Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

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maryhelena
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Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

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''Dion Cassius says, 'Antony now gave the Kingdom to a certain Herod, and having stretched Antigonus on the cross and scourged him, which had never been done before to a king by the Romans, he put him to death'. The sympathies of the masses for the crucified king of Judah, the heroic son of so many heroic ancestors, and the legends growing, in time, out of this historical nucleus, became, perhaps, the source from which Paul and the evangelists preached Jesus as the crucified king of Judea.'' (History of the Hebrew's Second Commonwealth, 1880, Cincinnati, page 206)

Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), scholar and novelist

http://collections.americanjewisharchiv ... wealth.pdf


The revisionist view that Jews put forward, largely based on
jewish and Christian scholarship in Germany, stressed that Jesus
was born a Jew and remained one throughout his life. He was,
Isaac Mayer Wise insisted in 1888, "an enthusiastic and thoroughly
Jewish patriot, who fully understood the questions of his age and
the problems of his people, and felt the invincible desire to solve
them." Wise had by then discarded his earlier doubts as to whether
Jesus existed and had determined that Christianity's founder was
actually a "Pharisean doctor of the Hillel School."

https://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarn ... merica.pdf

It seems that at one time Rabbi Wise had doubts as to whether Jesus existed. His quote, referenced above, from 1880, indicates that he was aware of some connection between the execution of the last King and High Priest of the Jews, Antigonus II Mattathias, and the gospel Jesus crucified story.

That Rabbi Wise later 'discarded his earlier doubts' regarding the gospel Jesus figure in no way discounts the relevance his earlier comment has to an interpretation of the gospel Jesus story and a search for early christian origins.

To seek to discard his quote on the base that he changed his mind regarding the gospel Jesus is shortsighted. Obviously, the quote presents serious questions for a historicist interpretation of the gospel Jesus figure. Consequently, historicists would seek to downplay any relevance Rabbi Wise's comment might have. Instead of such a negative approach perhaps historicists would do well to ask themselves why would Rabbi Wise make such a comment. What was it in the history of the Roman execution of Antigonus that made Rabbi Wise consider that there might be a connection to the gospel Jesus story ?

Below is part of a chart I originally posted to FRDB forum (10 years ago....) The chart references Josephus regarding the Roman execution of Antigonus - and demonstrates how the gospel writers drew upon this Roman execution of a King of the Jews as a model for their Jesus crucifixion story.

Jewish History
Josephus
Gospels and Acts.
King Antigonus Mattathias II High Priest of the Jews: 4 b.c.e. – 37 b.c.e. Hasmonean Bilingual Coins, Hebrew and Greek. Antigonus enters Jerusalem: Antigonus himself also bit off Hyrcanus's ears with his own teeth, as he fell down upon his knees to him, that so he might never be able upon any mutation of affairs to take the high priesthood again, for the high priests that officiated were to be complete, and without blemish. War: Book 1.ch.13 John 18.10; Mark 14.47; Matthew 26.51; Luke 22.50. John and Luke specifying right ear, Mark and Matthew have 'ear'. gJohn stating that Peter cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant.
Now as winter was going off, Herod marched to Jerusalem, and brought his army to the wall of it; this was the third year since he had been made king at Rome; War: Book 1. ch.17 (37 b.c.).. Herod on his own account, in order to take the government from Antigonus, who was declared an enemy at Rome, and that he might himself be king, according to the decree of the Senate. Antiquities Book 14 ch.16. gJohn indicates a three year ministry for JC.
Cassius Dio: Antigonus. These people Antony entrusted to one Herod to govern, and Antigonus he bound to a cross and flogged,—treatment accorded to no other king by the Romans,—and subsequently slew him. Roman History, Book xlix, c.22 Then it was that Antigonus, without any regard to his former or to his present fortune, came down from the citadel, and fell at Sosius's feet, who without pitying him at all, upon the change of his condition, laughed at him beyond measure, and called him Antigona. Yet did he not treat him like a woman, or let him go free, but put him into bonds, and kept him in custody.... Sosius ......went away from Jerusalem, leading Antigonus away in bonds to Antony; then did the axe bring him to his end..War: Book 1.ch.18. .. The soldiers mock Jesus: Mark 15.16-20; Matthew 27:27-31.Jesus flogged: John 19:1; Mark 15:15; Matthew 27:26. JC crucified. Trilingual sign over cross: Aramaic, Latin and Greek. gJohn 19.19-21. JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Other variations: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS; THE KING OF THE JEWS; THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
..and then but Herod was afraid lest Antigonus should be kept in prison [only] by Antony, and that when he was carried to Rome by him, he might get his cause to be heard by the senate, and might demonstrate, as he was himself of the royal blood, and Herod but a private man, that therefore it belonged to his sons however to have the kingdom, on account of the family they were of, in case he had himself offended the Romans by what he had done. Out of Herod's fear of this it was that he, by giving Antony a great deal of money, endeavoured to persuade him to have Antigonus slain. Antiquities: Book 14 ch.16. Judas betrays JC for 30 pieces of silver. Matthew 27.3.
Now when Antony had received Antigonus as his captive, he determined to keep him against his triumph; but when he heard that the nation grew seditious, and that, out of their hatred to Herod, they continued to bear good-will to Antigonus, he resolved to behead him at Antioch, for otherwise the Jews could no way be brought to be quiet. (37 b.c.) Antiquities: Book 15 ch.1. Acts: 11:16.The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.


