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
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

Yup. I was right. From the end of the letter of Africanus to Origen:
Now, in Greek, it happens that holm-tree and saw asunder, and rend and mastich-tree sound alike; but in Hebrew they are quite distinct. But all the books of the Old Testament have been translated from Hebrew into Greek. Moreover, how is it that they who were captives among the Chaldæans, lost and won at play, thrown out unburied on the streets, as was prophesied of the former captivity, their sons torn from them to be eunuchs, and their daughters to be concubines, as had been prophesied; how is it that such could pass sentence of death, and that on the wife of their king Joakim, whom the king of the Babylonians had made partner of his throne? Then if it was not this Joakim, but some other from the common people, whence had a captive such a mansion and spacious garden? But a more fatal objection is, that this section, along with the other two at the end of it, is not contained in the Daniel received among the Jews. And add that, among all the many prophets who had been before, there is no one who has quoted from another word for word. For they had no need to go a-begging for words, since their own were true; but this one, in rebuking one of those men, quotes the words of the Lord: The innocent and righteous shall you not slay. From all this I infer that this section is a later addition. Moreover, the style is different. I have struck the blow; do you give the echo; answer, and instruct me. Salute all my masters. The learned all salute you. With all my heart I pray for your and your circle's health.
Africanus read a 'messiah will be killed and disappear' and incorporated the Hebrew of Daniel 9:26 into his chronology unlike Eusebius and others who built a model around the disappearance of the unction.

So the order of interpretations goes:
c. 160 - 190 CE Against the Jews (original translated by Tertullian loosely into Latin) makes Jesus's crucifixion = Daniel 9:26
221 CE Africanus who clearly read 'messiah' not unction and worked out a chronology where the seventy weeks ends at the crucifixion (undoubtedly jumbling the order of 'events' as they appear in Daniel as we see in Against the Jews)
320 CE Eusebius who completely avoids the reading 'messiah' and used the Greek translation to build a historical model around the disappearance of the unction.


Christian exegesis of the Seventy Weeks prophesy is clearly moving away from an explicit identification of the Passion with Daniel 9:26.
“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
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

Another thing to note. Africanus clearly employs Luke. That's where he gets the spring of the 16th of Tiberius. He also argues with Origen over Matthew. So let's say that Africanus is one of the earliest defenders of the fourfold canon.

Before Luke (whenever that was) there would be no interest in the spring of 16 Tiberius. Clearly when the Acts of Pilate were composed as well as Josephus's timeline and a number of other early sources the Passion was placed at 21 CE.

Now hold on.

Given that there was this 21 CE tradition do we have to view Africanus's 'defense of Luke's dating' as a case where Africanus inherited Luke and built his invented chronology around a tradition contained in an earlier text (i.e. Luke)? Could we instead have the actual origin of Luke's 'fifteenth of Tiberius'? Whenever I would bring up the 21 CE dating for the Passion people would inevitably say 'hey but why does Luke say 15 CE'?

Well let's start at the beginning. Mark doesn't give the date. Neither does Matthew. Let's assume there is a natural progression where Luke-Acts comes out as the third expansion of Mark. The dating comes with the expansion. Now I always linked Luke's use of Josephus elsewhere to 15 Tiberius without any luck. But could it be that Africanus had something to do with the production of Luke?

Why do I say that? Because Africanus eventually gets the Emperor Elagabalus to confer the title of polis upon Emmaus Nicopolis in 221 CE. 221 CE is also the year he wrote his Chronology. You see where I am going with this? Luke introduced the world to Emmaus. Africanus had a vested interest in the new 'city.' The dedication happened to be the same year he wrote his official history of Christianity - the predecessor to Eusebius's Church History so the reader gets some idea of its significance. And it just so happens that Luke also provides the dating for the crucifixion which was formerly set at 21 CE.

So the new gospel of Luke which is set against the 'Marcionites' or at least contains disputed material at the heart of a controversy with the Marcionites is very much at the center of Africanus's fortune. He likely controlled a lot of land and buildings in this new city. It's a city enshrined as a pilgrimage site in Christianity because of its inclusion in Luke. And more over instead of Christianity having its most holy event set in the seventh year of Tiberius (= 20/21 CE) now the Passion is set by Luke's date of 15/16 CE and Africanus 'just so happens' to provide an entire historical chronology which demonstrates how the Seventy Weeks doesn't line up with the destruction of Jerusalem - i.e. where the end of the 490 years falls on 70 CE and the other markers - i.e. the '62 weeks,' 'the '7 weeks' and two half weeks are measured from 70 CE - but rather 'the end' falls on Luke's dating.

This certainly raises the profile of Luke as a witness for the manner in which 'prophesy' laid out world history. One can't live without Luke.

