Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2019 9:41 pm
If Ben is right about Jesus being before son of Joseph and only later made son of David, then I wonder if that modification was part and parcel of a greater process known in this forum as
euhemerization:
1) Jesus was euhemerized as a Galilean son of Joseph crucified by Herod
under Claudius.
2) Jesus was made davidic, and Jerusalem became the place where Jesus was crucified, not under the authority of Herod: hence, Pilate enters on the scene as collateral effect of the «davidization» of Jesus.
Under Tiberius.
3) Luke harmonized the two stories, by inventing the famous ping pong between Pilate and Jesus.
4) Ireneus became fool:
Herod, king of the Jews, and Ponce Pilate, procurator of the emperor Claudius, joining themselves, condamned Jesus to the crucifixion.
(
Demonstratio, $ 74,
Against the haeres. 2:22/5)
Note that the epistle of Barnaba, where Jesus is son of Joseph and not davidic, ignores Pilate while accuses the Jews of deicide.
I
already responded to the bit about the epistle of Barnabas, but I wanted to add that I actually kind of like the trajectory which precedes that comment; it needs fleshing out, and I am not sure that a crucifixion in Galilee, if that is the suggestion, is really a viable option (even the Jewish predictions about a dying Messiah ben Ephraim seem to have him perishing in Judea, not in Galilee), but the overall notion seems worth pursuing.
Herod Antipas (tetrarch of Galilee and Perea) and Herod Agrippa (king of Judea, Galilee, Batanaea, and Perea) were easy to confuse in antiquity (and still are today!), so perhaps the original story ran something like what we find in the gospel of Peter, minus Pilate: basically, Herod commands the Jews to crucify Jesus (in Jerusalem), and they do, except it was thought to be Herod Antipas, not Agrippa, for his jurisdiction over Galilee (as noticed in Luke 23.7), yet as king instead of as tetrarch, as we find for Agrippa in the early Claudian years of 41-44. Making Jesus Davidic (to the point, even, of eventually locating his birth in the southern, Davidic town of Bethlehem) put him rather under the jurisdiction of Judea, ruled during the tenure of Antipas by Pontius Pilate.
It still commands my attention that Pontius Pilate finds such a firm place as he does in the early Christian creeds and creedal statements; I have suggested before that perhaps his presence therein was meant as a way of eliminating various
alternate timelines for the crucifixion.
I am certain about none of this. But I did appreciate this interesting trajectory.
Just for reference:
Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, 6-39.
Herod Agrippa, king of Judea (+ Galilee, Batanaea, & Perea), 41-44.
Tiberius, emperor of the Roman empire, 14-37.
Caligula, emperor of the Roman empire, 37-41.
Claudius, emperor of the Roman empire, 41-54.
Pontius Pilate, prefect/governor of Judea, 26-37 (? — dates possibly tampered with in Josephus).
With respect to the proposed trajectory, however, what if the proposed execution under Herod Antipas is the result of the following?
Mark 6.14-16: 14 And King Herod heard of it, for His name had become well known; and people were saying, “John the Baptist has risen from the dead, and that is why these miraculous powers are at work in Him.” 15 But others were saying, “He is Elijah.” And others were saying, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” 16 But when Herod heard of it, he kept saying, “John, whom I beheaded, has risen!”
Mark 8.27-28: 27 Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 They told Him, saying, “John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets.”
Luke 3.15: 15 Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ....
And what if, as Robert M. Price suggests somewhere, these passages actually reflect theories circulating in the early church (and not during Jesus' putative ministry)? That is, what if the heavenly Lord was thought by some to be John the Baptist redivivus? Thus Jesus, in his earthly tenure (as John the Baptist, for these particular believers), would have been killed by Herod Antipas.
I have been playing around with the idea lately that the earliest visions of the heavenly Jesus were intended to vouchsafe the notion that the Messiah ben Joseph (= a Joshua figure), or at any rate
some kind of eschatological figure, had already appeared, thus ensuring that the eschatological end was indeed nigh. Those visions attached themselves to a revolutionary who had gotten himself crucified, a figure obscure enough that even slightly later believers had to guess which human being was intended, and some people guessed John the Baptist, leading to the belief that Herod Antipas had executed Jesus. The actual historical figure's name itself was probably not Jesus (= Joshua = "Yahweh saves"), since it was the name of the exalted Lord (refer to Philippians 2.9-11). So the earthly personage (who had upon his death and resurrection/exaltation "inherited a more excellent name" than the angels; refer to Hebrews 1.1-4) could have borne pretty much any earthly name, and his very obscurity ensured that any number of guesses were possible. (We find similar guesses in the Talmud: ben Stada, ben Panthera, and Yeshua the Notsri.) Other guesses ventured that his death was that of the eschatologically expected Elijah figure, or that of a prophet. All of these guesses were predicated upon demonstrating that the end times were underway; the times had been fulfilled.
Anyway, lots to think through here.