Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

John2 wrote: Fri Jan 25, 2019 7:54 pmI've never thought about how the disciples died before (besides Peter), but I thought I'd offer a link (the first one I found) that discusses this.
How Did the Apostles Die? ...

Matthew, the tax collector and writer of a Gospel, ministered in Persia and Ethiopia. Some of the oldest reports say he was not martyred, while others say he was stabbed to death in Ethiopia ...

Matthais was the apostle chosen to replace Judas. Tradition sends him to Syria with Andrew and to death by burning.

https://www.christianity.com/church/chu ... 29558.html
Of possible interest, the Book of the Bee has a chapter (number 48) dedicated to the places where the various early figures all preached and then died: https://archive.org/stream/Budge1886The ... 3/mode/2up. It includes the following about Matthew and about Levi: "Matthew the Evangelist was from Nazareth, of the tribe of Issachar. He preached in Palestine, Tyre, and Sidon, and went as far as Gabbûlâ. He died and was buried in Antioch, a city of Pisidia. .... Levi was slain by Charmus while he was teaching in Paneas."
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Re: Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

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Levi was slain by Charmus ....
Is it because he squeezed the Charmus?
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Re: Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

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Doubtless.
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Re: Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

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Jesus was hanged on Passover Eve. Forty days previously the herald had cried, “He is being led out for stoning, because he has practiced sorcery and led Israel astray and enticed them into apostasy. Whosoever has anything to say in his defense, let him come and declare it.” As nothing was brought forward in his defense, he was hanged on Passover Eve.

(Tractate Sanhedrin 43a)
who is the "herald"?
https://www.sefaria.org/Yoma.21a?lang=bi
The Gemara comments: A baraita was taught in accordance with the opinion of Rav, and a baraita was taught in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Sheila. The Gemara elaborates: A baraita was taught in accordance with the opinion of Rav: What did Gevini the Crier, who was an appointee in the Temple, say in his proclamation? Arise, priests, to your service, and Levites to your platform, and Israelites to your non-priestly watch. And the Gemara relates: His voice was so strong that it could be heard at a distance of three parasangs, slightly more than eight miles.

There was an incident involving King Agrippa, who was coming down the road and heard Gevini the Crier’s voice at a distance of three parasangs. And when the king came to his house he sent gifts to him, since he was so impressed with the man’s voice. The Gemara notes: And even so, the voice of the High Priest was stronger and superior to his, as the Master said: And there already was an incident where the High Priest recited, in his confession that accompanied the placing of hands on his bull on Yom Kippur: Please God, and his voice was heard in Jericho. And Rabba bar bar Ḥana said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: The distance from Jerusalem to Jericho is ten parasangs.

And not only was the distance greater in the case of the High Priest than in the case of Gevini the Crier, here, there is the issue of the weakness of the High Priest due to the fast and his obligation to perform the entire service, while there, there is no issue of the weakness of Gevini. And in addition, here it was during the day, when sound does not travel as well, that the High Priest recited his confession; and there it was during the night when Gevini called the priests, Levites, and Israelites.

...

And some say: The sound of Ridya as well. Ridya is the angel tasked with irrigating the earth, who calls to the heavens and to the aquifers to provide their water. The Gemara comments: And the Sages asked for mercy so that the sound of the soul at the moment that it leaves the body would no longer be heard to that extent, and God eliminated it. In any event, clearly this baraita understands keriat hagever as the proclamation of the Temple crier, in support of the opinion of Rav.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... rius*.html
Only one single instance was noticed of a visible exercise of the rights of the tribunicial authority. He was a constant attendant at the schools and lecture-rooms of the professors of philosophy, and once when a hot dispute had arisen among rival sophists, a fellow had the audacity to ply him with abuse when he took part and appeared to favour one side. Thereupon he gradually backed away to his house, and then suddenly coming out with his lictors and attendants, and bidding his crier to summon the foul-mouthed fellow before his tribunal, he had him taken off to prison.
LOL, too relatable.

Criers were, among many other things... used to summon witnesses. The herald says, "Whosoever has anything to say in his defense, let him come and declare it" - i.e., he is giving ample opportunity for witnesses to come forward by making the trial publicly known this way.

