The crucifixion: alternate times and places.
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2015 6:23 pm
I would like to collect here as many true variants on the time and place of the crucifixion of Jesus as possible. The default is the gospel account, wherein Jesus dies just outside of Jerusalem sometime during the prefecture of Pontius Pilate and the rule of Tiberius Caesar. I would not count a general statement that Jesus died in Jerusalem as a variant unless the context seems to specify that the crucifixion occurred inside the walls of Jerusalem.
What follows is what I have so far. (I am adding ideas as they are suggested in the thread.)
The time of the crucifixion.
The synoptic gospels depict Jesus eating the Passover with his disciples during the evening and then getting crucified on the day of Passover (Jewish days running from evening to evening). John, however, does not depict the last supper as a Passover, and also has Jesus being crucified on its eve.
From Irenaeus, Demonstration 74:
Claudius ruled from 41 to 54; this statement by Irenaeus can be taken as agreeing, then, with his assessment in Against Heresies 2.22.5 that Jesus lived to about 50 years of age. The so-called Acts of Pilate (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... ilate.html) begins with the words: Pontius Pilate unto Claudius, greeting.
And maryhelena points to what Eusebius says in History of the Church 1.9.2-3 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250101.htm):
The seventh year of Tiberius is around 20 AD.
Tertullian has this to say:
Saturninus served as legatus Augusti pro praetore in Syria from around 9 to 6 BC; if Jesus had been born during his rule and crucified at around age 30, then the crucifixion would have taken place sometime between 20 and 23 AD.
Robert J. adds the following:
Also, the medieval Toledoth Yeshu speaks of the entire life and death of Jesus as having occurred during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus.
In two medieval Latin fragments discussed by John Chapman in 1907, Jesus is said to have been born in AD 9, baptized in AD 46, and slain in AD 58.
The place of the crucifixion.
Revelation 11.8 (on the assumption that the great city is Rome, not Jerusalem; NASB):
Possibly relevant: the reference in Suetonius, Claudius 25.1-5, to troubles instigated by Chrestus.
Testament of Benjamin 9.1-5 (R. H. Charles translation):
This seems to imply (by way of prophetic utterance) that Jesus will be crucified in the temple itself.
Not a crucifixion at all?
Peter has suggested that the Talmud, in Sanhedrin 43a, indicates stoning followed by the hanging of the corpse:
From the Apocalypse of Peter (http://gnosis.org/naghamm/apopet.html):
From Hippolytus, Against All Heresies 1 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0319.htm):
Also, it is worth mentioning that the gospel of Peter depicts the Jews as crucifying Jesus at the command of Herod (1.2; 2.5), not the Roman soldiers crucifying him at the command of Pilate.
What other potential variants are out there?
Ben.
What follows is what I have so far. (I am adding ideas as they are suggested in the thread.)
The time of the crucifixion.
The synoptic gospels depict Jesus eating the Passover with his disciples during the evening and then getting crucified on the day of Passover (Jewish days running from evening to evening). John, however, does not depict the last supper as a Passover, and also has Jesus being crucified on its eve.
From Irenaeus, Demonstration 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. For Herod the king of the Jews and Pontius Pilate, the governor of Claudius Caesar, came together and condemned Him to be crucified.
Claudius ruled from 41 to 54; this statement by Irenaeus can be taken as agreeing, then, with his assessment in Against Heresies 2.22.5 that Jesus lived to about 50 years of age. The so-called Acts of Pilate (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... ilate.html) begins with the words: Pontius Pilate unto Claudius, greeting.
And maryhelena points to what Eusebius says in History of the Church 1.9.2-3 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250101.htm):
2 Accordingly the forgery of those who have recently given currency to acts against our Savior is clearly proved. For the very date given in them shows the falsehood of their fabricators. 3 For the things which they have dared to say concerning the passion of the Savior are put into the fourth consulship of Tiberius, which occurred in the seventh year of his reign; at which time it is plain that Pilate was not yet ruling in Judea, if the testimony of Josephus is to be believed, who clearly shows in the above-mentioned work that Pilate was made procurator of Judea by Tiberius in the twelfth year of his reign.
The seventh year of Tiberius is around 20 AD.
Tertullian has this to say:
Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.19.10: Sed et census constat actos sub Augusto nunc in Iudaea per Sentium Saturninum, apud quos genus eius inquirere potuissent. / But it is established also that censuses had now been enacted under Augustus in Judea through Sentius Saturninus, about which they could have inquired of his race.
Saturninus served as legatus Augusti pro praetore in Syria from around 9 to 6 BC; if Jesus had been born during his rule and crucified at around age 30, then the crucifixion would have taken place sometime between 20 and 23 AD.
