'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
archibald
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Re: 'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

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Bernard Muller wrote: Sat Dec 30, 2017 5:50 pm I certainly agree with that.
http://historical-jesus.info/t58.html

Cordially, Bernard
Thanks for the link.
archibald
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Re: 'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

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maryhelena wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:49 am Research into early christian origins requires that Jewish history - as far as it can be ascertained - be the primary focus of research.
Where would you go for that?
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maryhelena
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Re: 'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

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archibald wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 3:06 am
maryhelena wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:49 am Research into early christian origins requires that Jewish history - as far as it can be ascertained - be the primary focus of research.
Where would you go for that?
Well...one could start by looking at the Hasmonean and Herodian coins......that way one could be pretty confident that one is dealing with historical figures. Existence is primary - if one wants to build a theory about any figure in the NT or Josephus - first establish historicity or one simply ends up blowing in the wind along with Unterbrink and Lena Einhorn... ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasmonean_coinage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodian_coinage
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DCHindley
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Re: 'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

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John2 wrote: Sat Dec 30, 2017 9:17 pm Is the Judas mentioned in War 1.648 and Ant. 17.149 the same as Judas the Galilean? Josephus calls the former Judas "the son of Sepphoris" and "the son of Saripheus," but the Judas in Ant. 17.271 is called "the son of that Ezekias who had been head of the robbers."

Perhaps there is something about the Greek regarding the meaning/spelling of "Sepphoris/Saripheus" (and "son of") that I don't understand, but these Judases sound like different people to me.
The different spellings are "Judas, the son of Seppherais and the other Matthias, the (one/son) of Margalos" (Ἰούδας τε υἱὸς Σεπφεραίου καὶ Ματθίας ἕτερος Μαργάλου) in War 1.168 and "Judas, the (one) of Sariphais, and Matthias, the (one) of Mergalōthos" (Ἰούδας ὁ Σαριφαίου καὶ Ματθίας ὁ Μεργαλώθου) in Ant 17.149. However, Josephus may not have been sure if they were sons of a Seppherais and Margalos, as in War, or from places named Sariphais and Mergalōthos, as in Antiquities. The place name Sariphais, if that is what it was, may have just been the name of a village in Judea. I have modified the names to better fit the Greek, but since these are Greek renderings of Aramaic/Hebrew place names the endings of the names may be different than I rendered them. Sue me.

FWIW, the Galilean town of Sepphōris is consistently spelled Σέπφωρις in War & Life, and the same in Antiquities, except one time where there is mention of a town named Σαπφώροις τῆς Γαλιλαίας ("Saphōrois of Galilee," Ant 14.91), which may just be a town/village, and not the same as Sepphōris, the city of Galilee.

The bandit leader Hezekiah flourished in Galilee and attacked southern Syrians until rooted out of his cave dwellings by Herod in 46 BCE.

Hezekiah's son Judas, who was active in Σέπφωρις (Sepphōris) of Galilee in 4 BCE at the time of Herod's death, does not appear to be connected to the Judas (son of Seppherais/of a place called Sariphais) who pulled down Herod's golden dedicatory eagle over the gate of the temple in 7 BCE.

Now I do think that Judas the Galilean of War 2.118, who "was a teacher of a peculiar sect of his own, and was not at all like the rest of their leaders," is the same as Judas, a Gaulonite from the city of Gamala in Ant 18.4 & 9, but called Judas the Galilean in 18.23, said to have been the author, in conjunction with a Pharisee Sadduc, of the "fourth sect of Jewish philosophy." Based on the description of the woes that Josephus says this philosophy brought upon the nation by changing the way the "laws of their fathers" were interpreted, they are probably the ancient Jewish analogue to modern radical Islam of the Bin Laden, Taliban or ISIL variety.

Two of Judas the Galilean's sons, James and Simon, lived on as "bandits" after their father's death, and were later apprehended and executed by the Roman procurator Tiberius Julius Alexander, himself of thoroughly Romanized Judean stock and related by family to Philo of Alexandria, sometime between 46-48 CE.

A third son, Menahem, also a sophist like his father Judas had been, who had seized the fortress of Masada at the very start of the rebellion, was shortly afterward a failed claimant to the royal throne at the start of the Judean rebellion in 66 CE.

