Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Nathan wrote: This is somewhat beside the point, but the scribes don't decipher the meaning of the event; they simply answer Herod's question: The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem (per Micah 5:2).

Just to take this one point. . . .

We have here a classic instance of proof-texting; of interpreting the Bible through the narrative of the gospel itself. Micah 5.2 makes no mention of the messiah at all. . . read it. It speaks of a ruler to come but by what perspective can we interpret that passage's details? Yes, if we start from the Gospel-Messianic end-point of the story then of course we can claim it points to a Jesus who is to come from the heavens some time ten, twenty, a hundred, a thousand, two, three thousand years from now to rule in Jerusalem.....

Surely it is clear in that context that the scribes had to "interpret" or "decipher" the text to confidently assert (as per narrative characters who knew the end of the story two or so thousand years from then) that it was a reference to a messianic king born around 4 bce.

Or maybe when we stop to think about all of this we begin to see the problems in using the Gospel of Matthew as some sort of evidence for a popular messianic expectation for the imminent future.

Now let's get back to those manuscripts that are presented as serious hard evidence for popular messianic first century expectations.... the DSS for starters.... what was the evidence there again?.... read the criticisms from serious professional scholars (not just some amateur like me) and then return to discuss seriously.

So as I understand it, no-one is prepared to discuss the so-called evidence of the Qumran manuscripts, or the Josephan evidence as set out above, and no-one is prepared to discuss the assertion of the Gospel of Matthew that tells us people were only worried about a new king AFTER the magi came to disturb the peace.

Even though I have cited several very prominent scholarly names who poo-pooh the idea of widespread messianic expectations in the early first century, people here are determined to follow the conventional apologist narrative that God was preparing the way for his Beloved Son by stirring up the spirit of anticipation etc etc etc.....

Can anyone recommend for me a genuinely scholarly discussion board?

neilgodfrey wrote:So as I understand it, no-one is prepared to discuss the so-called evidence of the Qumran manuscripts, or the Josephan evidence as set out above, and no-one is prepared to discuss the assertion of the Gospel of Matthew that tells us people were only worried about a new king AFTER the magi came to disturb the peace.

Even though I have cited several very prominent scholarly names who poo-pooh the idea of widespread messianic expectations in the early first century, people here are determined to follow the conventional apologist narrative that God was preparing the way for his Beloved Son by stirring up the spirit of anticipation etc etc etc.....

Can anyone recommend for me a genuinely scholarly discussion board?

I scrolled back a couple pages to find the original series of posts. It is some interesting material, and I think you have some good points. To encourage a critical discussion, it might be worth breaking it out as a separate thread post, with a bit of context regarding how the argument fits together.

(Even then, people who don't find anything to disagree with are usually silent.)

spin wrote:

rakovsky wrote:

rakovsky wrote:John the Baptist was a major figure in Judea, according to the Bible and Josephus.

spin wrote: They do not indicate that John was a major figure. That's just the apologist in you speaking.

Mark 1:5
And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River...

Matthew 3:5
Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan,....

If you meant you "don't believe that what they indicate is factual reality,"..... I would accept that as a true statement.

I don't believe that you have a handle on the notion of "a major figure".

You are cornering me and forcing me to feel the same way about you wrt to those two quotes.

rakovsky wrote:

rakovsky wrote:

rakovsky wrote:John the Baptist was a major figure in Judea, according to the Bible and Josephus.

spin wrote: They do not indicate that John was a major figure. That's just the apologist in you speaking.

Mark 1:5
And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River...

Matthew 3:5
Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan,....

If you meant you "don't believe that what they indicate is factual reality,"..... I would accept that as a true statement.

spin wrote:I don't believe that you have a handle on the notion of "a major figure".

You are cornering me and forcing me to feel the same way about you wrt to those two quotes.

First you don't have two independent quotes. Mt is clearly dependent on Mk (as is much of the gospel), so you don't tart up your view with overblown claims. Then, when we compare the Josephus version to Mk it is quite different. Which are you to believe? The one that gives him importance only so far as he calls out the unacceptable marriage or the one that claims all the country was going out to him? The question is rhetorical, hopefully showing that there is little hope of building a major figure from that evidence. Then factor in the late evidence of Acts 18 in which Apollos knew nothing about Jesus but was proselytizing on behalf of John, suggesting that at least he knew nothing about Jesus as a major figure and that there was no passing on of the mantle as narrated in the gospel. That's quite embarrassing, isn't it.

neilgodfrey wrote:

iskander wrote:This flood of insisting posts demanding surrender reminds me of a story about Galileo . When Galileo was exhausted by the mindless defenders of nothing , at that sad time he could only whisper: e pur si muove.
E pur si muove

So you have no interest in engaging with the evidence. You are programmed to fly on the conventional apologetic wisdom that demands the truth of the orthodox Christian story even though scholars who specialize in the documentary evidence say the conventional wisdom is wrong.

I look at history and try to explain . Christianity emerged the winner because at that time they offered something that was chosen in preference to other offers.
Everybody has evidence for something, even the pope when confronting Galileo , he was using documentary evidence of a sort, whereas Galileo was trying to explain the workings of the planetary system .You are like the pope and your documentary evidence is not better .

Some Jews wanted the arrival of the promised redeemer as from the second century BC, and these Jews and gentile companions transformed what it had been until then no more than a village affair into the hope of mankind.
The Jews now include gentiles as beneficiaries of the , yet to come, Jewish certified redeemer and for other Jews the totality of the descendants of Hashem, as a unity, aid God to repair the broken creation.
E pur si muove

rakovsky wrote:...
You are cornering me and forcing me to feel the same way about you wrt to those two quotes.

