Is Jesus birth backdated 70 years from the Temple destructio

[Solstice]

My first post here. This is a question I asked months ago in Reddit, and it was suggested that I repost it into FRDB. I never got around to doing that, and maybe it's for the better considering how FRDB shut down that forum.
http://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristia ... he_temple/


Ok, first let me say that I agree with Robert Price's view that Mark and the other gospels are midrash written in the 2nd century.
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_midrash1.htm
(And I agree that the TF is an interpolation by Eusebius.)

The 3 synoptics place the Crucifixion at 15 Nisan. John's is off by 2 days (Quartodeciman thing).

Josephus, WoJ VII:9 says: "This calamitous slaughter occurred on the fifteenth day of the month Xanthicus [Nisan]" (WoJ VII:8 also says this is in the 1st year of Judean procurator Silva)

And we all know that 40 years has significance in Judaism (the length of a generation, wandering in the desert, etc)

So did the author of Mark... possibly writing in the 2nd century, years after Josephus... attempt to do some kind of midrash on Josephus... backdate the crucifixion 40 years to-the-day prior to the Masada downfall?

Or did Eusebius interpolate Josephus (again) to make the Masada downfall 40 years to-the-day after the crucifixion?

We can see from the Gospels and Josephus several things that happen at Passover:

John's death (Jesus is 30) - Gospel
Jesus' death - Gospels
Temple siege - Josephus
Masada fall - Josephus
(WoJ V & VI: http://www.giveshare.org/library/josephus/ )

Back to the midrash thing: ya know how the number 70 appears all over the OT/Septuagint?

Josephus WoJ VII places an "interval of about 3 years" between the Temple siege and Masada downfall (well, just before the Sedetion at Cyrene thing). John's gospel places Jesus' ministry at about 3 years, and his ministry seems to start close to a Passover in Jerusalem. Is this also deliberate midrash on Josephus?

Anyway, if you subtract 40 years from the Masada downfall, you get the crucifixion, exactly. Subtract 40 years from the Temple siege, you get the start of Jesus ministry, possibly also around a Passover. (each event is an interval of 3 years) Subtract Jesus age of 30 years (Luke 3:23) from that, you get his birth ...which precedes the Temple siege by how many years? 70. Midrash?

The gospel writers... in the 2nd century AD... apparently used at least two sources: the Septuagint and Josephus. They used the Septuagint to make midrashic events of Jesus which foretold prophecy, and they used Josephus to place real historical events and people like John the Baptist, Caiaphas, Pilate, Tiberius... to make the story more believable.

Septuagint for the prophecy...Josephus for the history. (and maybe some Stoic-Cynic sources too)

Price's midrash analysis shows that the gospel writers were using Daniel among their sources. Daniel 9 makes two references to "seventy" as well as a temple at 9:27. Heck, the Septuagint is even called the LXX.

Some websites triangulate the gospels and put John the Baptists' death at Passover. We can also triangulate through the real historical references the gospel writers put there (from Josephus) that the Temple siege occurs 40 years after this around Passover. The gospel writers make Jesus "about 30 years of age" at the time of John's death. So we get 30 + 40 = 70. How convenient.

.
TLDR: Is Jesus birth backdated 70 years from the Temple destruction?

Here's the bigger question: if the western AD/CE calendar is based off of the birth of Jesus... and if the birth of Jesus based on the temple siege.... Then the start of the western calendar is based on the temple siege?

[stephan happy huller]

I think it is more likely that the ministry of Jesus was tied to a forty-ninth year before the destruction. It would help explain why the gospel is called a gospel. I am not sure that the early Christians cared about Jesus's birth. The Marcionites and the other heretics didn't think he had a birthday. So who was his birthday important to?

[dewitness]

The evidence do suggest that the Jesus story was fabricated based on the Fall of the Temple and supposed prophecies in the Book of Daniel and then backdated.