Another relative of Judas the Galilean, Eleazar, then succeeded Menahem as commander of the forces which continued to hold Masada, and which Josephus called "Sicarii."

So, if anything, Judas the Galilean's "4th philosophy" was more than likely related to the party known to have carried out political assassinations under the Roman procurators, the Sicarii, and not the party in the revolt that was later labeled the Zealots, which was more populist (sort of like Social Democrats in the Russian revolution) and, IIRC, actually hunted down and killed Menahem when he tried to force his claim to royal dignity. These parties (the Sicarii and the Zealots) are probably not directly related, at least in leadership.

The only thing one could say for certainty is that the 4th philosophy was "zealous" for the laws of their fathers, but that is not the same as being a "Zealot" party, which I think is what Unterbrink, Cecil Roth and S G F Brandon were asserting.

FWIW, I updated the table of passages in my earlier post to color code the various players in the game.

DCH
Giuseppe
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Re: 'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

Post by Giuseppe »

Josephus may have invented Judas the Galilean as a foil to bear the responsibility for the humiliation of the Jewish defeat.

https://vridar.org/2016/04/05/did-josep ... inst-rome/
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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DCHindley
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Re: 'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

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Giuseppe wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 6:53 am Josephus may have invented Judas the Galilean as a foil to bear the responsibility for the humiliation of the Jewish defeat.

https://vridar.org/2016/04/05/did-josep ... inst-rome/
I guess the fears of modernist historians that the postmodern reaction will devolve into relative chaos were correct. It is time to open my veins in a warm bath (just kidding!). The inconsistencies between accounts, which to me seem rather minor, do not impress on me the level of concern that would force me to seriously consider the possibility that Judas the Galilean was made up to serve as a rhetorical device.

You can see where the differences are in my previously posted table, recently updated to color code the players on the field for easier identified.

1a) Hezekiah the bandit chief who was raiding southern Syria from hideouts in Galilee (probably the cliff caves of Arbela), killed by Herod when he was procurator of Galilee under HP/Ethnarch, Hyrcanus II. ca. 46 BCE. Herod did so well destroying the bandits, pursuing them into southern Syria to hunt them out, that the provincial governor of Syria designated him as a special military procurator over southern Syria.
1b) Hezekiah's son, Judas, who had led a raid on an arms cache in Sepphoris of Galilee, in order to aid the rebels who were reacting against the royal successors elected by Herod in his final will, who was active in the period of time immediately after Herod's death ca 4 BCE.

2a&b) The young popular scholars of Judean laws, Judas and Matthias, who agitated for the tearing down of Herod's dedicatory golden eagle over the main gate into the temple, and paid with their lives around 7 BCE. I do not think that this Judas was from Sepphoris in Galilee, but some other town or village with a similar name, and so these two likely had no connection to Hezekiah's son Judas or to Judas the Galilean.

3a) Judas the Gaulonite from Gamala, also known as Judas of Galilee, organized resistance to the Roman's desire to take a census of persons and property in Judea, Samaria and Idumea, while the royal estates were being temporarily placed under direct Roman oversight by Equestrian prefects and procurators, around 6 CE on until he was defeated by the Roman procurator. This man must have had several children (we know of 3 sons and/or grand-sons and there may be daughters or grand-daughters).
3b&c) James and Simon, sons of Judas of Galilee, operate "bandit" militias until caught and executed between 46-48 CE.
3d) Menahem, also a "son" (grandson?) of Judas the Galilean, a religious scholar, captures Masada 66 CE and hands out weapons to some of the rebel factions that have taken over the city of Jerusalem. Feeling he has established himself as the supreme leader of the revolution, he attempts to have himself installed as king in the temple, but this rubs some of the other rebel factions the wrong way, and he is ambushed and driven into hiding before being killed. Oops!
3e) Elezear ben Jair (this familial name I think comes from an ostrica found on Masada), who takes over the leadership of the Sicarii forces which continue to hold out at Masada from the death of Menahem in 66 to 73/74 CE, before committing suicide rather than be captured by the Roman troops who were besieging them. Josephus also says he was related in some way to Judas of Galilee.

