Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 02-20-2004, 12:30 AM

Price does not footnote this, but I think this is what he is referring to.

From Irenaeus, The Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (translated from the Armenian translation, transcribed by Roger Pearse)

Quote:

74. And again David (says) thus concerning the sufferings of Christ: Why did the Gentiles rage, and the people imagine vain things? Kings rose up on the earth, and princes were gathered together, against the Lord and his Anointed.205 For Herod the king of the Jews and Pontius Pilate, the governor of Claudius Caesar,[206] came together and condemned Him to be crucified.[207] For Herod feared, as though He were to be an earthly king, lest he should be expelled by Him from the kingdom. But Pilate was constrained by Herod and the Jews that were with him against his will to deliver Him to death: (for they threatened him) if he should not rather do this[208] than act contrary to Caesar, by letting go a man who was called a king.

[note 206]. 1 Pilate was procurator of Judaea for ten years (27-37). Claudius did not become emperor until A.D. 42. The statement here made is therefore inconsistent with the chronology of history: but it agrees with the view, expressed in II, xxxiii. 2ff., that our Lord reached aetatem seniorem, that is, an age between 40 and 50: a view which is largely based on John viii. 57: "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? " For these words seemed to Irenaeus to show that He could not have been much less than fifty at the time when they were spoken. See C. H. Turner's art. "Chronology" in Hastings' Dict. of the Bible.

From Maurice Goguel Jesus the Nazarene

Quote:

Irenaeus (Haer., ii. 22-5) declares, basing his statement on the fourth Gospel and on the presbyters who had known John�that is to say upon the work of Papias,[1]�as admitted by all critics, that Jesus died not at the age of thirty, but at the age of fifty,[2] and it is certainly Irenaeus who is the authority for writers attesting the same belief.[3] Irenaeus is familiar with the canon of the four Gospels, and attributes to it an absolute value, leaving no place for the Aprocyphal Gospels.[4] It is, therefore, highly improbable that he was inspired by a tradition differing from theirs. His ideas originate in a particular interpretation of the Gospel data.

Corssen has observed that in the very passage of which we are speaking Irenaeus declares that after His baptism Jesus came three times to Jerusalem for the Passover. In this statement he is in flagrant contradiction with himself. Two indications have been found in Irenaeus which put us upon the track of the explanation sought for. In the first place, in the same passage where he gives his opinion as to the age of Jesus at death, Irenaeus says that He must have sanctified by His death all the periods of human life (Haer., xxii). This is a dogmatic observation which scarcely fits in with the authority of the Gospel traditions which he recognizes.

In the second place, Irenaeus (ii. 22-5) relies on the authority of the fourth Gospel and the tradition of the presbyters who had known John�that is, upon Papias. It is possible to trace the exegetical process by which the idea of Jesus dying at the age of fifty years has been extracted from the fourth Gospel. In John viii. 57 the Jews say to Jesus, "Thou art not yet fifty years old." There is evidently here no indication as to the real age of Jesus at the time, but Irenaeus, and no doubt the presbyters before him, being desirous of representing Jesus as sanctifying the age at which it was supposed that a man attained the plentitude of his powers, have understood this passage to suggest that Jesus was nearly fifty years old.[1]

One other text of the Gospel may have suggested or confirmed this interpretation. In the episode of the purification of the Temple the Jews asked Jesus to justify by a miracle the authority which He had claimed in expelling the traders. He replied: "Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days" (ii. 19), which remark, observes the evangelist, did not refer to the Temple of Jerusalem, but to the body of Jesus (ii. 21). The Jews retorted: "Forty-six years was this Temple in building, and Thou wilt rebuild it in three days!" (ii. 20). It only required to apply the same symbolism to this reply of the Jews as to the declaration of Jesus to arrive at the same idea that Jesus was forty-six years old at the time of the incident of the purification of the Temple.

There is, therefore, in the work of Irenaeus no tradition on behalf of which it is possible to criticize that of the Gospels. There are only speculations inspired by allegorical principles and dogmatic considerations. The opinion of Irenaeus and of those who followed him cannot be interpreted as the proof of the existence of doubts and hesitations concerning the current tradition. And it is deducing from very inconsistent premises conclusions singularly unwarranted to suppose, with M. Salomon Reinach, that a tradition which represented Jesus as dying in the reign of Claudius�that is, after A.D. 41�could not originally have mentioned Pontius Pilate, who was disgraced in A.D. 36, for this presumes that the most ancient narrative of the Passion must have contained no mention of the name of the Roman Procurator.

Amlodhi · 02-20-2004, 08:16 AM

Thanks everyone for providing input on this matter.

And to Toto, thanks for reproducing the excerpt from Maurice Goguel's "Jesus the Nazarene".

I had read some of Goguel's remarks before and, to a large extent, his evaluation tends to reflect my own opinion that Irenaeus' statement was based largely on the faulty exegesis of John 8:57.

However, I don't think that Goguel's extended conclusion is warranted. He remarks:

Quote:

The opinion of Irenaeus and of those who followed him cannot be interpreted as the proof of the existence of doubts and hesitations concerning the current tradition.

This seems to be a subtle misdirection. The primary concern is not "the opinion of Irenaeus and of those who followed him". The primary concern is the claim that this tradition is said to trace back to the apostles themselves, albeit through Papias, via those who knew and spoke with these apostles directly.

