Hypothesis: Could Lukuas have claimed to be the King of Parthia?

[Joseph D. L.]

The cause for the Kitos revolt is not clear. Some have proposed it was over the heavy taxes levied at Jews; some have suggested it was purely as a reaction to the modernization of Jews in the diaspora; and still others offer a purely religious and eschatological explanation for it.

Unlike like the Jewish-Roman war and the revolt of bar Kochba, the Kitos revolt was almost Empire wide, and even in some parts of Mesopotamia. Going off a simple analogy, a blast is only as big as the bomb*, so such a sudden eruption had to have a cause of almost equal proportions. It is rather a strange coincidence that in the years leading up to Kitos Trajan had began to make maneuvers that would resolve the "Parthian question", and had disposed Parthamasiris, the client king of Armenia, from his throne the year prior to the revolt.

The Parthian's relationship to Jews is an odd one. Josephus has Helena of Adiabene a Jewish convert and her subsequent children, Izates and Monobazus, likewise Jewish convert. Their esteem for Judaism was indisputable. Helena made generous donations to the Temple and the Jewish communities, and her sons sided with the Jews when Rome would begin to push against them.

No I'm not promoting Ellis here, but I am noting the peculiar relationship between Jews and Parthia. Cyrene is probably too far removed from Parthia to have noticed or cared about what Trajan was doing, and yet it is here where Lukuas emerges, with Artemion isolated on Cyprus. However, the likelihood that Lukuas wasn't originally from Cyrene must be considered. Cyrene held remnants of the Zealots, who had been encouraged to revolt just years following the Jewish-Roman war under the auspice of one Jonathan the Weaver. Given the almost fifty years of festering resentment to those who defeated them and destroyed their Holy Temple, and now the movements of Trajan to dissolve Parthia, the winds were right for an all out revolt.

So under such a scenario, the Kitos revolt was the result of geopolitics revolving around Parthia, and not necessarily one with religious connotations... at first. As it went on, however, and losses mounted, as well as the devastating earthquake the struck Syria months into the revolt, the tone shifted. What was an uprising turned into a battle of Armageddon. In just two years, the casualties equaled that of the Jewish-Roman war, with whole settlements being virtually unpopulated for centuries after.

And all of this because of one crazed man from Cyrene calling himself King of the Jews? Why did he think he was the King? Why did he have names becoming a Grecian? Maybe I'm being overly imaginative and obstinate in thinking that a man charismatic enough can cause such a devastating chain of events. I think Lukuas might have had some legitimacy in his claim after all. I'm not suggesting he was Parthamasiris, but I am suggesting that he was someone tied to the Parthian royal house.

Yes, all of this is pure conjecture. Yes, I have too much time on hands. Yes, I have no idea what I am talking about.

* I am aware that not a blasts reflect the size of their bombs

[Giuseppe]

Surely the Parthia is meant in:

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom...

(Mark 13.7)

...no other kingdoms being existed apart the Roman Empire and able to challenge it so directly.

Under Hadrian.

[Joseph D. L.]

Celsus and the Toledot Yeshu claim that Jesus, far from being the product of a miraculous conception, was instead the bastard son of a man named Pantera/Pandera. Such an idea is present even in our canonical literature as Matthew posits that Joseph indeed believed that Mary had deceived him,* and Talmudic literature has Yeshua ben Stada (who is equated with Pandera) take on his mother's name as a result of the scandal.

It is a held idea that "pantera" is a garbled polemic against the claim that Jesus was the son of a virgin, parthenos. But here is another peculiar coincidence, as both parthenos and Parthia are connected phonetically in Greek, παρθένος and Παρθία respectively, with the root παρθ meaning virgin.

So if it is likely that pantera was a polemic against Jesus's parthenogenesis, could it also have been a polemic against the Parthian empire as well?

Revelation 12 also holds an interesting connection (or for me at least) too. It is no guarded secret that in this chapter lies the potential influence on Matthew, with the women being Mary, the child being Jesus and the dragon being Herod. But then what was the original intent for ch. 12? Could the women instead be an allegory for Parthia and the dragon for Rome?

