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

Post by Secret Alias »

And I've always thought the Jewish temple was established in the Hellenistic age - the actual period Daniel was written.
“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

Post by Secret Alias »

Apparently Tertullian identified "Daniel's Darius" as Darius II https://books.google.com/books?id=tTtVA ... l"&f=false https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... xCy8u3HJfS

if that is true then 70 CE is the end of the 70 weeks if a normative Hebrew text was originally employed. As such there only a few possibilites for the killing and vanishing of the messiah - 21 CE or 63 CE. Of course in the present state of the Latin translation Tertullian does not use a normative text of Daniel. I suspect this is deliberate
“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

Post by Secret Alias »

I would like to modify my assumptions. The 70 weeks was supposed to end in 69 CE. Daniel "sevens' could not have been calculated a year after the sabbatical cycle of years which ran 20 CE, 27 CE, 34 CE, 41 CE, 55 CE, 62 CE, 69 CE. What gave me this understanding was Josephus's statement that a man by the name of Joshua ben Ananias began a 7 years and 5 months verbal prophecy against the inhabitants of Jerusalem which ended with the destruction of the city and the Temple in 70 C.E. 6 Josephus reckoned the start of this man’s prophecy as being so important that he said it represented the official commencement of God’s warnings to the Jews that Jerusalem and the Temple would soon be destroyed. Josephus references Daniel in the discussion.
“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

Post by Secret Alias »

The realization came to me when I was reading Josephus. He has a definite understanding that 62 CE was both a Sabbatical year and a week before the end of Daniel's prophesy:
But as for that house, God had, for certain, long ago doomed it to the fire. And now that fatal day was come, according to the revolution of ages: it was the tenth day of the month Lous [Ab, A.D. 70]8: upon which it was formerly burnt by the King of Babylon. 

[Description of the actual destruction of the temple follows]

Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself. While they did not attend, nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretel their future desolation. But like men infatuated, without either eyes to see, or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star, resembling a sword, which stood over the city: and a comet, that continued a whole year. (15)Thus also before the Jews rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crouds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] (16) and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar, and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time. Which light lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskilful: but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also an heifer, as she was led by the High-priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb, in the midst of the temple. Moreover the eastern gate of the inner [court of the] temple,9which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor; which was there made of one intire stone: was seen to be opened of its own accord, about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it: who then came up thither: and, not without great difficulty, was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy: as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord: and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publickly declared that this signal foreshewed the desolation that was coming upon them. Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable; were it not related by those that saw it; and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals. For, before sun setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost; as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the] temple,10 as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said, that in the first place they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise: and after that they heard a sound, as of a multitude, saying, “Let us remove hence.” But what is still more terrible; there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian, and an husbandman, who, four years before the war began; and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity; came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, (17) began on a sudden to cry aloud, “A voice from the east; a voice from the west; a voice from the four winds; a voice against Jerusalem, and the holy house; a voice against the bridegrooms, and the brides; and a voice against this whole people.” This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his; and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes. Yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him: but still went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man; brought him to the Roman procurator. Where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare. Yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears: but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem.” And when Albinus, (for he was then our procurator;) asked him, “Who he was? and whence he came? and why he uttered such words?” he made no manner of reply to what he said: but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty: till Albinus took him to be a mad-man, and dismissed him. Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens; nor was seen by them while he said so. But he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow: “Woe, woe to Jerusalem.” Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food: but this was his reply to all men; and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come. This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years, and five months; without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith. Until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege; when it ceased. For as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, “Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house.” And just as he added at the last, “Woe, woe to myself also,” there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately. And as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost.

4. Now if any one consider these things, he will find that God takes care of mankind; and by all ways possible foreshews to our race what is for their preservation: but that men perish by those miseries which they madly and voluntarily bring upon themselves. For the Jews, by demolishing the tower of Antonia, had made their temple four square: while at the same time they had it written in their sacred oracles, that “then should their city be taken, as well as their holy house, when once their temple should become four square.” But now what did the most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle, that was also found in their sacred writings; how “About that time one, from their country, should become governor of the habitable earth.” The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular: and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian: who was appointed emperor in Judea. However, it is not possible for men to avoid fate: although they see it beforehand. But these men interpreted some of these signals according to their own pleasure; and some of them they utterly despised: until their madness was demonstrated, both by the taking of their city, and their own destruction.
Even Josephus's system the messiah would have to be killed and disappear 20 CE. 63 CE is read as the beginning of the last "week" of Daniel and the connection with Daniel continues in what follows.

