EnglishFrenchGermanItalianPortugueseRussianSpanish

Login

Commentators

Comments

  • Monday, February 6 6 February, 2012
    British scientists want to know who perpetrated the Piltdown Man hoax in 1912. Did the hoaxers expect that the stained skull, jawbone, and “cricket bat” would immediately be spotted as fakes? “No one did any scientific tests. If they had, they would have noticed the chemical staining and the filed-down teeth very quickly. This was clearly […]
  • Friday, February 3 3 February, 2012
    Archaeologists are uncovering the roots of the industrial revolution in Los Angeles, California, at the site of Chapman’s Mill and the San Gabriel Mission. The artifacts include a brass religious medallion, a nineteenth-century Spanish coin, local and imported pottery, beads, and plenty of food remains. More than 60,000 artifacts have been excavated from a b […]
  • Thursday, February 2 2 February, 2012
    A Florida-based deep-sea salvage company has been ordered by the 11th U.S. circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to return nearly 600,000 gold and silver coins to Spain. The coins were recovered from the ocean’s floor off the coast of Spain in 2007. A large piece of a shipwreck washed ashore on a Lake Michigan beach. […]
  • Wednesday, February 1 1 February, 2012
    Land mines that were probably buried by Japanese forces during a battle in Cebu Province have been discovered on one of the islands of the Philippines. Traces of an eighteenth-century plantation, including the foundations of the main house, a separate kitchen, outbuildings, slave quarters, outhouses, a cistern, and a well have been found in Danville, Virgini […]
  • Tuesday, January 31 31 January, 2012
    Germany has returned artifacts that were looted from Afghanistan’s National Museum  during the civil war of the early 1990s. Tens of thousands of artifacts are still missing. Last year, France returned 297 royal protocol books to Korea. Now, the National Museum of Korea has made some of them available to view online. Saxon coins and a […]

Flavian Midrash Sources of the New Testament

This paper by Cliff Carrington is a good introduction to the sources used to create the Christian Tradition, as found in the New Testament. I will follow this with a further and more complete list.

Introduction

Dramatis Personae:

(The dates are indicative not definitive.)

  • The Herods:

Antipater (Antipas), murdered 43 BCE:

Father of Herod, backed Pompey, then assisted Julius Caesar, and was appointed by him ruler of Judea.

Herod the Great, 73-4 BCE, ruled Judea 31-4 BCE:

After Caesar’s death Herod backed, Sextus Caesar, Crassus, Mark Antony, and finally Augustus; who confirmed his rule and extended his territory. He built, or started, the temple in Jerusalem which the Romans later destroyed.

Herod Agrippa I, 10 BCE-44 CE, ruled Judea 41-44 CE:

Grandson of Herod, he was raised with Claudius in Antonia’s household. Financed by Alexander Lysimachus he became a good friend of Caligula. He later assisted Claudius to the throne. Appointed king of Judea by Claudius, and by intrigue he later gained the territories governed by two of his brothers. After spending most of his life as an impoverished prince he died at the peak of his prosperity.

Herod Agrippa II, 27-100 CE:

Son of Agrippa I, educated in Claudius’ household. He attended Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and assisted Vespasian in the war, then to the throne. After the war he was granted extensive territories by Vespasian. Josephus claimed him as a friend and patron.

Sisters of Agrippa II:

Bernice (Berenice):

First married to Marcus, son of Julius Alexander Lysimachus, the Alabarch of the Alexandrian Jews. Upon his early death she was married to Herod of Chalcis, her father’s brother. Upon his death she remained unmarried under the protection of her brother, Agrippa II. She became Titus’ mistress, until they had to part to allow Titus to become emperor.

Mariamne:

Married to Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, and soon divorced. She eventually married Demetrius the Alabarch of the Alexandrian Jews.

Drusilla:

Married to Azizus, king of Emesa, and soon divorced. She eventually married Felix, the Governor of Judea.

 

  • The Alexandrian Connection:

Philo Judaeus 25 BCE-42 CE:

Jewish Neopythagorean philosopher, who tried to blend Greek philosophy with Judaism. He was also active in Alexandrian public affairs, and was an ambassador to Caligula for the Alexandrian Jews. We have no record of his proper name, as his nickname simply means a ‘Jewish Philosopher’.

