Three Assumptions

[Giuseppe]

If the Davidic messianism was so diffuse as it seems that you say in this thread....

Who is the "you" in your question?

It is merely the my perception, since I have written: it "seems" that you say in this thread.

[neilgodfrey]

Related to #1, messiah assumptions, I can add the assumption that there was ever a person or family in Second Temple Judea/Galilee who claimed to be of "Davidic descent", or that anyone in Judea/Galilee recognized any person or family that was of "Davidic descent".

Do you mean, messianic contenders claiming to be of Davidic descent, or people generally?

I mean people generally.

Technically, given the number of wives and children David had, and given the span of a thousand years, I suspect probably everybody in Judea could have claimed some genealogical link to David.

Because there were important people who had been thought to be of Davidic descent from that period:

That is quite a different claim from the one I am making.

"According to the Talmud, he descended from the Tribe of Benjamin on his father's side, and from the family of David on his mother's side."

. . .

"He was a direct descendant of King David and the great-grandson of Hillel the Elder", according to the Talmud.

The Talmud is not evidence for facts about the Second Temple era unless it can be justified in each case of a claim made. We know the function of genealogies in the ancient world and how they were regularly altered for political and ideological reasons, and how they could be as much or more fiction than anything else. Ditto for the veracity of famous mouthpieces for expressing certain ideas.

I don't know if any historian in ancient history or classics departments would justify using such a source to make a comparable claim. (I shall post again about historical research methods.)

Paul called himself "the seed of Benjamin". There were Levites at that time as well. They seemed to have taken an interest in their origins. Whether their claims were accurate or not I don't know, but those claims seemed to have been made.

So we would expect to find some comparable evidence for a Davidic descent if it existed at that time.

But claiming to be of a tribe of Benjamin or a Levite sounds much more like coming from either a certain profession (Levite) or administrative-geographical area -- similar to the sorts of tribal groups we find in Attica.

Josephus noted that there were Jews who prophecized about the future using the Hebrew Scriptures. It might not have led to a ground swell of enthusiasm for a Davidic messiah leading up to the Jewish revolt, but if someone thought to have been descended from David came along, it would have been justification for messianic claims based in their scriptures.

Yet Josephus mentions not one who claimed such.

And of course, a messianic contender's origin of Davidic descendent -- either historical or celestial -- would have been a natural development if that expectation was 'in the air' (if you'll forgive the pun) already. Dr Carrier proposes that . . .

My interest is in serious historical evidence about literal genealogical claims.

[neilgodfrey]

Davidic claims seem to have been made from antiquity through the medieval period and into the Renaissance and beyond.

The first part of the linked essay concludes:

The bottom line is: King David had a number of wives and concubines, and about two dozen children are mentioned in the Bible. King Solomon “had seven hundred royal wives and three hundred concubines” (I Kings 11:3). One can only imagine how many children he had. After nearly 3,000 years, there may be an untold number of their descendants. There is a fair possibility that you and I may be among them. All we need is good evidence and records that go back that far and give convincing proof of our claim. So far, available records cannot do it. Some individuals rely on tradition and faith to back their claim. More power to them. The rest of us may have to wait for that promised descendant—the Messiah.

The second part concludes similarly:

When our sages tackled a knotty problem and could not solve or agree to resolve it, they used to say that it will be solved “when the Messiah will come.” Perhaps we, too, should take a cue from them and leave the truth about this problem to the Messiah.

Claims were made from late antiquity but we have no evidence that anyone in the Second Temple era claimed a family tree back to David.

[neilgodfrey]

It is also worth noting that Abu'l Fath the fourteenth century Samaritan chronicler who had access to good sources from a much earlier period preserves a story that Commodus - as part of his punishment of the Samaritan people - destroyed the scrolls of the priestly toledot. It was a tactic to delegitimize the priesthood and perhaps to establish new lines of authority. As such, it would stand to reason that by 180 CE there were still authoritative Samaritan toledot scrolls. To that end, similar scrolls must have existed in Jerusalem until the destruction of the temple for priests. Could such scrolls have existed for descendants of David? I don't know.

Possibilities, but that's as far as it goes, it seems.

As far as I am aware the strongest evidence we have that there ever was a historical David is the Tel Dan inscription, and even that can be translated in a number of ways to raise doubts.

[GakuseiDon]

Related to #1, messiah assumptions, I can add the assumption that there was ever a person or family in Second Temple Judea/Galilee who claimed to be of "Davidic descent", or that anyone in Judea/Galilee recognized any person or family that was of "Davidic descent".

Do you mean, messianic contenders claiming to be of Davidic descent, or people generally?

I mean people generally.

Technically, given the number of wives and children David had, and given the span of a thousand years, I suspect probably everybody in Judea could have claimed some genealogical link to David.