They enclose you like a pack of dogs , trying to prick your balloon , pierce the typing fingers in your hands and make you as the dust of history.

I missed this earlier, neil:

neilgodfrey wrote:Fwiw, it is not "a fact" that rabbinic Judaism descended from the Pharisees. I came across a claim that scholars were increasingly expressing doubts that this was in fact so by Burton Visotzky in "Aphrodite and the Rabbis". I enquired further and have turned up the following:

The first of the articles questioning this identification was Ellis Rivkin, "Defining the Pharisees: The Tannaitic Sources," HUCA 40-1 (1969- 70), 205- 49. He noted Mishna Yadaim 4 where one of the prominent founders of the Rabbinic movement, Yohanan Ben Zakkai, seems to distinguish himself from the Pharisees. Indeed, Rivkin points out that the most common usage of the term Pharisee in rabbinic literature refers to separatists and not the sect Josephus and the NT refer to.

Your source is misleading (and seems to misuse Rivkin's study). Rivkin does not deny the Pharisaic connection to Rabbinic Judaism. He only questions whether the term prushim in tannaitic sources always refers to Pharisees. But he specifically states (p. 214):

[A]ll scholars concede that tannaitc literature in some way reflects the teachings of the Pharisees themselves.

Neither does he deny that Yohanan ben Zakkai was a Pharisee. After reviewing the evidence he states (p. 222):

We are thus justified in labelling Johanan ben Zakkai a Pharisee.

neilgodfrey wrote:But that point aside, I know of no evidence pointing to the Pharisees as voices of widespread popular messianic expectations in the first century. Can you point me to what I am overlooking?

I didn't mean to suggest there was clear and unequivocal evidence of that (that I'm aware of). I was only suggesting the possibility based on: (a) ancient statements that speak to Pharisaic dominance in the religious landscape in the land of Israel, and (b) the fact that Rabbinic Judaism shows numerous points of contact with a first century Judaism that can sometimes be identified with the Pharisees (such as the tannaim's frequent dependence on the teachings of the first century Pharisee, Gamaliel the Elder). Given Rabbinic Judaism's dependence on Pharisaism, and given the presence of messianism within Rabbinic Judaism, it seems at least possible that messianism was a part of Pharisaism as well. If that was the case, then again it is at least conceivable that messianism was widespread in the first century considering the Pharisees' preeminence.

With respect to the Pharisees I have in mind the usual texts from Josephus:

Antiq. 13.288, 297-8:

[The Pharisees] have so great a power over the multitude ... the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses ... the Pharisees have the multitude on their side.

Antiq. 18.17:

[The Sadducees] are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates ... they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them.

Bavli Yoma 19b is also instructive on this last point:

An incident with a Sadducee: ... his father met him (and) said to him, "My son, although we are Sadducees, we are afraid of the Pharisees."

Nathan wrote:With respect to the Pharisees I have in mind the usual texts from Josephus:

Antiq. 13.288, 297-8:

[The Pharisees] have so great a power over the multitude ... the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses ... the Pharisees have the multitude on their side.

Antiq. 18.17:

[The Sadducees] are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates ... they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them.

Bavli Yoma 19b is also instructive on this last point:

An incident with a Sadducee: ... his father met him (and) said to him, "My son, although we are Sadducees, we are afraid of the Pharisees."

I have a nagging problem regarding the material you are presenting regarding the Pharisees. It is all undatable. Is Josephus's material about Pharisees his notion-mining from Justus of Tiberias as his Essene stuff seems to be, making it from the 1st c. BCE? Are there any rabbinically sourced debate topics between the Sadducees and the Pharisees in the 1st century or are they from the previous centuries? I don't know, but it seems to me that there aren't any by the time we hit the Hillel/Shammai antagonism. Herod had to go looking for Sadducees in Egypt and Mesopotamia in order to get high priests to replace the Hasmonean lineage, so it would seem Sadducees were not available in Jerusalem in his time. So when were the Pharisaic conflicts with the Sadducees and the Pharisaic ascendancy over them?

To use this material for historical purposes you would have to be able to date it.

spin wrote: I have a nagging problem regarding the material you are presenting regarding the Pharisees. It is all undatable. Is Josephus's material about Pharisees his notion-mining from Justus of Tiberias as his Essene stuff seems to be, making it from the 1st c. BCE? Are there any rabbinically sourced debate topics between the Sadducees and the Pharisees in the 1st century or are they from the previous centuries? I don't know, but it seems to me that there aren't any by the time we hit the Hillel/Shammai antagonism. Herod had to go looking for Sadducees in Egypt and Mesopotamia in order to get high priests to replace the Hasmonean lineage, so it would seem Sadducees were not available in Jerusalem in his time. So when were the Pharisaic conflicts with the Sadducees and the Pharisaic ascendancy over them?

To use this material for historical purposes you would have to be able to date it.

Tosefta Parah 3:8 recounts a quarrel between Yohanan ben Zakkai (1st century CE) and a Sadducee (IIUC a Sadducee High Priest) about ritual purity in the rite of burning the red heifer. The story feels a bit legendary but if it has an historical base it implies Sadducees holding senior positions in the Jerusalem temple in the mid 1st century CE.

Andrew Criddle