judge

Thanks for this Squiz, I almost missed this. I have to agree everything here does seem to fit, unless I am missing something. Either of the proposed dates for the death of Herod would work here as well those being Dec 5th and Jan 28, although there may be problems with Dec 5 (but leaving that aside for the moment).

The author of "The star that astonished the world" seems to have different date for the day of atonement. November I think. Perhaps Prax can help?

From here. The Lunar Eclipse of Josephus

I will try to get another opinion on the date of day of Atonement.

Steven Avery

Your silence was telling.
So 'translating' your silence was sensible.
Remember you had written disparagingly about -

"Lukan precision on the Roman titles and rulerships"

About 10 separate times (!) saying things like..

"We are left with the vast precision of the fact that the writer got "tetrarch" right."

It was important to correct your attempt at disinformation through
laughter and mockery and that is done above.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

judge

If Richard is giving weight to the scrolls of fasting data and going with the 5 Dec date (rather than the other option which is Jan) then doesn't this place Herods death in 5 BCE and not 4 BCE?

Or perhaps this is just a function of different calendars?

JoeWallack

JW:
At this point I think it would be beneficial to once again bring in the big picture here and lay out the overall Summary of why "Matthew" and "Luke" Contradict each other on the supposed year of Jesus' birth. The Key time markers are established by Josephus, the most famous historian of the applicable time period and generally considered an authority for the applicable time, place and people by everyone including Christianity.

Josephus:

--Herod the Great receives Kingdom

----AJ 14.389 & 14.487 & Appian BC 5.75

--Succession by Archelaus of Herod the Great

----AJ 17.191 & WJ 1.665

--Archelaus removed after ten years

----AJ 17.342

--Archelaus removed and Quirinius was made responsible for his
--territory at the time Quirinius was made Governor of Syria.

----AJ 17.354, 18.1, 18.26, 20.102

----Cassius Dio 55.27.6 (removal)

--Roman coins minted in Judea start around 6 CE which is when --Quirinius became Governor of Syria.

The next step is to match up any information from the birth accounts of "Matthew" and "Luke" that correspond to time markers found in Josephus.

Matthew:
1) Per "Matthew" Herod the Great was King when Jesus was born.

2) Per "Matthew" Archelaus succeeded Herod the Great as to part of the Kingdom when Herod the Great died.

Luke
1) Per "Luke" Jesus was born after Quirinius became Governor of Syria and started a Census.

Contradiction
Using Josephus as a Time reference "Matthew" dates Jesus' birth before Archelaus succeeded Herod the Great while "Luke" dates Jesus' birth after Archelaus succeeded Herod the Great and had ruled for ten years.

JW:
The above takes Specific information from "Matthew" and "Luke" and Matches it Directly to Time Markers given by Josephus.

Note especially that there does not appear to be any direct and ancient evidence contradicting the above. Defenders of the Christian Bible are trying to present evidence which doubts parts of the above but it is all based on Indirect Implications. These Defenders have not provided any alternative Summary to the above here which would avoid a Contradiction. Presumably this is because they either don't know what that summary would be and can not figure it out from the Apologetic sources they quote from. Because they have not I will try to get such a Summary started and the Defenders here are welcome to improve upon it:

Matthew:
1) Per "Matthew" Herod the Great was King when Jesus was born.

Luke
1) Per "Luke" Jesus was born after Quirinius was in a ruling position related to Syria and involved in a Census.

Using Josephus as a Time reference "Matthew" dates Herod the Great's death to 2 BCE.

Using non-Josephus evidence as a Time reference "Luke" refers to a Quirinius related census in 3 BCE.

Per these Assertians Jesus can be born before Herod the Great dies and after the Quirinius census starts. Note though that this Summary has no Direct evidence to support it and that every Assertian is Contradicted by Direct evidence. This argument than is the exact opposite in terms of support of the argument for error where every assertion is supported by direct evidence and no assertion is contradicted by direct evidence.



Joseph

BIRTH, n.
The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

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

jgibson000

Here is the entry on ἀπογραφή from BDAG:

ἀπογραφή, η̂ς, ἡ (Lysias, Pla. et al.; Dit., Syll.3 1023, 45; 71; 1109, 34; 1157, 33, Or. 338, 11; 34; very freq. pap.; LXX, Ep. Arist., Joseph.) list, inventory of the statistical reports and declarations of citizens for the purpose of completing the tax lists and family registers (cf. Wilcken, Grundz. 175f; 178; 202ff; 225ff, Chrest. no. 198ff, esp. 202, the census edict of C. Vibius Maximus, 104 ad; on this Dssm., LO 231f [LAE 268f]). Lk 2:2 the word means census, registration, of the census taken by Quirinius. Joseph. puts a census taken by Q. in 6/7 ad (cf. Jos., Bell. 7, 253, Ant. 18, 3). Presumably Ac 5:37 ἐν τ. ἡμ�*ραις τ. ἀπογραφη̂ς also refers to this census. The chronology is full of problems, on which see the commentaries and lit. Cf. Schürer I4 508-43 (the older lit. is given here); Ramsay, Bearing 238ff; Zahn, Lk 129-35 and Exk. IV; EKlostermann, Hdb. on Lk 2:1-3; M-JLagrange, RB n.s. 8, ’11, 60-84; EGroag, Prosopogr. Beitr. VII (Jahresh. d. Österr. Arch. Inst. 21/22, ’24 Beiblatt, cols. 445-78); HWindisch, NThT 16, ’27, 106-24; Av Premerstein, Ztschr. d. Savigny-Stiftg. f. Rechtsgeschichte 48, ’28, Rom. Abt. 449ff; LR Taylor, AJPh 54, ’33, 120-33; EWSeraphin, CBQ 7, ’45, 91-6; FHauck, Theol. Hndkomm., Lk p. 37; Gdspd., Probs. 71 f; EStauffer, Jesus, Gestalt u. Geschichte, ’57, Die Dauer des Census Augusti: Studien zum NT u. zur Patristik, ’61, 9-34; HUInstinsky, D. Jahr der Geburt Christi, ’57; HBraunert, Cives Romani und ΚΑΤʼ ΟΙΚΙΑΝ Α�*ΟΓΡΑΦΑΙ: Antidoron MDavid in Papyrologica Lugd.-Bat. vol. 17, ’68, 11-21 (lit.). S. also on ἡγεμονεύω and Κυρήνιος. M-M.*

JG

jgibson000

Could we have the text of this inscription, please? Or lacking that, the Greek word that is translated by your source as "oath"?

JG

spin

Of course. But you didn't understand. It said, when you have anything substantive to talk about then I might be able to deal with it. But instead you are reheating old apologetics that have no content. Jeez, Luke contains all these references! Isn't that impressive? Perhaps a quarter of what Josephus has in one section of a chapter. Impressive? Yeah, sure, to someone who doesn't look at any evidence.

You can and have done whatever you liked, but so often it is little related to what went before.

It would be nice if you did so with something meaningful instead of this cow-eyed wonder stuff. You have no perspective when you talk about Lucan accuracy and precision. It may be true when compared to other christian literature, but when you try to give it a maiden run in the world of historical writing, your nag will probably show its true colors by trailing the field by a few furlongs.

Your post was a waste of time trying by pointing out how wonderful the text is historically to show that it couldn't possibly have errors. That is more of your typical apologetic subterfuge. Instead of dealing with the obvious issues, you blow smoke.


spin

Steven Avery

Definitely, after you had tried to snow the forum that the only references were basically Tetrarch. Your sad disinformation campaign went down in flames.

Not only does Luke have a good number of references on Roman titles (a small element of his general historicity) they are seen to be solid and strong and precise. Even to getting the right position in the right land in the right time.

Oops.
Ten mocking, laughing blunders from one spin. Amazing. The curious thing is whether spin actually knew and was trying to snow the forum or whether he was just ignorant. I doubt he will own up either way so we can only conjecture.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin3 Perhaps a quarter of what Josephus has in one section of a chapter

Perhaps Josephus is as precise and accurate. Perhaps not.

The basic point is that Josephus is a very good historian who wrote large books. Luke is a precise and excellent historian with two smaller books.

Good starting point. Now let us see how they discuss an issue. John the Baptist, Herod, Judah the Galilean, etc. On occasion they are discussing the same events.

Now that the roman titles issue has been clarified .. it is still helpful to go into this historicity of Luke more (despite spin's desperate protestations and diversions). So next it might be good to discuss some of the vaporized attacks on Luke (one poster asked for examples) and the many dozens of other sound and accurate historical and geographical references Luke gives.

All of this is necessary because Luke's general superb accuracy is either hand-waved or ignored by the skeptics - trying so hard to claim problems in two areas.

And the underlying issue is first and foremost Luke's general very high historical repute. Getting that simple truth straight first is the valid position from which to look at the couple of disputed specific issues.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

spin

Contentless crap, praxeus. I know you're trying to maintain a standard, but does it have to be so low?


spin

judge

Hi squiz, I have got a little further with this, though not far enough.

Apparently the exact time of Yom Kippur could not always be known in advance, and could vary by about a month, possibly making it occur in Oct not Sept.

IIUC the jews had 12 lunar months (of 28 days making 354 days in 12 months) and every 2 or 3 years and extra month was added. If the barley crop was not ready at the "expected" time an extra month was added. Naturally this would occur every 2 or 3 years.
So every 2 or three years they would have 13 (lunar) months instead of 12.

So without knowing whether this factor did place the 5BCE day of atonement a month later, it is possible that it did happen that year IIUC.
Perhaps there is a record somewhere of whether this happened in 5BCE?