Of Nazirites & Naṣoraeans.

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Of Nazirites & Naṣoraeans.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

These are some of Jones' arguments:

A. H. M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, pages 262-264: 262 Our knowledge of northern Syria at the beginning of the reign of Augustus is derived from the official lists of the time. These have been partly preserved, in a very mangled form, in Pliny. Pliny gives two lists, both arranged in alphabetical order, one of which he heads ‘Coele Syria’, the other ‘the rest of Syria’. The names in the second list are certainly all derived from an official register; they are all given in the ethnic. .... The alphabetical order is certainly Pliny’s, for he places Bambyce under B, whereas its official name was Hierapolis; the ‘Granucomatitae’ also are placed under G, although the name is probably a blunder for Tigranucometae; both the blunder and the place of the name in the list must then be Pliny’s. The distinction between Coele Syria and ‘the rest of Syria’ is also quite fantastic; the cities of the two lists are inextricably confused; Bambyce and Chalcis are in Coele, Beroea in ‘the rest’, Arethusa and Laodicea by Libanus are in ‘the rest’, Emesa in Coele. Furthermore, the list of Coele Syria contains some elements drawn from literary sources, such as, for instance, the notes on the Seleucid satrapies of Cyrrhestice and Chalcidene. The explanation of this muddle is probably as follows. Pliny had before him an official list of the reign of Augustus, headed ‘Syria’ simply, and various Greek literary sources, some of which used the term Coele Syria. Pliny made up a list of all the places which were placed in Coele Syria by the literary authorities; some of these were mentioned in the official list also, and these he put down sometimes in the form in which he found them in the official list, that is, in the ethnic, sometimes 263 in the literary form. Those names which he did not find in the literary sources, or which at any rate were not assigned in them to Coele Syria, he added as a separate list, ‘the rest of Syria’; ‘the rest of Syria’ therefore includes ‘seventeen tetrarchies with barbarian names’ which were naturally not noted in the literary sources. If this analysis is correct, the only names which certainly were from the official list are those in the list of ‘the rest of Syria’, and those given in the ethnic in the list of Coele Syria; other names in the Coele Syria list must be judged on their merits; they may have occurred in both the official and literary sources, or only in the literary. .... 264 .... In addition to these names Pliny quotes from the official register many others which, to the best of our knowledge, never were cities. Such are the Gazetae, the Gindareni, the Gabeni, the Hylatae, the Penelenitae, the Tardytenses. He also mentions besides the seventeen unnamed tetrarchies the tetrarchy of the Nazerini, two of the Tigranucometae (to accept the current emendation), and another called Mammisea. These are certainly from the official list; more doubtful are the races of the Ituraeans and their neighbours the Baethaemi, which may be derived from a literary source. It thus appears that northern Syria was by no means entirely occupied by the territories of the cities; a large area was occupied by village and tribal communities and small principalities. Unfortunately very few of these can be located definitely. Gindarus was a village between Antioch and Cyrrhus. The two tetrarchies of the Tigranocometae were perhaps the Arab tribes which Tigranes planted on the eastern slopes of mount Amanus. The tetrarchy of the Nazerini is stated by Pliny to have adjoined the territory of Apamea; the Nazerini must therefore be the ancestors of the modern Nusairi who inhabit the mountains behind Laodicea.

A. H. M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, pages 495-496: 495 The official documents used by Pliny seem almost invariably to have been published by Augustus and Agrippa. In Italy Pliny states that he used Augustus’ survey. Internal evidence shows that the lists of the provinces which he used were at any rate considerably earlier than his own time. .... Of the official lists the majority can be dated to the 496 reign of Augustus. .... In Syria the item Hemeseni must date from before 20 B.C., for from that date till the reign of Vespasian Emesa was ruled by client princes of the Samsigeramid house.... The list of the toparchies of Judaea would best fit the period immediately following the deposition of Archelaus; it includes on the coast the toparchy of Joppa which had belonged to Archelaus’ ethnarchy, but not that of Jamnia which belonged to Salome. The only item of official information which must be post-Augustan is the number of the Lycian cities, for the Lycians were free till the reign of Claudius, and no official survey of Lycia would therefore have existed till then.

