rakovsky wrote: ↑Sat Mar 03, 2018 1:32 pm
Seneca wrote On Anger after January 41 AD and dedicated it to his brother Gallio, who gave a favorable verdict in Paul's case in c.51-52 AD in Acts 18. In chapter 2, in order to criticize anger, Seneca gives a list of famous leaders who were killed in ill-fortune:
See all the chiefs whom tradition mentions as instances of ill fate; anger stabbed one of them in his bed, struck down another, though he was protected by the sacred rights of hospitality, tore another to pieces in the very home of the laws and in sight of the crowded forum, bade one shed his own blood by the parricide hand of his son, another to have his royal throat cut by the hand of a slave, another to stretch out his limbs on the cross: and hitherto I am speaking merely of individual cases.
Very interesting quote!
Here is one candidate to consider for the 'stretch out his limbs on the cross'. The last Hasmonean King and High Priest, Antigonus - executed by the Romans in 37 b.c.e.
''What has long been overlooked is that a Qumran text, widely acknowledged to have been authored at about this very time, speaks directly of a Jewish ruler being “hung up alive”—just like Dio Cassius’s account of the fate of Antigonus Mattathias. This is found at 4QpNah 3-4 i 8-ii 1, which is a pesher unit consisting of a biblical quotation followed by its interpretation. The text introduces this unit with the words: “concerning the one hanged up alive on a stake it is proclaimed:”, or “to the one hanged up alive on a stake he (i.e. God) proclaims:”. This is how the text of Pesher Nahum visibly introduces this particular unit. A quotation from Nah. 2:14 then follows (destruction of an Assyrian ruler and his regime) and then the pesher or interpretation, which refers to a doomed ruler of Israel and the fall of his regime. Elsewhere this same ruler of Israel (from identical language) is said explicitly to have a malkut, “kingdom” (3-4 iv 3). This doomed ruler of 3-4 i 8-ii 1 is a Jewish king in the world of the text, and the text presents him as “hung up alive” and accursed.''
Even if, for sake of argument, the gospel Jesus was historical, he would have been a nobody - hence of no interest whatsoever to a writer seeking to make historical inferences....
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
Here is one candidate to consider for the 'stretch out his limbs on the cross'. The last Hasmonean King and High Priest, Antigonus - executed by the Romans in 37 b.c.e.
''What has long been overlooked is that a Qumran text, widely acknowledged to have been authored at about this very time, speaks directly of a Jewish ruler being “hung up alive”—just like Dio Cassius’s account of the fate of Antigonus Mattathias.
Even if, for sake of argument, the gospel Jesus was historical, he would have been a nobody - hence of no interest whatsoever to a writer seeking to make historical inferences....
Thanks for sharing. Antigonus Mattathias would seem like another candidate if he was a Jewish leader who was crucified.
Jesus would not necessarily have been a nobody of no interest for Seneca and Gallio, since Gallio, to whom Seneca addressed DE IRA, had tried Paul's case and the crucified Jesus was the main figure of Paul's growing sect. Paul came to Greece and debated Stoic philosophers in Acts 17, and then in Acts 18 Gallio had to deal with the Jews' anger against Paul and Gallio rendered a verdict favourable to Paul. Plus, in one of his epistles, Paul sent greetings to Nero's household, and Seneca was Nero's tutor. Seneca alluding to the case of the crucified Jesus in the opening examples of anger would go along with these circumstances. So Jesus appears to me to be a reasonable candidate.
My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo ca.1617-1682
El martirio de San Andrés / The Martyrdom of St Andrew1675 - 1682
Oil on canvas
123 cm x 162 cm
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
Here is one candidate to consider for the 'stretch out his limbs on the cross'. The last Hasmonean King and High Priest, Antigonus - executed by the Romans in 37 b.c.e.
''What has long been overlooked is that a Qumran text, widely acknowledged to have been authored at about this very time, speaks directly of a Jewish ruler being “hung up alive”—just like Dio Cassius’s account of the fate of Antigonus Mattathias.
Even if, for sake of argument, the gospel Jesus was historical, he would have been a nobody - hence of no interest whatsoever to a writer seeking to make historical inferences....
Thanks for sharing. Antigonus Mattathias would seem like another candidate if he was a Jewish leader who was crucified.
Jesus would not necessarily have been a nobody of no interest for Seneca and Gallio, since Gallio, to whom Seneca addressed DE IRA, had tried Paul's case and the crucified Jesus was the main figure of Paul's growing sect. Paul came to Greece and debated Stoic philosophers in Acts 17, and then in Acts 18 Gallio had to deal with the Jews' anger against Paul and Gallio rendered a verdict favourable to Paul. Plus, in one of his epistles, Paul sent greetings to Nero's household, and Seneca was Nero's tutor. Seneca alluding to the case of the crucified Jesus in the opening examples of anger would go along with these circumstances. So Jesus appears to me to be a reasonable candidate.
I'd bet on Antigonus - at least his existence is verified via Hasmonean coins.....Jesus, and Paul for that matter, are New Testament figures that have not been historically verified...
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
