Re: Jesus, Paul and Josephus
Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2023 10:56 am
God! I love this stuff! 
HISTORY and Coins |
JOSEPHUS: War (about 75 c.e.) Antiquities: (about 94 c.e.) |
The Gospel Jesus figure |
|---|---|---|
| King Antigonus Mattathias:High Priest of the Jews: Hasmonean Bilingual Coins, Hebrew and Greek…(40-37 b.c.) | 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 (40 b.c.)........................Antony came in, and told them that it was for their advantage in the Parthian war that Herod should be king; so they all gave their votes for it. War: Book 1.ch.14 (40 b.c.) | 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 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 all 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 ministy for Jesus. Antigonus ruled for three years. | |
| 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. Trilinqual 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, endeavored to persuade him to have Antigonus slain. Antiquities: Book 14 ch.16. (Slavonic Josephus has the teachers of the Law giving the money to Pilate...) | Judas betrays JC for 30 pieces of silver. Matthew 27.3 |
| Wikipeda: Josephus states that Mark Antony beheaded Antigonus (Antiquities, XV 1:2 (8–9). Roman historian Cassius Dio says that he was crucified and records in his Roman History: "These people [the Jews] Antony entrusted to a certain Herod to govern; but Antigonus he bound to a cross and scourged, a punishment no other king had suffered at the hands of the Romans, and so slew him."[6] In his Life of Antony, Plutarch claims that Antony had Antigonus beheaded, "the first example of that punishment being inflicted on a king."[7] | 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. And Strabo of Cappadocia attests to what I have said, when he thus speaks: "Antony ordered Antigonus the Jew to be brought to Antioch, and there to be beheaded. And this Antony seems to me to have been the very first man who beheaded a king, as supposing he could no other way bend the minds of the Jews so as to receive Herod, whom he had made king in his stead; for by no torments could they he forced to call him king, so great a fondness they had for their former king; so he thought that this dishonorable death would diminish the value they had for Antigonus's memory, and at the same time would diminish the hatred they bare to Herod." Thus far Strabo. (37 b.c.) Antiquities: Book 15 ch.1 | Acts: 11:16. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. |
Was Antigonus beheaded or hung on a stake/cross ? Since being hung on a stake was viewed as being accursed by the Jews, it is possible that a Jewish writer would not want to acknowledge this method of execution for a Jewish King. Perhaps both methods were used for the execution of Antigonus; a flogging on a stake/cross and then taken down and beheaded. (Josephus has an account of a man taken down from a cross and surviving.....albeit for a while...)
Whatever the tragic end of Antigonus the Josephan narrative of that Roman execution has been utilized by the gospel writers as a model for their Jesus crucifixion story.
''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.
Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), scholar and novelist.
