Philip

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John2
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Philip

Post by John2 »

I'm exploring (ever so slowly) the idea that the Philip in the NT could be Philip the son of Jacimus in Josephus. Since I already lean towards the idea that the Saul in Josephus (Ant. 20 and War 2) is Paul, the fact that Josephus mentions people in association with this Saul who have similar names as people who are associated with Paul in Acts (Silas, Niger and Philip) makes me wonder if they could be the same Philip.

While it appears to be a "fringe" idea (think Eisenman and Cresswell), I buy the Saul/Paul part of the argument (I at least think that what Josephus says about Saul does sound a lot like Paul), and now I want to take a look at these Philips, just to see what there is to see.

Cresswell writes:
So, if Paul is there in Josephus [as Saul], Philip should be there also. What is needed to demonstrate the case is someone called Philip who fulfils all the requirements demonstrated in the gospels and Acts.

And there is indeed such a character, Philip son of Jacimus and grandson of Zamaris. This Philip was from what Josephus describes as a colony of 'Babylonian Jews' established by King Herod in the hills east of the Sea of Galilee (not far from Bethsaida, where the gospel Philip is said to have originated). Herod's purpose was to establish a buffer zone between outside forces, specifically the Babylonians, and Jerusalem, the core of his kingdom. These colonists were not ordinary Jews in Israel but people whose ancestors had been exiled and who had in exile absorbed some of the ways of their hosts. They were loyal to the Herodians: Herod 'the Great' and then later Agrippa I and Agrippa II.

So this fits with Philip as someone who straddled two cultures and acted as a broker. He should also have been a person of substance, as indeed Philip Jacimus was. His grandfather and father before him had been placed in charge of the Babylonian Jewish community, governing the city of Bathyra.

Philip should have been, as in Acts, a compatriot of Paul. In Josephus' Jewish War, he is just that, fleeing Jerusalem with Saul and Saul's brother Costobar to join the Roman commander Cestius Gallus.

https://books.google.com/books?id=aX42x ... us&f=false


That this Philip was pro-Herodian would be in keeping with Saul (and with Paul, e.g., Rom. 13 and 16:10-11), since Josephus says he was related to them.

And the Jewish Virtual Library notes something curious about Philip:
Two of his brother's daughters were the only inhabitants of Gamala who escaped death by hiding from the Romans.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/philip-of-bathyra
That gets my attention because of the reference to the NT Philip having daughters in Acts 21:9:
He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.
It's not the same thing of course, but it's curious that both Philips are associated with remarkable daughters.

According to the above link (and for my further reference), Philip is mentioned in War 2.421, 556; 4.81; Ant. 17.30 and Life 46ff., 59-60, 177, 179-84 and 407.

And it looks like the NT Philip (aside from the list of disciples and some references in John) is mainly mentioned in Acts 8, and I will assume (if this is Josephus' Philip) that Acts gives him the same treatment that it gives to Peter (who I think is the Simon Josephus mentions in Ant. 19.7.4, which Ben and I have discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3784&hilit=do+you+t ... h&start=40). As Ben wrote regarding the similarity of Josephus' Simon and Peter in Acts 12:
Do you think that this Simon's brush with Agrippa [in Josephus] could be what lies behind Peter's imprisonment by him in Acts 12? After Peter's escape it is mentioned (in verse 19) that Agrippa spent time in Caesarea, as Josephus mentions, too. Could the prison escape be a cover story for Peter's unseemly acquiescence to Agrippa? (Nooooo, he did not crumble under pressure; he was put in prison and an angel helped him to escape!)
In other words, I assume there could similarly be some whitewashing going on regarding Philip in Acts (if they are the same person; but if there's nothing to it then there's nothing to it, for all I care).

And it's curios that the account of Philip in Acts 8 is bookended with references to Saul (if you factor in Acts 9).

https://biblehub.com/niv/acts/8.htm

https://biblehub.com/niv/acts/9.htm

And I wouldn't mind taking a closer look at the extra-biblical references to the daughters of Philip. Wikipedia says:
Further details of these women are given in various early histories including Eusebius and Papias. It is possible that they were informants for both Luke in their youth and the early Christian historian Papias in their latter years. Eusebius quoting Papias tells us that two daughters remained with Philip in his old age, when he had moved to the Phrygian city of Hierapolis and even relates a tale where one was miraculously rose from the dead.” Eusebius' source for these tales was Papias, who he extensively quoted, and who was a young Bishop of Hierapolis. It is plausible that Papias knew these women.

