andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Wed Sep 09, 2020 10:29 am
I'm not sure that a date of death for John the Baptist later than Jesus necessarily dissociates John and Jesus.
There is a
possible scenario in which
a/ John is baptizing
b/ Jesus is baptized by John
c/ John is arrested by Herod
d/ Jesus preaches heals and has debates with the followers of the imprisoned John
e/ Jesus is executed by Pilate
f/ John is executed by Herod.
Andrew Criddle
A later date for the death of John the Baptist, later than Jesus, does, as the above quote from Tamás Visias indicates, bring into question the
''narrative scheme, on which all the canonical gospels are based, should not be accepted at face value''.
Nikos Kokkinos has attempted to get around the late, Josephan, dating for John the baptizer, by moving the Jesus crucifixion to 36 c.e. - after a John the baptizer execution in 35 c.e. (Nikos Kokkinos is author of The Herodian Dynasty.)
Crucifixion in A.D. 36: The Keystone for Dating the Birth of Jesus
https://www.academia.edu/42949214/Cruc ... _of_Jesus
Tamás Visias has challenged Kokkinos's position with an argument on John 2.20.
Kokkinos (pp. 153–155) attempts to dismiss this evidence by claiming that the evangelist
meant, in fact, not the years that passed since the building of the sanctuary began, but the
age of Jesus, that is to say, the “sanctuary” which was being built for 46 years was Jesus’ body.
Furthermore, Kokkinos argues, in case the sentence indeed referred to the temple of
Jerusalem, then the 46 years should be counted from 12 BCE, when the reconstruction of the
core-buildings were finished. Accordingly, the sentence must have been pronounced in 34 CE
in accordance with Kokkinos’ late dating. However, the plain sense of John 2.20 contradicts
all these interpretations and there is no reason to reject the plain sense in this case. Other
“alternative” explanations also seem to be do violence to the simple meaning of the text;
https://www.academia.edu/40137424/_Rev ... Approach
While it would seem to be a simple solution to move the Jesus crucifixion to 36 ce., - thereby allowing for a John the baptizer execution in 35 c.e., such a move fails to address the problem Josephus has set. Josephus has many years between his Jesus crucifixion story in 19 c.e. and the execution of his John the baptizer in 35/36 c.e. Reading the gospel story into Josephus is a bit like reading the gospel story into Paul. Each source, the gospels and Josephus, need to be evaluated on their own merits.
Josephus has a different time frame for his Jesus and John stories. His story also has a different order of death, Jesus first then John follows. The Josephan stories also do not connect Jesus with John.
If one was to keep in mind that both the gospel writers and Josephus are doing the same thing - writing interpretations, writing allegories, of Hasmonean history - then any apparent contradictions would disappear. Josephus has placed his Jesus and John figures in, for want of a better word, memory slots. Something similar to what we do when we remember past historical events that have impacted upon our history and our lives. Remembrance days. Living under Roman occupation public displays of Hasmonean history would be unacceptable. Allegories provided a means to an end. Hasmonean history would be remembered.
Like Josephus the gospel of Luke is also remembering Hasmonean history. In that 15th year of Tiberius the Lukan writer makes mention of various rulers. Lysanias of Abilene, is mentioned. Wikipedia gives his rule from 40 bc. to 36 b.c.
Josephus says in The Jewish War that Lysanias offered the Parthian satrap Barzapharnes a thousand talents and 500 women to bring Antigonus back and raise him to the throne, after deposing Hyrcanus though in his later work, the Jewish Antiquities, he says the offer was made by Antigonus. In 33 BCE Lysanias was put to death by Mark Antony for his Parthian sympathies, at the instigation of Cleopatra, who had eyes on his territories.
Coins from his reign indicate that he was "tetrarch and high priest".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysania ... ritories.
It does not take much of a stretch of imagination to get the point that the Lukan writer is making. Luke is referencing Hasmonean history from 40 b.c. to 37 b.c. when Antigonus was, re Cassius Dio, bound to a cross by Marc Antony.
Placing a gospel Jesus crucifixion around 33 c.e. (re a longer ministry in gJohn) and the crucifixion of the Hasmonean Antigonus is remembered by the Lukan writer 70 years later.
History is one thing and interpretation and allegories of it another. What the gospel story has done is go a step further than a political allegory - it has added a grand top dressing of theology, mythology, philosophy, and symbolism. But the boots on the ground stuff is still very much there...