Attonitus

Hi Bernard,

Sorry by my careless writing. I only refer to this concrete persecution described by Tacitus.

Neither Tertullian, Suetonius, Dio Cassius, Pliny the Elder neither Eusebius know a persecution of the Christians associate with the burning of Rome. In the quote of Tacitus the reference to Christ "crucified under Pontius Pilate" is certainly a "hint of Christian theology", as well the curious comparison of those punishments suffered by the incendiary with those of the Crucified.

Regards,

Bernard Muller

Spin:
Here it is:
So Aretas made this the first {occasion} of his hostility between him and Herod
[it does not seem Aretas & Antipas prepared for war then, just that the feud between the two kings started then]
` who had also some quarrel with him about their limits at the country of Gamalitis. So they raised armies on both sides, and prepared for war [but the battle came later!]."
I see Herod's repudiation of Aretas' daughter as the start of hostility between the two kings. Then later we have preparation of war. There is no urgency described here from the repudiation to the battle.
Another reason of animosity between the two, mentioned by Josephus (and myself) is Gamalitis:
My comment on that is:
This area was part of the tetrarchy of Philip. But after Philip's death (33-34C.E.), it is likely both Herod and Aretas lobbied for it (before its annexation to Syria). Consequently, this latter quarrel must have started then.

Because Josephus mentions later another cause for the quarrel, "first occasion" might be correct, rather than "main". Regardless, Josephus is clear that the war was not because of only one thing, but several ones.

The point is that this not-Christian story feature Salome as a girl. However Josephus said this girl got married to Philip, the tetrarch. This Philip died in 33-34. Then Salome, a widow, remarried. Whoever made the story was not thinking 35, but before 33.

Really. What do you mean? The episode with JB and the repudiation and the battle has been narrated earlier.
Here is the sequencing from Josephus' Antiquities, XVIII, VI, 2-3: the future Agrippa I visits Herod and Herodias "who was now the wife of Herod the tetrach". Then he is given a position in Tiberias which he occupies for some (unspecified) time. Then he goes and stays in Syria when his friend Flaccus is its president (32-35C.E.). The length of his sejourn here is not told. Then Agrippa sails to Rome when Flaccus is still ruling.
I note you assume the two unspecified durations are very short, but it could be easily years. Furthermore when Agrippa visits Herod & Herodias, the wedding might have occured years before.

According to Josephus, Ant., XVIII, V, 1, it is not specified Herod married Herodias while in Rome. Only an agreement which stipulated that Herod should divorce Aretas' daughter first. I think you are reading more here that I see:
"ABOUT this time Aretas (the king of Arabia Petres) and Herod had a quarrel
on the account following: Herod the tetrarch had, married the daughter of
Aretas, and had lived with her a great while; but when he was once at Rome,
he lodged with Herod, (15) who was his brother indeed, but not by the same
mother; for this Herod was the son of the high priest Sireoh's daughter.
However, he fell in love with Herodias, this last Herod's wife, who was the
daughter of Aristobulus their brother, and the sister of Agrippa the Great. This
man ventured to talk to her about a marriage between them; which address, when she admitted, an agreement was made for her to change her habitation, and come to him as soon as he should return from Rome: one article of this marriage also was this, that he should divorce Aretas's daughter. So Antipus, when he had made this agreement, sailed to Rome; but when he had done there the business he went about, and was returned again, his wife having discovered the agreement he had made with Herodias, ..."
And Herodias also needed time to divorce her husband.
No royal marriage in Rome. More so the logical place for that would have been in Galilee, in front of all the Galilean VIPs and foreign dignitaries. Are you suggesting Herod married Herodias in secret, expecting his earlier wife to think she was the only one and still getting royal treatment?

SNIPPED

Best regards, Bernard

rlogan

Attonitus - I did find that discussion by Doughty:

http://www.courses.drew.edu/sp2000/B...1/Tacitus.html

That was very interesting, thank you.

I know there were threads discussing this in the past here. When the search function is fixed we can find those. I knew so little then that I would not have understood the significance.

The value to this thread is that the dating of the epistles relies on the assertion Paul was executed in the Neronian persecition.

