He's not against "The Law"; he's against iterations of Law.
It's like not being against "The Constitution" but being against the iterations of it.
The concepts that the laws were aiming to instill; he's for those.
He's against the idea that the exact letter and iteration of a given clause are as important as the concepts they were attempting to convey.
It's an important difference as what it means is that "The Law" was malleable and movable; something it was not supposed to be.
The justification for this position (unmovable) was that man can't claim to know what the divine wants; Jesus, and therefore Paul, disagreed with this core difference of understanding.
He does refer to the law as a curse and to those following it as cursed.
That's not entirely accurate.
The iterated textual copies that we have are later than Paul's letters, but it's rather clear that the concepts were there in various demographics prior to Paul's letters.
Maybe, but is there anything to suggest how those concepts were transferred into the Gospels if not via Paul and his followers?
As to "how to tell the difference" - years and years of research in textual analysis, Greek, and anthropological research to learn the people, their culture, their history, and their world views.
It's hard to explain in general abstract, but if you have a specific section, I can show you how I can go about this and you can draw a decision from that as to whether or not what I'm doing makes sense to your mind or not.
I'll try to find a couple of Eisenman's examples of what I'm talking about and get back to you.
As to insulting; yes, there's regular insulting taking place regarding what I call, "conservative" Hebrews; not all Hebrews.
The struggle was against the ultra-conservative theocratic tradition and those sociopolitical factions.
That's not how Eisenman presents it. Again I'll have to hunt down some examples for you.
I apologize, I was using the term as an adjective and was forgetting about the use of it as a noun for the political faction which died terribly.
Yes, there is the Zealot party, but that's a rather different tangent outright, but it highlights something I typically point out: most of the radical political activists (of any given variation) around this time appear to have come from the North in general.
Each had their ideas in which they were convinced would solve everything.
Times were incredibly strained and Galilee was hurting even more than Judah; taxes were a huge issue for Galilee, as they were already paying money to Judah under Temple tax.
Do you agree with Eisenman's description of the DSS as Zealot literature? He calls the Qumran Community "Sicarii Essenes" after Hippolytus.
He wasn't being sarcastic; he was referring to the point and meaning.
The reason for stating that if you just look and lust; that's bad enough was to highlight that the Law was about a concept, and the Letter of it only went so far in describing the action - Jesus takes the point to side-step it entirely and points out the if your "heart" is wrong, regardless of action, then you are wrong.
That's pretty much the entire point of the "mount" section.
But it was all still based on the Law. None of this Pauline stuff like: "an idol is nothing in this world" or "Nothing is unclean"
Other way around - Paul was influenced by the philosophy.
Now, does this mean that the concepts didn't get re-touched up under Pauline influence and other cultures?
No; that absolutely happened, just look at the train wreck that is John.
Exactly,
Yes, that's why I stated that he "upgraded" it to a different application to stand-in for the "blood right" access to authority which Jesus was claiming.
Paul saw the spirit concept as a form of zeitgeist (to use our terms today).
Of course Paul was retro-fitting his ideas to that of Jesus; that's kind of my point.
Paul see the conceptual tangent of Jesus - the essence of it - and extrapolates from there; ignoring the pedantic "by the letter" approach as he saw Jesus doing likewise.
Paul never saw Jesus doing anything. He met his brother James and then proceeded to disregard everything James said about "The Way Of The Lord".
He gets all snippy with James for preaching a "different Jesus", but that really seems a bit rich coming from the new boy who never even met Jesus.
I agree; James most likely matches the Jesus philosophy better than Paul, but we don't have James' philosophies, but I wasn't comparing the two in competition; Paul didn't see a problem because from Paul's view, Gentiles wren't under the Law to begin with, and so the entire issue wasn't applicable to begin with, and Paul (in his view) could continue on with the essence of everything and not worry about Hebrew customs so directly and literally.
That really is the central part of Eisenmans Hypothesis: That the DSS were written by the Community led by James. That they were the first generation of Ebionites. They call themselves that in the scrolls.
Jesus wasn't saying to just stop outright; otherwise groups like the Ebionites wouldn't exist (who followed "Christian" ideals, but yet held to the Law in practice).
Instead, he was more attempting to point out that the Law wasn't itself the point; the Law served to deliver a point, and was capable of being subject to application and judged in use per each case by anyone - not just Judges.
