Questioning the Historicity of Early 1C Popular Messianism

[neilgodfrey]

So how is it you explain that Samaritans and Jews resemble one another so much? Let's bring more cultures into the discussion. What about Beta Israel? This community preserves a form of Judaism from before the development of the Mishnah https://books.google.com/books?id=wFrAO ... ah&f=false We find them tucked away in far away Ethiopia. Why do they still resemble Jews and Samaritans in the basic shape of their religion? The answer is because the same Torah regulates all aspects of their lives and those of the Samaritans and Jews.

Tim posted a new article on Vridar in which he points out the fallacy of confusing "social memory" (what you are describing) with historical investigations. From another perspective I linked earlier to an online article by Stephen Young -- read pages 18 to 20 -- it hits the very point you yourself are arguing for against normative historical inquiry.



By the way, I don't need a "kooky book" (your term) to tell me about the Falashas. I was emotionally invested in their fate and attempts to migrate to Israel before they were finally permitted to do so and still follow the treatment they receive in the State of Israel today.

[Stephan Huller]

And I love you too. This is the way we debate in my house. My wife (who's Catholic) doesn't get it. My family brings out the knives when we fight about the stupidest details but we love each other with just as much emotion.

[Stephan Huller]

Continue on with your discussion. As I said originally I was enjoying it very much.

[Stephan Huller]

But just to make clear, I am not describing 'social memory.' What I am describing is what was deemed 'the slavery of the Torah' by heretical groups from the first century. The Torah is the one consistent thing in all these traditions. It is a living thing. It is not a 'memory.' The Torah makes the Jews, Jews, the Samaritans, Samaritans, and the Falashas, Falashas (although they don't like the term apparently). But I am not saying anything about 'memory' per se (other than perhaps the individual 'remembrances' about how to apply the Torah). My point simply is - there are only so many ways to interpret the Torah and all the living, distinct traditions which interpret the Torah include understanding it to refer to a redeeming figure variously described as 'the anointed (one), the returning (one) and Theodore who functions as a king. I don't think it is possible to interpret the Torah any other way (i.e. to have a religion developed from the text) given that Moses predicts the appearance of one like him.

[Stephan Huller]

And if I may indulge again for a moment. The point of (heretical) Christianity was to say - the Torah is distinct from the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments came from God; the Torah came from Moses (or worse yet from Ezra). Christians did not originally regard Moses's words as sacred. The Ten Commandments had a life prior to and separate from the publication of this later work. Thus, even though I think the heretical interpretation of the gospel still assumes the existence of 'the messiah' being present in first century Jewish culture, its 'Jesus' was distinct from that concept of the royal blood thirsty national leader.

[Stephan Huller]

Carry on. I will disappear into the background because I want to hear more of what you were saying originally.

[Peter Kirby]

All the people with first hand experience of anything before the year 1800 are dead.

This is why history quickly becomes a field focused on records and artifacts, instead of personal experience.

And it should really be common sense. I'm a "Californian," but does your personal experience with me that tell you anything about "Californians" before the year 1800? NOT REALLY.

Any hypothesis even of the connection of the present with the past would, logically, have to be supported and not assumed. The clearest and best support will come from records and artifacts from the relevant past.

And yes in some respects we're out of luck because we don't have nearly as much data as we'd like. In some cases we try to leap over that with assumptions, but that unfortunate level of ignorance doesn't turn them into non-assumptions.

So the fact that Jews, Samaritans and Bet Israel - very much resemble one another separated as they have been for an average of 2000 years - does not point to a basic paradigm reinforced by the Torah? It's just coincidence that they all resemble one another. It just a bunch of otherwise unrelated communities with a common, but wholly unconnected desire to eat bland food. dress atrociously and act the same way? Maybe they are being secretly controlled by an alien culture living on the far side of the moon.

No, listen. I'm just saying that you don't have direct personal access to the truth about the past. Simple concept.

[Stephan Huller]

Except for what reason tells anyone whose listening about the Torah limiting cultural variation when I see three different cultures which had nothing to do with each other for two thousand plus years basically all look the same (save for innovation in the particulars within the monolithic similarities). I am sorry you can twist this around all you like, it confirms what logic tells you when you read the Torah - it ain't giving people much choice about how to live their lives or what they can believe.

And my point was - not that I have access to 'absolute truth' - but that I have greater intimacy with these forms and from that intimate contact I can say that the Torah curbs or limits individual expression and variation to a great degree. There aren't many ways to play tic tac toe (assuming both parties are trying to win). There aren't that many ways to interpret the Law at the macroscopic level.

In the context of first century messianism, I would find it incredibly surprising if we were ever to find a tradition that took seriously the Torah and did not understand it to 'encourage' or predict a God-appointed king. No, I wouldn't just 'find it surprising' I would seriously question how they could possibly ignore Moses's explicit words to this effect (Deut 18:18). Moses is the king, prophet and priest as Philo readily recognizes. So is the one who is like him.

