Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

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Ben C. Smith
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Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

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Subject: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity
John2 wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 11:03 am DC wrote:
But War 6.5.4 was about the oracle, and how the people misinterpreted it, making no connection whatsoever with 4th philosophy movements.
The 66-70 CE war was the culmination of the Fourth Philosophy which began in 6 CE. Josephus connects the beginning and the end of the Fourth Philosophy in Ant. 18.1.1 and 18.1.6:

Ant. 18.1.1:
Yet was there one Judas, a Gaulonite, of a city whose name was Gamala, who, taking with him Sadduc, a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to a revolt, who both said that this taxation [in 6 CE] was no better than an introduction to slavery, and exhorted the nation to assert their liberty; as if they could procure them happiness and security for what they possessed, and an assured enjoyment of a still greater good, which was that of the honor and glory they would thereby acquire for magnanimity. They also said that God would not otherwise be assisting to them, than upon their joining with one another in such councils as might be successful, and for their own advantage; and this especially, if they would set about great exploits, and not grow weary in executing the same; so men received what they said with pleasure, and this bold attempt proceeded to a great height. All sorts of misfortunes also sprang from these men, and the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree; one violent war came upon us after another, and we lost our friends which used to alleviate our pains; there were also very great robberies and murder of our principal men. This was done in pretense indeed for the public welfare, but in reality for the hopes of gain to themselves; whence arose seditions, and from them murders of men, which sometimes fell on those of their own people, (by the madness of these men towards one another, while their desire was that none of the adverse party might be left,) and sometimes on their enemies; a famine also coming upon us, reduced us to the last degree of despair, as did also the taking and demolishing of cities; nay, the sedition at last increased so high, that the very temple of God was burnt down by their enemies' fire. Such were the consequences of this, that the customs of our fathers were altered, and such a change was made, as added a mighty weight toward bringing all to destruction, which these men occasioned by their thus conspiring together; for Judas and Sadduc, who excited a fourth philosophic sect among us, and had a great many followers therein, filled our civil government with tumults at present, and laid the foundations of our future miseries, by this system of philosophy, which we were before unacquainted withal, concerning which I will discourse a little, and this the rather because the infection which spread thence among the younger sort, who were zealous for it, brought the public to destruction.
Ant. 18.1.6:
But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kinds of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man lord. And since this immovable resolution of theirs is well known to a great many, I shall speak no further about that matter; nor am I afraid that any thing I have said of them should be disbelieved, but rather fear, that what I have said is beneath the resolution they show when they undergo pain. And it was in Gessius Florus's time [64 CE to 66 CE] that the nation began to grow mad with this distemper, who was our procurator, and who occasioned the Jews to go wild with it by the abuse of his authority, and to make them revolt from the Romans. And these are the sects of Jewish philosophy.
War 6.5.4:
The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea. However, it is not possible for men to avoid fate, although they see it beforehand. But these men interpreted some of these signals according to their own pleasure, and some of them they utterly despised, until their madness was demonstrated, both by the taking of their city and their own destruction.

So Josephus connects the time (and philosophy) of Judas with the time (and philosophy) of Florus, and given the presence of messianic DSS texts that date to the Herodian era and just prior to it, I don't buy the idea that Jews were not expecting that "one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth" before 66 CE. How else do you suppose that Judas the Galilean and Sadduc expected (and taught others) that God would "be assisting to them"? Were Fourth Philosophers really unaware of (or uninspired by) the DSS (most of which date to the Herodian era) and non-messianic until 66 CE?
This bit from John2 has sparked what is probably an insane idea in me, based simply on some of the kinds of posts floating around the forum at this exact time.

John2 here highlights the Josephan arc having to do with the saga of Judas the Galilean: from rebel leader to inspiration for a revolt against Rome.