But isn't it odd that these ideas aren't being put forward by anyone who knew or heard Jesus? That they are being pushed by this slimy, boastful, liar called Paul, who never met Jesus and seems to have an - at the very least- ambivalent attitude towards Judaism in general?
The reason Paul doesn't care about it at all is that he wasn't concerned with Hebrew custom directly, only in essence in as far as the Jesus philosophy went, and in that is where James and Paul had conflict.
To James, this approach was terrible and wrong. James still felt that a Gentile should convert fully, while Paul saw no reason for that.
This was a problem because Jesus doesn't really talk about what to do with a Gentile.
Well there is that letter in Acts, which is supposed to be from James to the Gentiles.:
The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
So he is OK with Gentiles signing on and not being circumcised as long as they follow those commandments at the end. At least according to Acts 15.
Eisenman compares that letter to the MMT Works Righteousness document from Qumran. Part of that document appears to be a letter to a foreign King (or suchlike) about the right way to do sacrifices etc. It's a similar thing.
As far as I'm aware, Herod didn't have any control at all in Asia Minor, Galatia, or Corinth; all places Paul was rather focused on.
Also, consider this idea.
If Paul created, effectively, Christianity and attempted to do so in ways to help Herod, then why does Rome convict Christians when they put Herod in power,
He didn't have a choice. James is bossing him around all through that episode. Shave your head, recite this oath, take these guys into the Temple with you...
Paul had to deal with James over the issue of what he had been naughtily preaching in those foreign cities, James was the Bishop. He had power.
Everything in the body of Matthew and mostly all of Mark suggests this.
However, we also have several other groups producing their own texts with nothing to do with Paul at all; the official canon isn't the only result of the ideas circulating the area.
Do you agree with Eisenman's description of the DSS as Zealot literature? He calls the Qumran Community "Sicarii Essenes" after Hippolytus.
I'm not a DSS expert, but I think that's a bit of a stretch.
The DSS isn't a single unified text; it is in different languages and different hands.
Either they were being collected from various pools or the caves in that area were being used by multiple groups.
The languages are Paleo-Hebrew, square script Hebrew, Official Aramaic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Nabatean Aramaic, 'Christian' Palestinian Aramaic, Koine Greek, Latin, and Arabic.
Considering the dates range from loosely 400 BCE to 200 CE, it is incredible to think that all of these ranges of dates and languages found on the near 1,000 pieces of text are singular in identity in such a fashion; especially the Latin and Arabic, both of which are well after any such groups as Sicarii or Essenes would have had contact.
I also think it's a stretch to link Sicarii and Essenes together, or Essenes to the DSS; linking the Essenes to the DSS is a heated and strongly debated hypothesis currently.
The circumstantial evidence once used to draw that conclusion has since been drawn into considerable question.
But it was all still based on the Law. None of this Pauline stuff like: "an idol is nothing in this world" or "Nothing is unclean"
That's not odd; James was holding to the tangent of focusing on Hebrews and Hebrew culture within the scope of the Jesus philosophy - quite a bit of something like what we see in other ascetic groups of the time.
Paul thinks this is fine, but sees the idea as being if it is good for the children of the divine, then it should be let loose to all; and in this translated the point of the Law; not the pedantic letter of it.
Paul did change things; don't think me to claim he didn't.
My point is that he wasn't trying to change the central point.
Unfortunately, the language he used made later dogmatic debates capable of lifting his language up and using it to create ideas Paul never thought of, let alone James or Jesus.
That really is the central part of Eisenmans Hypothesis: That the DSS were written by the Community led by James. That they were the first generation of Ebionites. They call themselves that in the scrolls.
I really think this is a stretch.
You couldn't walk into the DSS editors (that's what the folks that work on the DSS are called) and walk out with an unscathed backside after saying that.
Again, there's so many variations of text in the DSS content that it just doesn't add up to isolate it to a group like James or "Ebionite".
Ebionite has to be handled carefully; multiple groups called themselves pious; and as a result, we could (and have) called multiple groups "Ebionite".
I think that's fine as long as we are talking about a general idea and not a specific people, but if we are talking about a specific people, then we need to be far more cautious and the evidence far more succinct.
In the case of the DSS; it's a bit of a reach to lump all of it under James.
It is more the case, and many more scholars need to come to grip with this, that many groups existed who shared similar ideas around 100 BCE through to just before 100 CE; that we do not need to funnel everything through one conduit for an explanation.