*A literary device which acknowledges that such a claim was being made about Jesus. Matthew does this further on when he writes that Pilate issued soldiers to guard Jesus's tomb to prevent his disciples from stealing the body and thus spreading a rumour that he had resurrected, which anti-Christian Jewish polemics had claimed was done. (See Toledot Yeshu)

[Joseph D. L.]

So Mark has Jesus going around Palestine performing all of these miracles and wonders and preaching and teaching and all of that jazz, then tells them to zip it and tell no one anything. The so-called "messianic secret", kinda makes you wonder why Mark was written in the first place? If it's supposed to be a secret, why commit it to writing? Doubly so if Mark was just writing what Peter was saying, in which case we have a Watergate-like scandal of people not able to keep their mouth's shut.

Why the secrecy? Why would Jesus gather a bunch of men around him and perform his miracles and teachings in public if he did not what the attention? In fact this goes all the way up to when Jesus is before Pilate and Pilate asks him if he was King of the Jews and Jesus evades the question with a "if you say so."

So what if the reason for the secrecy was sort of like a recruitment for a potential coup and Jesus didn't want anybody spilling the beans?

[Giuseppe]

So what if the reason for the secrecy was sort of like a recruitment for a potential coup and Jesus didn't want anybody spilling the beans?

that is a historicist reading.

Under a mythicist paradigm, there are 2 options:

• 1) the secrecy justified the not-existence. Period. Stop.

• 2) the secrecy was an anti-marcionite reason:
  
  
  The god of the Jews said, Aure audietis et non audietis (Is. vi. 9). Jesus, on the other hand, wishes all ears to be opened (T. iv. 19). All should listen, since there is no longer anything hidden; everything is made clear.
  
  (P.-L. Couchoud, Creation of Christ, p. 399)

[Giuseppe]

For me, so eager to marcionize Mark, it is a great problem that Marcion hated the secrecy as demiurgical:

• Ephesians 3:9, catholic reading:
  
  
  "and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things."
  
  

• Ephesians 3:9, marcionite reading:
  
  
  "and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden by God, who created all things."
  
  

[Joseph D. L.]

Mythicism is a false paradigm.

[Joseph D. L.]

Thus saith Jehovah to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings; to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut: I will go before thee, and make the rough places smooth; I will break in pieces the doors of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that it is I, Jehovah, who call thee by thy name, even the God of Israel.

The Epistle of Barnabas reiterates this passage from Isaiah. The Epistle is proto-Marcionite.

The Father had secrets too by your reckoning. He waited almost four thousand years from creation to reveal Isu to Paul.

[davidmartin]

DL, because the real Jesus didn't have a care for politics?
The shenanigans around the revolts were antithetical to his agenda and all motivated by a political paradigm that was defeated
So a memory of a Jewish teacher that rejected this in favour of some spiritual outcome would retain immense credibility
Credibility which could later be used to advance the causes of those who laid claim to him
But what his tenants were or what his teaching was... plays second fiddle to his being on the right side of history

[Giuseppe]

• Ephesians 3:9, marcionite reading:
  
  
  "and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden by God, who created all things."
  
  

Prof Vinzent gives me reason on this precise point:

One example is precisely the passage that TJ Lang dealt with in Oxford, Eph 3:9, as reported by Tert., Adv. Marc. V 18. There Tertullian complains that Marcion left aside the 'in'/ἐν (τοῦ μυστηρίου τοῦ ἀποκεκρυμμένου ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων ἐν τῷ θεῷ τῷ τὰ πάντα κτίσαντι), hence understood the text as saying that the mysteries were hidden 'from' the God who created the all, hence the creator. Yet, without the 'in', one could still have read the text, as it is now being read with the 'in'. Therefore, a redactional striking off of the 'in' by Marcion had made no sense whatsoever, whereas a catholic redaction of adding the 'in' was a unambiguous clarification of the sense of the passage that went against the grain of Marcion's theology.
This, as I say, is just but one example which could be multiplied.

http://markusvinzent.blogspot.com/2016/ ... ction.html

Mythicism is a false paradigm.

PROVE IT!!!