What follows is what I have so far. (I am adding ideas as they are suggested in the thread.)
The time of the crucifixion.
The synoptic gospels depict Jesus eating the Passover with his disciples during the evening and then getting crucified on the day of Passover (Jewish days running from evening to evening). John, however, does not depict the last supper as a Passover, and also has Jesus being crucified on its eve.
From Irenaeus, Demonstration 74:
Claudius ruled from 41 to 54; this statement by Irenaeus can be taken as agreeing, then, with his assessment in Against Heresies 2.22.5 that Jesus lived to about 50 years of age. The so-called Acts of Pilate (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... ilate.html) begins with the words: Pontius Pilate unto Claudius, greeting.
And maryhelena points to what Eusebius says in History of the Church 1.9.2-3 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250101.htm):
The seventh year of Tiberius is around 20 AD.
Tertullian has this to say:
Saturninus served as legatus Augusti pro praetore in Syria from around 9 to 6 BC; if Jesus had been born during his rule and crucified at around age 30, then the crucifixion would have taken place sometime between 20 and 23 AD.
Robert J. adds the following:
Even where Tiberius or Pilate is named, other rulers whose reigns do not appropriately overlap may also come into play, as Tenorikuma points out:robert j wrote:Clement of Alexandria provided what appears to be a direct quotation from what he called the Preaching of Peter. Eschewing apologetic translations and emendations, the passage reads --- (emphasis mine) ---
Note: This translation is by J.K. Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, and is used by Bart Ehrman in his, Lost Scriptures --- Books That Did Not Make It Into The New Testament, Oxford University Press, 2003, p.238.Peter in the Preaching, speaking of the apostles, says, “But having opened the books of the prophets which we had, we found, sometimes expressed by parables, sometimes by riddles, and sometimes directly and in so many words the name Jesus Christ, both his coming and his death and the cross and all the other torments which the Jews inflicted on him, and his resurrection and assumption into the heavens before Jerusalem was founded, all these things that had been written, what he must suffer and what shall be after him. When, therefore, we gained knowledge of these things, we believed in God through that which had been written of him.” (Stromata 6.15.128).
The Talmud has also been taken to refer to Jesus in a chronological context about 100 years before the usual time frame. I have Tractate Sotah for this claim so far: http://www.come-and-hear.com/sotah/sotah_47.html. But it does not mention the crucifixion; are there other parts of the Talmud that concur with Sotah? Any that mention the crucifixion?Tenorikuma wrote:Epiphanius has a confused account of Jesus' crucifixion, which he says was in "the twentieth year of Agrippa called the Great, or Herod the Younger, the son of Archaelaus". The 20th year of Agrippa I is about 60 CE. (Anacephalaeosis VII §78 9.6f)
According to the Epistula Apostolorum, Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate and Archelaus. (So before 6 CE?)
Also, the medieval Toledoth Yeshu speaks of the entire life and death of Jesus as having occurred during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus.
In two medieval Latin fragments discussed by John Chapman in 1907, Jesus is said to have been born in AD 9, baptized in AD 46, and slain in AD 58.
The place of the crucifixion.
Revelation 11.8 (on the assumption that the great city is Rome, not Jerusalem; NASB):
Possibly relevant: the reference in Suetonius, Claudius 25.1-5, to troubles instigated by Chrestus.
Testament of Benjamin 9.1-5 (R. H. Charles translation):
This seems to imply (by way of prophetic utterance) that Jesus will be crucified in the temple itself.
Not a crucifixion at all?
Peter has suggested that the Talmud, in Sanhedrin 43a, indicates stoning followed by the hanging of the corpse:
From the Apocalypse of Peter (http://gnosis.org/naghamm/apopet.html):
The Savior said to me, "He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me."
From Hippolytus, Against All Heresies 1 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0319.htm):
Also, it is worth mentioning that the gospel of Peter depicts the Jews as crucifying Jesus at the command of Herod (1.2; 2.5), not the Roman soldiers crucifying him at the command of Pilate.
What other potential variants are out there?
Ben.