Image

PS - don't worry, I'm not trying to reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into, that way lies madness.
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Re: Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

Post by Nathan »

Peter Kirby wrote: Sat Jan 26, 2019 12:05 am
Jesus was hanged on Passover Eve. Forty days previously the herald had cried, “He is being led out for stoning, because he has practiced sorcery and led Israel astray and enticed them into apostasy. Whosoever has anything to say in his defense, let him come and declare it.” As nothing was brought forward in his defense, he was hanged on Passover Eve.

(Tractate Sanhedrin 43a)
who is the "herald"?
....

Criers were, among many other things... used to summon witnesses. The herald says, "Whosoever has anything to say in his defense, let him come and declare it" - i.e., he is giving ample opportunity for witnesses to come forward by making the trial publicly known this way.
...
It's also worth noting the Talmud is casting Jesus' execution in terms of Jewish law.

Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:1 (b. Sanh. 43a):
If then [the judges] find [the accused man] innocent, they discharge him; but if not, he goes forth to be stoned. And a herald precedes him [crying]: So and so, the son of so and so, is going forth to be stoned because he committed such and such an offense, and so and so are his witnesses. Whoever knows anything in his favor, let him come and state it.
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Re: Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

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DCHindley wrote: Fri Jan 25, 2019 8:00 pm

92n1 It is, however, worthy of note that in b. Taan. 19b, 20a, is related a story of Naqdimon b. Gorion, a rich citizen of Jerusalem, and it is added in a note that his real name was not Naqdimon, but Buni. Now Naqdimon is equivalent to Nicodemus. There may, therefore, be an allusion to Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night (John iii. 1). [Yeah, the formatting is mine]
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Good point. Toda could be related to Thaddeus, and Buni or Naki could be related to Nicodemus.

I wonder if the passage could also be referring to the Christian practice of giving new names to Christians, like how Nicodemus means "innocent of blood", referring to how he did not support Jesus' killing despite being in the Sanhedrin. Thus he carried two names, as the passage above says that his "real name" was "Buni".

(A) An early version of the "Acts of Pilate" or (B) the Clementine Recognitions & Homilies (or both A and B), describes Nicodemus' killing by the rabbinical community for Christianity.

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Re: Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

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Still another tradition maintains that Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem by the Jews, and then beheaded (cf. Tillemont, "Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire eccl. des six premiers siècles", I, 406-7). It is said that St. Helena brought the relics of St. Matthias to Rome, and that a portion of them was at Trier. Bollandus* (Acta SS., May, III) doubts if the relics that are in Rome are not rather those of the St. Matthias who was Bishop of Jerusalem about the year 120, and whose history would seem to have been confounded with that of the Apostle.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10066a.htm

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Re: Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

Post by Giuseppe »

Nathan wrote: Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:23 am

It's also worth noting the Talmud is casting Jesus' execution in terms of Jewish law.

Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:1 (b. Sanh. 43a):
If then [the judges] find [the accused man] innocent, they discharge him; but if not, he goes forth to be stoned. And a herald precedes him [crying]: So and so, the son of so and so, is going forth to be stoned because he committed such and such an offense, and so and so are his witnesses. Whoever knows anything in his favor, let him come and state it.
In another thread, I had written that the absence of defenders for Jeshu confirms the same absence
of information about him. Note that the herald has to specify “the son of so and so”, i.e. he has to identify the victim. Defenders don't show themselves not for fear, but for effective ignorance about who is this Jeshu.
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Re: Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

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rakovsky wrote: Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:24 am
Still another tradition maintains that Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem by the Jews, and then beheaded (cf. Tillemont, "Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire eccl. des six premiers siècles", I, 406-7). It is said that St. Helena brought the relics of St. Matthias to Rome, and that a portion of them was at Trier. Bollandus* (Acta SS., May, III) doubts if the relics that are in Rome are not rather those of the St. Matthias who was Bishop of Jerusalem about the year 120, and whose history would seem to have been confounded with that of the Apostle.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10066a.htm
I think it's interesting that Mattai is mentioned first in the list of Jesus' five disciples who were executed. Even if we were to say that their names are made up based on the OT, it is curious that someone with a name like Matthew tops the list. I wonder if it could have anything to do with Matthew being a Jewish Christian gospel and thus the one that Rabbinic Jews would have been most familiar with (like the medieval Hebrew Matthews).

