..."As against a robber"...

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: ..."As against a robber"...

Post by Giuseppe »

MrMacSon wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 2:50 pm FWIW; Johanan be Zakkai was moved by the religious indifference of the inhabitants of 'Arab in Galilee to exclaim:
  • "O Galilee, Galilee, thou hatest the Torah; hence wilt thou fall into the hands of robbers!"
Bravo. Thank you for this. Now it becomes clear why Samaria is related to robbers.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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MrMacSon
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Re: ..."As against a robber"...

Post by MrMacSon »

You're welcome.

I've just edit that post (that I made several hours ago) to include the reference. The full passage from the Jewish Encylcopaedia is -

Residence in Galilee.
Johanan [ben Zakkai's] residence in 'Arab, a place in Galilee, which was perhaps his home, belongs to this period. Two questions of a legal nature (regarding the observance of the Sabbath) which he answered while there (Shab. xvi. 7, xxii. 3) gave rise to the statement that he lived there for eighteen years (probably a round number) and that he was moved by the religious indifference of the inhabitants to exclaim: "O Galilee, Galilee, thou hatest the Torah; hence wilt thou fall into the hands of robbers!"
lsayre
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Re: ..."As against a robber"...

Post by lsayre »

MrMacSon wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 2:50 pm FWIW; Johanan be Zakkai is said to have been moved by the religious indifference of the inhabitants of 'Arab in Galilee to exclaim:
  • "O Galilee, Galilee, thou hatest the Torah; hence wilt thou fall into the hands of robbers!"
From this would it be safe to make the assumption that Christians = Robbers?
Giuseppe
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Re: ..."As against a robber"...

Post by Giuseppe »

lsayre wrote: Sun Jun 17, 2018 3:13 am
MrMacSon wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 2:50 pm FWIW; Johanan be Zakkai is said to have been moved by the religious indifference of the inhabitants of 'Arab in Galilee to exclaim:
  • "O Galilee, Galilee, thou hatest the Torah; hence wilt thou fall into the hands of robbers!"
From this would it be safe to make the assumption that Christians = Robbers?
the Zealots would have defended the Torah. Only the Marcionite Christians would have rejected the Torah.

Unless they were neither Zealots nor Marcionites, but mere robbers.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
lsayre
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Re: ..."As against a robber"...

Post by lsayre »

Josephus discusses "robbers" and their association with the destruction of Jerusalem. But he never (aside from the Testimonium Flavianum) discusses Christians. Could this be due to his perception of the Christians being one and the same as the robbers?
Giuseppe
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Re: ..."As against a robber"...

Post by Giuseppe »

''Robbers'' is a term so full of theological meaning (since it refers the OT prophets for Marcion, or the same marcionite Christ, for ''Mark'') that it could be used in connection with the Christians (viz. it could appear in the Gospels) only after that the marcionite threat became clear for the Judaizers: in the middle second century.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: ..."As against a robber"...

Post by Giuseppe »

Neil does an interesting question:
How would you go about determining that such passages in Mark were composed to counter Marcionism and not that Marcion came later and disagreed with such passages?
https://vridar.org/2018/06/17/is-this-s ... ment-85729

My answer may be not to his same his level:
Thank you for the optimal question, Neil.

My answer: Since Mark 15:48-50 breaks the Messianic Secret in proto-Mark, by having a Jesus who remembers to his enemies the fact that he was not an unknown person (i.e. unknown as a robber is by definition) but was someone *very well known* during the day. So it is an anti-marcionite interpolation.
So I have found another break of the Messianic Secret in proto-Mark by "Mark". :cheers:
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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DCHindley
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Re: ..."As against a robber"...

Post by DCHindley »

lsayre wrote: Sun Jun 17, 2018 3:13 am
MrMacSon wrote: Sat Jun 16, 2018 2:50 pm FWIW; Johanan be Zakkai is said to have been moved by the religious indifference of the inhabitants of 'Arab in Galilee to exclaim:
  • "O Galilee, Galilee, thou hatest the Torah; hence wilt thou fall into the hands of robbers!"
From this would it be safe to make the assumption that Christians = Robbers?
I think, looking at the citations presented from the Babylonian Talmudic, that the "robbers" here are prima facie the Judean rebel forces who took control of the Galilee and were ultimately overwhelmed by the Roman general Vespasian.

The "hatred for torah" may refer to 4th Philosophy opinions these rebels held about national sovereignty that Josephus has also complained were "contrary to our ancestral laws". Johanan ben Zakkai may have been thinking of both the Torah proper (the "Five books of Moses") and the oral interpretations that were associated with it, meaning the Galilean rebels had broken from sound interpretation of the Torah.

This being so, a secondary meaning may also have been implied: The "robbers" were really the Romans (Vespasian & his son Titus), who must be tricked into minimizing the damage to Judean culture, by appeal to their own vanity.

When we get to second order meanings like this, we are really only just guessing.

I will finally note here that there are several Hebrew and Greek words that might be translated into English as Robbers. To really get a handle on this would mean looking up the actual words Johanan ben Zakkai used and what words were used in Greek and Judean sources that may have served as the source for his prediction that the Galileans were on a path that will bring disaster to them, and he was right.

DCH
Giuseppe
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Re: ..."As against a robber"...

Post by Giuseppe »


This being so, a secondary meaning may also have been implied: The "robbers" were really the Romans (Vespasian & his son Titus), who must be tricked into minimizing the damage to Judean culture, by appeal to their own vanity.



Celsus called Jesus ''son of Panthera'', meaning by it that Jesus was of bastard origin.

If the ''robber'' par excellence in a Jewish context is the Roman soldier, then the brigand Jesus Barabbas (a parody of the marcionite Son of Father) had to be son of a Roman soldier.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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