Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Sep 21, 2022 6:33 pm
As reaction, Ignatius would have said the exact contrary: Jesus was real, i.e. he wasn't Simon, and Jesus was crucified really by Pilate,
so taking Pilate from the Samaritan source represented by the his opponents.
The reader has to persuade himself/herself that my case is virtually stronger once we realize that Ignatius mentioned Simon Magus.
The events of 33-38 are the most important and mysterious. Philo's embassy indicates FOUR kingly sons of Herod which is not corroborated anywhere else but can be inferred. I do not believe John the Baptist, historical or not, was part of the political situation involving Antipas. I think these forgotten other sons were more important. We also know very little about the events of 4 BC and 6 AD which each involve some rebel named "Judas the Galilean" although with two different epithets. I suspect the missing details about those two rebellions inform the aftermath of Archileus's downfall, and frame the political environment of these lightly mentioned sons of Herod leading into Antipas's demise. It took the conveniently timed death of Tiberius to resolve the entire situation.
The issue with Herod's sons, in my opinion, relates to missing information about their mothers. I have speculated much on this, but I suspect the possibility of connections to both Egypt and Assyria. You can see how there's a complete narrative here which has been lifted from Josephus.
The Samaritan prophet is the culmination of these events, although it seems in tangent. Yes, he's important, and yes, Simon Magus is remembered prominently as Samaritan. Though we strain to understand exactly who the Samaritans are vis-a-viz the Judeans.
I have argued that Simon Magus is a post-Jamesian reclamation of Simon Boethus. That Simon Boethus was the Oniade High Priest of the Egyptian Jewish temple, and that Herod put him in power to get access to that temple's treasury. The Egyptian temple was built in reaction to a schism between Jerusalem and Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy IV. The Talmud doesn't reject the Boethusians, but it does subtly question their mastery of law and tradition.
I have thought the Boethusian High Priests brought with them Egyptian theology, where the High Priest (an office which Simon Boethus filled for almost 20 years) is to Judea as Pharaoh is to Egypt. The pillar. The bearer of Ma'at. The world-god who mediates between heaven and Earth.
So, via Egyptian theology, the Judeo-Egyptian High Priest is like a Pharaoh of Samaria. I suspect this is the Samaritan prophet. Simon Cantheras whose family was ejected from the High Priesthood due to the politics surrounding the fall of Archileus due to the rebellion of Judas of Gamala. The Judeo-Egyptian theology is a legitimate counter-pole to Jerusalem's tradition, an umbrella also for regional Semites. For example, Semitic solar calendar vs. Persian lunar calendar.
Later there is Theudas, James and Simon, and the Jewish War. After Christianity forms and its sects go one way, Simon is reclaimed as Simon Magus. Magus as in Egyptian magic. Simonianism is easily explained as a vague memory of this Judeo-Egyptian High Priest Simon I have proposed.
There are 30 years from 6 AD to 36 in Eastern Galilee, the lands of Damascus, where the Egyptian theology mixes with local Syrian Semitic folk traditions. "Samaritan" AKA folk Israelite traditions that oppose Jerusalem. I would see the Samaritan Taheb of 36 to be a product of this. Linking Simonianism to this event.
But, to your point, I would blame Mark for linking Jesus and Pilate. What you are describing is Ignatius linking Magus to Jesus inadvertently.