Curiously though, even though we don't know much about how Christians interpreted the 70 weeks before the invention of Luke as the third canonical expansion of Mark, we can make some educated guesses about those other markers. So clearly the 70 weeks ended in 70 CE. Check, one down. But it is very tempting to note that the original dating of the Passion - i.e. 21 CE - is exactly 'seven weeks = 49 years from the end. Now we've already seen that Against the Jews 'locks in' the Passion with the 62 weeks. It's hard to avoid that given that it is explicit in Hebrew Daniel 9:26.

But we've also seen that Against the Jews 'flips' the assumed order of the events (even though the text it has to be said does not say what the ordering of 'the seven weeks' 'the sixty two weeks' and the two half weeks are going to be). So Against the Jews has 62 weeks + 1/2 week coincide with the Passion and then the end occurs 71/2 later (or so I remember from the text). But given the ambiguity of Daniel and the obvious "seven week" period from the tradition dating of the Passion (= 21 CE) and the original end of the 70 weeks (= 70 CE) don't we already know that tradition before Africanus placed the Passion 'sixty two weeks' from 'start' of the prophesy and then the destruction 'seven weeks' later? Of course it has to be true or at least it's a very, very, very strong possibility.

In other words, I suspect that we know how 'the fifteenth of Tiberius' was created. Africanus wanted to erase the 21 CE dating for the Passion. He wanted to erase it because - I assume - that meant it was obvious or deductible that 'prophesy told' that Christ was killed and disappeared in 21 CE and the destruction followed seven weeks later. That necessarily meant that Jesus was something separate from Christ and all of that stuff railed against in Irenaeus and Tertullian (i.e. two powers, a lack of monarchian authority etc). So it was that Africanus came up with idea of using 'the twentieth of Artaxerxes' as a time line to measure out a new chronology for the Seventy Weeks.

The problem with prophesies is that even when you think you know the solution to their riddles you are never quite sure if you are right. So even though Christians before Africanus 'thought' they knew that a crucifixion in 21 CE 'perfectly fit' the 62 weeks followed by 'seven weeks' to the destruction, he could come along and argue - 'no, you've got it wrong.' The true text of Luke, not the falsified one employed by the Marcionites, has the date of 15 Tiberius as the start of the ministry. And lo and behold, if you do the math it just so happens to perfectly fit with the twentieth of Artaxerxes. As such, given that math proves there are 490 years between the twentieth of Artaxerxes and 16 Tiberius, this is the true chronology!
“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
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

It is interesting to also visit Against the Jews to get insight into an earlier (earlier than Africanus based on my assumption that Tertullian has copied this work from an earlier Greek writer) attempt to interpret Daniel 9:26 as being fulfilled in the Passion. The text accuses the Jews of not recognizing their Christ is the crucified one from the gospel. The argument made from Daniel 9:26 takes up a large part of the early work but when Tertullian decides to reuse Against the Jews for Book 3 of Against Marcion he does not refer to this section. Indeed he never even mentions Daniel chapter 9 once.

Clearly the ur-text knows and uses the Hebrew text of Daniel where 'messiah' rather than 'unction' is mentioned in verse 26. We read at the start:
Accordingly the times must be inquired into of the predicted and future nativity of the Christ, and of His passion, and of the extermination of the city of Jerusalem, that is, its devastation. For Daniel says, that "both the holy city and the holy place are exterminated together with the coming Leader, and that the pinnacle is destroyed unto ruin." And so the times of the coming Christ, the Leader, must be inquired into, which we shall trace in Daniel; and, after computing them, shall prove Him to be come, even on the ground of the times prescribed, and of competent signs and operations of His. Which matters we prove, again, on the ground of the consequences which were ever announced as to follow His advent; in order that we may believe all to have been as well fulfilled as foreseen. In such wise, therefore, did Daniel predict concerning Him, as to show both when and in what time He was to set the nations free; and how, after the passion of the Christ, that city had to be exterminated.
But when the text actually explicitly cites chapter 9 of Daniel it does so with a variant Greek text of Theodotion which does not reference the messiah and alters the sense of the original - making reference to 62 and a half weeks and 7 and a half weeks:
In such wise, therefore, did Daniel predict concerning Him, as to show both when and in what time He was to set the nations free; and how, after the passion of the Christ, that city had to be exterminated. [4] For he says thus: "In the first year under Darius, son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who reigned over the kingdom of the Chaldees, I Daniel understood in the books the number of the years.... And while I was yet speaking in my prayer, behold, the man Gabriel, whom I saw in the vision in the beginning, flying; and he touched me, as it were, at the hour of the evening sacrifice, and made me understand, and spake with me, and said, Daniel I am now come out to imbue thee with understanding; in the beginning of thy supplication went out a word. [5] And I am come to announce to thee, because thou art a man of desires;103 and ponder thou on the word, and understand in the vision. Seventy hebdomads have been abridged104 upon thy commonalty, and upon the holy city, until delinquency be made inveterate, and sins sealed, and righteousness obtained by entreaty, and righteousness eternal introduced; and in order that vision and prophet may be sealed, and an holy one of holy ones anointed. And thou shalt know, and thoroughly see, and understand, from the going forth of a word for restoring and rebuilding Jerusalem unto the Christ, the Leader, hebdomads (seven and an half, and ) lxii and an half: and it shall convert, and shall be built into height and entrenchment, and the times shall be renewed: [6] and after these lxii hebdomads shall the anointing be exterminated, and shall not be; and the city and the holy place shall he exterminate together with the Leader, who is making His advent; and they shall be cut short as in a deluge, until (the) end of a war, which shall be cut short unto ruin. And he shall confirm a testament in many. In one hebdomad and the half of the hebdomad shall be taken away my sacrifice and libation, and in the holy place the execration of devastation, (and106 ) until the end of (the) time consummation shall be given with regard to this devastation."
What gives away the use of a Greek text is the use of vir desideriorum in the Latin. The Hebrew has simply 'beloved' here and elsewhere 'beloved man.' The Greek of Theodotion has ἀνὴρ ἐπιθυμιῶν which is clearly the source of the Latin.
“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
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