As I said I will let you to continue approaching the problem of first century messianism without any intimacy or familiarity with the living language, customs or traditions of Judaism.

[Stephan Huller]

And while there is a lull in the conversation, take a note of how curious the differences are between Deuteronomy and Exodus in this regard. Deuteronomy writes:

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”

17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”

But the actual passage in Exodus reads:

When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

21 The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

22 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites this: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven: 23 Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold.

24 “‘Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you. 25 If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. 26 And do not go up to my altar on steps, or your private parts may be exposed.’

Then the Exodus narrative proceeds to introduce a series of new laws on top of the ten commandments which the Christians originally rejected.

But the Deuteronomy narrative seems to have a whole different understanding. Notice the two powers reference - "Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore or we will die." The two powers heresy discussion consistently utilizes these texts - Exodus and Deuteronomy - and the differences between them. Whereas Exodus is only interested in establishing the fact that God gave Moses a series of laws above and beyond the familiar ten commandments (familiar before Ezra's introduction of the narrative Torah) Deuteronomy curiously seems to prepare for Ezra coming the name of Moses to write the Law. I can't help but feel that Deuteronomy in some way either preserves information about a source before Exodus or is more original, closer to the 'excuse' that Ezra used to write the Torah (i.e. that he was the second Moses).

In other words, not only does Exodus only mention the 'voice from heaven' (and not 'His fire' = Ishu) but goes out of its way to correct the implications of that 'original' passage in Deuteronomy adding:

‘You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven: Do not make any gods to be alongside me."

Instead of the two power theology at the heart of Deuteronomy:

Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire (= Ishu) anymore

In other words, Exodus knows that 'Jesus' (viz. Ishu) is present in the original narrative and corrects the understanding by precluding the possibility of a second power. This is probably why the mekhilta juxtapose Exodus against Deuteronomy. Indeed a mekhilta is properly defined as the rules of interpreting the Book of Exodus. But what did the heretics believe? Could it be they developed their opinions exclusively from Deuteronomy? Now to research whether there are any traditions or scholarly studies which argue that Deuteronomy is older than Exodus.

[DCHindley]

Perhaps I was too quick to dismiss the social bandit thesis. My trouble with this interpretation is much the same as Brumell's -- the bandits Josephus (and Horsley) describes look to me as though they were as much a terror to the peasants as they were to the royals. (Or am I misremembering Horsley here?)

Hobsbawm himself backtracked on some elements of his original thesis when he accepted that he had sometimes been too careless in accepting a popular myth of a bandit as an indication of historical reality. Chastened, in a later edition of Bandits he wrote:

In no case can we infer the reality of any specific ‘social bandit’ merely from the ‘myth’ that has grown up around him. In all cases we need independent evidence of his actions.

I guess that's what I'm thinking is missing in the claim about popular messianic expectations. We have the written "myths" but no independent evidence to show us that these "myths" motivated the populace/cultural identifiers generally.

Another thought that has bothered me is the idea of generation after generation maintaining some anticipation of a coming messiah. How often are hopes of any kind preserved from generation to generation -- unless they become ritualized, and therefore are no longer really earnest mass psychological motivators? (e.g. my recent Lord's Prayer and "thy kingdom come" comment above).

Aren't people moved by hear-and-now events? So I can understand hopes stirring for a messiah in a time of impending invasion and destruction, but in other day-to-day circumstances?

I think that Hobsbawm received a lot of criticism for too heavy a reliance on the "myth" for facts to the exclusion of the hard data, such as local newspaper citations of attacks or government records such as police reports, etc. A lot of the myth is based on stories about Mexican and South American bandits who were featured in larger circulation newspaper reports and editorials, especially in US newspapers, which are not known for their neutrality.

But it does raise the question: What is the practical difference between royal pretensions and messianic expectations?

In the time of the Maccabees did royal pretensions indicate a messianic expectation?

I cannot be sure. Every political unit, including Judea, has to have leaders, and the degree of independence from surrounding regional governments can be a matter of national pride. Basically, the Maccabee brothers started the ball rolling, culminating in the official recognition of Simon as "governor" by the Syrian king and his elevation as "king" by "popular" decree, establishing the Hasmonean dynasty.

However, the messianic myth that we know of from Jewish inter-testamental and Roman writings, in which a "world ruler" would arise from the Jewish people, may have played a part and it may not. I do note that in Maccabean times we see publication of the final forms of the book of Daniel, and Ezra/Nehemiah, which seem at first glance confused and historically jumbled, but really signify the intense sence of ethnic self re-definition going on at that time. The hardening of official, and it seems popular, stances on the observance of "ancestral traditions" seems related to this period IMHO.

DCH (hunkered down in cold and snowy NE Ohio, taking a day off rather than try to drive 26 miles to work in 1-2" of snow over icy streets and 15 degree temps - brrr)