Josephus relates a number of oracles which had predicted the destruction. In the Greek text, they are difficult to understand (War 6.311–312), but the Slavonic shows us where we can find help in scriptural passages. Te “prophecy of the quadrangle” Its both the crucifixion and the temple, when we bear in mind that the suppression of a vertical element (either the condemned man, or the Antonia tower) leaves us with a quadrangular structure (though not a square: the cross with the titulus, or crux parvis) and that this permits a more effective resistance to an invasion.

Let us now look at Dan 8:22:“As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power.” In context, the thing broken and replaced is a “horn" which may be the designation of a king: Alexander was replaced by the Diadochoi. But the same word can also designate an angle (cf. “the horns of the altar”). If we forget the context, we can make sense of the interpretations in the Slavonic text, which plays on these two meanings of the noun “horn,” viz. “king” or “angle.” In the case of the worker of miracles, a king was broken and then replaced by four angles; in the case of the temple, the Antonia formed an excrescence (a horn), or even a fiffh angle. We should note that this interpretation can be made only on the basis of the Hebrew text. https://books.google.com/books?id=LuKMm ... ic&f=false
Slavonic

Although there existed among the Jews this prophecy that the city and the temple would be laid waste by the quadrangular form, they themselves set to work to make crosses for the crucifixion, which entails the quadrangular form of which we have spoken and after the ruin of the Antonia they made the temple quadrangular.

Greek

Thus the Jews after the destruction of the Antonia fortress, reduced the temple to the form of a quadrangle, although they could see written in their book that the city and the temple would be taken once the sacred precincts had the form of a quadrangle.
The point is that Josephus originally mentions quite specifically the prophesies of Daniel in the context of the final 'week' (i.e. Jesus ben Ananius the prophet who predicted the destruction of the temple in 62 CE). The point is that when you sit down and think about it, the two systems of calculation had to line up - i.e. Daniel's 'sabbatical' counting and the counting of the tradition sabbatical years used in the temple. It's just that Jews and people generally don't count sabbatical years any more. Once we realize that things line up it becomes apparent that the 70 weeks ended in 69 CE rather than 70 CE and that - given the manner of the calculation of sabbatical years - 70 CE was a Jubilee. Jubilees as 'fiftieth' years were considered extensions or continuations of the 49th year.
“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

Post by Secret Alias »

Once we 'stabilize' the original understanding of Daniel and the manner in which the 'weeks' and traditional 'Sabbatical years' overlapped we start to see that Josephus must have been reworked into an apologist for Christianity at a very early period. Consider for a moment that almost all Josephus scholars recognize the author identifies the Crucifixion as taking place in 21 CE - i.e. at the end of the year which began in 20 CE the forty-ninth year which immediately precedes the end of the 70 weeks. While we tend to view with our Roman predecessors the idea of 'messianic portents' as something of a superstition with all the arbitrariness of ghost hunting those living in Judea must have seen an uncanny 'road map' to the coming of the world ruler mentioned in Daniel 9:27. That Vespasian took over that Jewish expectation is documented in Josephus as well. But clearly the underlying road map helped Christianity.

Whether or not Jesus was a historical figure it is plain that anyone advocating the existence of a 'Christ' who was crucified and disappeared in 20/21 CE would have immediately found his message resonating in the contemporary Jewish landscape. After all notice how Tertullian - no less than the Seder Olam - assumes quite explicitly that Daniel was active under Darius II rather than the more famous Darius:

Let us see, therefore, how the years are filled up until the advent of the Christ:--
For Darius reigned xviiii111 years (19).
Artaxerxes reigned xl and i years (41).
Then King Ochus (who is also called Cyrus) reigned xxiiii years (24).
Argus one year.
Another Darius, who is also named Melas xxi years (21).
Alexander the Macedonian xii years (12). [Against the Jews 8.10]
and traditional dating of Persian rulers before Alexander:
423-405 - Darius II, Nothus (brother)
404-359 - Artaxerxes II, Mnemon (son)
358-338 - Artaxerxes III (Ochus) (son)
337-336 - Artaxerxes IV ( Arses) (son)
335-330 - Darius III (Codomannus) (great-grandson of Darius II)
330 Alexander
There can be no mistaking that a 'road map' did indeed exist and that it was systematic erased by early orthodox writers. When the gospel of Luke establishes 30 CE as the date of the crucifixion rather than the original date of 20 CE the original argument for the Passion = Daniel 9:26's prediction that a 'messiah will be killed and disappear' also vanishes. In other words, something about the original understanding was deemed heretical by the end of the second century. My guess is that it has something to do with the 'two advent' theology evidenced in Josephus as well - i.e. that the world ruler is not identified with Christ.