While it may be allowed that this in itself is not "proof" of the existence of "doubts and hesitations" regarding other apostolic traditions, neither does it provide a basis for any level of confidence in presupposing their veracity.

A further disconcerting element arises from the implication that there was a general lack of actual historical knowledge regarding Jesus' ministry at such an early date. To dismiss this claim of apostolic tradition as simply an embarrassing blunder is to ignore the fact that anyone with a working knowledge of the dates and people involved in the actual events would have immediately understood the ramifications of such an assertion.

If, for instance, this tradition promulgated by Papias is to be dismissed as erroneous, what reason do we have to believe this same Papias regarding the tradition that Matthew originally wrote his gospel in the Hebrew language?

Again thanks for your input,

Amlodhi

spin · 02-21-2004, 08:32 AM

Consider then the notion that John the baptizer died close to the end of Tiberius's reign, as per Josephus's explanation of the strife between Judea and Nabataea, he says brought on by the death of the baptizer. That easily implies an age of over 40 for any arithmetically adventurous early xian who knew the story about the massacre of the innocents being in Herod the Great's time. Say 5 BCE to 37 CE....

spin

Amlodhi · 02-22-2004, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by spin

Consider then the notion that John the baptizer died close to the end of Tiberius's reign, as per Josephus's explanation of the strife between Judea and Nabataea . . .

Thanks spin, for pointing this out, and I am considering it. Although I am finding that trying to untangle the dates for how much time elapsed between Herod the tetrarch's marriage to his sister-in-law and his subsequent thrashing by Aretas is like trying to wade through a quagmire.

Still, it is as you say, and I've yet to see how this marriage could have occurred early enough for John to have been imprisoned before Jesus started his ministry.

Namaste'

Amlodhi

spin · 02-22-2004, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Amlodhi
Thanks spin, for pointing this out, and I am considering it. Although I am finding that trying to untangle the dates for how much time elapsed between Herod the tetrarch's marriage to his sister-in-law and his subsequent thrashing by Aretas is like trying to wade through a quagmire.

Still, it is as you say, and I've yet to see how this marriage could have occurred early enough for John to have been imprisoned before Jesus started his ministry.

John seems to give Jesus 3 years of ministry going to Jerusalem. Pilate had already been sent home...

And I'd love to know the significance of Tertullian's aside in Contra Marcion 4,7 in which he says,

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius (for such is Marcion's proposition) he "came down to the Galilean city of Capernaum"

This "for such is Marcion's proposition" seems to refer to " the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius", but I don't have the original text to check. What would be the problem with "the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius"? Perhaps it's worded badly and should refer ahead rather than back.

spin

Amlodhi · 02-22-2004, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by spin

. . . but I don't have the original text to check.

If you do get the opportunity to check the original Latin, please let me know what you find out. As it is, the parenthetical aside makes no sense.

The only objection Tertullian can have here is in Marcion editing Luke to connect Ch. 3 vs. 1 (which actually refers to John receiving the word of God in the wilderness in the 15th year of Tiberius) directly with Ch.4 vs. 31 (which refers to Jesus "coming down to Capernaum"). And this being done to suggest that Jesus "came down" to Capernaum directly from the Creator's heaven at this time.

Other than that, according to our modern version of Luke, Jesus most likely did come down to Capernaum in the 15th year of Tiberius, albeit via Nazareth rather than directly from heaven.

As I suspect you are suggesting, the only way Tertullian's aside can make sense (in translation) is if he thought Jesus came to Capernaum at some other (later?) time.

Thanks again for the input spin, you often have some interesting insights.

Amlodhi

spin · 02-23-2004, 02:26 AM

This apparent direct citation of Marcion by Tertullian has only recently been shown to me and it proves to be quite tantalising for it intimates that Marcion knew nothing about Nazareth, for there is nothing about Nazareth in the current gospel of Luke which would be offensive to him had it been there in the gospel tradition, so I conclude that it's probable that Nazareth was not in Luke's earliest form, if indeed Marcion used Luke and not vice versa. Whichever the dependence between these two works, the beginning of Luke probably looked like the beginning of Marcion's gospel.

Tertullian proceeds to criticize Marcion's gospel based on his (Tertullian's) knowledge of Matthew:

Marcion must even expunge from the Gospel, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel;" and, "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs,"--in order, forsooth, that Christ may not appear to be an Israelite.

This is of course an unfair criticism, assuming that Marcion was basing his work on Luke for the material is not in Luke. (He does go on to use a reference which comes from Luke in his argument.)

Quote:

Originally posted by Amlodhi
As I suspect you are suggesting, the only way Tertullian's aside can make sense (in translation) is if he thought Jesus came to Capernaum at some other (later?) time.

In such a situation as outlined above, Tertullian could be querying Marcion's locating in time of his gospel as new information to him (Tertullian).

spin

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

02-21-2004, 08:32 AM	#13
spin Contributor Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: nowhere Posts: 15,747	Consider then the notion that John the baptizer died close to the end of Tiberius's reign, as per Josephus's explanation of the strife between Judea and Nabataea, he says brought on by the death of the baptizer. That easily implies an age of over 40 for any arithmetically adventurous early xian who knew the story about the massacre of the innocents being in Herod the Great's time. Say 5 BCE to 37 CE.... spin

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.