Josephus is the first known writer to openly admit that Daniel predicted the Romans would destroy Jerusalem.

Antiquities of the Jews 10.

And indeed it so came to pass, that our nation suffered these things under Antiochus Epiphanes, according to Daniel's vision, and what he wrote many years before they came to pass. In the very same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government, and that our country should be made desolate by them.

According to Tertullian, Jesus the Christ MUST have come before the Fall of the Temple and the desolation of Jerusalem.

Tertullian's Answer to the Jews

For, after His advent, we read, according to Daniel, that the city itself had to be exterminated; and we recognise that so it has befallen.

Tertullian placed the birth of Jesus the Christ about 7 and a half hebdomads [between lxx and lxii hebdomads], at least 52 years, before the Fall of the Temple.

Tertullian's Answer to the Jews

Observe we, therefore, the limit—how, in truth, he predicts that there are to be lxx hebdomads, within which if they receive Him, “it shall be built into height and entrenchment, and the times shall be renewed.” But God, foreseeing what was to be— that they will not merely not receive Him, but will both persecute and deliver Him to death— both recapitulated, and said, that in lx and ii and an half of an hebdomad He is born, and an holy one of holy ones is anointed..

[dewitness]

There are at least three 1st century characters who showed that there was No Jewish Messianic ruler known as Jesus of Nazareth up to time of Vespasian c 69-79 CE.

Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius are witnesses of Vespasian the predicted Messianic ruler.

Josephus' Wars of the Jews 6.5.4, Tacitus Histories 5 and Suetonius Life of Vespasian ATTEST that Vespasian was considered the Prophesied Messianic ruler found in Hebrew Scriptures.

Josephus admitted that Vespasian was regarded as the Savior while Tacitus and Suetonius admitted that it was claimed that Vespasian was a Healer of the Blind and Lame.

The story of Jesus as a Messianic ruler and Son of God most likely was invented long after the reign of Vespasian and then BACKDATED.


This is Josephus on Vespasian the Savior.

Josephus' Wars of the Jews 7

..... and for those whom he passed by, they made all sorts of acclamations, on account of the joy they had to see him, and the pleasantness of his countenance, and styled him their Benefactor and Savior...

Suetonius' Life of Vespasian

....A man of the people who was blind, and another who was lame, came to him together as he sat on the tribunal, begging for the help for their disorders which Serapis had promised in a dream; for the god declared that Vespasian would restore the eyes, if he would spit upon them, and give strength to the leg, if he would deign to touch it with his heel. 3 Though he had hardly any faith that this could possibly succeed, and therefore shrank even from making the attempt, he was at last prevailed upon by his friends and tried both things in public before a large crowd; and with success.

It was the Entire Canon that was BACKDATED--NOT ONLY the story of Jesus.

[avi]

Thank you solstice for this interesting post.

I know, and understand, nothing about numerology. I know even less about Judaism. In fact, I have no idea what you mean, when you employ, as a supposed English word, midrash:

that Mark and the other gospels are midrash

I know what milkshakes are. I know what midway means. I even understand the notion of trying to find some kind of arithmetic sum that will explain human behaviour, for example, Midway Island, siege of which x years after Japanese occupation, occurred in y years from the time of Emperor Ojin.

For those monarchs, and also for the Emperors Ōjin and Nintoku, the lengths of reign are likely to have been exaggerated in order to make the origins of the imperial family sufficiently ancient to satisfy numerological expectations. It is widely believed that the epoch of 660 BCE was chosen because it is a "xīn-yǒu" year in the sexagenary cycle, which according to Taoist beliefs was an appropriate year for a revolution to take place.

It is a little unclear to me, how your notion of the origin of Christianity fits with my understanding that the Hebrew component of Christianity represented a releatively unimportant detail, in the evolution of this novel superstition. The real myth behind Christianity, it seems to me, is based on the story of another demi-god, Herakles, who, like Jesus, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven to sit not with God and the angels, across the street from Mount Olympus, but with Zeus and his colleagues. The Jesus story strikes me as 80% derived from Greek mythology, and those portions of Judaism, which are themselves, alien to the semitic tradition, having been inflicted upon Jews, after the first temple destruction, by the Persians, living with the tradition of Zoroastrianism.