Well yes, exactly. But there is a difference between someone making the claim of Davidic descent (or any other tribal/familial relationship) and showing that the descent was factual.

The Talmud is not evidence for facts about the Second Temple era unless it can be justified in each case of a claim made. We know the function of genealogies in the ancient world and how they were regularly altered for political and ideological reasons, and how they could be as much or more fiction than anything else.

That's relevant if we are talking about building a case for actual descent. It's irrelevant if we are talking about claims of descent. I'm confused over which one you mean.

[neilgodfrey]

The Talmud is not evidence for facts about the Second Temple era unless it can be justified in each case of a claim made. We know the function of genealogies in the ancient world and how they were regularly altered for political and ideological reasons, and how they could be as much or more fiction than anything else.

That's irrelevant if we are talking about claims of descent. It's relevant if we are talking about building a case for actual descent. I'm confused over which one you mean.

Presumably you are using the Talmud as evidence that certain specific claims were being made for Davidic descent in the Second Temple era. That is, you are using the Talmud for certain facts about the Second Temple era -- viz, the fact that people were claiming to have genealogies traced back to David at that time.

Whether the Talmudic claims of Davidic descent were in fact historically true is irrelevant. The Talmud makes genealogical claims that have the same function as genealogical claims are often made in the literature: they are not evidence of what was actually extant centuries earlier.

You misread my comment.

[Secret Alias]

Possibilities, but that's as far as it goes, it seems.

Well since history is determined by competing probabilities it's worth considering. You don't even know the backhistory to the source and you're already doing a Giuseppe. Abu'l Fath wrote in Arabic but he admits he doesn't fully understand the source. I've had this debate with Criddle on the opposite spectrum of ontology. The source is Greek. No it's not a photograph from the time of Commodus but it boggles the mind why the source would lie about Commodus burning the holy books of the Samaritans including the toledot. The idea that the Samaritans DIDN'T keep 'genealogies' is far more ludicrous. Let's just settle this once and for all - even though it may have an impact on your usual effort - the Samaritans kept records of priestly lineages. There's no doubt about this. They still do. There isn't a debate about this in Samaritanism and it not because there is some conspiracy among scholars to deny the historicity of Jesus. https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789 ... 80_019.xml

I am not arguing for the existence of David. I am merely saying the toledot existed for the priestly lineage and among Jews possibly existed for Davidic lineage.

[Ben C. Smith]

Related to #1, messiah assumptions, I can add the assumption that there was ever a person or family in Second Temple Judea/Galilee who claimed to be of "Davidic descent", or that anyone in Judea/Galilee recognized any person or family that was of "Davidic descent".

Do you mean, messianic contenders claiming to be of Davidic descent, or people generally?

I mean people generally.

Technically, given the number of wives and children David had, and given the span of a thousand years, I suspect probably everybody in Judea could have claimed some genealogical link to David.

Well yes, exactly. But there is a difference between someone making the claim of Davidic descent (or any other tribal/familial relationship) and showing that the descent was factual.

Hi, GDon. Yes, you are right: there is certainly a difference between making a claim and the claim being true!

I posted some information upthread which to my eye calls into serious question whether Hillel ever claimed Davidic descent for himself. That Judah the Prince claimed Davidic descent seems more secure, but I am not 100% certain about that.

[GakuseiDon]

Presumably you are using the Talmud as evidence that certain specific claims were being made for Davidic descent in the Second Temple era.

Yes.

That is, you are using the Talmud for certain facts about the Second Temple era -- viz, the fact that people were claiming to have genealogies traced back to David at that time.

Not as facts, but as evidence.

Whether the Talmudic claims of Davidic descent were in fact historically true is irrelevant.

Okay, agreed.

The Talmud makes genealogical claims that have the same function as genealogical claims are often made in the literature: they are not evidence of what was actually extant centuries earlier.

They are evidence, certainly. Not proof. But claims of descent were made in ancient literature. As you wrote, genealogies in the ancient world were regularly altered for political and ideological reasons, and could be as much or more fiction than anything else -- which, as we've agreed, is irrelevant to the point you're making (if I understand it correctly).

But no-one claimed descent from David in ancient times? Seems unlikely. I think the Talmud does provide evidence that some thought it to be the case and maybe even made that claim, poor as it might be towards firmly establishing the idea as a fact.

[Ben C. Smith]

If the Davidic messianism was so diffuse as it seems that you say in this thread....

Who is the "you" in your question?

It is merely the my perception, since I have written: it "seems" that you say in this thread.

I am honestly not sure how prevalent claims of Davidic descent were. Our information for the period(s) in question are highly dependent upon which texts and coins and inscriptions we happen to possess, and we know that such things are seriously lacking for certain periods.