Herod was called the Messiah, too

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Herod was called the Messiah, too

Post by Giuseppe »

Tertullian, De praescript. adv. haeret. 45:
I will not speak further about the Herodians, who claimed that Herod was Christ.


But why speak of later times? When the blood of Christ was but lately shed and the apostles were still in Judæa, the Lord's body was asserted to be a phantom; the Galatians had been led away to the observance of the law, and the Apostle was a second time in travail with them; the Corinthians did not believe the resurrection of the flesh, and he endeavoured by many arguments to bring them back to the right path. Then came Simon Magus and his disciple Menander. They asserted themselves to be powers of God. Then Basilides invented the most high god Abraxas and the three hundred and sixty-five manifestations of him. Then Nicolas, one of the seven Deacons, and one whose lechery knew no rest by night or day, indulged in his filthy dreams. I say nothing of the Jewish heretics who before the coming of Christ destroyed the law delivered to them: of Dositheus, the leader of the Samaritans who rejected the prophets: of the Sadducees who sprang from his root and denied even the resurrection of the flesh: of the Pharisees who separated themselves from the Jews on account of certain superfluous observances, and took their name from the fact of their dissent: of the Herodians who accepted Herod as the Christ. I come to those heretics who have mangled the Gospels, Saturninus, and the Ophites, the Cainites and Sethites, and Carpocrates, and Cerinthus, and his successor Ebion, and the other pests, the most of which broke out while the apostle John was still alive, and yet we do not read that any of these men were re-baptized.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3005.htm

It is impossible that it was a late heresy, the equation Herod=Messiah.

A theological justification to identify Herod with the Jewish Messiah was the Shilo's prophecy Genesis 49:10:
"the sceptre will not depart from Judah... until Shiloh comes...".

Herod was the first Gentile to rule on the Jews exclusively with the title "King of Jews".

This says us why Jesus's invented biography was placed under Herod.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Ulan
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Re: Herod was called the Messiah, too

Post by Ulan »

It's not surprising that thought sprang from the mind of a Latin writer, given "Christ" was a title that didn't have any meaning beyond the religious one for them.
Giuseppe
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Re: Herod was called the Messiah, too

Post by Giuseppe »

Ulan wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:09 pm It's not surprising that thought sprang from the mind of a Latin writer, given "Christ" was a title that didn't have any meaning beyond the religious one for them.
are you saying that, since "Christ" was only a mere title as "King" in the eyes of a Latin writer, then he interpreted the "Herodians" in the Gospels as people who identified Herod as the Christ or King of Jews in opposition to Jesus?

But then how do you explain the presence of "Herodians" in the Gospels, apart, obviously, an easy confutation of a Christian apologist ?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Herod was called the Messiah, too

Post by Giuseppe »

Thinking it again, I think that prof Taylor is correct to identify the Essenes as the Herodians, in the Gospels. She says the same thing said by me here: that the Shilo's prophecy was used by Essenes to predict the arrival of Herod as the Messiah.

Hence the possibility becomes a probability, that Jesus's life was placed sub Pontio Pilato for the same reason Herod was predicted as fulfilling the Shilo's prophecy.

Under a mythicist paradigm, the conclusion is only one:

Without Shilo's prophecy in view, no Jesus placed sub Pontio Pilato.


ADDENDA:
In my eyes, that the Shilo's prophecy was considered as fulfilled by Herod as not-Jew is so much unexpected just as the fact that the same prophecy was used to place Jesus, as suffering Messiah, under Herod. But if the first was a fact, then also the second was a fact.
Last edited by Giuseppe on Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Ulan
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Re: Herod was called the Messiah, too

Post by Ulan »

I was referring to the disconnect that gets visible when someone is surprised that a king might be called "Christ".
Giuseppe
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Re: Herod was called the Messiah, too

Post by Giuseppe »

Ulan wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:25 pm I was referring to the disconnect that gets visible when someone is surprised that a king might be called "Christ".
this sounds as an argument for the authenticity of "Jesus called Christ" in Josephus 20:200 as Jesus son of Damneus, as high priest, was an "anointed" (hence a 'christ' of his own right).

At any case, Beyond if Herod was identified with THE Messiah, I see that it is a FACT that the Shilo's prophecy was applied on him only in virtue of his being a not-Jew. And we already know that Shilo was meant as THE Messiah.


This gives me the simplest explanation in circulation, to my knowledge, about the true reason Jesus was placed under Herod.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Herod was called the Messiah, too

Post by Joseph D. L. »

Couldn't the simpler solution be that it was because Jesus had appeared in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and was believed to have been about thirty to forty six years of age?

29 ad minus 30-46 is 1-17 bc.

What you're saying Giuseppe necessitates a historical, non allegorical, position, as those who believed themselves Christians would see Jesus as rival to Herod, a friend of the Romans.
Giuseppe
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Re: Herod was called the Messiah, too

Post by Giuseppe »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 12:09 am Couldn't the simpler solution be that it was because Jesus had appeared in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and was believed to have been about thirty to forty six years of age?
no, because "15" and "Tiberius" find a too much specific explanation (hardly a "coincidence"):

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5024&hilit=Tybi#p97556

What you're saying Giuseppe necessitates a historical, non allegorical, position, as those who believed themselves Christians would see Jesus as rival to Herod, a friend of the Romans.
Jesus is already a rival of Herod in our gospels without need of talking about the Shilo's Prophect. If for you that would prove historicity...
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Herod was called the Messiah, too

Post by Joseph D. L. »

no, because "15" and "Tiberius" find a too much specific explanation (hardly a "coincidence"):

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5024&hilit=Tybi#p97556
That argument is not at all intuitive and is simply grasping at straws.

You want to know what's funny? Tybi is a month on the Alexandrian calendar, not Hebrew. What is it you're also telling me? Marcion was Sinopic, not Alexandrian? By the time the Gospels were written, Tybi was fixed to January. So the interpretation given by the Pistis Sophia and Clement of Alexandria is later than the writing of Marcion, and so means very little. (Clement even says that some said it was the 11th of Tybi, which makes this interpretation all the less viable).

Xoroaster's argument for why the reign of Tiberius was chosen is far more intuitive, is not reliant on later texts, and doesn't require a bunch of mental gymnastics and leaps in arguments.
Giuseppe
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Re: Herod was called the Messiah, too

Post by Giuseppe »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 2:56 amMarcion was Sinopic, not Alexandrian?
I didn't see where is the problem. Cerdon, who comes before Marcion, could have written the 15 and Tiberius.

At any case, in Mark there is not Tiberius and there is not 15.

The reference to Herod comes before any reference to 15 and Tiberius.

It is a more Jewish thing to be said. Isn't it?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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