 Cor 10:10, KJV)

Skilled writer, I retract as having mis-spoke, save for (once again) the early-Acts argument.

Quote:

I find it interesting and entertaining.

Clivedurdle · 07-23-2004, 08:03 AM

Looking at Nazarenus, why are we not looking at a play?

Quote:

Portents at Jesus Death

According to the synoptic gospels the death of Jesus was accompanied by a group of physical portents which must be understood as miracles. John does not mention any of these miraculous events.

Mark, Matthew, and Luke tell of darkness all over the earth for three hours before Jesus death, from the sixth hour to the ninth hour that is, from noon to the middle of the afternoon. All three mention the splitting of the curtain which closed the entrance to the Holy of Holies and separated it from the rest of the most holy part of the Temple, at the moment of Jesus death. But Matthew, after mentioning the splitting of the curtain, adds other portents not found in the other gospels:

And behold, the curtain of the Temple was rent from top to bottom into two, and the earth was shaken, and stones were split, and tombs were opened and many bodies of sleeping saints were awakened.

The reason for this editorial addition of Matthew will be explained below.

The portents at Jesus death have created nothing but embarrassment for modern interpreters. Church fathers found themselves compelled to claim that the universal darkness had been observed by pagans, too. Tertullian, trying to counter pagan criticism, dismisses the contention of some that it may have been the case of an eclipse and asserts:

and yet you [pagans] have available this world occurrence in your secret records.[1]

If a record had existed it would have been carefully quoted by Christian writers; if this record had existed Tertullian would not have appealed to the authority of secrets (arcana) to which his pagan readers had no access.

Modern Roman Catholic interpreters usually grant that the portents attending Jesus death are pious legends. Protestant interpreters, even when of liberal inclination, for the most part shrink from offering such a forthright solution of the problem. But, even if it is granted that the portents are the expression of the intense feelings of the early followers of Jesus, there remains the difficulty that they do not correspond to Jewish traditions and Jewish conceptions.

The list of portents that took place at Jesus death closely resembles that which Seneca employed in his Hercules on Oeta to mark the death of Hercules, and was a standard one in classical literature. Vergil in his Georgics (I 466-488) lists the portents that accompanied Caesars murder: first is the darkening of the sun, plunging the world into night; next, sea and land are in turmoil, with Mt. Etna eruptingand the Alps shaking; rivers halt and chasms form in the earth specters appear; and finally, in temples the ivory weeps in sorrow and bronzes sweat.

The list had to begin with the darkening of the sun and had to include some portent occurring in the temples. According to what people trained in Greek and Latin literature were expecting, something had to happen in the Temple at the death of Jesus. Seneca had indicated that at the moment of the death of Hercules the doors of the temples of Juno had swung wide open, (pateant). But why should the miraculous opening of the Holy of Holies of the Temple consist of the splitting in two from top to bottom of the curtain that closed it?

The explanation of this choice is to be found in Senecas theory of the cause of earthquakes. We must not forget that Seneca was not only a poet, a philosopher, and a statesman, but also a natural scientist. He dedicated to the causes of earthquakes the entire sixth book of his Natural Questions in which he seriously championed against others the theory, first proposed by Epicurus, that earthquakes are caused by underground accumulations of air. According to him air has the power to penetrate the depth of the earth and to amass itself forcibly in underground cavities; the air so accumulated has more violent energy than any other element of nature, earth, water, or fire. In order to prove that air has the power to amass itself in hollows and then burst out, Seneca dedicates an entire chapter (30) to the argument that one has often seen bronze statues split unaccountably into two; this happened because these statues were hollow, and air had accumulated inside them. This explanation is so evident to Seneca that he answers objections by asking rhetorical questions:

Why then should one remain stupefied at the fact that the bronze of a single statue, which is not even solid but hollow and flimsy, is broken?...Why should anyone consider worthy of notice that a statue has been split evenly from bottom to top into two parts?

The last words used by Seneca in this chapter closely resemble those we read in Matthew (27:51)

was split from top to bottom into two.

Seneca must have understood that the Holy of Holies of the Temple was a typical example of a place filled with air. The rigor with which the Jews guarded from human contact the innermost sanctuary of the Temple intrigued the Greeks and Romans, who were inclined to be skeptical about the assertion that it did not contain anything. Many of them suspected that it contained some sacred, magical, or even disgraceful object.