At the time of Jesus' supposed life, I suspect that you know, there were literally millions of worshippers of Herakles, with huge temples constructed to gain his favor. Even the Romans loved Herakles, as evidenced by the construction of Herculaneum, site not only of a significant city, but more importantly, of a great library. There is nothing remotely similar in scope, in the world of Christianity, until the Vatican.

Counting dates, based on a solar calendar, solstice, makes little sense for a culture steeped in a lunar tradition, for assigning dates. Were duodecimal number systems employed in Babylon?

Historically, units of time in many civilizations are duodecimal. There are twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve months in a year, and the Babylonians had twelve hours in a day (although at some point this was changed to 24). Traditional Chinese calendars, clocks, and compasses are based on the twelve Earthly Branches. There are 12 inches in an imperial foot, 12 ounces in a troy pound, 12 old British pence in a shilling, 24 (12×2) hours in a day, and many other items counted by the dozen, gross (144, square of 12) or great gross (1728, cube of 12). The Romans used a fraction system based on 12, including the uncia which became both the English words ounce and inch. Pre-decimalisation, Ireland and the United Kingdom used a mixed duodecimal-vigesimal currency system (12 pence = 1 shilling, 20 shillings or 240 pence to the pound sterling or Irish pound), and Charlemagne established a monetary system that also had a mixed base of twelve and twenty, the remnants of which persist in many places.
The importance of 12 has been attributed to the number of lunar cycles in a year, and also to the fact that humans have 12 finger bones (phalanges) on one hand (three on each of four fingers).[4] It is possible to count to 12 with your thumb acting as a pointer, touching each finger bone in turn. A traditional finger counting system still in use in many regions of Asia works in this way, and could help to explain the occurrence of numeral systems based on 12 and 60 besides those based on 10, 20 and 5. In this system, the one (usually right) hand counts repeatedly to 12, displaying the number of iterations on the other (usually left), until five dozens, i. e. the 60, are full.

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Stephan,

Would that put the crucifixion around 21 CE? Wasn't that around the year that Eusebius said the fake Memoirs of Pilate placed it?

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

I think it is more likely that the ministry of Jesus was tied to a forty-ninth year before the destruction. It would help explain why the gospel is called a gospel. I am not sure that the early Christians cared about Jesus's birth. The Marcionites and the other heretics didn't think he had a birthday. So who was his birthday important to?

[dewitness]

It is a little unclear to me, how your notion of the origin of Christianity fits with my understanding that the Hebrew component of Christianity represented a releatively unimportant detail, in the evolution of this novel superstition. The real myth behind Christianity, it seems to me, is based on the story of another demi-god, Herakles, who, like Jesus, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven to sit not with God and the angels, across the street from Mount Olympus, but with Zeus and his colleagues. The Jesus story strikes me as 80% derived from Greek mythology, and those portions of Judaism, which are themselves, alien to the semitic tradition, having been inflicted upon Jews, after the first temple destruction, by the Persians, living with the tradition of Zoroastrianism.

The myth of Christianity is "BOLTED" to the NT.

The real myth of Christianity is based on the SEPTUAGINT--Greek translation of Jewish Mythology.

The Septuagint is "Bolted" to the stories of Jesus. The Evidence was handed to us in a platter.

The Myth called Jesus is derived from a Greek version of Jewish Mythology

1. The conception of Jesus is based on Isaiah 7.14.

2. The advent of the Jesus "one like Son of Man" is based on Daniel

3. The time of the advent of "one like the son of man" is based on Daniel.

5. The Gospel of Jesus is based on Isaiah--the coming of the Kingdom of God.

6. The miracles of Jesus are based on Isaiah.

7. The words of Jesus are found in the Septuagint.

8. The crucifixion of Jesus is based on Isaiah, and the Psalms.

9. Jesus in the NT was supposedly known as Isaiah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets in the Septuagint.