Here is what San. 43a says about Mattai again:
Apropos the trial of Jesus, the Gemara cites another baraita, where the Sages taught: Jesus the Nazarene had five disciples: Mattai, Nakai, Netzer, Buni, and Toda. They brought Mattai in to stand trial. Mattai said to the judges: Shall Mattai be executed? But isn’t it written: “When [matai] shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalms 42:3). Mattai claimed that this verse alludes to the fact he is righteous. They said to him: Yes, Mattai shall be executed, as it is written: “When [matai] shall he die, and his name perish?” (Psalms 41:6).
You wrote in another post above:
Toda could be related to Thaddeus, and Buni or Naki could be related to Nicodemus.
I'm becoming inclined to see the names of Jesus' five disciples the way it is put in this part of DC's citation above:
The last, Thodah, is not unlike Thaddeeus ; but in Hebrew that name would be Thaddai, not Thodah. The others, Naqi, Netzer, and Buni, have no parallels in the list of the Twelve; indeed, it is doubtful whether they, and Thodah, were ever names of persons at all. At most they may have been nick-names, and they certainly raise the suspicion that they have been chosen for the sake of the texts. I suggest that the case stands thus: five disciples of Jesus, i.e. five Christians, were on some occasion condemned to death, that their real names, if known, were not mentioned, that one of them was designated Matthai with reference to the name attached to the first Gospel, that the play upon his name suggested a similar device in the case of the others, and that for them other names were invented, each of which had some reference to Jesus, as regarded of course by Christians.

And while I don't know what to make of it, that Nakidimon is called Buni in the Talmud is very interesting,
It is, however, worthy of note that in b. Taan. 19b, 20a, is related a story of Naqdimon b. Gorion, a rich citizen of Jerusalem, and it is added in a note that his real name was not Naqdimon, but Buni. Now Naqdimon is equivalent to Nicodemus. There may, therefore, be an allusion to Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night (John iii. 1).
You also wrote:
A) An early version of the "Acts of Pilate" or (B) the Clementine Recognitions & Homilies (or both A and B), describes Nicodemus' killing by the rabbinical community for Christianity.
Interesting. I want to look into this.
Last edited by John2 on Sat Jan 26, 2019 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sanhedrin 43a: who is the "herald"?

Post by John2 »

Both of those sources seem late though, now that I think about it (not to say that means they can't have any value), and I can't find any reference (via word search) to Nicodemus in the Homilies of Clement and only two references in the Recognitions (2.1 and 3.68, neither of which mention his execution), and I'm not sure if those two references in the Recognitions are in the earlier source(s) thought to have been incorporated into the Clementine writings (called the Grundschrift).

Here is a link to the Recognitions of Clement. Feel free to let me know if you see any reference(s) to Nicodemus' death.

http://compassionatespirit.com/Books/index.htm

I did see something that appears to allude to Nicodemus' death (or punishment) in what is called "Avitus' Latin translation of Lucian on the Inventio of Stephen's relics" (c. 415 CE), with a note about the Gospel of Nicodemus and the Clementine writings:
[It] describes three successive apparitions of the first century Jewish rabbi Gamaliel ... Gamaliel informs Lucian of the proximity of the tomb shared by three New Testament figures -by Stephen, Nicodemus, and Gamaliel himself- as well as by his own son Abibas. By way of explanation, Gamaliel provides a narration of his, Abibas', and Nicodemus' conversions to the Christian faith, with their resultant rejections by the Jewish community.

[Footnote 4 regarding the underlined part]:

This narration agrees with two pieces of apocryphal early Christian literature, the pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, and the Gospel of Nicodemus, or Acts of Pilate ...

https://books.google.com/books?id=6ZnYA ... re&f=false

Regarding the dating of the Acts of Pilate/Gospel of Nicodemus, Wikipedia says:
As the Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (writing c. 325) shows no acquaintance with this Gospel, historians assume that it postdates this time. Eusebius was aware of related texts: the "Letters of Pilate" referred to by Justin and Tertullian as well as an anti-Christian text called Acts of Pilate, which was prescribed for reading in schools under the emperor Maximinus during the Diocletianic Persecution. "We are forced to admit that [the Christian Acts of Pilate] is of later origin, and scholars agree in assigning it to the middle of the fourth century." Epiphanius refers to an Acta Pilati (c. 376), but the extant Greek texts show evidence of later editing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Nicodemus


And I'm having the same problem locating (via word search) any reference to the death of Nicodemus in the Acts of Pilate/Gospel of Nicodemus. Anyone else see it?

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... demus.html
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