Julius Alexander Lysimachus, Alabarch, 10 BCE-mid 1st C. CE;

Younger brother of Philo, Alabarch of the Alexandrian Jews, richest family in Alexandria, tax-gatherer of Egypt, and provider of several king’s ransoms. He financed Herod Agrippa I to claim his kingdom. Lysimachus donated the great bronze gates for the Temple at Jerusalem. He was the Steward, or Overseer, of the estate of Antonia, the youngest daughter of Mark Antony, and mother of the Emperor Claudius.

Tiberius Julius Alexander, 20 CE – late 1st C. CE:

Son of Alexander Lysimachus, nephew of Philo, renounced Judaism for the Roman civil service, where he held Equestrian rank. He was governor of Judea 46-48, and later stood as Rome’s hostage for king Tiridates of Parthia in 63. He was the 2nd in command at the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 69-70, (which incidentally destroyed the bronze gates that his father had donated). Alexander was the Prefect of Alexandria under Nero, Galba, Otho; and was the first Roman official to proclaim Vespasian Emperor. Made Governor of all Egypt by Vespasian, 71.

  • The Flavians:

Titus Flavius Vespasian, 9-79 CE (69-79);

Born in common circumstances, his father was a customs collector, he rose to become a commander of legions in Britain and Germany. He was put in charge of the Judean campaign by Nero. He had two sons by his wife, but when she died he returned to his long-term mistress Caenis, the confidential secretary to Antonia, the youngest daughter of Mark Antony and the mother of Emperor Claudius. His elder brother, Flavius Sabinus, was Prefect of Rome, Police Chief. Sabinus’ position meant that he was the most powerful man in the City of Rome after the Emperors, under Nero, Galba, Otho and Vitellius. Flavius Sabinus was killed in the Capitol of Jupiter by Vitellius’ men the day before Vespasian’s victorious army entered Rome. Although Vespasian had been born a commoner he created a new Imperial dynasty and resurrected the Roman Empire after the degeneration of the Julio-Claudians ended with the death of Nero.

Titus Flavius Vespasian, 39-81 (79-81);

Vespasian’s eldest son, educated in the imperial household with Claudius’ son Britannicus, his bosom companion; “and was taught the same subjects from the same masters.”. Britannicus was to be the next emperor following his father Claudius; but for Nero. He witnessed his friend’s poisoning by Nero, and drained the dregs of the fatal draft but survived. Served as military tribune in Britain and Germany, commanded a legion in Judea, and commanded the destruction of Jerusalem. In the process he oversaw the establishment of what we know as Rabbinic Judaism, later located at Jamnia. Titus returned to Rome where he was his father’s imperial colleague, and successor. He was the Overseer for the establishment and control of libraries and universities throughout the empire. Titus was also a master forger who organised a very useful and comprehensive Intelligence department throughout the Empire? Titus was an excellent administrator who set up a long-lasting professional civil service which served the succeeding emperors for centuries.

Titus Flavius Domitian, 51-96 (81-96);

Last Flavian-born emperor, staged a palace purge of Jews and was assassinated in the aftermath. By disrupting Titus’ Jewish intelligence operations he was probably indirectly the cause of the next two Jewish revolts in 115 and 135, and the ultimate rise of Christianity out of Judaism. He was followed by the ‘Good’ or Adoptive Flavian Emperors; Nerva, 96-98; Trajan, 98-117; and Hadrian, 117-138. The elderly Nerva had been a longstanding friend of the family and shared a Consulship with Vespasian. Trajan’s father had served as a fellow Legionary Commander alongside of Titus, under Vespasian in the Jewish war. Hadrian had family connections through Trajan and followed Vespasian’s policies.

  • The Historians:

Josephus, 37-100;

Jewish general then turncoat, assisted Vespasian and Titus in the Jewish war, and was retired to Vespasian’s household in Rome after the war to write propaganda/history for the Romans: the ‘Jewish War’,  ‘Jewish Antiquities’, ‘Contra Apion I & II’, and his ‘Life’. He dedicated his later works to the Imperial Secretary, Epaphroditus, who served the emperors from the time of Nero (54-68), (whose death he assisted), until his execution under Domitian in 96. Josephus’ death is not recorded.

Josephus, Life, 76.

“The treatment I received from the Emperors continued unaltered. On Vespasian’s decease Titus, who succeeded to the empire, showed the same esteem for me as did his father, and never credited the accusations to which I was constantly subjected. Domitian succeeded Titus and added to my honours. He punished my Jewish accusers.”