Pliny, Natural History 5.19 §81-82 (English translation slightly formatted from John Bostock): 81 We must now speak of the interior of Syria. Coele Syria has the town of Apamea,1 divided by the river Marsyas from the Tetrarchy of the Nazerini;2 Bambyx, the other name of which is Hierapolis,3 but by the Syrians called Mabog,4 (here the monster Atargatis,5 called Derceto by the Greeks, is worshipped); and the place called Chalcis on the Belus, from which the region of Chalcidene, the most fertile part of Syria, takes its name. We here find also Cyrrhestice, with Cyrrhum, the Gazatae, the Gindareni, the Gabeni, the two Tetrarchies called Granucomatae, the Emeseni, the Hylatae, the nation of the Ituraei, and a branch of them, the people called the Baetarreni; the Mariamitani, 82 the Tetrarchy known as Mammisea, Paradisus, Pagrae, the Pinaritae, two cities called Seleucia, besides the one already mentioned, the one Seleucia on the Euphrates, and the other Seleucia on the Belus, and the Cardytenses. The remaining part of Syria (except those parts which will be spoken of in conjunction with the Euphrates) contains the Arethusii, the Beroeenses, and the Epiphanaeenses; and on the east, the Laodiceni, who are called the Laodiceni on the Libanus, the Leucadii, and the Larissaei, besides seventeen other Tetrarchies, divided into kingdoms and bearing barbarous names. / 81 Nunc interiora dicantur. Coele habet Apameam, Marsya amne divisam a Nazerinorum tetrarchia, Bambycen, quae alio nomine Hierapolis vocatur, Syris vero Mabog — ibi prodigiosa Atargatis, Graecis autem Derceto dicta, colitur — Chalcidem cognominatam Ad Belum, unde regio Chalcidena fertilissima Syriae, et inde Cyrresticae Cyrrum, Gazetas, Gindarenos, Gabenos, tetrarchias duas quae Granucomatitae vocantur, Hemesenos, Hylatas, Ituraeorum gentem et qui ex his Baethaemi vocantur, Mariamnitanos, 82 tetrarchiam quae Mammisea appellatur, Paradisum, Pagras, Penelenitas, Seleucias praeter iam dictam duas, quae Ad Euphraten et quae Ad Belum vocantur, Tardytenses. reliqua autem Syria habet, exceptis quae cum Euphrate dicentur, Arethusios, Beroeenses, Epiphanenses ad Orontem, Laodicenos, qui Ad Libanum cognominantur, Leucadios, Larisaeos, praeter tetrarchias in regna discriptas barbaris nominibus XVII.

Such are the arguments I would like to see either dismantled or vindicated. I do not think you have even touched them yet. How can Musianus stand in line to replace Agrippa with the data presented thus far? I would love to see the article by Kokkinos to compare the two.
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DCHindley
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Re: Of Nazirites & Naṣoraeans.

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rakovsky wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:13 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 9:48 am
Do you have the 2002 article he references in which he apparently makes this argument? If so, what does he say?
Kokkinos wrote to me "Unfortunately, my article on the city of Mariamme does not exist in electronic form, so you have to order it from an academic library. "
Yes,

Some years ago I also asked Nikos K. about another book he wrote (the one on the Herodian Dynasty, 1998 or Spink reprint with 2 new maps 2010). From his response (I think this was before the 2010 reprint), I got the feeling that he either did not keep electronic copies of his work as a general principal, or, prefers not to admit he does keep them to reduce the possibility of carelessly violating the book publisher's copyrights. He is a very fastidious researcher, but also strong willed. His chronological reconstructions are not mainstream (Jesus probably died in 36 CE, after dating JtB's death to around 35 CE).

Kokkinos got tainted as a tiny bit fringy after he contributed to Chronos, Kairos, Christos: Nativity and Chronological Studies Presented to Jack Finegan, edited by E. Jerry Vardaman and Edwin M. Yamauchi. Vardaman claimed that many ancient coins contain "microletters" on Tyrian drachmae that he interprets as tiny words present in the original dies that show the mint operators were thoroughly Christians. Yamauchi has his "word-revolves-around-Jesus" view of Gnosticism. Jack Finegan is himself the final word for many conservative or evangelical Christians, and managed to get even more conservative at the end, managing to date Jesus' birth to 1 CE rather than 4 BCE.

Idiosyncratic scholars, who'd have thunk that even possible? :cheeky:

DCH
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rakovsky
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Re: Of Nazirites & Naṣoraeans.

Post by rakovsky »

Thanks for sharing Jones' excerpt, Ben.
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