''Week of Jesus the Son'' and 'Jesus Barabbas'

[MrMacSon]

§ 1. The Primary Impulsion
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... a “multifocal” movement, a growth from many points, is involved in all our knowledge of the highly important matters of the history of the early Christian sects, and the non-canonical Christian documents ... To begin with, we find at an early stage the sects of (1) Ebionites and (2) Nazarenes or Nazareans, in addition to (3 and 4) the Judaizing and Gentilizing movements associated with “the Twelve” and Paul respectively; and yet further (5) the movement associated with the name of Apollos. Further we have to note (6) the Jesuism of the Apocalypse, partly extra-Judaic in its derivation; and (7) that of the ninth section of the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, which emerges as a quasi-Ebionitic addition to a purely Judaic document— not yet interpolated by the seventh section. Yet further, we have (8) the factors accruing to the religious epithet “Chrēstos”⁴ (= good, gracious), which specially attached to the underworld Gods of the Samothracian mysteries; also to Hermes, Osiris, and Isis [and probably also Serapis]; and (9 and 10) the Christist cult-movements connected with the non-Jesuine Pastor of Hermas and the sect of the Eleesaites.⁵ And this is not an exhaustive list. (11)

That there was a general Jewish ferment of Messianism on foot in the first century is part of the case of the biographical school. That there actually arose in the first and second centuries various Jewish “Christs” is also a historical datum.

... the phrase of Suetonius as to a movement of Jewish revolt at Rome occurring in the reign of Claudius impulsore Chresto [(one) Chrestus instigating⁶] .. is not an allusion to the Greek epithet Chrēstos before referred to: it is either a specification of an individual otherwise unknown, or the reduction to vague historic status of the source of a general ferment of Jewish insurrection in Rome, founding on [an] expectation of * the Christos, the Messiah. In the reign of Claudius, such a movement could not have been made by “Christians” on any view of the history. As the words were pronounced alike they were interchangeably written, Chrestos (preserved in the French chrétien) being used even among the Fathers. Giving to the phrase of Suetonius the only plausible import we can assign to it, we get the datum that among the Jews outside Palestine there was a generalized movement of quasi-revolutionary Christism which cannot well have been without its special literature. (12) [* italics mine]

In this connection may be noted the appearance of a quasi-impersonal Messianism and Christism on the border-land of Jewish and early Christian literature. Of this, a main source is the Book of Enoch, of which the Messianic sections are now by general consent assigned to the first and second centuries B.C. There the Messiah is called the Just or Righteous One; ⁷ the Chosen One;⁸ Son of Man;⁹ the Anointed;¹⁰ and once “Son of the Woman.”¹¹ Here already we have the imagined Divine One more or less concretely represented. He is premundane, and so supernatural, yet not equal with God, being simply God’s deputy.¹² When then we find in the so-called Odes of Solomon, recently recovered from an Ethiopic version, a Messianic psalmody in which, apparently in the first Christian century, “the name of the gospel is not found, nor the name of Jesus;” and “not a single saying of Jesus is directly quoted,”¹³ it is critically inadmissible to pronounce the Odes Christian, especially when a number are admitted to have no Christian characteristics.¹⁴

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There are further two quasi-historical Jesuses, one (14) given in the Old Testament, the other (15) in the Talmud, concerning which we can neither affirm nor deny that they were connected with a Jesuine movement before the Christian era. One is the Jesus of Zechariah (iii, 1– 8; vi, 11– 15); the other is the Jesus Ben Pandira, otherwise Jesus Ben Satda or Stada, of the Talmud. The former, Jesus the High Priest, plays a quasi-Messianic part, being described as “The Branch” and doubly crowned as priest and king. The word for “branch” in Zechariah is tsemach, but this was by the pre-Christian Jews identified with the netzer of Isaiah xi, 1; which for some the early Jesuists would seem to have constituted the explanation of Jesus’ cognomen of “Nazarite” or “Nazaræan.”²⁰ The historic significance of the allusions in Zechariah appears to have been wholly lost; and that very circumstance suggests some pre-Christian connection between the name Jesus and a Messianic movement, which the Jewish teachers would be disposed to let slip from history, and the Christists who might know of it would not wish to recall. But the matter remains an enigma.

