stephan huller

Rashi says that because Agrippa's mother was Jewish he was Jewish. The majority opinion of the Talmud was that he was a legitimate king.

Wow, this is like freeratio.org on acid. The comparison doesn't work. Let me explain. The Jerusalem altar must be regarded as an abomination. It only 'works' because John Hyrcanus destroyed the true altar, the actually referenced in the Torah - Gerizim. There is no EXPLICIT reference to Jerusalem in the Torah. That fact is impossible to get around.

Could Jews have turned their back on a Jerusalem altar? They did! They do to this day. Only modern radical kooks want to re-establish the sanctuary. I really wish people had some actual knowledge about Judaism.

Indeed what's so amazing about the parallels between early rabbinic Judaism and Christianity is that both agree that not only the Passover sacrifices but ALL SACRIFICES are never to return to Jerusalem. As I said, there are a new breed of loonies in Israel who want to re-establish the traditional sacrifices but THIS IS CERTAINLY NOT THE TRADITIONAL INTERPRETATION of Maimonides and all the sages since 70 CE.

Maimonides makes explicit that the period of sacrifices are over and they aren't coming back. Something else is going to eventually appear eventually but there is an uncanny sense throughout Jewish orthodoxy from the events of the destruction which acknowledge the spirit of earliest Christianity it is utterly uncanny.

Indeed the early rabbinic reports allude to sects within Judaism who take a Marcionite-like stand on meat and wine abstention too. Over time it seems rabbinic Judaism AND Catholic Christianity DEVELOPED AWAY from what can be loosely identified as the original 'common theology.'

You get this sense in the writings associated with Simon Magus where the heretics spoke in three different ways to three different communities - viz. the Father to the Samaritans, the Son to the Jews and the Holy Spirit to the Christians.

Now before we get too far away from my original point let's ask a simple question - why did the Jews think that the sacrifices HAD TO END in Jerusalem. It's not like this is an inevitable position. Just because you lose the temple doesn't mean you can't continue to sacrifice lambs. The Torah doesn't mention a temple. The Samaritans keep doing it to this very day.

What caused the Jews to come to a radical revision of their own orthodoxy? Indeed remember how important 'tradition' is to the Jews. Somehow you had a gathering of rabbis decide ON THEIR OWN to end up 'doing what the followers of Yeshu ben Pandera had been doing' supposedly for the last forty years - i.e. substituting bread for the 'meat' of the central ritual in their religion?

Indeed the commandment that this HAS TO BE DONE - i.e. the lamb offering - couldn't be made in stronger language AND IN NO WAY REQUIRES A TEMPLE OF ANY SORT.

It's absurd. It's always been absurd. And I can't believe that ANYONE accepts a word of what Acts PRETENDS was the history of Christianity in the 'apostolic period' leading up to the destruction of the temple.

It never happened.

Now your argument about the slaughter of Jews. Have you actually read the history of the Jewish monarchy throughout the Hasmonaean period? Slaughter, slaughter, slaughter, Jew on Jew violence. This wouldn't be an argument. The assumption was that everyone in Jerusalem was on the side of the insurgency. That may not be fair but that's how wars were waged.

Agrippa made his appeal to the Jews (in a long speech that takes up pages of Josephus's history) and points to Daniel 9:24 - 27 saying in effect 'you know what is going to happen' if you don't put down your arms. They throw stones at him and run him out of town. But notice also in the narrative (I am drawing from the Yosippon but it is present in other manuscripts I am sure) where every once and while the rebels are pictured saying to themselves 'You know that Agrippa said we should have sought peace and now look at the mess we're in' (sounds like ancient Laurel and Hardy).

The point is that Agrippa's hands were clean because he was the messiah of Daniel 9:26 according to the dominant interpretation of the period. The reasoning would be, the rebels should have known better and listened to him ...

The Acts of Apostles or 'Marcionite toilet paper' as I like to call it. The only thing worth noting is Agrippa is the earliest historical individual to be connected with the title christianos.

maryhelena

Rashi - never heard of him....So, easy way out of the dilemma to ignore the Herodian bloodline of Agrippa II in order to consider him a Jewish messiah figure. Ignore the siege of Jerusalem and its incredible slaughter of the innocent young and old. Easy done today with over 2000 years behind us. Methinks it might have been a very different situation way back then. Sure, Agrippa II was a legitimate king - but he was not King of Judea. The last King of Judea was Agrippa I.

Agrippa I: The Last King of Judaea By Daniel R. Schwartz (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Hitler analogy? I think the analogy is relevant re the Herodian bloodline of Agrippa II and his suitability for being viewed as a Jewish messiah figure. Sure, the rabbinic literature, seemingly, mentions an Agrippa - but identifying this Agrippa with the Agrippa II who carries the Herodian bloodline is another question altogether. That Jews would be willing to honor a grandson of the man who brought destruction upon them - can't see it. Can't see it any more than those christians that go around with a crucifix around their necks...