We don't need, for example, to link James to Ebionites, Ebionites to Essenes, Essenes to Sicarii, all of these to Paul, Paul to Herod, Herod to Rome, Rome to everything Christian.
This kind of single thread hypothesis has huge problems when we start examining actual archaeological and anthropological records; Christianity wasn't started by a single thread - it starts in clusters and moves unevenly, thrives and dies unevenly, and is understood radically differently by different early groups.
But isn't it odd that these ideas aren't being put forward by anyone who knew or heard Jesus? That they are being pushed by this slimy, boastful, liar called Paul, who never met Jesus and seems to have an - at the very least- ambivalent attitude towards Judaism in general?
Firstly; don't throw in character judgement like that. It makes your position seem very weak and immediately bias - clearly you dislike Paul (that's what it says to the reader), and that means you are unlikely to see any other view (again, that's the impression it gives off).
OK, skipping over that; I don't really understand your point on this, as we have several groups pushing similar ideas as to which Paul is showing.
Now, Paul is the only one that takes the ideas which several groups are adhering to, and lifts it to Gentilian ambition and does so through a rather well done and accurate conversion of the philosophies into Hellenistic terms.
Seriously; if I had to convert the ideas into something Hellenistic cultures would grasp that summarizes the Hebraic ways of viewing life and ones place in their community, and then on top of it the Jesus philosophy which relies on those Hebraic heritages for making sense of the ideas, I couldn't have done much of a better job in conceptual translation.
That's not an easy task.
I'm not claiming Paul is a saint; no, he was a different man to everyone - he was a politician.
He does, however, appear very earnest about the philosophy itself - on that he does not waver; on how he presents himself, he wavers like the wind.
So he is OK with Gentiles signing on and not being circumcised as long as they follow those commandments at the end. At least according to Acts 15.
Eisenman compares that letter to the MMT Works Righteousness document from Qumran. Part of that document appears to be a letter to a foreign King (or suchlike) about the right way to do sacrifices etc. It's a similar thing.
Yes, and we should expect that from James; he just eventually says (essentially) "screw it" and sticks mostly to his own.
As to the DSS; yes, that doesn't mean it was James.
Just about any Hebrew of the Levant region writing instruction from inquiry of some outside agent would have written very similar styles (and had been; the septuagint culture was well in play before any of this by nearly 300 years, and was filled with Jews instructing Gentilian groups of various mixes on the proper and correct means of adherence to the Hebraic faith).
According to Eisenman they are all places where the Romans installed Herodians as puppet Monarchs.
I'd like to see the explanation for Ephesus, which shows no such signs of Herod sock-puppets.
Keep in mind, from here we have Pliny saying this a few short years later to Trajan:
It is my practice, my lord, to refer to you all matters concerning which I am in doubt. For who can better give guidance to my hesitation or inform my ignorance? I have never before participated in trials of Christians, so I do not know what offenses are to be punished or investigated, or to what extent. And I have been not a little hesitant as to whether there should be any distinction on account of age, or no difference recognized between the very young and the more mature. Is pardon to be granted for repentance, or if a man has once been a Christian is it irrelevant whether he has ceased to be one? Is the name itself to be punished, even without offenses, or only the offenses perpetrated in connection with the name?
Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have followed the following procedure: I interrogated them as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished. There were others possessed of the same folly; but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be transferred to Rome.
Soon accusations spread because of these proceedings, as usually happens, and several incidents occurred. An anonymous document was published containing the names of many persons. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and also cursed Christ – none of which those who are really Christians can, it is said, be forced to do — these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ. They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to do some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food — but ordinary and innocent food.
Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition. I therefore postponed the investigation and hastened to consult you. For the matter seemed to me to warrant consulting you, especially because of the number involved. For many persons of every age, every rank, and also of both sexes are and will be endangered. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms. But it seems possible to check and cure it.
It is certainly quite clear that the temples, which had been almost deserted, have begun to be frequented, that the established religious rites, long neglected, are being resumed, and that from everywhere sacrificial animals are coming, for which until now very few purchasers could be found. Hence it is easy to imagine what a multitude of people can be reformed if an opportunity for repentance is afforded.
This is not someone in Asia minor who shows any indication of familiarity with Herodian sock-puppetry; quite to the opposite.