Josephus relates that Titus, the future Emperor, after his capture of Jerusalem, made a special point of visiting the inside of the temple before it was completely destroyed by the fire started by his soldiers.[2] Apparently, even before this inspection by a non-Jew, Seneca had accepted that the Holy of Holies contained nothing but air. If behind the curtain of the Holy of Holies there was air, in an earthquake this air, because of the same phenomenon that caused the earthquake, would burst out and split the curtain in two. To those who may smile at this contention of Seneca, it may be countered that it is at least consistent with his general theory: He argues that the air in underground cavities may develop such pressure as to move mountains or create new ones. A sudden flow of air at extremely high pressure would tear a curtain. Given the kind of portents that were understood to mark the death of a hero, in a pagan temple one could have expected the splitting of the statue of the divinity into two, but in the Temple of Jerusalem the only thing that could split in two was the curtain of the Holy of Holies.

The rending of the veil of the Temple has created the greatest difficulty for interpreters. If the veil of the Temple was split at the moment of Jesus death, one would expect this occurrence to have a specific symbolic meaning. But in spite of the intense concern of the Talmud with the innermost structures of the Temple and with their religious significance, and in spite of Josephus many references to the same topics, nobody has been able to explain the meaning of the rending of the veil according to Jewish lore. The episode of the earthquake and of the splitting of the veil is not Jewish or Christian in spirit. Actually the main source for Senecas book on earthquakes was that archenemy of religion, Epicurus.

According to Matthew the rending of the veil was associated with an earthquake; he uses the same verb (schizo) for the splitting of the veil and for the splitting of stones. Traditional interpretations have seen the tearing of the veil as a result of the earthquake, but ever since the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the gospels began to be interpreted with a minimum of critical spirit, scholars have been asking how a curtain of flexible material hanging loose could be damaged by an earthquake. Heinrich Paulus suggested that the veil was fastened all around; Carl Theodor Kuinoel suggested that the veil was very old so that it could be torn by the slightest tremor.[3]

The general view is that Matthew editorialized, expanding through his imagination what had been reported by Mark. But more recently interpreters have considered Marks gospel as an attempt to reconcile the two divergent traditions represented by the gospels of Matthew and Luke.[4] In this case there is reason to believe that Mark and Luke abbreviated the list of portents to two, whereas Matthew followed more closely the list given by Seneca. The portents given by Matthew are similar to those that accompany the death of Hercules in Hercules on Oeta. In this tragedy Hercules prays:

Let loose the night, may this day die for the world...[5]

breaking the frame of the world, both poles must go to pieces.

Finally he prays that the gates of Hades be opened and the Giants be allowed to rise. At the moment of Hercules death, the chorus bursts out in a song addressed to the Sun, which begins:

O glory of the world, ray-girt Sun, put on a pall of clouds that will move with you, gaze on the grieving earth with pallid face, and let disfiguring clouds roam over your head.

At the end of the song the chorus wonders about the portents that are occurring:

My what is this? The universe resounds... Is it that Atlas has staggered in carrying the weight of the world? Or is it rather that the ominous spirits of the dead have shaken?

In this song the chorus asks that, while the temples of all gods close down, those of Juno be wide open (pateant), because only this goddess may rejoice at Hercules death. Interpreters of the gospels have long debated what was the symbolic meaning of the tearing apart of the curtain that closed the Holy of Holies in the Temple; on the basis of the parallel with Hercules on Oeta it can be inferred that by mentioning the opening up of the Holy of Holies Seneca meant to indicate that the Temple or the priests of the Temple were the enemies of Jesus and had brought about his doom.

The three synoptic gospels report that the sky was darkened from the sixth hour (noon) to the ninth hour (middle of the afternoon). According to our way of thinking, it would be reasonable to assume that the sky became darkened at the moment of the crucifixion and remained dark up to the moment of death. But Greek and Roman accounts of the darkening of the sky in the case of atrocious events let the darkening take place at noontime because this makes the phenomenon more extraordinary; the timing of the darkening is not necessarily related to the timing of the causal event.

For instance Servius, in his commentary on the mentioned passage of Vergils Georgics, explains that at the death of Caesar the sun disappeared from the sixth hour to the night, despite the fact that Caesar had been assassinated rather early in the morning. It is not necessary to consider the examples provided by Greek tragedies, because one can refer to Senecas own tragedy Thyestes. In this play it is emphasized that the sun faded out when it was in the middle of the sky, even though at that moment Atreus had not yet perpetrated the final and most repulsive part of his crime. The choral ode that concludes Act Four of this play contains the lines:

Why do you extinguish daylight at high noon?
Why so hasty, Phoebus, in hiding our sight of you?

In his Nazarenus Seneca must have put the occultation of the sun at noon. He also indicated that the death of Jesus and hence the earthquake that caused the ripping of the veil took place in mid-afternoon. Such timing was necessary in order that the burial could take place before the coming of the night.