And as I've mentioned in other posts - it did not need 70 ce for all the re-thinking re Jerusalem and its temple. All it needed was the 37 bc siege of Jerusalem by Herod the Great. It did not need for the Jerusalem temple to be destroyed. That event simply put a full stop to the charade that had continued since 37 BC. Yes, wars are dirty business and Agrippa II did what he could re getting the Jews in Jerusalem to put down their arms. That simply makes the man a humanitarian not a Jewish messiah figure. Agrippa II never ruled over Judea - that puts him out of the running for a Jewish messiah figure.
Stephen, I'm with you all the way re Marcus Julius Agrippa, Agrippa II, being an important historical figure re early christian origins. I just don't believe this figure is the Jewish Messiah figure of Daniel ch.9. That figure was his father, Agrippa I. AKA - Philip the Tetrarch.

spamandham

Were Paul's Galatians, Corinthians, etc., Jews or gentiles? Even if it were true that ancient Jews never would have accepted Agrippa as a messiah figure, that doesn't imply that godfearers would have rejected him as well.

stephan huller

They did Mr. Spam and Ham.

I have compiled list after list to show this. I don't know why this is so unknown to people. Pick up any good critical commentary on Daniel and thumb down to the section which deals with Daniel 9:26. You'll see. Here are only the references to this well documented phenomenon from sources from the last three hundred years (I omit Luther, Calvin and other 'rock stars' of theology but I can keep going backward to the time of Agrippa but this should be placed in another post). The bottom line is that the Jewish tradition about the messiah Agrippa USED TO BE A STANDARD PART OF THE UNPINNING OF THE JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE (i.e. it contrasted a Jewish recognition of Agrippa as the messiah AGAINST the Christian identification of Jesus as such):

The Jews who came after him [Josephus], were willing to supply this defect. They have forged to us an Agrippa descended of Herod, whom the Romans, fay they, put to death a little before the destruction of Jerusalem; and they will have it, that this Agrippa, Christ by his title of king, is the Christ spoken of in Daniel . a fresh proof of their blindness! For besides that this Agrippa can neither be the righteous, nor the holy One, nor the end of the prophecies such as the Christ, whom Daniel pointed out in that place, must have been; besides that the murder of that Agrippa , in which the Jews had no hand, could not be the cause of their desolation, as the death of Daniel's Christ was to be; what the Jews say on this head is all a fable That Agrippa descended of Herod was ever on the side of the Romans: he was always well treated by their emperors, and reigned in a canton of Judea a long time after the taking of Jerusalem as Josephus and other contemporaries attest.

Thus all that the Jews devise to elude the prophecies, serves but to confute them. They themselves do not rely upon so gross fictions, and their best defence consists in that law, which they enacted, to compute no more the days of the Messiah.[Bousset An Universal History p. 261]

(R. Joseph Crooll, a Jewish teacher of Hebrew at Cambridge) first objects to the common rendering of the text 'the Messiah shall be cut off yet not for himself' [Dan 9:26] The Hebrew for the last section is ve-en lo and this our opponent, for very obvious purposes translates 'and not to him' instead of 'yet not for himself' that is, continues he, 'he shall have no successor.' He then proceeds to tell us who this Messiah is of whom it is thus pretended to be asserted that he shall have no successor; and our English readers will be somewhat surprised at finding, that, on the interpretation of the present writer, 'the messiah here alluded to, instead of being our Savior is Agrippa.'

'And this messiah,' says Mr. Crooll 'that was to be cut off was king Agrippa; and so it happened that in the last week, he and his son Monves were slain by the order of Titus.' [Kippis, Godwin The New Annual Register 1815 p. 371]

For though Jews, in opposition to Christians, say that the Messiah mentioned in the 25th verse is Cyrus, and that the Messiah mentioned in the 26th verse means King Agrippa, it is clear that the Messiah spoken of in the 25th verse, is the same Messiah mentioned in the 26th Verse ; the connexion is not in the least broken, nor is there a second person mentioned before the latter part of the 26th verse, when the Roman Emperor is introduced, who is only called prince, and not MESSIAH or ANOINTED. Surely if the petty King Agrippa was worthy of the title anointed, because he was a king, the Emperor of Rome had as great a right to such an appellation. But they say, 'the king was the Lord's anointed,' as David says with regard to Saul, Sam i, 26, 29 for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed. The kings of the Jews were not more the anointed of the Lord after the Babylonish captivity, than the idolatrous kings were the anointed of the Lord, neither can the Messiah of the 25th verse be applied to Cyrus ... nor can the Jews to this day make the Messiah of the 26th verse — shall Messiah be cut off- — apply to King Agrippa, who is said to have been put to death by Vespasian, about four years before the destruction of the temple; for it is evident from the account given by their own historian, Josephus, that he lived many years after the destruction of Jerusalem [Classical Journal, 1822, On the True Age of Christ at the Crucifixion, and the Fulfillment of the Seventy Weeks of Daniel p. 170]