1st Peter (whoever the authorship belongs to), which is dated to 60 CE (loosely), closely resembles a similar state of affairs in this region; again, if Herodian, then why would Asia minor have such issue with Christians so early?
But aside from that, no, Herod did not rule Asia Minor; nor his kin.
If the Herodians had control of Ephesus, we would know them to be nearly limitless in their reign as Ephesus was very, very rich.
It made Herod's own territory (Judea) look like Detroit.
Or, if you are unfamiliar with that comparison, it would be like Dublin compared against Paris.
The "King" of Dublin may be in power and make big things (I'm only using the towns for visual reference, not governmental reference), but it doesn't hold a candle to what's going on in Paris.
Because it didn't work out the way he wanted. Not enough people converted to him, and the Zealots still went on the war-path.
That's really preposterous, and I don't mean to be insulting in stating that.
I mean that literally.
You can look at Pliny and Trajan, as well as 1st Peter and understand that this is just simply an implausible idea.
This idea raises Herod to such grand heights far beyond what Herod was in history; it would place Herod on equal playing field as the Roman emperor.
Paul was teaching and visiting Christians during times they were under persecution; not before.
Because of his Roman citizenship and his insistence on appealing to Nero.
No, why was there a need if Herod was Rome's puppet (which he was) FOR the purpose of facilitating Paul FOR Roman propaganda?
Do you see the odd loop that creates?
Rome didn't give a hoot; they would just release him if he was theirs, and Herod would have just released Paul if he was his family.
For his own protection from Jewish followers of Jesus. No one is torturing him.
That is a fascinating way to spin the dice.
This causes just about all letters by Paul to make very little sense.
He didn't have a choice. James is bossing him around all through that episode. Shave your head, recite this oath, take these guys into the Temple with you...
Paul had to deal with James over the issue of what he had been naughtily preaching in those foreign cities, James was the Bishop. He had power.
Of course he had a choice, if the Herodian conspiracy theory is valid.
James would be completely unneeded and we would see Paul talking to Herod and Herod to Paul; Paul would lead Jerusalem, not James, as Herod clearly shows he gives a rat's arse about whether or not his choices tick people off or not.
Of course James is bossing Paul around; that's my point.
If it was a Herod + Paul + Rome conspiracy of pacification attempt; James wouldn't be involved - he would be killed immediately, Paul instated, fluffed up by Herod officially, and sent out to make his rounds on official visits to all Christian communities to preach the conspired variation, and Christians wouldn't be persecuted in Asia Minor while Paul was in ministry, and Pliny wouldn't be confused about what to do with Christians, what they do, who they are, or what they are about.
Because it was cursed; plagued even.
In this view, the point of the Law had been usurped by the wrote and authority of the Law.
Everything in the body of Matthew and mostly all of Mark suggests this.
However, we also have several other groups producing their own texts with nothing to do with Paul at all; the official canon isn't the only result of the ideas circulating the area.
I'm not a DSS expert, but I think that's a bit of a stretch.
The DSS isn't a single unified text; it is in different languages and different hands.
Either they were being collected from various pools or the caves in that area were being used by multiple groups.
The languages are Paleo-Hebrew, square script Hebrew, Official Aramaic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Nabatean Aramaic, 'Christian' Palestinian Aramaic, Koine Greek, Latin, and Arabic.
Considering the dates range from loosely 400 BCE to 200 CE, it is incredible to think that all of these ranges of dates and languages found on the near 1,000 pieces of text are singular in identity in such a fashion; especially the Latin and Arabic, both of which are well after any such groups as Sicarii or Essenes would have had contact.
I also think it's a stretch to link Sicarii and Essenes together, or Essenes to the DSS; linking the Essenes to the DSS is a heated and strongly debated hypothesis currently.
The circumstantial evidence once used to draw that conclusion has since been drawn into considerable question.
I know Eisenman isn't popular with the mainstream, especially since he worked so hard to get the DSS released to the public.
Obviously it's an ongoing debate and wherever it ends up, only time will tell. But there has been a lot of shoddy Scholarship around the scrolls and there probably always will be. I'm not yet convinced that Eisenman is one of the shoddy ones.
Correct; and Paul considered himself to be basing off of the point of the Law, but sees no reason to be bound by the iteration of the Law itself.