Tacitus, 55-120;

Roman historian under the Flavians, anti-Jewish, conservative, sceptical of miracles although he recorded Vespasian’s.

Tacitus, Histories, 1.

“My official career owed its beginning to Vespasian, its progress to Titus and its further advancement to Domitian.”

In the first book of his Histories he also wrote his disclaimer: “It was only after the rise of the Flavians that we Romans believed in such stories.”

Suetonius, 69-140;

Flavian historian, casual about Jews, mentions Josephus’ Flavian prophecy amongst others. Both he and Tacitus record the miracles of Vespasian’s healing the blind and lame in Alexandria. His style of writing allows him to transmit much information in a few words, usually at the end of a paragraph or sentence. The information that Titus was a ‘master’ forger comes from one of these loaded paragraph endings. From another ending we find that Titus established a long lasting civil service which was employed by the following ‘good’ emperors.

Pliny the Younger, 61-113;

Entered the civil service under the Flavians, of whom he was a family friend. His guardian uncle was Pliny the Elder, the natural historian, Vespasian’s close friend, who later died as Titus’ Admiral at the eruption of Vesuvius. Pliny the Younger served the Flavians until his death under Trajan, of whom he was also a close friend. Friend of both Tacitus and Suetonius, they are mentioned in his letters.

«»

Page : 1 2ALL

Related posts:

  1. Josephus as a primary source for the New Testament
  2. Josephus as a source: difficult and dangerous
  3. The Royal Library of Alexandria in the first century
  4. The Gospels According to Hadrian (part one)
  5. Pliny correspondence with Trajan: Christians or Chrestians?
  6. Augustus: the Roman Messiah
  7. An army of divine men and the secret army of Mithras
  8. Archaeology of a first-century wizard
  9. Acts of the Chresmologoi: the Role of Oracles and Chronicles in the Creation of Divine Men
  10. Aulus Pudens in the Chichester inscription

Pages: 1 2

  • Pingback: Chrestians and the lost history for Classical Antiquity « History Hunters International

  • Pingback: Josephus as a source: difficult and dangerous « History Hunters International

  • Pingback: Resurrection in the second century « History Hunters International

  • Peter L. Griffiths

    Berenice wrote the New Testament and was the great granddaughter of  Herod the Great.  The massacre of the Innocents included her own relatives.  Her motive was to put an end to the sacrifice of animals at the Jewish Passover.  She was born in AD28  the only year mentioned in the New Testament, see Luke chapter 3.  She obtained most of her facts but emphatically not the dates from her distant cousin Josephus. 

  • http://historyhuntersinternational.org/ History Hunters International

    Assertions without evidence, or evidential reasoning, are of only passing interest to us here.
    Maybe she did write one of the books of the NT, though you give me no reason to think so, but all of them? The style and subject of the many books varies so much – as well as the dates – that I think a single author is the least likely of all possibilities.
    If we are to throw up names as possible authors, what about the suggestion by Paula Gott, for Plutarch as author of Luke?
    http://www.gottnotes.com/PlutarchsParable.html
    Peter: I know your posts elsewhere, such as at Alun Salt’s blog, and see one blogger losing patience with you:
    “I consider I’ve been very patient in pointing out the fallacies in these arguments and this is just going over old ground and flogging a dead horse. I’m not minded to put up and answer any more comments like this unless we can move on from sterile and fallacious ground.” (http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/hawking%E2%80%99s-grand-delusion-part-iii/#comment-2728)
    Let’s hope you learn from this.

  • Peter L. Griffiths

    Berenice had a third husband Polemon. The break-up of this marriage is described in St Paul’s Epistle to Philemon. 

  • http://historyhuntersinternational.org/ History Hunters International

    This takes us into what I find to be one of the two most interesting dynasties of Classical Antiquity: the Herodian; the other is the Lysimachi, and here, through the first marriage of Berenice, they two dynasties fuse. I have found this website to be the single best source on the genealogy:
    History of the Daughters http://www.historyofthedaughters.com
    This page treats Berenice and Polemo/Polemon king of Cilicia: http://www.historyofthedaughters.com/68.pdf
    CYPROS III + Agrippa
    daughter: Bernice B
    married:
    + “son of Caius” –  No issue stated
    + Herod “A” –at E
    + Polemo/Polemon king of Cilicia

    Here is a fragment of Epistle to Philemon – Papyrus 87: http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/NRWakademie/papyrologie/Karte/IV_170.html
    Here, it is dated to “Early 3rd Century AD”

    On what basis, peter, do you claim: “The break-up of this marriage is described in St Paul’s Epistle to Philemon.”

