Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

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Here's the Baarda article where I am referenced in the last footnote https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... 5BE1E3650A
My attention was drawn to this text by Stephan Huller (in an email of July 2010).
“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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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

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Secret Alias wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 7:04 pm Here's the Baarda article where I am referenced in the last footnote https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... 5BE1E3650A
My attention was drawn to this text by Stephan Huller (in an email of July 2010).
So do you mean this line? "And they thought that the time of his decease which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem was come," whereas canonical Luke says that they spoke about "his decease/departure/exodus," which was going to come.
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Secret Alias
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

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Well yes. My point to Tjitze was it could be a preservation of the apostles remembering the Transfiguration came after the Passion. He didn't buy it.
“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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DCHindley
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 7:56 pm
Secret Alias wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 7:04 pm Here's the Baarda article where I am referenced in the last footnote https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... 5BE1E3650A
My attention was drawn to this text by Stephan Huller (in an email of July 2010).
So do you mean this line? "And they thought that the time of his decease which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem was come," whereas canonical Luke says that they spoke about "his decease/departure/exodus," which was going to come.
I think he was referring to section 55.3 "And while they sat there he appeared to them again, and upbraided them for their lack of faith and the hardness of their hearts, those that saw him when he was risen, and believed not."

This is from Mark 16:14. In the vulgate it is "novissime recumbentibus illis undecim apparuit et exprobravit incredulitatem illorum et duritiam cordis quia his qui viderant eum resurrexisse non crediderant"

There Jesus "apparuit," or appeared, as they reclined.

DRA Mark 16:14 At length he appeared to the eleven as they were at table: and he upbraided them with their incredulity and hardness of heart, because they did not believe them who had seen him after he was risen again.

What the mention of the word "occidetur" in the Vulgate Latin of Daniel 9:26 has to do with this, I am not sure.

VUL Daniel 9:26 "et post ebdomades sexaginta duas occidetur christus"
DRA Daniel 9:26 And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain

It may have to do with being "struck down" as Paul had happen to him when he had his vision.

Where SA is going with this I know not.

DCH
Secret Alias
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

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Jerome knew the Hebrew text which read "anointed one" rsther than the Greek "anointing."
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

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You get my original point that the Hebrew of Daniel 9:26 SHOULD HAVE been used to prove the prophets predicted the Passion "a messiah will be killed and disappear." That's how Mark originally ended. You'd think the chronologies would date the 62nd week of Daniel to the crucifixion. Why isn't Jesus the killed messiah of Daniel? It's the only explicit use of "messiah" in the Jewish prophetic writings and Daniel predicts a killed messiah. Why avoid this? Seems like a slam dunk for apologists. It's not like they didn't say "the Passion is part of the unfolding of the 70 weeks." They did. Africanus ends the 70 weeks at the Passion effectively and Eusebius times it to the birth of Jesus - both shitty convoluted arguments. You'd think wouldn't have avoided using a Hebrew text that is an obvious slam dunk for Christianity.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

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And this is our earliest Christian interpretation of the 70 weeks and it comes damn close to identifying the Christ as the killed anointed one of Daniel 9:26
But God, foreseeing what was to be--that they will not merely not receive Him, but will both persecute and deliver Him to death--both recapitulated, and said, that in lx and ii and an half of an hebdomad He is born, and an holy one of holy ones is anointed; but that when vii hebdomads and an half were fulfilling, He had to suffer, and the holy city had to be exterminated after one and an half hebdomad--whereby namely, the seven and an half hebdomads have been completed. For he says thus: "And the city and the holy place to be exterminated together with the leader who is to come; and they shall be cut short as in a deluge; and he shall destroy the pinnacle unto ruin."109 [9] Whence, therefore, do we show that the Christ came within the lxii and an half hebdomads? We shall count, moreover, from the first year of Darius, as at this particular time is shown to Daniel this particular vision; for he says, "And understand and conjecture that at the completion of thy word110 I make thee these answers."
As a side note I have long noted thar the Acts of Pilate's Passion year - viz 21 CE - is exactly 7 weeks from the end of Jerusalem (which is the natural termination of the 70 weeks.
“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: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