That's not odd; James was holding to the tangent of focusing on Hebrews and Hebrew culture within the scope of the Jesus philosophy - quite a bit of something like what we see in other ascetic groups of the time.
Paul thinks this is fine, but sees the idea as being if it is good for the children of the divine, then it should be let loose to all; and in this translated the point of the Law; not the pedantic letter of it.
Yes, but I get the impression that Paul was trying to convert Jews to his new religion as well. Wasn't that the problem, along with overstepping his Authority?
Paul did change things; don't think me to claim he didn't.
My point is that he wasn't trying to change the central point.
Unfortunately, the language he used made later dogmatic debates capable of lifting his language up and using it to create ideas Paul never thought of, let alone James or Jesus.
I guess Eisenman's point is that Paul did change the central point. The central point was a Jewish Messiah who would elevate Israel and rule the whole world from Jerusalem. Paul changed that into a Greco-Roman idea of Personal Salvation.
These are overlapping categories. They were all three at once, depending on whose definition you use. Hippolytus the Roman adds the category of "Sicarii Essenes" to Josephus' definition of that sect
I really think this is a stretch.
You couldn't walk into the DSS editors (that's what the folks that work on the DSS are called) and walk out with an unscathed backside after saying that.
Oh yeah, like I said, they hate Eisenman. I'm pretty sure Geza Vermes would have tried to give him a damn good thrashing, if he ever got his hands on him.
Again, there's so many variations of text in the DSS content that it just doesn't add up to isolate it to a group like James or "Ebionite".
Ebionite has to be handled carefully; multiple groups called themselves pious; and as a result, we could (and have) called multiple groups "Ebionite".
I think that's fine as long as we are talking about a general idea and not a specific people, but if we are talking about a specific people, then we need to be far more cautious and the evidence far more succinct.
In the case of the DSS; it's a bit of a reach to lump all of it under James.
It is more the case, and many more scholars need to come to grip with this, that many groups existed who shared similar ideas around 100 BCE through to just before 100 CE; that we do not need to funnel everything through one conduit for an explanation.
Eisenman is aware of this. He calls it "The Messianic Movement in Palestine" and likens it to modern day Palestine with various resistance groups and leaders. He would say James had a position like Yasser Arafat had in the 90s. He was the leader of one group out of many, but loosely controlled the whole resistance movement.
We don't need, for example, to link James to Ebionites, Ebionites to Essenes, Essenes to Sicarii, all of these to Paul, Paul to Herod, Herod to Rome, Rome to everything Christian.
This kind of single thread hypothesis has huge problems when we start examining actual archaeological and anthropological records; Christianity wasn't started by a single thread - it starts in clusters and moves unevenly, thrives and dies unevenly, and is understood radically differently by different early groups.
I have definitely been simplifying as I go. There are more threads to this idea, but summarising all of his books here is quite beyond my abilities.
Firstly; don't throw in character judgement like that. It makes your position seem very weak and immediately bias - clearly you dislike Paul (that's what it says to the reader), and that means you are unlikely to see any other view (again, that's the impression it gives off).
Point taken. Sorry, couldn't help myself. He just comes across to me as a thoroughly unlikable person. I'll try to do better in future.
OK, skipping over that; I don't really understand your point on this, as we have several groups pushing similar ideas as to which Paul is showing.
Now, Paul is the only one that takes the ideas which several groups are adhering to, and lifts it to Gentilian ambition and does so through a rather well done and accurate conversion of the philosophies into Hellenistic terms.
Seriously; if I had to convert the ideas into something Hellenistic cultures would grasp that summarizes the Hebraic ways of viewing life and ones place in their community, and then on top of it the Jesus philosophy which relies on those Hebraic heritages for making sense of the ideas, I couldn't have done much of a better job in conceptual translation.
That's not an easy task.
I'm not claiming Paul is a saint; no, he was a different man to everyone - he was a politician.
He does, however, appear very earnest about the philosophy itself - on that he does not waver; on how he presents himself, he wavers like the wind.
My point was that we never hear from James or the other "Pillars" anything resembling Paul's new Christology. All we hear is what's reflected in Paul's letters, and that is all stuff that Paul is opposed to. He doesn't waver in his opposition to the central teachings of the Zealots.
Obviously the Zealots were xenophobes convinced of their superior "Righteousness", and Paul is all about inclusiveness and humility. I would say that these things are incompatible.
