How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

[Secret Alias]

This is the most critical line in the material.

(R. Akiva): When I was an Am ha'Aretz, I used to say 'if you give me a Chacham, I will bite him like a donkey!'

Let's see if anyone can see the implications of this (I doubt it).

[MrMacSon]

I'm intrigued by the biblical ties to the Ananus family -

Ananus the Elder was the father-in-law of Caiphas the high priest when Jesus/Yahshua is reported to driven out the money changers in the temple courtyard. Yahshua/Jesus was rebelling against the authority the House of Ananus. This occurred at the beginning of Caiphus's ministry.

Ananus, the high priest was the most powerful and the wealthiest Jewish man in Judea. It was Ananus who received all the revenue of the temple of Herod. It was the power of Ananus that Jesus was challenging when he drove out the ‘money changers.

Ananus the Elder conducted the trial of Jesus in his own home and prompted his son-in-law, Caiphas, to exterminate Jesus. At this time, Ananus the elder had controlled the office of the high priest for twenty three of the twenty four years between the time of Jesus’ bar mitzvoth and his death.

Ananus [the Elder] and Caiphas are recorded as having commissioned Saulus, the young Pharisee in the School of Gamaliel, to

• .(i) round up the Nazarene converts in the city of Jerusalem and throw them into prison; and, with an armed incursion force, to
  (ii) enter the Roman province of Syria in the absence of a Roman governor to forcibly extradite the escaping Nazarenes (fleeing to Damascus) back to the prisons of Judea.

It was Ananus ben Ananus (son of Ananus the Elder) who is recorded as having James the Just, supposedly the brother of Jesus killed: Ananus the Younger incited the priests of the temple to set up James the Just for blasphemy in the court of Herod’s temple. They then stoned and bludgeoned him to death, supposedly for blasphemy (for stating that Jesus was now sitting at the right hand of His Father in heaven).


It was Ananus the Elder's son Jonathan who was the high priest who brought the Greek Nazarene deacon Stephen before the Sanhedrin and then had them stone him to death for blasphemy (later, as a former high priest, Jonathan so aggravated the incoming Roman governor Festus, by trying to meddle in Roman politics, that Felix hired a Jewish Sicarii assassin to kill Jonathan).

This caused the power of the high priest to temporarily slip out of the hands of Ananus the Elder. Simon, son of Camithus (Josephus, Antiquities XVIII, ii, 2) was installed as high priest, because Jonathan had overstepped the bounds of Roman law. As well as killing the deacon Stephen without Roman approval, he supposedly commissioned the Pharisee Shaul to take Roman authority in his own hands.

The House of Ananus incited King Agrippa (King Herod Agrippa I) to kill James the Elder, brother of John. Herod Agrippa I was also recorded as being responsible for the imprisonment of Simon Peter (who miraculously escaped with his life with the assistance of white-cloaked ‘angelic’ visitors).

[TedM]

With answers like this as well as cherry picking what you choose to respond to I will once again for about the 3rd or 4th time-- after trying to engage in a discussion with you -- terminate the attempt on the grounds that you are not interested or capable of having a truly rational discussion on these kinds of topics. You prefer to ramble on, insult, and avoid the parts that require discipline.

Now to address the lesser minds:

What makes it impossible?

But this is what white people do. They make it like Jewish history is up for grabs by 'plugging in' white people habits into ancient Jewish habits. The question should be - based on what you/we know about Jewish tradition in antiquity is it likely or even possible that Jewish idiotai (or for those of you with some knowledge of these matter = עם הארץ) stood up and had a debate about the Law AND THEN PUT FORWARD A POSITION THAT HAD NO FUCKING LEGAL PRECEDENT AND WON THE DEBATE OR CAME CLOSE TO CONVINCING ANYONE. No white people this didn't happen in antiquity and it doesn't happen in Sunni or Shi'ite circles either today. What is wrong with you people? Learn something about non-Western cultures. This stuff simply didn't happen. There is no precedent.

[iskander]

Shammai agrees with Jesus in saying that a woman should be divorced only for sexual immorality. The ruling of Jesus would have been a very beneficial change from the more primitive and cruel laws dominating the Mosaic society of his time , which were promoted by the School of Hillel.


In the Mishnaic period the theory of the law that the husband could divorce his wife at will was challenged by the school of Shammai. It interpreted the text of Deut. xxiv. 1 in such amanner as to reach the conclusion that the husband could not divorce his wife except for cause, and that the cause must be sexual immorality (Gitin. ix. 10; Yer. Soṭah i. 1, 16b).
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5238-divorce


Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Gittin
Folio 90a

MISHNAH. BETH SHAMMAI SAY: A MAN SHOULD NOT DIVORCE HIS WIFE UNLESS HE HAS FOUND HER GUILTY OF SOME UNSEEMLY CONDUCT, AS IT SAYS, BECAUSE HE HATH FOUND SOME UNSEEMLY THING1 IN HER.2 BETH HILLEL, HOWEVER, SAY [THAT HE MAY DIVORCE HER] EVEN IF SHE HAS MERELY SPOILT HIS FOOD,3 SINCE IT SAYS,4 BECAUSE HE HATH FOUND SOME UNSEEMLY THING IN HER.5 R. AKIBA SAYS, [HE MAY DIVORCE HER] EVEN IF HE FINDS ANOTHER WOMAN MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SHE IS, AS IT SAYS, IT COMETH TO PASS, IF SHE FIND NO FAVOUR IN HIS EYES.6
• Lit., 'unseemliness of a thing'.
• Deut. XXIV, 1. [The emphasis is on 'unseemliness', (cf. Mishnah ed. Lowe), 'as it says "unseemliness"'), and [H] is taken to mean, [H] 'a thing of unseemliness'].
• ['Bad cooking is a more serious ground for divorce than some modern ones' (Moore, Judaism II, 124, 4, 1.) It has been suggested that the expression is merely figurative pointing to some indecent conduct].
• [The emphasis is on 'thing'. (cf. loc. cit. 'as it says "thing"'), and the phrase is taken literally, 'the unseemliness of a thing'.]
• V. the discussion in the Gemara infra.
• Ibid.