He may also be correct to tie the "ambiguous oracle" in with this nationalistic movement. I have long thought that the ambiguous oracle was either the 70 weeks of Daniel or some combination of prophetic texts which included the 70 weeks of Daniel; the key here is that the oracle seems to have predicted, not just the ascendancy of a ruler from the East, but also the timing of that ascendancy. The 70 generations of 1 Enoch may also fit in here. (My ideas on this thread work less well with the notion that, for example, a timely comet made people think that the Star and Scepter prophecy by Balaam was about to be fulfilled.)

But I have recently posted a bit about the generational prophecy of Mark 13.30 and its parallels:
Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 7:12 pmMark 13.32-37 is all about not knowing the time, in contradiction to the preceding verses in which it is known which generation will see the end. Indeed, the entire idea of watching for the signs in verses 28-29 is at perfect odds with not having any clue of the time. Again, the obvious way of reading these contradictory statements is as not deriving from the same pen in the same time frame. The generational prediction must have arisen during the generation in question (using exactly the same logic by which Edgar Whisenant's pamphlet about the world ending in September of 1988 must have been published before September of 1988); but once that generation had died out, or perhaps very nearly, it became necessary to dampen its force. Presumably it could not be ignored in some circles (as John 21.21-23 also implies), not any more than Whisenant's prediction could be ignored in his circles, thus prompting his recalculation and ensuing prediction, in a new pamphlet, that the target year was really 1989, instead. That the motif of the unknown hour succeeded in reducing the force of the generational prophecy I have demonstrated elsewhere. It still serves that purpose in Christian churches to this very day.
What the ambiguous oracle and the generational prophecy share, of course, is the issue of timing: both seem to offer at least an approximate time for the end of days. Could they be connected? Could the ambiguous oracle, whatever it was, actually lie behind the generational prophecy? There need be no genetic connection; both the rebels and Jesus (or his apostles) could have simply been drawing upon a common interpretation of a common (Danielic?) text. But perhaps the connection is closer than that, after all. If John2 is correct about the oracle having been used or abused by the spiritual heirs of Judas the Galilean, then we have yet another correlation between Galileans and Christians to add to the ones we have already discussed:
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Jan 27, 2018 11:39 pm To put it another way, we have Julian the Apostate and others calling Christians "Galileans" at some point, and "Galileans" is hardly the most expected epithet to put upon them. At the same time, we have three gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Peter) locating resurrection appearances solely in Galilee (and John locating one of them in Galilee after a few in Jerusalem), and Galilee is hardly the most expected venue to host such an appearance, since everybody (the disciples, the women, and the Lord himself) is already in Judea at the time. Two not quite expected things having to do with Galilee... are they connected? Or is it just a coincidence?

ETA: To see what I mean by "hardly expected," just think of what happened when three of the gospels located the appearances in Galilee: it turns out that Luke, John, Acts, and the bulk of later tradition seemingly could not wait to locate them in Jerusalem. But what happened once they were located in Jerusalem? Did some other venue sweep in to steal them away? Not that I know of. They stayed in Jerusalem, a most fitting spot from which retroactively launch a movement ("behold, I lay a stone in Zion").
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 7:03 am
lsayre wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 3:05 am Judas the Galilean was the author of the fourth branch of Jewish philosophy. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kinds of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man lord. (Antiquities 18.23)

60 And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:60)
According to Epictetus, the Galileans are obstinate unto death; according to Marcus Aurelius, the Christians are obstinate unto death. And now you are pointing out that the "movement" inaugurated by Judas the Galilean involved people who "reckoned as little the undergoing of various kinds of deaths" (θανάτων τε ἰδέας ὑπομένειν παρηλλαγμένας ἐν ὀλίγῳ τίθενται). Is this another coincidence? What do you think?
If these data belong to the same basic conceptual arena, then we have a Galilean movement which has interpreted an ancient prophecy to mean that the end is coming soon. That Galilean movement could be either (A) the Fourth Philosophy informally inaugurated (according to Josephus) by Judas the Galilean or (B) the Christians (or both!), and that ancient prophecy could have come out either (A) as the ambiguous oracle or (B) as the generational prediction (or both!).