Clearly in a monarchian system you can't have 'two powers.' Indeed monarchianism was clearly developed against the original Jewish notion of there being 'two powers' in heaven because there are two names for god in the Pentateuch. That Justin is the original source for Against the Jews is obvious. Not surprisingly Justin is also a big proponent of two advent theology. Of course Justin did not believe that Vespasian was the 'world ruler' predicted by Daniel as Josephus did. He must have been part of a schema which had a much more dangerous interpretation of that 'two advent' understanding from Daniel.
“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

Post by Secret Alias »

And Tertullian's number:

For, after Augustus who survived after the birth of Christ, are made up xv years (15).
To whom succeeded Tiberius Caesar, and held the empire xx years, vii months, xxviii days (20 etc.).
(In the fiftieth year of his empire Christ suffered. being about xxx years of age when he suffered.)
Again Caius Caesar, also called Caligula iii years, viii months, xiii days (3 etc.).
Nero Caesar xi years, ix months, xiii days (11 etc.).
Galba vii months, vi days. (7 etc.).
Otho iii days.
Vitellius viii mos., xxvii days (8 mos.)

If I add up the years I get 15 + 20 + 3 + 11 = 49 years
If I add up the months I get 7 + 8 + 9 + 7 + 8 = 39 months
If I add up the days I get 28 + 13 + 13 + 6 + 3 + 27 = 90 (= 3 months)
= 49 years, 42 months = 52 years and 6 months

This just seems like an arbitrary (and ultimately hasty) way of arriving at 7 weeks and a half as per the artificial text of Daniel the author claims he is using. Nevertheless the important thing is that Jesus 'the Christ' was the marker. That was undoubtedly the original understanding he modified with his 'seven weeks plus a half' invention.
“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

Post by Secret Alias »

It is also worth noting that the particulars of the Hebrew in Daniel 9:26 allow for two possible explanations from the gospel narrative. Yikkaret mashiach in Daniel could be seen to be confirmed both by the trial in front of the Jewish authorities and the death on the cross. Indeed the Marcionite emphasis of Jesus as a lawbreaker would explain karath in a very antinomian sense. The Law of Moses proscribes 'cutting off' for any person engaged in Sabbath breaking or any host of other breaks with the law.
“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
gmx
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by gmx »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:43 pm I am not that smart. At best I am good at spotting parallels. Look at the Hebrew of Daniel 9:26. I render it:
messiah will be killed and disappear = יכרת משיח ואין לו
Couldn't that be the limit of meaning of the short (original) ending of Mark. It is a confirmation of scripture - in this case Daniel's prediction. Daniel has ואין לו = and he disappears, he has disappeared. Isn't that what happens to the body of the crucified one in the gospel? I am telling you folks have got this one wrong for ages. The gospel story is simply the messiah was killed and then disappears in imitation of the Hebrew of Daniel chapter 9. That's all. There wasn't originally anything more about Christ. Bye bye after Mark 16:8. :notworthy: I don't think this has been understood before but it is the correct understanding.
Just my depreciated two cents. Mark 16:6-7 doesn't on the face of it seem to gel with the poof and he's gone interpretation. Unless your view is that 16:7 is a later interpolation.
6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
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Secret Alias
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

That's entirely correct. If canonical Mark wasn't tampered with by orthodox redactors then yes, Mark's ending is problematic. No doubt. But let's also remember how the earliest exegesis of Mark read the conclusion of the gospel:
Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified.
Where exactly is any of this in canonical Mark? Moreover it should be noted that the same source who denies this 'other' Mark legitimacy talks at length about the ending of Mark:
Also, towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says: "So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God; " confirming what had been spoken by the prophet: "The LORD said to my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy foes Thy footstool.
This is the longer ending. So Irenaeus had a secondary edition of Mark. What was in the previous edition of Mark referenced in the discussion of these unnamed opponents? Clearly IMHO what you cite from the actual ending was not present in 'previous Mark.'
“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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