Eusebius held the women as examples of the right living and refers to them as “great lights” or “mighty luminaries” People would travel long distances to consult them. Furthermore, Eusebius regarded Philip’s daughters and their ministry as the benchmark for prophetic ministry in the early church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_Philip
Eusebius writes in EH 3.39.8-9:
8. But it is fitting to subjoin to the words of Papias which have been quoted, other passages from his works in which he relates some other wonderful events which he claims to have received from tradition.

9. That Philip the apostle dwelt at Hierapolis with his daughters has been already stated. But it must be noted here that Papias, their contemporary, says that he heard a wonderful tale from the daughters of Philip. For he relates that in his time one rose from the dead. And he tells another wonderful story of Justus, surnamed Barsabbas: that he drank a deadly poison, and yet, by the grace of the Lord, suffered no harm.
Eusebius also writes in EH 3.31.2-4:
2. The time of John's death has also been given in a general way, but his burial place is indicated by an epistle of Polycrates (who was bishop of the parish of Ephesus), addressed to Victor, bishop of Rome. In this epistle he mentions him together with the apostle Philip and his daughters in the following words:

3. “For in Asia also great lights have fallen asleep, which shall rise again on the last day, at the coming of the Lord, when he shall come with glory from heaven and shall seek out all the saints. Among these are Philip, one of the twelve apostles, who sleeps in Hierapolis, and his two aged virgin daughters, and another daughter who lived in the Holy Spirit and now rests at Ephesus; and moreover John, who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest wore the sacerdotal plate. He also sleeps at Ephesus.”

4. So much concerning their death. And in the Dialogue of Caius which we mentioned a little above, Proclus, against whom he directed his disputation, in agreement with what has been quoted, speaks thus concerning the death of Philip and his daughters: “After him there were four prophetesses, the daughters of Philip, at Hierapolis in Asia. Their tomb is there and the tomb of their father.” Such is his statement.
And Papias says regarding Philip in EH 3.39.4:
4. If, then, any one came, who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders — what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say.
I'm just trying to get my mind around who these two Philips were and see if they could be the same person. In the big picture, it wouldn't bother me if they weren't and I don't think it would be a big deal if they were (no more than the idea that the James in Josephus is James the Just). The association with someone named Saul in both cases is what is intriguing me.
Last edited by John2 on Fri Oct 12, 2018 7:02 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

And it looks like John (in the NT) is the only one who says that Philip was from Bethsaida.

Jn. 1:44 and 12:21:
Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida.
They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee ...
I guess this would put the tradition in the "Asiatic" camp like Papias, in keeping with what Ben has said on another thread:
Papias' list of disciples also seems to be somewhat Johannine. So did he know the gospel of John or not? The ideal solution, to my eye, is to take Papias at his word when he says he inquired orally after the words of the disciples; he drew, essentially, from an Asiatic tradition which would later produce our canonical gospel of John. I do not think that the Asiatic tradition was Johannine, so to speak; rather, the exact reverse: the gospel of John is Asiatic.
Hm.
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Re: Philip

Post by Ben C. Smith »

John2 wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 5:48 pmAnd I wouldn't mind taking a closer look at the extra-biblical references to the daughters of Philip.
I have a list here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3822.
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

And now for a little Eisenman. I haven't tried to decipher him in a long time (I gave up after reading only a quarter of The New Testament Code when it came out), but I see that he notes some curious details about the Philip in Josephus:
In Vita 46-61, Josephus goes into great detail about this 'Philip' ... It turns out that he also acted as a 'messenger' or 'apostle' of sorts (in Line 52, Josephus actually calls him an 'Apostle'). As this is expressed by Josephus, he was one of 'the Twelve' who was sent to their Jewish compatriots in Ecbatana ... to dissuade them from revolting against Rome. It even turns out 'Seventy' others were required to go with them who are even called by Josephus the Seventy' -i.e., the Seventy' and 'the Twelve apostles.'

https://books.google.com/books?id=sHKzC ... us&f=false
Life 56-57:
So when the twelve messengers came to their countrymen at Ecbatana, and found that they had no designs of innovation at all, they persuaded them to send the seventy men also; who, not at all suspecting what would come, sent them accordingly. So these seventy went down to Caesarea, together with the twelve ambassadors.
Hm. So now there are "the twelve messengers" and "the seventy" associated with this Philip, like the NT Philip.