A clear proof that Against the Jews is different from other of Tertullian's works is the fact that the text of Daniel in his other works resembles the LXX but in Against the Jews it is Theodotionic. https://books.google.com/books?id=-5AZA ... os&f=false
“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
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

I have no idea how people can say that the text in Tertullian is from Theodotion when sexaginta et duae et dimidia is not in Theodotion
“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
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

Let's look at some of the anomalies in that text of Daniel 9:1, 23 - 27 and see if it tells us anything about the text:

Daniel 9:24

Against the Jews septuaginta ebdomades breviatae sunt super plebem tuam et super civitatem sanctam
(English): Seventy hebdomads have been abridged upon thy commonalty, and upon the holy city

Seventy weeks have been determined upon your people, and upon the holy city,
ἑβδομήκοντα ἑβδομάδες συνετμήθησαν ἐπὶ τὸν λαόν σου καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἁγίαν
“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
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

It is also worth noting that Luke - while adding to Mark's original 'disappearance' ending - still ends with a disappearance of sorts:
While He was reclining at the table with them, He took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus— and He disappeared (ἄφαντος) from their sight. They asked one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us as He spoke with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
I also think that the description of Christ as ἄφαντος is related to the ridicule of the Marcionite Christ as a 'phantom.' Against Marcion then Tertullian (or someone earlier) writes:
Have you (Marcion), then, cut away all sufferings from Christ, on the ground that, as a mere phantom, He was incapable of experiencing them? We have said above that He might possibly have undergone the unreal mockeries of an imaginary birth and infancy. But answer me at once, you that murder truth: Was not God really crucified? And, having been really crucified, did He not really die? And, having indeed really died, did He not really rise again? Falsely did Paul "determine to know nothing amongst us but Jesus and Him crucified;''falsely has he impressed upon us that He was buried; falsely inculcated that He rose again. False, therefore, is our faith also. And all that we hope for from Christ will be a phantom,
I think an argument could be made that Marcion's 'phantom' Christ derived from their perpetuation of the short ending of Mark where the messiah - and not Jesus - 'disappears' in the tomb (a reflection of Daniel 9:26) and thus - by implication - did not have actual flesh.

The complete erasure of 'Christ' in Tertullian's citation of Paul is also curious. The idea would clearly have been (according to the Marcionites if my supposition is correct) that Christ was crucified and then disappeared in imitation of Daniel's 'killed and vanish' prophesy.
“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
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

Also this a little later:
This property of the two states--the divine and the human--is distinctly asserted with equal truth of both natures alike, with the same belief both in respect of the Spirit '* and of the flesh. The powers of the Spirit, proved Him to be God, His sufferings attested the flesh of man. If His powers were not without the Spirit in like manner, were not His sufferings without the flesh. if His flesh with its sufferings was fictitious, for the same reason was the Spirit false with all its powers. Wherefore halve Christ with a lie? He was wholly the truth. Believe me, He chose rather to be born, than in any part to pretend--and that indeed to His own detriment--that He was bearing about a flesh hardened without bones, solid without muscles, bloody without blood, clothed without the tunic of skin, hungry without appetite, eating without teeth, speaking without a tongue, so that His word was a phantom to the ears through an imaginary voice. A phantom, too, it was of course after the resurrection, when, showing His hands and His feet for the disciples to examine, He said, "Behold and see that it is I myself, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have;" without doubt, hands, and feet, and bones are not what a spirit possesses, but only the flesh. How do you interpret this statement, Marcion, you who tell us that Jesus comes only from the most excellent God, who is both simple and good? See how He rather cheats, and deceives, and juggles the eyes of all, and the senses of all, as well as their access to and contact with Him!
Again the Marcionites would have said Jesus was from heaven, Christ was undoubtedly born, had flesh but Jesus did something to him to 'allow' for his flesh to ultimately disappear.
“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
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