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More on Africanus's calculation. Where did he get the date of the twentieth year of Artaxerxes? The story of the ALLEGED beginning of the building of the temple of Jerusalem in the Book of Nehemiah. Of course Daniel is said to have had his vision of the seventy weeks in the first year of the reign of Darius son of Xerxes. Daniel says that "he understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years." Daniel chapter 9 says that "fron the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ Africanus seems to have identified the building of a wooden wall in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes as the time the word goes out but this is an absolutely arbitrary decision. For instance rabbinic literature puts forward that the Second Temple stood for 420 years with the Seder Olam Rabbah, placed construction in 350 BCE and destruction in 70 CE for a total of 420 years. Josephus dates the building of the Samaritan temple to those times as do the Samaritans themselves. It should be noted that 420 years seems to allow for a possibility that the time line was developed from Daniel chapter 9. In other words, 'the word went out' in 420 BCE, seventy years transpired and then the temple stood for another 420 years. It should also be noted that 62 weeks = 434 years allows for a beginning of 414-ish especially if - as with Against the Jews - the 49 year (7 weeks) period 'from the anointed one to the restoration' follows the 62 weeks (where the destruction of the religion of sacrifices is the restoration).
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

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But again it would be one thing if NO ONE made the connection between Daniel's 'messiah who will be killed and disappear' and the gospel Passion narrative. Fine. There just happened to a massive blind spot where all Christians collectively missed what seems to be an obvious 'proof' the prophets knew about the crucifixion. Some times that happens - like the Chinese not seeing the military potential for gunpowder. But the fact that the seventy weeks is one of the few prophesies to be EXPLICITLY incorporated into the gospel narrative, the fact that every Church Father connects verse 26 of the ninth chapter of Daniel with Jesus as some sort of 'cosmic time marker' and that the earliest source (= Against the Jews) actually connects the crucifixion with the messiah being killed in Daniel BUT THEN all subsequent writers just 'make up shit' to avoid the implication of that obvious parallel makes clear that something was being avoided by the efforts of subsequent writers like Africanus, Eusebius and the like. Indeed I was just looking at one additional fragment of Africanus and it certainly appears that he used or knew the Hebrew rather than the Greek text to calculate his chronology:
On the Weeks and this Prophecy. But I am amazed that the Jews deny that the Lord has yet come, and that the followers of Marcion refuse to admit that His coming was predicted in the prophecies when the Scriptures display the matter so openly to our view.
Why would Africanus - if he read 'unction' in his text of Daniel have made a digression about the messiah (the Hebrew reading of 9:26) and the varying opinions of the Jews and Marcionites? To that end, when he says that the prophesies 'display [the messiah] so openly' it has to noted that the term only appears in the Hebrew of Daniel 9:26. Why else would he speak about the Jewish understanding of the messiah at this juncture too. Clearly he is aware of the reading and assumes that Daniel's seventy weeks is about the killing and disappearance of 'Christ' i.e. Jesus rather than the end of the anointing oil like Eusebius. That's very significant because it implies that Christian exegesis began where we would suppose it did - i.e. the full identification of the crucifixion and empty tomb as = יכרת משיח ואין לו - and then when this became problematic (undoubtedly owing to or related to Irenaeus's report that the earliest exegetes of Mark used the text to argue for 'Jesus' and 'Christ' being two separate powers) other solutions were looked at and developed, none of which had the power of the original.

PS another argument that Africanus is working with the HEBREW text of Daniel is that he is aware of and working with the Hebrew calendar and lunar years. It may not be the strongest DIRECT support for his familiarity with Hebrew but it does speak to his unique 'sensitivity' to Semitic concerns and tradition. It also must be noted that Africanus was Roman ambassador to the Aramaic speaking kingdom of Osroene. He was there when the king converted to Christianity and trained soldiers and possibly met with Bardasanes. It would be natural to assume that he spoke Aramaic and thus may have been influenced by the Syriac translation of the Bible or even read Targumic literature. Could he also read Hebrew? It's not that far fetched. Julius called himself a native of Jerusalem – which some scholars consider his birthplace – and lived at the neighbouring Emmaus. His chronicle indicates his familiarity with the topography of historic Judea. Certainly his pedigree opens the possibility that he would be open to 'what the Hebrew text of Daniel said' and even favoring its authority when it comes to the reading 'messiah' rather than 'unction.'
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

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Wait a minute. Doesn't he argue against the Greek text of Daniel with Origen when it comes to those stories that only appear in the translations of Daniel? Isn't that a slam dunk? He only viewed the Aramaic/Hebrew Daniel (the received text) as authoritative. Let me check.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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