Equally unsolved, thus far, is the problem of the Talmudic Jesus. Ostensibly, there are two; and yet both seem to have been connected, in the Jewish mind, with the Jesus of the gospels. One, Jesus son of Pandira, is recorded to have been stoned to death and then hanged on a tree, for blasphemy or other religious crime, on the eve of a Passover in the reign of Alexander Jannæus (B.C. 106– 79).²¹ But in the Babylonian Gemara he is identified with a Jesus Ben Sotada or Stada or Sadta or Sidta, who by one rather doubtful clue is put in the period of Rabbi Akiba in the second century C.E. He too is said to have been stoned and hanged on the eve of a Passover, but at Lydda, whereas Ben Pandira is said to have been executed at Jerusalem. Some scholars take the unlikely view that two different Jesuses were thus stoned and hanged on the eve of a Passover: others infer one, whose date has been confused.²²

As Ben Pandira entered into the Jewish anti-Christian tradition, and is posited by the Jew of Celsus in the second century, the presumption is in favour of his date. His mother is in one place named Mariam Magdala = “Mary the nurse” or “hair-dresser”— a quasi-mythical detail. But even supposing him to have been a real personage, whose name may have been connected with a Messianic movement (he is said to have had five disciples), it is impossible to say what share his name may have had in the Jesuine tradition. Our only practicable clues, then, are those of the sects and movements enumerated.

J. M. Robertson. The Jesus Problem / A Restatement of the Myth Theory (Kindle Locations 2182-2256).

[Secret Alias]

I was very busy until now but I thought someone else would pick up something interesting in the citation. The phrase ישוע הבן is odd. It is taken to mean "salvation of the son" and is used as a synonym for פדיון הבן‎ = "redemption of the first born." When Idel cites the saying he reads it ישועת הבן. Idel expected - or wants to see - ישועת הבן but it reads ישוע הבן. Some think it is a typo for ישועה or שבוע so it refers a ritual performed on a child other than 8 days old. But something is peculiar here. It is not a straightforward reading. It requires an explanation.

[Secret Alias]

It would seem as if 'the week of the son" is understood to be the original reading and many have argued that in fact 'it doesn't necessarily have to refer to circumcision' so Oppenheimer:

In this source R. Ishmael b. Elisha gives evidence generally of repressive laws which were imposed from the time that the wicked kingdom - Rome - spread. These laws stopped Jews from observing the Torah and mitzvot. and he speaks specifically about the ban on 'the week of the son' or li-yeshua ha-ben,3b 'The week of the son' does not necessarily refer to circumcision, for this is carried out circumcision together with on the eighth day, not during the week after the birth, and we also find a 'week of the daughter' in the sources.37 In the case of 'the week of the daughter' it is clear that there can be no question of circumcision, and it would appear that in both cases, which talk of a week, what is meant is the seven days of feasting which used to be held after the birth of a son or daughter.38 It is also clear that this source specifically differentiates between the 'week of the son' and circumcision, treating them separately, although it is still possible that the halakhah is simply making a distinction between the feast and the circumcision itself. The concept of the 'week of the son' was studied by J. Bergmann, whose reasonable conclusion was that the 'week of the son' and the 'week of the daughter' refer to celebrations that were customary throughout the week after the birth of a child.45 Thus these feasts acquired a special meaning, as shown in the continuation of the statement by R. Elazar beRabbi Zadoq: 'with the week of the son and gathering bones, the week of the son has precedence over the gathering of bones."

https://books.google.com/books?id=BPkfQ ... 22&f=false

[Secret Alias]

So it would seem that Oppenheimer uses the Maseket Semahot (= Tractate Mourning) as decisive proof that this memorial can't be related to circumcision (= because of its reference to a 'week of the daughter' and the reading 'week' as opposed to 'salvation' or many of the other constructs to make sense of the grammar. But the Maseket is an eighth century or ninth century work or even later https://books.google.com/books?id=zLqXC ... 22&f=false. You can't use it to decide between 'week' and 'salvation.'