According to the style of ancient tragedy, it is most probable that at the moment of Jesus death the stage was shaken by the usual sound effects that were understood to indicate an earthquake. At this point the chorus must have mentioned the splitting of the veil of the temple. It is most likely that it was in this context that the chorus related that at noon, in the preceding quarter of the day, darkness had descended on the world, and described some of the other frightening portents. As was customary in Senecas tragedies, they may have voiced their fear that the final cataclysm was at hand. The chorus in Senecas Thyestes sings:

Are we alone of mankind deemed worthy
of being overwhelmed by an unhinged universe?
Is it upon us the last day has come?

As in the Thyestes, this song of the chorus was one of the longer choral interludes that indicated the conclusion of an act. Following the exit of the messenger who had reported the last words of Jesus, only the mourning women remained on the stage, indicating that a new act of the play was about to begin.

[1] Apologia XXI, 19.

[2] The Jewish War VI, 5, 7.

[3]Heinrich Paulus, Das Leben Jesu als Grundlage einer reinen Geschichte des Urchristentums (1828).

[4]This view, first put out by J. J. Griesbach in 1776, has found support in recent decades in the writings of William R. Farmer and others. Cf. Farmers Jesus and the Gospel (Fortress Press: Philadelphia, 1982).

[5] Just as there have been Christians who have tried to rationalize the darkness at the time of the crucifixion by assuming that an eclipse of the sun happened to take place at that moment, a similar rationalist effort had been applied to the darkening of the sky at the moment of Hercules death. Hercules has been called an astrologer, because he threw himself into the flames on the day in which an obscuration of the sun was going to take place. (Festus, De verborum significatu Book VIII, s.v. Hercules).

jbernier · 07-23-2004, 09:40 AM

Points to make:

1) Let us assume for a moment that GofJohn (or the earliest PN) was, indeed, written as a play. That does not necessarily mean that it does not refer to events in the real world. Or, to put it otherwise, it could have been a play in which the central character is based upon a real person named "Jesus of Nazareth."
2) Let us continue to assume that GofJohn (or the earliest PN) was, indeed, written as a play. That does not mean that it was not written by Christian communities who adopted the format of ancient drama to present their understanding of how Jesus was. Indeed, that might hope clarify what the original role of some of the gospel texts were in the earliest Christian communities.
3) Let us continue to assume that GofJohn (or the earliest PN) was, indeed, written as a play. Let us assume that it was written by Seneca the pagan to be performed in Rome. If it was written by Seneca the pagan to be performed in Rome we have a problem explaining reception. I think one would have a hard time explaining how within a few decades this Roman play written by a Roman pagan was accepted by Christian communities as authoritative text(s). I think that one would have to posit a degree of ignorance and/or willful deception on an unbelievably grand scale to make this work.
4) Christians were working overtime, particularly in the 2nd century, to counter the negative criticism of outsiders. I know of no instance in which an apologist has to respond to the idea that the gospels were just Roman plays. One would expect that such a charge would come up if such were the case. I am happy to send corrected, however as I am certainly not familiar with all this literature.

I have no problem imagining that early Christian writers wrote the gospel texts using dramatic form and convention. However that only gets us so far: We then have to consider the implications of this would be - and they might not be that major. I think it much harder to buy the idea that someone completely unassociated with the Christian communities wrote these texts and they were later received as authoritative works.

jbernier · 07-23-2004, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

(quoted from Nazarenus)
But why should the miraculous opening of the Holy of Holies of the Temple consist of the splitting in two from top to bottom of the curtain that closed it?

The explanation of this choice is to be found in Senecas theory of the cause of earthquakes. We must not forget that Seneca was not only a poet, a philosopher, and a statesman, but also a natural scientist. He dedicated to the causes of earthquakes the entire sixth book of his Natural Questions in which he seriously championed against others the theory, first proposed by Epicurus, that earthquakes are caused by underground accumulations of air. According to him air has the power to penetrate the depth of the earth and to amass itself forcibly in underground cavities; the air so accumulated has more violent energy than any other element of nature, earth, water, or fire. In order to prove that air has the power to amass itself in hollows and then burst out, Seneca dedicates an entire chapter (30) to the argument that one has often seen bronze statues split unaccountably into two; this happened because these statues were hollow, and air had accumulated inside them.

This does not, however, mean that Seneca wrote the Matthean account. There are other explanations. Matthew may have been familiar with Seneca. Or there may have been a general understanding of earthquakes which both Seneca and Matthew draw upon. Or they may be totally unrelated and coincidental. Each of these is a possible explanation.

Amaleq13 · 07-23-2004, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandslice

Specifically, the Last Supper (1 Cor 11) and the heavy focus on crucifixion/resurrection, the main components of the doctrine of the atonement.

According to Paul it was "The Lord's Supper" but he claims to have learned of it by revelation from the Risen Christ. I didn't see anything in the play that might have inspired it. I agree that Paul's theology focuses heavily on the crucifixion/resurrection but I understood "events" to refer to details. The connection between Paul and Seneca would be much stronger if Paul has provided similar details.