DCH
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Re: 'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

Post by archibald »

archibald wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:41 am
DCHindley wrote: Sat Dec 30, 2017 8:00 pm Well, it can be rather confusing. Here is a table that I hope will demonstrate that the connections are actually quite a bit more fuzzy than normally assumed.
Complicated, possibly, but there is no hint, I don't think, of any figure being made 'legendary' to the point of giving us a good reason to seriously doubt that they were historical?

From what I recall, Unterbrink does, yes, suggest that Judas of Sepphoris/Saripheus and Judas the Galilean are the same person. Personally......I have doubts. For one thing, if memory serves, in 'Wars', there is reference to 'both Rabbis' (presumably Judas of S and Matthias) being executed for the Golden Eagles incident. As noted above, by DCHindley in his table, 'Antiquities' only has 'Matthias and his companions' being executed. Unterbrink uses this ambiguity (arguably the more odd because Judas is introduced before Matthias, as if he were at least as senior if not had some priority) in Antiquities to suggest that Judas of S lives on, slightly later to turn up again with Sadduc.
Update: checking Antiquities 17, chapter 9.3, I see that Both Judas and Matthias were executed and that Unterbrink is therefore wrong. His Judas (the son of Saripheus) is described as executed in both Wars and Antiquities and is therefore unlikely to be the same Judas who 'reappears' as Judas of Galilee. This would seem to knock a sizeable hole in his thesis.
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Re: 'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

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Something else Unterbrink says, which I have not heard before, is that Josephus is almost silent, in both Antiquities and Wars, for anything (other than the appointment of a series of procurators in Antiquities) that happened between 6CE and 26CE. I sometimes find it difficult to date events in Josephus as I read the texts, so I don't know how fair an observation Unterbrink made there. Does anyone else have a view? Are there 'missing years'?

Related to this is the claim that the stated length of Gratus' Prefecture (11 years) is......dodgy, and that Pilate may have been appointed in 18 CE. Any views on this? I have heard it aired in other places.
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Re: 'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

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archibald wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 3:06 am
maryhelena wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:49 am Research into early christian origins requires that Jewish history - as far as it can be ascertained - be the primary focus of research.
Where would you go for that?
Here http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... f=6&t=3591 (I intend to re-order and contextualise the information in that thread)

These points are, I think, relevant -
MrMacSon wrote: Fri Dec 29, 2017 4:28 pm Comments from elsewhere -

1. 'Thomas L Brodie argues that Jesus is a creation of (Christian) scribes working from the Hebrew Bible.'

2. 'Robert M Price thinks Jesus was a divine figure inferred or developed from Jewish scripture who was historicized along the same pattern as other pagan gods, with the quasi-historical Gospel stories consisting largely of reworked narratives and themes from the Tanakh (like Brodie).'
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Re: 'Judas of Nazareth' by Daniel Unterbrink

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MrMacSon wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 3:48 pm
archibald wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 3:06 am
maryhelena wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:49 am Research into early christian origins requires that Jewish history - as far as it can be ascertained - be the primary focus of research.
Where would you go for that?
Here http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... f=6&t=3591 (I intend to re-order and contextualise the information in that thread)

These points are, I think, relevant -
MrMacSon wrote: Fri Dec 29, 2017 4:28 pm Comments from elsewhere -

1. 'Thomas L Brodie argues that Jesus is a creation of (Christian) scribes working from the Hebrew Bible.'

2. 'Robert M Price thinks Jesus was a divine figure inferred or developed from Jewish scripture who was historicized along the same pattern as other pagan gods, with the quasi-historical Gospel stories consisting largely of reworked narratives and themes from the Tanakh (like Brodie).'
Thanks.

I am wondering though, how much 'history' about 1st C Judea can be obtained from those sources, by which I mean in relation to the 'facts' of what happened in that time and place. For that, wouldn't we first need descriptive accounts, which we might then try to interpret (often using sources such as the ones you link to)?

My question to maryhelena was meant to tease this out. I don't think it makes sense to say that textual evidence is not evidence. Coinage and archeology is not going to cut much mustard, even for the history of rulers who had coins made.
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