This webpage cites "St. Hippolytus' account of the Twelve Apostles and how they died, and his list of the Seventy apostles" (but which seems to have two Philips):
5. [of "the Twelve"] Philip preached in Phrygia, and was crucified in Hierapolis with his head downward in the time of Domitian, and was buried there ...

7. [of "the Seventy"] Philip, who baptized the eunuch.

http://www.pravoslavieto.com/docs/sv_ot ... _12_70.htm


And this website notes regarding "the Seventy" in the NT:
The seventy disciples or seventy-two disciples (known in the Eastern Christian traditions as the Seventy[-two] Apostles) were early emissaries of Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Luke. According to Luke, the only gospel in which they appear, Jesus appointed them and sent them out in pairs on a specific mission which is detailed in the text.

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


And since in my view Luke/Acts used Josephus, it makes the "seventy" reference in both even more curious.

So now the similarities between Josephus' Philip and the NT Philip are:

1. Association with someone named Saul
2. Association with daughters (two according to Josephus, three and four according to Polycrates and Acts; and Polycrates says there were only two virgin daughters)
3. Association with "twelve" and "seventy" messengers/apostles
4. Association with the Galilee region
Last edited by John2 on Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:17 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Philip

Post by MrMacSon »

John2 wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 5:48 pm
I'm exploring (ever so slowly) the idea that the Philip in the NT could be Philip the son of Jacimus in Josephus. Since I already lean towards the idea that the Saul in Josephus (Ant. 20 and War 2) is Paul, the fact that Josephus mentions people in association with this Saul who have similar names as people who are associated with Paul in Acts (Silas, Niger and Philip) makes me wonder if they could be the same Philip.

While it appears to be a "fringe" idea (think Eisenman and Cresswell), I buy the Saul/Paul part of the argument (I at least think that what Josephus says about Saul does sound a lot like Paul), and now I want to take a look at these Philips, just to see what there is to see.

Cresswell writes:
So, if Paul is there in Josephus [as Saul], Philip should be there also. What is needed to demonstrate the case is someone called Philip who fulfils all the requirements demonstrated in the gospels and Acts.

And there is indeed such a character, Philip son of Jacimus and grandson of Zamaris. This Philip was from what Josephus describes as a colony of 'Babylonian Jews' established by King Herod in the hills east of the Sea of Galilee (not far from Bethsaida, where the gospel Philip is said to have originated). Herod's purpose was to establish a buffer zone between outside forces, specifically the Babylonians, and Jerusalem, the core of his kingdom. These colonists were ... people whose ancestors had been exiled and who had in exile absorbed some of the ways of their hosts. They were loyal to the Herodians: Herod 'the Great' and then later Agrippa I and Agrippa II.

So this fits with Philip as someone who straddled two cultures and acted as a broker. He should also have been a person of substance, as indeed Philip Jacimus was. His grandfather and father before him had been placed in charge of the Babylonian Jewish community, governing the city of Bathyra.

Philip should have been, as in Acts, a compatriot of Paul. In Josephus' Jewish War, he is just that, fleeing Jerusalem with Saul and Saul's brother Costobar to join the Roman commander Cestius Gallus.


https://books.google.com/books?id=aX42x ... us&f=false

FWIW, Robert M Price has a reasonable amount to say about Philip and how he fits in (interspersed with other commentary) -

The sequel to Luke’s Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, has Philip, one of the Seven who led the Hellenistic Christians, preach in Samaria and convert the whole capital city to faith in Jesus (Acts 8:5-8ff). This is where Simon Magus comes in. Luke, the narrator of Acts, says that when Philip came to town, he found a revival of another sort already in progress. The whole place was captivated by a magician who claimed to be the Great Power, or Godhead, in the flesh. Simon validated this by producing astonishing miracles (Acts 8:9-11). Then Philip arrived, according to Luke; but Luke digresses from the legend preserved in other Christian sources and claims the whole Samaritan populace was swayed by Philip to become Christian, including Simon!