As for the marked expression 'and not for himself' [Daniel 9:26 KJV] Mr. [David] Levi gives a very singular interpretation of it indeed. "Agrippa," fays he, " was put to death by Vespasian about four year* before the destruction of the temple: as was also his son: which is shewn by the words and not to him, ie there shall be no more of him: for since his death, there has been no more kingly power in the Jewish nation to this day' [Letters to the Jews by Joseph Priestly 1787 p. 66]

Jewish writers would have Herod Agrippa intended by the Messiah that was to be cut off, who they say was the last king of the Jews [A collection of sermons and tracts Volume 3 By John Gill 1778 p 338]

the Jews applied it (i.e. 'the prince Dan 9:25) to Herod Agrippa, who was slain shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem [A homiletical commentary on the book of Daniel By Thomas Robinson 1882 p. 197]

Your celebrated Rabbi [Abraham ben] Isaac [a sixteenth century Karaite] in his celebrated treatise entitled the Bulwark of the Faith, says, that the seventy weeks of Daniel are a period of four hundred and ninety years, to be reckoned from the worrd of God to Jeremiah concerning the return from the Babylonish Captivity, or from the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar to its destruction by Titus. He also says, that Messiah, the prince, in the former part of the prophecy means Cyrus, who is called the Messiah, or the anointed, by Isaiah; and that by the Messiah who is to " be cut off," in the latter part of the prophecy is meant the last king of the jews, or Agrippa the younger, who is said by a spurious Josephus (never quoted by any writer before the twelfth century) to have been killed by Vespasian before the taking of the city.[The Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestly Vol 20 1780 p. 242]

The fact that Karaites also shared this interpretation of Agrippa as the messiah of Daniel is quite significant as the official break between Rabbanites and Karaites occurred in the eighth century. Many scholars, including myself, date the origins of the Karaites back much further perhaps as far as the Sadducees. The fact that the Karaites maintained the same understanding of Agrippa as the messiah of Daniel makes absolutely certain that the tradition is very, very old undoubtedly dating back to the first century as I have suggested all along.

All these books are available from Google Books. To find them just snip a piece of the material and search ...

maryhelena

Paul's Galatians, Corinthians, etc. A mixed bunch I would imagine. Cyrus was considered an anointed messiah figure. Thus, the messianic role can be used in reference to non-Jews. The question mark over Agrippa II is his Herodian bloodline - and all that entails re the siege of Jerusalem and the terrible slaughter. Godfearers - of course - neither Jew nor Greek for Paul - so I would imagine that 'contaminated' bloodlines would not bother him at all. But if early christians were endeavoring to preach re a Jewish messiah figure - then, methinks, they had better have had all their ducks in a row...

A Jewish Messiah figure that did not rule over Judea, did not rule over the Jews - that's not going to get those early christians off the starting block....

aa5874

What you have posted does NOT show any tradition about Agrippa as a Messiah. You have merely posted some people's OPINION for the last 230 years or so.

Please start at around 1900 years ago instead of 230 years since people did not begin to call Jesus the Messiah in the 18th century.

maryhelena

As well as other books - like the one quoted in a previous post - history books, not books on interpretations of Daniel ch.9. History books that deal with two Agrippas - Agrippa I and Agrippa II. History books that deal with the coins of the Herodians. Coins that reflect the rule of both Agrippa I and Agrippa II. The link, below, has a good chapter on the relevant coins.

Herod Antipas in Galilee: Morten Hørning Jensen (or via: amazon.co.uk)

no preview there - but the book is on google books

stephan huller

I just happened to start a thread that shows that Justus of Tiberias held exact that opinion EVEN EARLIER:

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=290017

aa5874

This is an excerpt of what I found.

stephan huller

Well, for the sake of neatness I think this discussion should be kept in the other thread but let's quickly recap what I said over there. William Adler takes us through a very hard to find manuscripts (at least for me) of the remaining parts of Origen's Commentary on Matthew available only Latin as follows:

In a footnote Adler cites the original Latin as:

Sed et civitas et sanctum corruptum est cum superveniente postes duces populo illi, sive Herode sive Agrippa (hunc enim dicit esse historia Iudaeorum). (Origen Commentary on Matthew ser 40 (81. 9 - 11) on Matthew 24:15 - 19)

Adler notes that "it is regrettable that Origen fails to specify here the author of the Jewish history" but adds further that Origen repeatedly draws from this source. In another place Origen says "Refurtur ... ab his qui Iudaicam historam conscripserunt" (ser. 41 (82. 13 - 15)). To be fair it was not only me who made this identification but Adler too tentatively puts forward in footnote 138 on the same page that "although little is known about Justus of Tiberias, it is tempting to trace the story to him ..."

The bottom line is that Origen wrote in the third century. There are really only three possibilities here. This 'Jewish history' was either Justus of Tiberias's Chronicle, a variant of Josephus (which means it was from the same period) or finally another 'Jewish history' that we have no knowledge of from our surviving sources. But even in this last possibility the most likely scenario would be that the author borrowed from either Justus or Josephus anyway.

My reasons for identifying the text as Justus's lost original are developed in far greater detail in that thread.