[DCHindley]

The phrase "People of the Land" probably implied something different in the time of the Persian return(s) than it did in Hasmonean times, and again in Roman times. The literary origins of the supposedly Persian era Ezra-Nehemiah and other documents (such as Daniel) makes analysis hard.

I would suggest that the "people of the land" in Rabbinic documents refers to those Israelites who do not follow strict Rabbinic principals, meaning the vast majority. Rabbis were a postwar development, but for the sake of argument let's say they derived from the Pharisee party. Pharisee principals, as described by Josephus, seem to reflect a time when the traditions of the Temple State could no longer be implemented throughout the traditional boundaries. Examples might be Galilee and Perea, which had been lopped off from the territories controlled by the Temple State under Herod's management on the death of Herod the Great, in order to be handed as fiefdoms to his children, or temple land in Judea confiscated by the Roman emperor and converted into gift estates for his family members and power elites.

The Pharisee's answer to this, it seems, was to privately pledge to observe temple related religious tradition even in areas formerly under temple authority where the temple no longer had legal authority. This was a somewhat costly pledge to make, involving double the tax load on the common people, so I have to assume that the majority of Pharisees were larger land "owners" (they were in control of larger swaths of land, most of which was farmed presumably by Israelites, and were thusly retainers of the elites, whether Hasmonean priest-kings, tetrarchs related to Herod the Great, Roman emperors, or their elite retainers) who could afford to suffer these losses, and not individual landowners.

If Rabbis, and perhaps Pharisees, have a particularly low opinion of the common Israelite peasant, it is because they are impediments to their oath to preserve temple related traditions as if they still legally applied. They were problems to be overcome, and so they created many rules for planting, tending and harvesting agricultural land, to make accidental contamination less frequent. This was an economic problem in consequence of an oath that needed to be solved.

But in Persian times the returnees are the remnants of Judah's former elite classes, and the people of the land are common Israelites, not deported by the Babylonians, who likely continued to practice things as they traditionally had. The authors of Ezra-Nehemiah felt that following traditions of a bygone time was not good enough to suit the traditions as developed by the former elites while in Babylonian captivity. They accuse them of contamination with the surrounding peoples, whether true or not. This is a class struggle, as opposed to an economic struggle as in Pharisaic and Rabbinical times.

DCH

[Michael BG]

In the Old Testament there are two traditions.

I would hope you do not limit to just the two.

I was considering the widest way of considering which methods the Jews believed God informed them of his will. I am sure there are more different traditions behind the Jewish texts we have.

Another one:

I agree with Adam that we should start by considering the oldest version of the story we have

There is no 'earliest' version with these counterfeit texts. They are all corrupt.

This is a stupid statement. It implies that all the gospels were written at the same time.
It also raising the question if you think all of the gospels are “corrupt” (whatever you mean by that) why ask this question in the first place, because you have already made up your mind and you are not willing to consider other positions. This also comes out in your racist attacks on people for being “white” and citizens of the USA and lastly being part of the western culture generally.

John2 wins the day with the best question (because he is Jewish or at least has some grasp of Jewish issues). Unfortunately Torah here means the ten commandments not the five books which couldn't have been published yet because Moses hadn't even died. In some circles the Book of Deuteronomy is/was read. But Torah here means ten commandments.

And where is your evidence that in the first century any Jew believe that the Torah as only the Ten Commandments? Even the Sadducees recognised the first five books (the Pentateuch) as the Torah. Also there is the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the huge amount of Jewish religious literature that was produced and one must assume being read.

Also your position on divorce is inconsistent with your view that the Torah is only the Ten Commandments.

You quote something you call Pesharim 49 without saying what it is, where and when it was written, what Biblical text it is interpreting, and where we can find a better English translation. As presented by you it can’t convince anyone of anything.

[Adam]

Yes, SA, please elucidate.

[Secret Alias]

And where is your evidence that in the first century any Jew believe that the Torah as only the Ten Commandments?

It's common knowledge but here is a good introduction to the topic written by the GREAT Abraham Heschel https://books.google.com/books?id=WAGK8GiNrQgC

[Secret Alias]

The Samaritan tradition is clearly that 'Torah' in Pentateuch means ten commandments. As with almost all things Samaritan, it is the original understanding of the terminology. The oldest Samaritan exegesis acknowledges that only the ten commandments were given at Sinai. The position of Akiba and later rabbinic interpretation is sub-retarded. Even the early Karaite reading of the Pentateuch agrees with the Samaritan (not surprising of course because it usually does).

It is common to expected in most universities that people study Hebrew before tackling Aramaic. In the same way most people who study early Christianity should learn about early Judaism first FROM THEIR OWN SOURCES (not just Josephus!!!!).

[Secret Alias]

In answer to DCH

I am certain that there was a Judaism before Ezra and the composition of the Pentateuch. It was centered on the ten commandments and was associated with the 'people of the land'