Price, Robert M.. The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul (Kindle Locations 3778-3783). Signature Books.

Price then talks about Simon and Helen, as eternal soul mates; Helen having existed in the divine pleroma ("in the swamp of the world of matter, the sinister creation of the pernicious archons, or rulers"), the heavenly world of light and spirit, as the Ennoia or Epinoia, the First Thought - pretty much the same idea as the personified Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8, Sirach 1, and Wisdom of Solomon 7, or the Logos of Philo, but female. As such, she and the Great Power [Simon] formed a syzygy, or a yoked pair.

"This salvation myth, quite typical of Gnosticism in general, implied that those who followed Simon and learned his secret knowledge (gnosis) would be saved after death."

Then -
According to the Church Fathers, Simon Magus assumed the title of the Standing One, the divine entity who is reborn continually throughout the history of the world, and claimed he had recently appeared in Judea in the form of the Son of God, implicitly claiming to be the reincarnation of Jesus of Nazareth. The great Theosophist scholar George Mead, in his book on Simon, understood this claim to imply that Simon was appropriating the esoteric doctrines of Jesus, not that he was inhabited by the same spirit.[8] Since Acts has Simon Peter confronting Simon Magus (one has to pay attention to keep the names straight), this would make the magician a contemporary of Jesus. It was therefore similar to Elisha, a younger contemporary of Elijah, bearing the same spirit as his master (2 Kings 2:15). However, there remains another possibility, as we will see later on.

Luke did not adequately conceal the traces of the story he was borrowing and rewriting. The original story must have had Philip and Simon Magus engaging in a miracle contest. Luke omitted this battle because his sympathies were with Peter, so he deemed it unseemly for Philip to be depicted as the superhero. This left Luke with no account of why Simon suddenly retired from the field and allowed Philip to co-opt his whole movement without so much as a challenge. Luke presents it as a vaudeville act, with Simon as the opening number and Philip the main event on an evening’s billing. Equally artificial is the claim that Philip baptized everyone but withheld the Holy Spirit until Simon Peter could dramatically arrive from Jerusalem and make it official (Acts 8:14-17). Simon Magus himself, cowed and repentant, is reduced to a Christian convert who sheepishly asks Peter to teach him, for money, the trick to making people speak in tongues and prophesy (Acts 8:18-19). Peter rebukes him, as translated by J. B. Phillips, saying: “To hell with you and your money!” Simon retreats with his arrow-pointed devil’s tail between his legs.

It is evident that, in Luke’s source, the story would have originally featured Philip, not Simon Peter, and that after a duel of miracles, Simon Magus would have been forced to withdraw from Samaria, precisely as Simon Peter does in the post-Lukan Clementine writings, the Acts of Peter, and elsewhere.

Again, what Luke did when he rewrote the story was to steal thunder from Philip and transfer it to Peter, a more important ecclesiastical symbol in those days, the same as someone did when he took the feat of slaying Goliath from the lesser-known hero Elhanan of Bethlehem (2 Sam. 21) and credited David instead (1 Sam. 17). Subsequent post-Lukan writers kept the on-stage miracle contest, retaining Peter as a rival magician and adding a rematch in Rome, where Simon Magus traveled to steal Peter’s converts from him. Simon Magus is successful until Simon Peter challenges him to another demonstration of power, reminiscent of the contest between Elijah and the priests of Baal Melkarth in 1 Kings 18. Peter wins, regaining all of his gullible and fickle converts, when Simon Magus, having rigged up a special effects trick, seems to fly but soon crashes to the ground. Legend subsequently transferred this motif (pride going before a literal fall) to the folklore figures of the Antichrist and Dr. Faustus. The legends seem to reflect the real competition between competing sects of Simonians and Christians, who were represented in both Samaria and Rome. Justin Martyr, himself a Samaritan convert to Christianity and visitor to Rome, tells us that in his day Simonianism had swept all Samaria into its fold, while Rome had notable Simonian congregations.