Robert J. adds the following:
Even where Tiberius or Pilate is named, other rulers whose reigns do not appropriately overlap may also come into play, as Tenorikuma points out:robert j wrote:Clement of Alexandria provided what appears to be a direct quotation from what he called the Preaching of Peter. Eschewing apologetic translations and emendations, the passage reads --- (emphasis mine) ---
Note: This translation is by J.K. Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, and is used by Bart Ehrman in his, Lost Scriptures --- Books That Did Not Make It Into The New Testament, Oxford University Press, 2003, p.238.Peter in the Preaching, speaking of the apostles, says, “But having opened the books of the prophets which we had, we found, sometimes expressed by parables, sometimes by riddles, and sometimes directly and in so many words the name Jesus Christ, both his coming and his death and the cross and all the other torments which the Jews inflicted on him, and his resurrection and assumption into the heavens before Jerusalem was founded, all these things that had been written, what he must suffer and what shall be after him. When, therefore, we gained knowledge of these things, we believed in God through that which had been written of him.” (Stromata 6.15.128).
The Talmud has also been taken to refer to Jesus in a chronological context about 100 years before the usual time frame. I have Tractate Sotah for this claim so far: http://www.come-and-hear.com/sotah/sotah_47.html. But it does not mention the crucifixion; are there other parts of the Talmud that concur with Sotah? Any that mention the crucifixion?Tenorikuma wrote:Epiphanius has a confused account of Jesus' crucifixion, which he says was in "the twentieth year of Agrippa called the Great, or Herod the Younger, the son of Archaelaus". The 20th year of Agrippa I is about 60 CE. (Anacephalaeosis VII §78 9.6f)
According to the Epistula Apostolorum, Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate and Archelaus. (So before 6 CE?)
Also, the medieval Toledoth Yeshu speaks of the entire life and death of Jesus as having occurred during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus.
In two medieval Latin fragments discussed by John Chapman in 1907, Jesus is said to have been born in AD 9, baptized in AD 46, and slain in AD 58.
The place of the crucifixion.
Revelation 11.8 (on the assumption that the great city is Rome, not Jerusalem; NASB):
And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
Possibly relevant: the reference in Suetonius, Claudius 25.1-5, to troubles instigated by Chrestus.
Testament of Benjamin 9.1-5 (R. H. Charles translation):
1 And I believe that there will be also evil-doings among you, from the words of Enoch the righteous: that ye shall commit fornication with the fornication of Sodom, and shall perish, all save a few, and shall renew wanton deeds with women; and the kingdom of the Lord shall not be among, you, for straightway He shall take it away. 2 Nevertheless the temple of God shall be in your portion, and the last (temple) shall be more glorious than the first. And the twelve tribes shall be gathered together there, and all the Gentiles, until the Most High shall send forth His salvation in the visitation of an only 3 begotten prophet. [And He shall enter into the (first) temple, and there shall the Lord be treated with outrage, and He shall be lifted up upon 4 a tree. And the veil of the temple shall be rent, and the Spirit of God shall pass on to the Gentiles 5 as fire poured forth. And He shall ascend from Hades and shall pass from earth into heaven. And I know how lowly He shall be upon earth, and how glorious in heaven.]
This seems to imply (by way of prophetic utterance) that Jesus will be crucified in the temple itself.
Not a crucifixion at all?
Peter has suggested that the Talmud, in Sanhedrin 43a, indicates stoning followed by the hanging of the corpse:
On the eve of Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.
From the Apocalypse of Peter (http://gnosis.org/naghamm/apopet.html):
When he had said those things, I saw him seemingly being seized by them. And I said "What do I see, O Lord? That it is you yourself whom they take, and that you are grasping me? Or who is this one, glad and laughing on the tree? And is it another one whose feet and hands they are striking?"
The Savior said to me, "He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me."
The Savior said to me, "He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me."
From Hippolytus, Against All Heresies 1 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0319.htm):
Afterwards broke out the heretic Basilides. .... Christ, moreover, he affirms to have been sent, not by this maker of the world, but by the above-named Abraxas; and to have come in a phantasm, and been destitute of the substance of flesh: that it was not He who suffered among the Jews, but that Simon was crucified in His stead: whence, again, there must be no believing on him who was crucified, lest one confess to having believed on Simon.
Also, it is worth mentioning that the gospel of Peter depicts the Jews as crucifying Jesus at the command of Herod (1.2; 2.5), not the Roman soldiers crucifying him at the command of Pilate.
What other potential variants are out there?
Ben.