Celsus's Jew writes:
Come now, let us grant to you that the prediction was actually uttered. Yet how many others are there who practise such juggling tricks, in order to deceive their simple hearers, and who make gain by their deception?— as was the case, they say, with Zamolxis in Scythia, the slave of Pythagoras; and with Pythagoras himself in Italy; and with Rhampsinitus in Egypt (the latter of whom, they say, played at dice with Demeter in Hades, and returned to the upper world with a golden napkin which he had received from her as a gift); and also with Orpheus among the Odrysians, and Protesilaus in Thessaly, and Hercules at Cape Tænarus, and Theseus. But the question is, whether any one who was really dead ever rose with a veritable body. Or do you imagine the statements of others not only to be myths, but to have the appearance of such, while you have discovered a becoming and credible termination to your drama in the voice from the cross, when he breathed his last, and in the earthquake and the darkness? That while alive he was of no assistance to himself, but that when dead he rose again, and showed the marks of his punishment, and how his hands were pierced with nails: who beheld this? A half-frantic woman, as you state, and some other one, perhaps, of those who were engaged in the same system of delusion, who had either dreamed so, owing to a peculiar state of mind, or under the influence of a wandering imagination had formed to himself an appearance according to his own wishes, which has been the case with numberless individuals; or, which is most probable, one who desired to impress others with this portent, and by such a falsehood to furnish an occasion to impostors like himself.

If Jesus desired to show that his power was really divine, he ought to have appeared to those who had ill-treated him, and to him who had condemned him, and to all men universally. For he had no longer occasion to fear any man after his death, being, as you say, a God; nor was he sent into the world at all for the purpose of being hid. if this at least would have helped to manifest his divinity, he ought accordingly to have at once disappeared from the cross (ἀπὸ τοῦ σκόλοπος γοῦν εὐθὺς ἀφανὴς γενέσθαι). And who that is sent as a messenger ever conceals (κρύπτεται) himself when he ought to make known his message? If he wished to remain hid (λανθάνειν), why was there heard a voice from heaven proclaiming him to be the Son of God? And if he did not seek to remain concealed, why was he punished? Or why did he die? He wished, by the punishments which He underwent, to teach us also to despise death that after His resurrection He should openly summon all men to the light, and instruct them in the object of His coming. All these statements are taken from your own books, in addition to which we need no other witness; for you fall upon your own swords.
Yes certainly the first part is a discussion of what appeared in some gospel. But I wonder whether the 'he should have disappeared while crucified' is a literal reading of Daniel 9:26 'the messiah will be killed and disappear.' This is a Jew after all. He continues to argue against the crucified one being recognized by Christians as a god:
What God that appeared among men is received with incredulity, and that, too, when appearing to those who expect him? Or why, pray, is he not recognized by those who have been long looking for him? He makes use of threats, and reviles men on light grounds, when he says, 'Woe unto you,' and 'I tell you beforehand.' For by such expressions he manifestly acknowledges his inability to persuade; and this would not be the case with a God, or even a prudent man. We certainly hope that there will be a bodily resurrection, and that we shall enjoy an eternal life; and the example and archetype of this will be He who is sent to us, and who will show that nothing is impossible with God. Where, then, is he, that we may see him and believe upon him? Did Jesus come into the world for this purpose, that we should not believe him? He was therefore a man, and of such a nature, as the truth itself proves, and reason demonstrates him to be.
This is the conclusion of the work by the Jew.
“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
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

This is an interesting passage in Against the Jews which seems to go back to a Hebrew text of Daniel:
A second time, in fact, let us show that Christ is already come, through the prophets, and has suffered, and is already received back in the heavens, and thence is to come accordingly as the predictions prophesied. For, after His advent, we read, according to Daniel, that the city itself had to be exterminated (exterminari); and we recognise that so it has befallen ... Whence, again, it is manifest that "the city must simultaneously be exterminated (exterminari)" at the time when its "Leader" had to suffer in it, (as foretold) through the Scriptures of the prophets, who say: "I have outstretched my hands the whole day unto a People contumacious and gainsaying Me, who walketh in a way not good, but after their own sins." And in the Psalms, David says: "They exterminated (exterminari) my hands and feet: they counted all my bones; they themselves, moreover, contemplated and saw me, and in my thirst slaked me with vinegar." These things David did not suffer, so as to seem justly to have spoken of himself; but the Christ who was crucified. Moreover, the "hands and feet," are not "exterminated," except His who is suspended on a "tree."
“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
Post Reply