Steven Avery

Herod's administration was far from being truly independent.

Even when he acted acted his own sons, believed to be plotting against his life, Herod brought the offending conduct before the emporer. Not the actions of a ruler with "complete administrative control".

Herod was a creature of Augustus, a vassal of Rome. A King in appearance, a subject in reality, skilled in currying favor and bribery, a client-prince. And any independence was maximally nominal, Judea having been made tributary to the Romans.

In Herod's court was a procuratores Caesaris, whose duties included protection of the financial rights of Augustus in the country. And such procuratores were involved in taxation.

And even in that very limited state Herod was not always so 'favored'.

In fact there was a period of time, when he was old, that there was hostility between Augustus and Herod. Augustus was angry and emphasized that Herod was a subject. So much so that Herod sent two delegations to Rome to try to prevent a complete and final defavorment. And the first was an abject failure.

With this very checkered history one wonders how anyone can simply wax poetic about Herod's complete control, efficiency and favorment from Rome.

Without even mentioning these very substantive caveats.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

spin

You overlook that Herod had a good relationship with Augustus. There were no Roman troops in Herod's kingdom. It is normal that Rome had representatives in the kingdom.

Now thrill me with a Latin primary source for this!

When you can justify that there was a procurator, rather than an official representative, then you might like to consider that procurators merely dealt with finances, until Claudius gave them more powers. Quirinius was certainly not a lowly procurator.


spin

judge

Not at all. If you will notice fromt the opening post this thread was asking if anyone had dealt with the material in "The star that astonished the world".

The case seems to be that no one has sat down and refuted this work. It is a very very popular work. Richard carrier's article did not deal with it so I wondered if perhaps some one else had.

The video associated with it here was created by Griffith Obsevatory and presented on the MSNBC Mysteries of the Universe series.

IOW it has been seen very widely. I wondered whether anyone had refuted it. Apparently not.



But isn't he relying on the possible error made by Josephus.

If you wish to outline your idea of the correct chronology , or your coherent case do so, . Until you do so yiou aeren't proposing an alternative.


If you do not have a coherent case then don't. But please if you do propose one include all the evidence presented not just some of it.

judge

There still seem to be many many problems associated with this date that have not been refuted in any detail though.

I wont copy and paste the whole thing, but perhaps you could propse an alternate timeline to the one proposed here. Astronomy and the Death of King Herod Then there areadditional problems posed here The Lunar Eclipse of Josephus

Aas mentioned to Spin. This is a very popular work, perhaps the most popular used by apologists. It's not new so it seems curious no one has ever refuted it.

judge

Not really IIUC

from here The Lunar Eclipse of Josephus

spin

This was the core of your OP:

The most powerful argument from the christian site is that the census mentioned by Luke is in fact the registration and oath taking of 3 B.C.

And I've dealt with it as not reflecting the Lucan text, as there is no opportunity for an apografh to be an oath. We can see the same event described by Josephus with more detail from which we can securely date the event to 6CE and see that it had nothing to do with any oath, but the Roman direct administration of Judea after the dethronement of Archelaus.

I don't know if you've noticed, but I have said many times I don't give a hoot about Richard Carrier's article. If you want to quibble about it, take it up with him, if he can be bothered responding to you. If you remember there was a thread for you all to whinge about the article. You made hay while the sun shone. It's irrelevant here.

And I don't give a hoot about television junk food. Your job is to present a coherent argument, not allude to something you've umm seen on TV. That's just evening entertainment, judge.

As you can't make your case, there's no need for me to do so. You can't say anything because you've got nothing. You are dependent on a bunch of whackers whose only aim is to spew whatever is necessary to obfuscate the issue.

You've got nothing to say. I've shown you that Quirinius's census is sufficient to prove the case. Your answer: but what about all these quibblings other people have put forward. My answer: I am still waiting for you to make an opening presentation of your case. You have not done so. You will not do so. You've got nothing and you're caught with your pants down. And you're being told you need more sunlight.


spin

judge

My observation is that what may be the most popular apologist arguments WRT to the nativity etc. don't appear to have been addressed by sceptics and no alternative is suggested to it that looks at all the evidence.
I found this a curious situation.
You appear to have no alternative either.

If anyone comes up with one I would be interested to look at it.

Until then all we have is an apologist site dealing with evidence you appear unable to deal with.
If you could deal with all the evidence and present a coherent case presumably you would do so?

spin

Would you like to present something yet?

I find it curious how you refuse to actually present anything. Very curious.

Give me something to have no alternative for.

One what exactly? And I mean exactly. I would love something specific every now and then rather than these not clearly directed complaints.

Which evidence exactly is that now, judge? We've put the oath rubbish down. The eclipse has been shown to be irrelevant, as it cannot be seen to do what the apologist wants. So, which evidence exactly are you referring to, judge?

Let's face it, judge, you are never going to do your work. When you have something to present, so that I can have all the evidence on the table, rather than chase other people's manipulations of the data, I'll be happy to have "no alternative" for it.


spin

judge

The evidence is on the table.
Presently we have one method of dealing with it. That presented by the site linked here.
I dont present an alternative and neither do you. So I suppose we leave it there.
You can complain about it but already you have shown you haven't even bothered to read the portions I quoted from it here.
Until you present an alternative we still only have one person who has dealt with the evidence. Doesn't make him right of course but if you are the only horse in the race you do tend to be on very short odds.

judge

Hi Larsguy, I posted this same stuff back in post #137. It was ignored then so will probably be ignored again.

If Josephus is not inerrant on this stuff then the whole case for his death in 4BCE falls apart.
But as shown on tbsi thread there seem good reason to at least question the inerrancy ascribed to Josephus and consider he may have got this date wrong.