The superior righteousness comes from strict adherence to the "Laws of God". According to the Zealots, there was no other way to be good. If you happened to not be Jewish, then sorry, no soup for you! This was central to the whole movement, but not Paul.
Yes, and we should expect that from James; he just eventually says (essentially) "screw it" and sticks mostly to his own.
As to the DSS; yes, that doesn't mean it was James.
Just about any Hebrew of the Levant region writing instruction from inquiry of some outside agent would have written very similar styles (and had been; the septuagint culture was well in play before any of this by nearly 300 years, and was filled with Jews instructing Gentilian groups of various mixes on the proper and correct means of adherence to the Hebraic faith).
I'd like to see the explanation for Ephesus, which shows no such signs of Herod sock-puppets.
Keep in mind, from here we have Pliny saying this a few short years later to Trajan:
It is my practice, my lord, to refer to you all matters concerning which I am in doubt. For who can better give guidance to my hesitation or inform my ignorance? I have never before participated in trials of Christians, so I do not know what offenses are to be punished or investigated, or to what extent. And I have been not a little hesitant as to whether there should be any distinction on account of age, or no difference recognized between the very young and the more mature. Is pardon to be granted for repentance, or if a man has once been a Christian is it irrelevant whether he has ceased to be one? Is the name itself to be punished, even without offenses, or only the offenses perpetrated in connection with the name?
Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have followed the following procedure: I interrogated them as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished. There were others possessed of the same folly; but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be transferred to Rome.
Soon accusations spread because of these proceedings, as usually happens, and several incidents occurred. An anonymous document was published containing the names of many persons. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and also cursed Christ – none of which those who are really Christians can, it is said, be forced to do — these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ. They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to do some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food — but ordinary and innocent food.
Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition. I therefore postponed the investigation and hastened to consult you. For the matter seemed to me to warrant consulting you, especially because of the number involved. For many persons of every age, every rank, and also of both sexes are and will be endangered. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms. But it seems possible to check and cure it.
It is certainly quite clear that the temples, which had been almost deserted, have begun to be frequented, that the established religious rites, long neglected, are being resumed, and that from everywhere sacrificial animals are coming, for which until now very few purchasers could be found. Hence it is easy to imagine what a multitude of people can be reformed if an opportunity for repentance is afforded.
This is not someone in Asia minor who shows any indication of familiarity with Herodian sock-puppetry; quite to the opposite.
1st Peter (whoever the authorship belongs to), which is dated to 60 CE (loosely), closely resembles a similar state of affairs in this region; again, if Herodian, then why would Asia minor have such issue with Christians so early?
But aside from that, no, Herod did not rule Asia Minor; nor his kin.
If the Herodians had control of Ephesus, we would know them to be nearly limitless in their reign as Ephesus was very, very rich.
It made Herod's own territory (Judea) look like Detroit.
Or, if you are unfamiliar with that comparison, it would be like Dublin compared against Paris.
The "King" of Dublin may be in power and make big things (I'm only using the towns for visual reference, not governmental reference), but it doesn't hold a candle to what's going on in Paris.
I can't comment on this at the moment, I don't know enough about all of this. I'll keep reading and see if he deals with this point.
I know he has some obscure point about which Antioch Paul was active in (apparently there were a few Antiochs at the time).
That's really preposterous, and I don't mean to be insulting in stating that.
I mean that literally.
You can look at Pliny and Trajan, as well as 1st Peter and understand that this is just simply an implausible idea.
This idea raises Herod to such grand heights far beyond what Herod was in history; it would place Herod on equal playing field as the Roman emperor.
Paul was teaching and visiting Christians during times they were under persecution; not before.
I have to admit I made that one up on the fly. I'm not sure what reason Eisenman has for this. I'll keep looking.
No, why was there a need if Herod was Rome's puppet (which he was) FOR the purpose of facilitating Paul FOR Roman propaganda?
Do you see the odd loop that creates?
Rome didn't give a hoot; they would just release him if he was theirs, and Herod would have just released Paul if he was his family.
If we can believe the end of Acts, the Romans did release him. He is living happily ever after in a rented house in Rome. I've always wondered how he paid for that.
And all throughout Acts, every time Paul gets arrested somewhere for disturbing the peace or whatever, he doesn't stay locked up for long. A Miracle happens and he is released. Yay God.