What do you think?

Ben.
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Re: Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

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One of the predictions in the Olivet Discourse which was not fulfilled in 70 (nor yet to this day) is the gathering of the elect:

Mark 13.27: 27 And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven.

The parallels from the Hebrew scriptures identify this verse as predicting the reconstitution of Israel, which must certainly have been a principal goal of the movement leading up to 70.
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Re: Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

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Passages describing the ambiguous oracle:

Josephus, Wars 6.5.4 §312-313: 312 τὸ δ᾽ ἐπᾶραν αὐτοὺς μάλιστα πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἦν χρησμὸς ἀμφίβολος ὁμοίως ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς εὑρημένος γράμμασιν, ὡς κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον ἀπὸ τῆς χώρας αὐτῶν τις ἄρξει τῆς οἰκουμένης. 313 τοῦθ᾽ οἱ μὲν ὡς οἰκεῖον ἐξέλαβον καὶ πολλοὶ τῶν σοφῶν ἐπλανήθησαν περὶ τὴν κρίσιν, ἐδήλου δ᾽ ἄρα τὴν Οὐεσπασιανοῦ τὸ λόγιον ἡγεμονίαν ἀποδειχθέντος ἐπὶ Ἰουδαίας αὐτοκράτορος. / 312 But what lifted them up especially toward the war was an ambiguous oracle likewise found in their sacred writings, as at that season someone from their country should rule the inhabited earth. 313 This they took as belonging to their own house, and many of the wise men were misled in their judgment. But this oracle pointed to the leadership of Vespasian, who was appointed autocrat in Judea.

Tacitus, Histories 5.13.2: 2 Quae pauci in metum trahebant; pluribus persuasio inerat antiquis sacerdotum litteris contineri eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens profectique Iudaea rerum potirentur, quae ambages Vespasianum ac Titum praedixerat, sed vulgus more humanae cupidinis sibi tantam fatorum magnitudinem interpretati ne adversis quidem ad vera mutabantur. / 2 Which things a few drew upon with dread; in most there was a persuasion that there was contained in the ancient letters of the priests that it would be at that very time that the Orient would grow strong and rulers of Judea would come into possession of matters, which ambiguous things had predicted Vespasian and Titus, but the common folk by their habit of human desire had interpreted such magnificence of fate of themselves, nor were converted to the truth even by disasters.

Suetonius, Life of Vespasian 4.5: 5 Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio esse in fatis ut eo tempore Iudaea profecti rerum potirentur. Id de imperatore Romano, quantum postea eventu paruit, praedictum Iudaei ad se trahentes rebellarunt caesoque praeposito legatum insuper Syriae consularem suppetias ferentem rapta aquila fugaverunt. / 5 There had spread over all the Orient an old and established belief that it was fated at that time for men coming from Judea to rule the world. This prediction, referring to the emperor of Rome, as afterwards appeared from the event, the people of Judea took to themselves; accordingly they revolted and, after killing their governor, they routed the consular ruler of Syria as well, when he came to the rescue, and took one of his eagles.

The temporal element is prominent in all three authors: Josephus (κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον, "at that season"), Tacitus (eo ipso tempore, "at that very time"), and Suetonius (eo tempore, "at that time"). All three authors also agree that the promised ruler was to come from Judea (or "their own country," as Josephus would have it). They all also agree that the prophecy really intended Vespasian, the current emperor of Rome (or the combination of Vespasian and Titus, as per Tacitus).
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Re: Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

Post by neilgodfrey »

I am not clear how the passages in Josephus/Tacitus/Suetonius tie in with any detail in the Olivet Prophecy of Jesus in the Synoptics.