Earl Doherty: "I can well acknowledge that elements of several representative, historical figures fed into the myth of the Gospel Jesus, since even mythical characters can only be portrayed in terms of human personalities, especially ones from their own time that are familiar and pertinent to the writers of the myths."

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/rfset5.htm#Mary


George Wells: This Galilean Jesus was not crucified, and was not believed to have been resurrected after his death. The dying and rising Christ of the early epistles is a quite different figure, and must have a different origin. ...

In the gospels, the two Jesus figures -- the human preacher of Q and the supernatural personage of the early epistles who sojourned briefly on Earth as a man, and then, rejected, returned to heaven -- have been fused into one. The Galilean preacher of Q has been given a salvivic death and resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as in the Pauline and other early letters), but in a historical context consonant with the date of the Galilean preaching.

https://infidels.org/library/modern/g_a ... lding.html

Doherty acknowledges that historical figures fed into the myth of the gospel Jesus. Wells maintains that his Galilean preacher figure was not crucified. Wells maintains that two Jesus figures were fused into one. In other words; the gospel Jesus figure is a literary composite figure. A composite literary figure allows the historical execution of the last King and High Priest of the Jews to be reflected in the gospel Jesus crucifixion story - as the above chart seeks to demonstrate.

If Wells is correct re a Galilean non crucified preacher figure - then perhaps the Jesus historicist could get their act together and find such a figure. A non crucified Jesus, a messiah figure, living in the first century. The gospel Jesus crucifixion under Pilate is not history - it is allegory, a political allegory. A political allegory that relates to the Roman execution of Antigonus II Mattathias - King and High Priest of the Jews - 40 b.c. to 37 b.c.

Greg Doudna: What has long been overlooked is that a Qumran text, widely acknowledged to have been authored at about this very time, speaks directly of a Jewish ruler being “hung up alive”—just like Dio Cassius’s account of the fate of Antigonus Mattathias.

<snip>

In what may come to be regarded as one of the more unusual, indeed astonishing, oversights in the history of Qumran scholarship, so far as is known it seems no previous scholar has proposed that Antigonus Mattathias, the last Hasmonean king of Israel, executed by the Romans in 37 BCE, might be the figure underlying the Wicked Priest of Pesher Habakkuk or the doomed ruler of Pesher Nahum. The actual allusion of the figure of these texts, Antigonus Mattathias, remained unseen even though it was always in open view, as obvious as it could be. And in wondering how Antigonus Mattathias was missed in the history of scholarship I include myself, for I too missed this in my 2001 study of Pesher Nahum.

https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/article ... /dou398018

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Re: Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

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Another quote that finds the Roman execution of Antigonus of interest in connection to the gospel Jesus crucifixion story.



13. Special Features of the Crucifixion Myth.

Meantime, the bearing of such a development on our total problem is obvious. We have traced on the one hand a Semitic and probably Israelitish tradition of an annually (or periodically) sacrifice victim, "Jesus the Son of the Father," and seen reason to surmise the contact of dispersed Jews with such a rite in Hellenistic eastern towns. On the other hand we have traced a Jewish bread-and-wine eucharist, which we find emerging in documentary knowledge in the pre-Christian eucharist of the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," with the name of Jesus attached to a strictly Judaic personage of quasi-divine status, not said to be crucified or otherwise sacrificed. Of these forms of doctrine and rite there took place a fusion, forming the historic Christian cultus. Of such a fusion, the most likely and most intelligible means would be the mystery-drama, whose existence has now to be demonstrated. But first we have to note certain historic possibilities on which the fusion might partly depend.