An interesting question surrounding Simon Magus is why the Great Power would repeatedly incarnate himself? After all, in Gnosticism the soul returns to another incarnation if the person is ignorant of his or her true origin and destiny. When one becomes enlightened, the cycle of reincarnation is broken and the spirit sloughs off the defiling flesh in order to enter the pleroma. But Simon certainly did not share that ignorance. Voluntarily, in the manner of the Bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism, he voluntarily undertook countless births in the world to seek out and to save that which was lost: Helen, the Ennoia, the symbol of the soul of the Elect Ones. It is out of compassion that the Standing One repeatedly descends into the flesh to show the world the true path. Helen is the bait.

Luke seems to know all this, as Gerd Lüdemann points out, since he uses a special, rare Greek word in Peter’s rebuke of the magus: “Pray to the Lord that this thought (epinoia) may be forgiven you” (Acts 8:22). It looks to be a spoof on the beliefs of the Simonians ...


The Amazing Colossal Apostle (Kindle Locations 3808-3843)
Paul and Queen Helena
From where did Acts draw the raw material for the prophecy of Agabus forecasting famine during Claudius’s reign, setting up the need for Paul’s trip from Antioch to deliver famine relief funds in Jerusalem? What about the earlier tale of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch? From our old friend Josephus. The credit for this discovery goes to Robert Eisenman.[29] It all stems, by hook and crook, from the story of Helena, Queen of Adiabene, a realm contiguous with Edessa, whose king was Agbar or Abgarus. Some texts make Abgarus Helena’s husband. Helena and her son Izates converted to Judaism, though initially Izates was not circumcised because his Jewish teacher, a merchant named Ananias, told him that it was more important simply to worship God than to be circumcised.

The Amazing Colossal Apostle(Kindle Locations 4043-4049).


29 Robert Eisenman, James, the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls [New York: Viking, 1996], 883-922
.

Price then cites a long passage from Josephus (2:2.1-4 [War, I think; he doesn't specify]), then he mentions Eisenman again and talks about a other few things, including how he, Price, identifies Saul with Simon Magus, and "from that perspective this association of Paul with Queen Helena makes a lot of sense, for it is identical to the implied relationship Simon had with Drusilla and Felix (likewise Elymas* with Sergius Paul), a servant and mystagogue among their retinue, no doubt a counselor and advisor. And as I [RM Price] have already noted, Simon Magus is paired in the ancient sources with one Helen (from Tyre) who had once reigned as Queen of Troy. Here they are together again: Simon Magus and Queen Helen, this time, of Adiabene." (Kindle Locations 4146-4150).
  • footnote 28. Elymas’s patronymic was “bar-Jesus,” meaning “son of Jesus.” The Western Text of Acts gives the name as Etoimas or Etomas instead of Elymas, and this is pretty close to Josephus’s “Atomus.”
We pick up the theme of the Helena story again in Acts 8, only this time with Philip substituting for Eleazar. Philip accosts the financial officer of a foreign queen travelling from Jerusalem through Egypt by way of Gaza. This is, of course, the story of the Ethiopian eunuch, and this time Acts transforms Helena into a New Testament Queen of Sheba, having come to Jerusalem to hear the wisdom of Solomon. There is also a pun on the root saba, denoting baptism, a la the Essenes, Sampsaeans, Sabeans, Masbutheans, and Mandaeans, the type of Judaism Helena would have converted to (given the later Zealot involvements of her sons and her own reputed 21 years of Nazirite asceticism).

Henry Cadbury pointed out long ago that Luke fell into the trap of thinking that Candace was a personal name when it was really kandake,[31] the title of all Ethiopian queens. What Cadbury did not know was that there were no Ethiopian queens at this time. Acts has, then, derived the queen character from Helena. When Acts has the prophet Agabus predict famine, the author has derived the name from Helena’s husband, sometimes rendered Agbarus.