Is there any biblical passage that points to a "world" ruler coming from Judea at this time? I don't recall any. Do the J/T/S references require a canonical passage?
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Re: Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

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ואספאסיאנוס = Shilo שִׁלֹה
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Re: Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

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Secret Alias wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 12:12 am ואספאסיאנוס = Shilo שִׁלֹה
Is that a response to my comment? How does the Shiloh prophecy fit any of the details we know of the supposed prophecy in J/T/S?
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Re: Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

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Secret Alias wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 12:12 am ואספאסיאנוס = Shilo שִׁלֹה
Well, that is what Josephus may have opined. :D (Tacitus adds Titus, too.)

But Shiloh is not enough for the entire "ambiguous oracle," is it? There ought also to be a timing element. Can you think of any kind of calendrical prediction which would fit the bill other than Danial or Enoch? That is why I suggested in my OP that more than one prophecy may have gone into this "ambiguous oracle." Shiloh would give us the world domination bit, Daniel the calendrical calculation. I think those two would be enough, though there is no reason to limit the number of passages to just two; we know that certain sectarian groups compiled catenae of passages which mutually interpreted one another.

The Targum Onkelos has: "...until the Messiah [מְשִׁיחָא] comes." Shiloh = Messiah.

ETA: Daniel 2.44-45 can easily be interpreted as the divine kingdom destroying the other kingdoms and therefore ruling over them, as well. I suspect all of these prophecies were interpreted in light of one another.
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Re: Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

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Here are my candidates so far for the "ambiguous oracle." I had originally suggested the 70 generations from 1 Enoch, too, but Josephus says that this ambiguous oracle was "found in the sacred writings" (ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς εὑρημένος γράμμασιν), and I am not sure that he would have counted 1 Enoch as a sacred writing, since in Against Apion 1.8 §38 he limits the canon to 22 books and expressly says that the books written thereafter are less authoritative:

Genesis 49.10: 10 "The scepter [שֵׁבֶט] shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh [Masoretic שִׁילֹה, LXX τὰ ἀποκείμενα αὐτῷ ("the things reserved for him"), Onkelos מְשִׁיחָא ("messiah")] comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples [Masoretic עַמִּים, LXX ἐθνῶν]."

Numbers 24.17: 17 "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; a star shall come forth from Jacob, and a scepter [שֵׁבֶט] shall rise from Israel, and shall crush through the forehead of Moab and tear down all the sons of Sheth."

Daniel 9.24-27: 24 "Seventy weeks of years are decreed concerning your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of a Messiah [Masoretic מָשִׁיחַ], a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, a Messiah [Masoretic מָשִׁיחַ] shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war; desolations are decreed. 27 And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week; and for half of the week he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator."

Whichever passages from the "sacred writings" we may deem appropriate for this oracle, it was evidently interpreted as being due for fulfillment at about "that time," the time of the War; I think only Daniel really qualifies for that kind of temporal prediction. That Targum Onkelos interprets Shiloh to be the Messiah would potentially connect Genesis 49.10 to the seventy weeks of Daniel. The scepter would connect Genesis 49.10 to Numbers 24.17.
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Re: Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

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Gematria is one of those "Jewish things" that would have been "Roman things" too. That's all I was noting. Never noticed that both Vespasian and Shiloh both equal 335. Aberbach "Josephus evidently applied this verse to Vespasian when he predicted that the Roman general would be proclaimed emperor in Judaea, although, as he himself points out, the Jews interpreted "an ambiguous oracle . . . found in their sacred Scriptures to the effect that . . . one from their country would become ruler of the one from their country would become ruler of the world" [Bell VI, 5,4 (312f); ibid. 11I,8,9 (400ff.)]. This is confirmed by Tacitus (Hist. 1, 10; V. 13). Suetonius (Vesp. 4-5), and Dio Cassius (Epitome, LXVL1)— proof that the Shiloh prophecy as interpreted by Josephus was included among the omina imperii of the Flavian dynasty."
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Re: Galileans, ambiguous oracles, Christians, and the generational prophecy.

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Secret Alias wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 6:59 am Gematria is one of those "Jewish things" that would have been "Roman things" too. That's all I was noting. Never noticed that both Vespasian and Shiloh both equal 335.
That is actually extremely interesting.
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