Another prophet named Jesus

by peacefulpete 4 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • peacefulpete
    peacefulpete

    It is of interest to scholars of the NT to find historical and mythic parallels to NT stories as these often go far in understanding the evolution of early Christology. Here we have a story about a Jesus son of Ananus that according to Josephus prophesied daily in the Temple the fall of Jerusalem and it's Temple (naos) who was tortured by the Jewish authorities then turned over to the Roman governor and tortured and interogated again but remained silent through it all. The parallel to the Jesus in the NT is obvious and begs an investigation. Is the Josphus story the historical character that the author or redactor of Mark drew from? Interestingly Mark only uses the word naos for temple in the contexts that form this parallel elsewhere he uses hieros.

    "But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, 23 began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!" This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" And when Albinus [for he was then our procurator] asked him, Who he was? and whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and dismissed him. Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come. This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, "Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!" And just as he added at the last, "Woe, woe to myself also!" there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost. "

    -(Book 6, Chapter 5, Section 3 of the historian Flavius Josephus' The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem)

  • sir82
    sir82
    The parallel to the Jesus in the NT is obvious and begs an investigation.

    I agree. Can it really be that no one has investigated this in the 1900 years since it was written?

    Granted, I can understand why there would have been no such investigation for the first 1700 or so years of that time period....

  • peacefulpete
    peacefulpete

    Good question. Actually the parallel has been seen by many and generally seen as confirming the political/religious environment of prophets and would be messiahs running about. Because very few scholars have entertained the recently reinvigorated hypothesis that the Jesus in th NT was a composite character, the parallel was simply understood as adding credibility to the NT story. That is, it would not have been surprizing for a NT Jesus to have been raving about the end of Jerusalem. Robert Eisenman and others have commented about the provocative implications. The Josphus story itself bears the marks of legend, at least it's ending with a catapulted stone doing the prophet in. All in all, its hard to know just what is history and what is not. We can be reasonably sure that someone was prophesying about the destruction of Jerusalem (as well as others prophesying the opposite) and when it happened it all left an eerie impression.

  • glenster
  • peacefulpete
    peacefulpete

    I deliberately wished this thread to be come revived. It and a couple others,showed up after posting, then were all deleted from the "latest" list. Is there a reason?

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