When the eunuch invites Philip to step up into his chariot, we have an echo of Jehu welcoming Jonadab into his chariot in 2 Kings 10. When Philip asks the Ethiopian if he understands what he is reading, Acts seems to borrow from the story of Izates and Eleazar where the question also presages a ritual conversion. This time the passage in question is Isaiah’s prophecy of Jesus, and the initiatory ritual is baptism, not circumcision. However, the original circumcision may survive in the form of the Ethiopian being a eunuch, having been fully castrated (cf. Gal. 5:11-12). Even the location of the Acts episode is dictated by the Helena story, as the Ethiopian travels into Egypt via Gaza as Helena’s agents must have in order to buy grain from Alexandria. The substituted motivation for the trip in Acts, by contrast, is absurd because a eunuch could not go to Jerusalem to worship, where eunuchs were barred from the Temple.[32]

The Amazing Colossal Apostle (Kindle Locations 4150-4166).
And just as the Baptist had been made the forerunner of the victorious Christ, I think Cephas, Paul, and Apollos were made into his apostles and proclaimers after the fact. This is certainly the point of Acts 8 where Simon Magus is shown converting to faith in Christ, albeit with ulterior motives. He loses out to Philip, then to Peter, tries to buy apostolic power, and is sternly warned to straighten up and fly right, a warning, in truth, to Simonian recruits to Christianity.

The Amazing Colossal Apostle (Kindle Locations 4266-4269).
Last edited by MrMacSon on Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:07 pm, edited 10 times in total.
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

Thank you Ben and MrMacSon. Much to chew on here.
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Re: Philip

Post by Ben C. Smith »

John2 wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:03 pmThis webpage cites "St. Hippolytus' account of the Twelve Apostles and how they died, and his list of the Seventy apostles" (but which seems to have two Philips)....
Well, remember that Acts distinguishes between two Philips: one being the apostle, the other merely an evangelist. For my money, they were originally the same Philip, but Christopher R. Matthews gives reasons which the author/editor of Acts may have had for splitting him into two in Philip: Apostle and Evangelist.
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Re: Philip

Post by MrMacSon »

John2 wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:07 pm Thank you Ben and MrMacSon. Much to chew on here.
You're welcome. Note I've edited my post above a few times.

John2 wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:03 pm
So now the similarities between Josephus' Philip and the NT Philip are:
  1. Association with someone named Saul
  2. ...
.
Note that Price thinks Paul is based on Simon Magus, and he thinks the change from Saul to Paul at Acts 13:9 is Paul being narrated as a new Simon Magus (and his foundation character Simon Magus is being quietly cast aside).
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Re: Philip

Post by John2 »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:29 pm
John2 wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:03 pmThis webpage cites "St. Hippolytus' account of the Twelve Apostles and how they died, and his list of the Seventy apostles" (but which seems to have two Philips)....
Well, remember that Acts distinguishes between two Philips: one being the apostle, the other merely an evangelist. For my money, they were originally the same Philip, but Christopher R. Matthews gives reasons which the author/editor of Acts may have had for splitting him into two in Philip: Apostle and Evangelist.
Ah, I see. I was putting aside the question of who the Philip is in the twelve disciples lists, with the tentative assumption that it is the Philip in Acts 8. That explains why Hippolytus has two Philips anyway. But now I'm confused. If there are two Philips, then which one is the one who resembles Josephus' Philip? Ugh. Now I need to look at everything again (and check out Matthews).
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Re: Philip

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John2 wrote: Sat Oct 13, 2018 2:00 pm Ah, I see. I was putting aside the question of who the Philip is in the twelve disciples lists, with the tentative assumption that it is the Philip in Acts 8. That explains why Hippolytus has two Philips anyway. But now I'm confused. If there are two Philips, then which one is the one who resembles Josephus' Philip? Ugh. Now I need to look at everything again (and check out Matthews).
Note Ben says
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:29 pm Well, remember that Acts distinguishes between two Philips: one being the apostle, the other merely an evangelist. For my money, they were originally the same Philip .... the author/editor of Acts may have had [reasons] for splitting him into two [as does Christopher R. Matthews in Philip: Apostle and Evangelist].
The reason I included so much from Price and made reference to his views on Saul, Paul, and Simon Magus is the proposition that some (and perhaps many) of these characters are re-writes of other, previous characters (often with embellishments).
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