10. A Pauline writer admitted Jesus was the last Adam [a Spirit]---Adam is a myth character in Genesis of the Septuagint.

The Myth character Jesus is fundamentally a product of the Septuagint.

1 Corinthians 15:45 NAS

So also it is written, "The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Tertullian's Answer to the Jews

Accordingly the times must be inquired into of the predicted and future nativity of the Christ, and of His passion, and of the extermination of the city of Jerusalem, that is, its devastation. For Daniel says, that “both the holy city and the holy place are exterminated together with the coming Leader, and that the pinnacle is destroyed unto ruin.”

And so the times of the coming Christ, the Leader,[ Isaiah 55:4] must be inquired into, which we shall trace in Daniel; and, after computing them, shall prove Him to be come, even on the ground of the times prescribed, and of competent signs and operations of His..

[avi]

Thank you dewitness for a lucid, succinct, scholarly explanation of why Christianity is rooted in Judaism. I appreciate your effort to instruct me. Well done.

My point is too simple, too elementary, too juvenile.

I reduce the whole of Christianity, the entire "bible", i.e. new testament, to a SINGLE sentence. One sentence, to explain the essence of Christianity. Not a paragraph. Not a book. ONE sentence.

That one sentence will contain nothing about LXX, or Judaism, or Hebrew this or Hebrew that....

NOPE.
That ONE sentence will read like this:

Christianity is the belief that a man called Jesus came to earth, as the son of God, to die for our sins, so that we might join God in Heaven, and upon Jesus' death by crucifixion, God restored his son to life, permitting Jesus' ascent into heaven, to live there forever, beside his father, surrounded by angels.

Maybe you would disagree with that single sentence summary of Christianity, or, maybe you feel that this sentence does accurately summarize the religion, but, that this summary is in harmony with "Tertullian's Answer to the Jews", or "1 Corinthians 15:45 NAS".

I deny that Judaism has within it, the notion of a demigod, with a human mother and a supernatural deity, producing a supernatural child. That tradition, in my opinion, dewitness, is coming from Greek mythology, not Judaism. To me, it is Jesus' supernatural existence, that defines Christianity. As son of god, i.e. a second being, one capable of adopting human form, Jesus represents a polytheistic tradition, a prominent feature of Judaism in ancient times, but one which had not been sanctioned, to the best of my understanding, since the Babylonian captivity.

[Blood]

I deny that Judaism has within it, the notion of a demigod, with a human mother and a supernatural deity, producing a supernatural child. That tradition, in my opinion, dewitness, is coming from Greek mythology, not Judaism. To me, it is Jesus' supernatural existence, that defines Christianity. As son of god, i.e. a second being, one capable of adopting human form, Jesus represents a polytheistic tradition, a prominent feature of Judaism in ancient times, but one which had not been sanctioned, to the best of my understanding, since the Babylonian captivity.

I'm not sure there's really much difference between "Greek mythology" and "Judaism" (both extremely loose terms), but no, the basic idea that Palestinian Judaism could produce a sect who believed that (a) YHWH was a man; (b) YHWH could get murdered, and (c) YHWH could get murdered by "the Jews," i.e. themselves, is itself so unbelievable as to be almost laughable. Of course, that does not rule out the possibility of a Diaspora Judaism sect in some place like Rome taking on Gentile converts, who eventually formed their own sect and wrote their own pseudo-scriptures about the Godman who magically saves the Gentiles. The latter is a far more historically plausible sequence of events than the nonsense taught in Bible College today.

[stephan happy huller]

Jay,

70 - 49 = 21 CE. Yes, exactly that was the original year of the Passion.

Stephan