Iosephiana

[Secret Alias]

And the coins don't prove that Agrippa died in 93 CE. That's only presumed because it agrees with the statement in Josephus. But there is no evidence for the death from the coins.

[Secret Alias]

Mountainman arguments = that our existing manuscripts are the dates for the composition of the texts merely because it serves an argument.

[Secret Alias]

And there is an anchor weight too that someone found. It's also in the 90s.

[Peter Kirby]

Antiquities knows about Life.
Antiquities knows about Justus's Chronicle.
Life knows about Justus's Chronicle.
Life says that Justus only wrote his Chronicle once Agrippa was dead.
Agrippa died some time after 95 CE
Antiquities ends abruptly and says (a) a discussion of the uprising will follow and be brief presumably because presumably Jewish Wars already existed (b) it will continue to describe the situation with Jews until the date of composition and (c) that date of composition i.e. 'today' was 93 CE
Justus's Chronicle was written in 101 CE and contained information that went up to 101 CE presumably
Clement of Alexandria testifies that the chronology of Justus was published in 147/148 CE

Why does it make sense to deny everything and support a Josephan authorship in 93 CE when that's plainly impossible.

Your position is that the Antiquities was written in the 140s CE then (???). That much is established, I guess.

You have recalcitrant data in the form of the references to Domitian as though alive, for just one example.

Domitian was damnatio memoriae, but the Antiquities was written from the perspective of a contemporary who praised him.

There's also the number of years old that Josephus claimed to be when writing, which would make him unborn during the Jewish war if he were actually writing as late as 147 CE.

The statements of Clement and Photius are your best points [...not to say good points...], but that doesn't mean that you've got it right and that the alternatives are "impossible." It's willfully ignorant to act as if the church fathers were that impervious to error.

Not to mention the fact that the Antiquities is plainly not really the text mentioned by Clement of Alexandria (whatever it is) because it doesn't go down to 147/148 CE.

There's plenty of interesting stuff here, but how do you expect other people to adopt your position when it is full of holes and assumptions?

Clearly you're very excited about this right now. Maybe you just need a few days to clear your head.

[Ben C. Smith]

But that assumes or necessitates that the last coin = the date of death which is a mountainman argument.

What is the date of the last coin? Can you go over the evidence instead of all this rhetoric?

Oh. Edits.

Joshua Yoder, Representatives of Roman Rule: Roman Provincial Governors in Luke-Acts, page 139:

Since the numismatic and epigraphic evidence for Agrippa's reign ends in 91 and 93 respectively, we are not obliged to accept Photius' statement about the time of his death.*

* .... The latest inscriptional evidence for Agrippa II is OGIS 426 = IGR 3.1127, dated 92/3 C.E. Coins dated 34 and 35 are extant; these could be from 89/90 and 90/91 or from 94/95 and 95/96, depending on the era they are using (Agrippa II used both 56 and 61). ....

Ben.

That same footnote refers to Ancient Jewish Coinage (Volume 2): Herod the Great Through Bar Cochba, by Ya'akov Meshorer. Agrippa II starts on page 65 of that book and continues through page 95: a substantial section. I can already see from these pages that many of the thorny dating issues involved with Agrippa II's reign have been debated for decades.

Ben.

[Secret Alias]

And Schwartz takes the passage Ant 20.267 as if it implies that Agrippa was still alive. https://books.google.com/books?id=exBKK ... 22&f=false

[Secret Alias]

Your position is that the Antiquities was written in the 140s CE then (???). That much is established, I guess.

I am saying that Antiquities is our only source for John the Baptist outside the Christian canon and there are problems associated with it most notably that it claims to be written in 93 CE in response to another Jewish Chronicle firmly dated to 101 CE. Clement testifies that the chronicle of 'Flavius Josephus the Jew' was written in 147/48. I am not saying anything.

Funny how when disproving Jesus is at stake many have no problems accepting arguments that the text was interpolated in the fourth century. Apparently it comes down to who you hate - John the Baptist or Jesus. Clement's testimony is explicit. Photius's testimony of explicit. Most of what is said here in the forum is based on much weaker evidence.

[Peter Kirby]

Mountainman arguments = that our existing manuscripts are the dates for the composition of the texts merely because it serves an argument.

On the other hand, numismatic evidence is different in many ways from manuscript evidence. The latter would be expected not to be helpful for providing an argument from silence ever, but the former... well that's a different kettle of fish, depending on the availability of that data and the questions being asked of it.

[Secret Alias]

There is some lead weight - not a coin - that also dates to the 90s. But I have to work too.

[Peter Kirby]

Apparently it comes down to who you hate

Don't be a dick. I may "hate" Muhammad in some sense, but I consider him historical, for example. I may "like" Siddhartha Gautama, but I doubt his historicity at present. I try to follow the evidence.