    My own thoughts on this letter: I think it is basically genuine, from the Saul of Josephus; it would have to have been written before this Saul went to meet Nero in Corinth.

    I like Eisenman’s treatment of Berenice: http://depts.drew.edu/jhc/eisenman.html
    “Aristobulus must be seen as one of the inner circle around Titus (along with Tiberius Alexander, Josephus, Bernice, Agrippa II and others). He is married to Herodias’ daughter Salome (whose picture with his own he proudly displays on his coinage). While this is not strictly speaking an instance of marriage with a niece so frowned upon at Qumran and widely practiced by Herodians, it is very close to it. It is also interesting to consider this family’s links with the Hellenized Alabarch in Alexandria. The latter’s family controlled the all-important Egyptian granaries and was instrumental in Vespasian’s rise to power. One of its scions, Tiberius Alexander, who became procurator in Palestine after the death of Herod of Chalcis, was Titus’ military commandant at Jerusalem. Josephus, who understood these matters well, specifically called attention to Tiberius’ defection from Judaism, as he did to that of Bernice, Titus’ mistress. Bernice’s second sister Mariamne divorced her first husband in order to marry another son of the Alabarch, presumably the first husband’s brother (if he was not of this family, it is another case of Gentile marriage).”
    “These divorces are anticipated by the divorce of Herod’s sister Salome from the Idumaean Costobarus, so important in all our genealogies and paralleled by similar ones by Mariamne (mentioned above) and Bernice from Polemos of Cilicia to take up with Titus (which would involve her in a two-fold denunciation at Qumran, not to mention her “riches” and the rumor of her illicit connection with Agrippa II which Josephus also mentions relative to the Polemos affair). Paul, too, shows his knowledge of this kind of divorce in discussing James’ ‘Jerusalem Council’ “fornication” directives in 1 Cor 7:10f., but importantly he does not condemn them. Instead, he gently slaps the wrist of the offending woman by recommending that she abstain from further marriage and specifies no further punitive procedures.”
    “At one point Paul is pictured as saying to Agrippa in the presence of the fornicator and future apostate Bernice, “I know that you believe.” King Agrippa, nothing loath, replies, “a little more and you would have made me a Christian”; then he good-naturedly pronounces the judgment, which via the miracle of art has been assimilated into the portrait of Jesus in the Gospels, “this man has done nothing to deserve death or imprisonment” (Acts 26:27-32).”

    If we can learn one thing from Josephus, it must be that, as he treats many of the characters of the NT, if they had been a part of a Christian movement, he would have said so repeatedly, for this could not have been avoided. One should always bear in mind when thinking of Josephus and the NT, that not only did he write his chronologies from within the private home of the Flavians, he knew there many of the key players from Jerusalem and they read his works. Members of the royal families of neighbouring kingdoms also resided in Rome. They all knew everyone involved in Jerusalem in the build up to the First Jewish-Roman War. Any great omission by Josephus would have provoked a storm.

    Well, some group of people did write the canonical Gospels and I think Eisenman, as in most things, is probably correct in his guess: “Lucius of Cyrene,” who was very likely none other than Paul’s other famous traveling companion Luke.

    So, which book or books do you think Berenice wrote, and on what basis do you think that?

  • Peter L.Griffiths

    Further details of my reasons for thinking that Berenice was the author of the New Testament are given in my book Who wrote the New Testament and why?  by Peter L. Griffiths, published  by Minerva Press in 1994. Nobody seems to have read this book and the publishers ceased to exist after a few years.  The names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the titles not the authors of the Gospels where there are early references to Matthan, Mercury, Lucifer and Janus the Roman god of  beginnings.  One of my interesting conclusions is that Vespasian and Titus had more to do with the founding of Christianity than most Christians would accept.  The second Pope Linus is I think none other than Vespasian.   

  • http://historyhuntersinternational.org/ History Hunters International

    I know of your book, but the publisher went (infamously) bust and it is not available.
    That the canonical gospels do not identify their authors is well-known, even to me.
    I have mentioned here, in a number of articles, what is termed ‘the Flavian Project’.
    Your suggestion for ‘Pope Linus’ being Vespasian is good; I suggest ‘Pope Pius’ is Emperor Antoninus Pius: there are no historical Popes before the 4th century.