Bernard Muller

rlogan:
I certainly did not use the Neronian persecutions to date the Pauline epistles. Who does?

From the referred site of Darrell J. Doughty:
Pliny the Elder (died 79 CE)? Did he refer to Nero's persecution of Christians?
Can I get a quote?

Best regards, Bernard

rlogan

I already did give a cite above, Bernard. I think Toto did too.

Now - why did you cut out the remainder of the sentence above:

"but none of these associates the persecution of Christians with the burning of Rome."

That is rather the whole point of Doughty's piece. I think the readers need to surmize for themselves what Doughty is saying, because he makes other interesting points too.

"The silence in early Christian sources concerning this event is deafening."

I didn't say that [I]you[I] used the date 64 CE as an upper bound.

To your question about Pliny - Nowhere in his writings does he say Paul was executed in some Neronian persecution.

Best regards too Bernard.

Bernard Muller

to rlogan:
Sorry, I undertand your fine point about fire/no_fire mentioned about Nero's persecution of Christians.

rlogan's quote:
Agreed, but:
Bernard's quote:
I do not care about Paul here. I want the reference from Pliny the Elder stating Nero persecuted Christians. Can anyone provide it to me? Frankly, I am doubtful (but I would like it!).

Best regards, Bernard

rlogan

Please forgive Bernard. Still recovering from my lobotomy. Don't have a cite handy.

spin

I won't try to disentangle what Bernard did, as mentioned in my first point above, but merely point readers to his link for people to decide whether he has merely tarted it up because of his a priori position that the war must have started long after the divorce.

As to my second point of relying on Whiston's translation of Josephus:

He simply lists two grievances, the main one, ie the divorce, and a second one, which in itself wasn't sufficient cause for war.

On to the lovely story of Salome dancing for Herod Antipas, my third point:

Whoever "made the story up" had no constraints of being historical.

On my statement regarding Josephus's inversion of historical order:

Josephus talks of Flaccus after he talks of Vitellius. Clear sign of an inversion of historical order, which in fact should be a happy thing for your cause.

Yep, you've got it.

But the point is that he had narrated the marriage before the visit of Agrippa, so he mentions the marriage. It's not a statement you can make much mileage out of.

Well, it might have, but it is particularly unlikely, as the divorce of his Nabataean wife is given as prime cause for the war which happened in 36 CE.

And incidentally the Greek text of 18.6.2 doesn't mention being married, just "living together" (synoikew).

What makes you think that?

Just a marriage agreement which had Herodias coming back to Judea "as soon as he should return from Rome".

I have no problem with that. They were now living together, as per 18.6.2, for the agreement was that she would come to him as soon as he returned.

No, I'm suggesting that Herod Antipas tried to hide the marriage arrangement from his wife, as indicated in the citation you gave.

There seems to be no tangible case for the unnatural separation of nine years from the divorce proceedings and the war. The natural progress to war with all its preparations requires perhaps at least a year -- including the wait for the right season -- from the decision, so given travel time and time to make the decision, we could reasonably be looking at 34 CE for the marriage arrangement coming to the awareness of Aretas's daughter.


spin

Bernard Muller

rlogan:
Sorry to hear that!
Anyway, I made some research on Dio Cassius and Pliny the Elder, and none of them wrote about 'Christians'. Period.
Dio mentioned the big fire in Rome during Nero but no Christians there. He also wrote about two VIPs in Domitian's entourage (one being Domitilla) punished because they were "atheists" (which may mean Christians, according to some). But that's about it.
I think this Doughty is not a thorough scholar.

Best regards, Bernard

Yuri Kuchinsky

No, capnkirk, there are questions about the authorship of all of Paul's letters.

And I'd say that all letters attributed to him are clearly not his.

Most scholars think that Colossians and Ephesians are not by Paul.

In any case, there's not all that much agreement among scholars about the dating of any particular letter...

Well, you see the Pauline scholarship just happens to be an especially dishonest branch of NT scholarship. It's like the cream of the crooks, so to speak.

So there's not much surprise that they don't like to debate this sort of stuff.

If Paul didn't write any of these letters, then they should all be dated after 100 CE.

It's relly quite simple.

All the best,

Yuri