Quote:

That also depends on the dating of Acts; if AActs did travel with Paul, then Acts 1 contains the claim. If Acts is late, then the specific is conceded.

I find the arguments for a late dating of Acts to be more compelling and do not believe the author was a companion of Paul. It reads to me as a fabricated history intended, at least in part, to disguise early conflict between Paul and the group in Jerusalem.

I am a notorious creator of tangents so I apologize to Clivedurdle for the partial derailment to Paul and Acts.

Clivedurdle · 07-23-2004, 10:40 AM

Quote:

I am a notorious creator of tangents so I apologize to Clivedurdle for the partial derailment to Paul and Acts.

No problem!

JBernier, I don't think it required any deception or mindshifting.

Imagine a play (although it is beginning to sound like it might have been a multi part spectacular in the Roman Ampitheatre) I think it would have gone down a storm with the roman public because it is an exciting story of an equivalent to Hercules - probably bigger because he is the son of this wierd Jewish God and all Romans know about their funny temple and their belief that there is only one God.

Seneca got killed very soon after and there is a mising work that was replaced by a friend. I can see this as a highpoint of a career - such a succesful one that it creates a new religion!

It sounds like there were "christians" around but of a gnostic version - their beliefs had not been concretised into a Jesus character. There is more than enough evidence of the struggle between the gnostic view and the "realos" eventually ending in the realos calling the gnostics heretics.

And all because of a spectacularly successful play!

Has anyone looked at the Gospels and asked do they make more sense if originally Latin?

Rick Sumner · 07-23-2004, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amlodhi

Also, there are indications that the understanding of the original followers of Jesus was within the framework of acceptable Jewish eschatology; i.e. sans the later accoutrements of Paul and the gospel writers.

What would you suggest is outside the framework of acceptable Jewish eschatology in the Pauline epistles?

It looks thoroughly Jewish to me.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Clivedurdle · 07-23-2004, 01:00 PM

Is human sacrifice, someone dying for our sins acceptable to Jews?

Rick Sumner · 07-23-2004, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Is human sacrifice, someone dying for our sins acceptable to Jews?

Is Paul's eschatology characterized by Jesus' savlific act? Or by the parousia?

Eschatology refers to end time beliefs. It is, by definition, a future event.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

07-23-2004, 06:31 AM	#21
Rick Sumner Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Calgary, Alberta Canada Posts: 2,612	Before we look at how the play could be preformed, we need to establish that it's likely it was one. It's not enough to state that plays had similar motifs--art, after all, has to have verisimillitude. What manners of the presentation of the Passion indicate that it might have been a play? What comparisons in presentation could be made between the gospels and plays, and more importantly, are those points of comparison unique to plays? Is there something that is used primarily, or better yet solely, in plays that appears in the gospels? Regards, Rick Sumner

07-23-2004, 09:40 AM	#24
jbernier Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: ON, Canada Posts: 1,011	Points to make: 1) Let us assume for a moment that GofJohn (or the earliest PN) was, indeed, written as a play. That does not necessarily mean that it does not refer to events in the real world. Or, to put it otherwise, it could have been a play in which the central character is based upon a real person named "Jesus of Nazareth." 2) Let us continue to assume that GofJohn (or the earliest PN) was, indeed, written as a play. That does not mean that it was not written by Christian communities who adopted the format of ancient drama to present their understanding of how Jesus was. Indeed, that might hope clarify what the original role of some of the gospel texts were in the earliest Christian communities. 3) Let us continue to assume that GofJohn (or the earliest PN) was, indeed, written as a play. Let us assume that it was written by Seneca the pagan to be performed in Rome. If it was written by Seneca the pagan to be performed in Rome we have a problem explaining reception. I think one would have a hard time explaining how within a few decades this Roman play written by a Roman pagan was accepted by Christian communities as authoritative text(s). I think that one would have to posit a degree of ignorance and/or willful deception on an unbelievably grand scale to make this work. 4) Christians were working overtime, particularly in the 2nd century, to counter the negative criticism of outsiders. I know of no instance in which an apologist has to respond to the idea that the gospels were just Roman plays. One would expect that such a charge would come up if such were the case. I am happy to send corrected, however as I am certainly not familiar with all this literature. I have no problem imagining that early Christian writers wrote the gospel texts using dramatic form and convention. However that only gets us so far: We then have to consider the implications of this would be - and they might not be that major. I think it much harder to buy the idea that someone completely unassociated with the Christian communities wrote these texts and they were later received as authoritative works.

07-23-2004, 01:00 PM	#29
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Is human sacrifice, someone dying for our sins acceptable to Jews?

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.