14. Possible Historical Elements.


The scourging and crucifixion of Antigonus, again, must have made a profound impression on the Jews; 2 and it is a historic fact that the similar slaying of the last of the Incas was kept in memory for the Peruvians by a drama annually acted. 3 It may be that the superscription "This is the King of the Jews," and even the detail of scourging, 4 came proximately from the story of Antigonus; though on the other hand it is not unlikely that Antony should have executed Antigonus on the lines of the sacrifice of the mock-king.

Pagan Christs, by John M. Robertson, [1911],

https://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cv/pch/pch41.htm

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maryhelena
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Re: Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

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Interesting, looking through some old postings to FRDB, I found a link to Wikipedia - a link that no longer has the quote below.

Copied from a post on FRDB

Antigonus II Mattathias (a Wikipedia link)

^ Josephus merely says that Marc Antony beheaded King Antigonus. Antiquities, XV 1:2 (8-9). Roman historian Dio Cassius says scouraged, crucified then put to death. See The University Magazine and Free Review, Volume 2 edited by John Mackinnon Robertson and G. Astor Singer (Nabu Press, 2010) at page 13. Merging the material from Josephus and Dio Cassius leads to the conclusion that Antigonus was scourged, crucified, and beheaded.

So - looks to me that someone has been editing Wikipedia re Antigonus being crucified by Marc Antony.

Greg Doudna: The Roman historian Dio Cassius says Antigonus was scourged and crucified, or maybe the sense is he was put up on a cross for scourging as part of the execution (Roman History 5.49.22). Strabo followed by Josephus says Antigonus was beheaded. All accounts agree that the death was shocking and purposely so, intended to be ignominious in the eyes of all, so that any sympathy for Antigonus would be discredited and ended.

https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/article ... /dou398018

The possibility is that Antigonus was put on a cross for scourging but taken down alive and beheaded. The scourging on a cross being the attempt by Marc Antony to place this Jewish King in a position that was viewed by the Jews as being under God's curse. Deuteronomy 21:23.

Interestingly, Josephus places no such judgement upon a man he has taken down from a cross during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 c.e.

Josephus: Life:

And when I was sent by Titus Caesar with Cerealins, and a thousand horsemen, to a certain village called Thecoa, in order to know whether it were a place fit for a camp, as I came back, I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician's hands, while the third recovered.

So - not only did the gospel writers find some way to overcome the OT curse of one hung up alive - so did Josephus.

Thus, for all Marc Antony's efforts to turn the Jews away from Antigonus, by having him hung up alive and scourged, there were some Jews able to overcome this OT curse. The Christians by turning the crucifixion into a spiritual, i.e. a non material value and Josephus, in seeking to have a friend removed from a cross, - accepting no curse at all in being hung up alive.
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Re: Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

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maryhelena wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:19 am Interesting, looking through some old postings to FRDB, I found a link to Wikipedia - a link that no longer has the quote below.

Copied from a post on FRDB

Antigonus II Mattathias (a Wikipedia link)

^ Josephus merely says that Marc Antony beheaded King Antigonus. Antiquities, XV 1:2 (8-9). Roman historian Dio Cassius says scouraged, crucified then put to death. See The University Magazine and Free Review, Volume 2 edited by John Mackinnon Robertson and G. Astor Singer (Nabu Press, 2010) at page 13. Merging the material from Josephus and Dio Cassius leads to the conclusion that Antigonus was scourged, crucified, and beheaded.

So - looks to me that someone has been editing Wikipedia re Antigonus being crucified by Marc Antony.
The link you provide for was added January 21st 2011:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special ... /409245432

And it was cleverly removed on May 16th 2011 in an edit so "complex" that it only shows that 620 bytes got added:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special ... /430984603
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Re: Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

Post by maryhelena »

mlinssen wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 2:35 am
maryhelena wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:19 am Interesting, looking through some old postings to FRDB, I found a link to Wikipedia - a link that no longer has the quote below.

Copied from a post on FRDB

Antigonus II Mattathias (a Wikipedia link)

^ Josephus merely says that Marc Antony beheaded King Antigonus. Antiquities, XV 1:2 (8-9). Roman historian Dio Cassius says scouraged, crucified then put to death. See The University Magazine and Free Review, Volume 2 edited by John Mackinnon Robertson and G. Astor Singer (Nabu Press, 2010) at page 13. Merging the material from Josephus and Dio Cassius leads to the conclusion that Antigonus was scourged, crucified, and beheaded.