  • Peter L. Griffiths

    Instead of just having a love affair,  Berenice and Titus could have been planning to inaugurate the Christian religion to encourage the Jews to be less hostile  to Rome.  The participants at the last supper named in Acts  chapter l  can be identified still further,  particularly the father and son almost certainly Vespasian and Titus. 

  • http://historyhuntersinternational.org/ History Hunters International

    Peter: you might enjoy reading some of our pages and more recent posts, for our thinking has progressed along with our studies. For example – and relevant to your last comment:

    The vacuum of evidence for pre-4th century Christianity
    Augustus: the Roman Messiah

    In short, Christianity does not appear until the 4th century. On the other hand, the Roman Empire itself is founded on a set of beliefs – which we term ‘Panhellenism’ – which lead eventually to Christianity.

    Panhellenism is belief in Theos (????) - which is not Judaic, yet as Clemens (Clement) describes, recognises the Jewish Patriarchs as more ancient and therefore more authoritative than the Greek philosophers. This belief is based on a series of syncretisms which take place in Egypt, probably in Alexandria and the great Library there. It begins with Philip II of Macedonia and his claim to apotheosis, then by his son Alexander and is continued by his successors, the Seleukid dynasty in Persia and the Ptolemies (a dynastic union of Ptolemy and Lysimachus).

    To understand the thinking (whether one calls this theology, Hermeticism, philosophy, christology, or religion), I suggest these pages:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_in_the_Greco-Roman_world
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Magical_Papyri
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theurgy

  • Peter L. Griffiths

    Christianity in the form of churches is clearly evident in the early chapters of the Revelation of John which can be dated as being written soon after the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79.

  • http://historyhuntersinternational.org/ History Hunters International

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation#Dating
    “…the earliest extant manuscript evidence of Revelation (P98) is likewise dated no earlier than the late 2nd century.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_98
    Papyrus 98 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), designated by 98, is a copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a papyrus manuscript of the Book of Revelation. The manuscript palaeographically had been assigned to the late 2nd century.[Philip Comfort & David Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts, Tyndale House 2001, p. 629.]

    Not that I accept palaeography as reliable. Nor do I accept the logic of your argument.

    But is it Christian? I see no reason to think it is. Have you checked to see if this text uses ‘Chrest’ or ‘Christ’?

  • Peter L.Griffiths

    There is a reference to Jesus and Christ in chapter 20 of the Revelation of John,  but there are early references to the Lamb in chapters 5 and 6  of  the Revelation of John.   Chapter 21  of the Revelation of John describes the triumph of the Lamb.  This triumph is I tentatively think the triumph of  the Christian version of the Jewish religion over the religion of  the Greeks and Romans.

  • http://historyhuntersinternational.org/ History Hunters International

    “Lamb” and such pastoral terms are Hermetic, to be precise: Kriophoros Hermes.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KriophorosHere is a standard translation of the start of Revelation:1:1 This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must happen soon, which he sent and made known by his angel to his servant, John, who testified to God’s word, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, about everything that he saw.

    As I suspected, you seem not to have checked the references I provided, nor heeded my advice: “Have you checked to see if this text uses ‘Chrest’ or ‘Christ’?”

    I have attached an image of this verse, taken from Codex Vaticanus, the oldest extant copy of the New Testament. You should note how it does not spell “Christ”.

    Nowhere in the original gospels, or anywhere – in any text of any type – is the term ‘Christ’ used before the 4th century, not as ‘Jesus Christ’ or ‘Christian’. So I’ll try again and for the last time:
    http://historyhuntersinternational.org/archives-2/catalogue-of-chrest/
    http://historyhuntersinternational.org/2011/03/06/the-vacuum-of-evidence-for-pre-4th-century-christianity/

    You have not bothered to register with our comment system, so I have been responding to your posts out of a determined politeness; however if you cannot be bothered, then neither will I after this.

  • Peter L. Griffiths

    The question of Christ’s name is discussed in my book on pages  80 and 81, and  apparently Christos has the same meaning as Messiah, but there could be a play on the name of Caligula’s assassin which was Chaerea.  Cheara’s action in assassinating Caligula in AD41 seemed to make Caerea the saviour of the Jewish faith.