So - looks to me that someone has been editing Wikipedia re Antigonus being crucified by Marc Antony.
The link you provide for was added January 21st 2011:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special ... /409245432

And it was cleverly removed on May 16th 2011 in an edit so "complex" that it only shows that 620 bytes got added:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special ... /430984603
Goodness - your very clever..... :D

My post using that quote was dated February 28, 2011.
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Re: Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

Post by andrewcriddle »

FWIW there is a previous thread about Dio Cassius and Antigonus which may possibly be of interest.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2556

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maryhelena
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Re: Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

Post by maryhelena »

andrewcriddle wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 3:57 am FWIW there is a previous thread about Dio Cassius and Antigonus which may possibly be of interest.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2556

Andrew Criddle
Yep, that discussion got waylaid over what 'crucifixion' involved.

I see I posted the Rabbi Wise quote in that discussion.

The history of the Roman execution of Antigonus - hung on a cross/stake/pole/tree and scourged and then beheaded - remains relevant regardless of whether Antigonus was hung on a cross/stake/pole/tree.

These arguments are simply attempts to avoid a relevance of the Roman execution of Antigonus to the gospel Jesus crucifixion story.

As big a 'golden calf' - or sacred cow - as the gospel Jesus crucifixion under Pilate is - the gospel Jesus figure will go the way of Moses himself. Literary figures in a historical drama - nothing more and nothing less.
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Re: Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

Post by StephenGoranson »

two things

1) The obligatory opinion:

''Dion Cassius says, 'Antony now gave the Kingdom to a certain Herod, and having stretched Antigonus on the cross and scourged him, which had never been done before to a king by the Romans, he put him to death'. The sympathies of the masses for the crucified king of Judah, the heroic son of so many heroic ancestors, and the legends growing, in time, out of this historical nucleus, became, perhaps, the source from which Paul and the evangelists preached Jesus as the crucified king of Judea.'' (History of the Hebrew's Second Commonwealth, 1880, Cincinnati, page 206)

Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), scholar and novelist

http://collections.americanjewisharchiv ... wealth.pdf

...And. lest we forget, I. M. Wise continued to learn and grow and, sometimes, to change his mind.

2) Several mh posts, do, however, remind me: today might be a good day for popcorn.
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Re: Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

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StephenGoranson wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 6:08 am two things

1) The obligatory opinion:

''Dion Cassius says, 'Antony now gave the Kingdom to a certain Herod, and having stretched Antigonus on the cross and scourged him, which had never been done before to a king by the Romans, he put him to death'. The sympathies of the masses for the crucified king of Judah, the heroic son of so many heroic ancestors, and the legends growing, in time, out of this historical nucleus, became, perhaps, the source from which Paul and the evangelists preached Jesus as the crucified king of Judea.'' (History of the Hebrew's Second Commonwealth, 1880, Cincinnati, page 206)

Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), scholar and novelist

http://collections.americanjewisharchiv ... wealth.pdf

...And. lest we forget, I. M. Wise continued to learn and grow and, sometimes, to change his mind.

2) Several mh posts, do, however, remind me: today might be a good day for popcorn.
:popcorn:
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Re: Rabbi Wise and Antigonus II Mattathias

Post by mlinssen »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 6:08 am two things

1) The obligatory opinion:

''Dion Cassius says, 'Antony now gave the Kingdom to a certain Herod, and having stretched Antigonus on the cross and scourged him, which had never been done before to a king by the Romans, he put him to death'.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ection%3D6

[6] λοιπῶν τὰ νομιζόμενα ποιῆσαι. ἐκείνους μὲν οὖν Ἡρώδῃ τινὶ ὁ Ἀντώνιος ἄρχειν ἐπέτρεψε, τὸν δ᾽ [p. 388] Ἀντίγονον ἐμαστίγωσε σταυρῷ προσδήσας, ὃ μηδεὶς βασιλεὺς ἄλλος ὑπὸ τῶν Ῥωμαίων ἐπεπόνθει, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἀπέσφαξεν.

ἐμαστίγωσε σταυρῷ προσδήσας = flogged to/on-a-stake bound-on

The perpetual fight of pointing out that even texts of non Christian origins are hopelessly biased...
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