But I don't believe in miracles and I think there is a more mundane explanation - they let him go.
That is a fascinating way to spin the dice.
This causes just about all letters by Paul to make very little sense.
Doesn't the Roman soldier in Acts tell him as much after he starts that riot in the Temple?
I'm not sure why that affects the sense of his letters. He's not exactly about to tell anybody that he is doing this for some ulterior motive.
Of course he had a choice, if the Herodian conspiracy theory is valid.
James would be completely unneeded and we would see Paul talking to Herod and Herod to Paul; Paul would lead Jerusalem, not James, as Herod clearly shows he gives a rat's arse about whether or not his choices tick people off or not.
But Herod doesn't control "The Camps in The Wilderness". He doesn't appoint the Head Zealot. They are outside the Establishment powers and were a constant threat to them. It's why Herod killed John The Baptist, he was too popular.
These Zealots considered themselves the "True Priesthood" the real "Sons of Zadok", they didn't give a rat's arse for the Priests appointed by Herod. If Herod had given Paul some exalted Priestly title, he never would have got in with James and Co. in the first place.
As it was, Paul made a big song and dance about heavenly visions, curtailed his overt persecution of them and started subverting them (my personal speculation).
Of course James is bossing Paul around; that's my point.
If it was a Herod + Paul + Rome conspiracy of pacification attempt; James wouldn't be involved - he would be killed immediately, Paul instated, fluffed up by Herod officially, and sent out to make his rounds on official visits to all Christian communities to preach the conspired variation, and Christians wouldn't be persecuted in Asia Minor while Paul was in ministry, and Pliny wouldn't be confused about what to do with Christians, what they do, who they are, or what they are about.
What you are saying reads to me like saying the modern Israeli Government could solve their problems with the Palestinians by putting an Israeli in charge of Hamas. How on earth could that work?
I see it more like Paul infiltrating Hamas and spreading confusion within the ranks (this may or may not be what Eisenman thinks, I'm not sure).
Yes, but I get the impression that Paul was trying to convert Jews to his new religion as well. Wasn't that the problem, along with overstepping his Authority?
Paul saw it differently than James; ergo the fights.
Paul saw anyone outside of the Levant region as available and James as that in the Levant region.
James, clearly, understood things differently and assumed Paul would only be talking to non-Jew Gentiles; not Gentilian Jews as well.
I guess Eisenman's point is that Paul did change the central point. The central point was a Jewish Messiah who would elevate Israel and rule the whole world from Jerusalem. Paul changed that into a Greco-Roman idea of Personal Salvation.
Yes, he did change the focus, but not the central concept of the philosophies; quite a lot of folks think of Paul as completely changing the philosophies themselves, but when you look at it anthropologically that view doesn't really hold up.
These are overlapping categories. They were all three at once, depending on whose definition you use. Hippolytus the Roman adds the category of "Sicarii Essenes" to Josephus' definition of that sect
Those aren't overlapping sects; those are very distinct ideas; that's like claiming that Baptists, Mormons and Catholics are all overlapping sects that can be treated as one.
Oh yeah, like I said, they hate Eisenman. I'm pretty sure Geza Vermes would have tried to give him a damn good thrashing, if he ever got his hands on him.
Eisenman is aware of this. He calls it "The Messianic Movement in Palestine" and likens it to modern day Palestine with various resistance groups and leaders. He would say James had a position like Yasser Arafat had in the 90s. He was the leader of one group out of many, but loosely controlled the whole resistance movement.
That's a very hard pill to swallow, indeed.
James would have been dead so damn fast if that were the case.
Yasser Arafat is not like James.
Arafat is more like Herod, as far as power and control.
James wasn't a ruling power that was capable of such massive control and militant capability without just being wiped out.
James is wide out in the open regularly in every account we have of his character; not hiding out in caves.
Hell, Paul hides more than James does.
If James was such a nefarious figure to the ruling powers, he would have been so dead and made into a huge symbolic figure in his death so to warn all following.
We don't see this happen; Herod doesn't go on a mad James hunt.
I agree that there were many groups; I disagree that they were funneled into James, or even any one leading figure - even representative or lightly.
Several of these groups were in direct opposition of themselves (Life of Brian style).
I have definitely been simplifying as I go. There are more threads to this idea, but summarising all of his books here is quite beyond my abilities.
Either way it gets sliced, leading all roads to Herod and Paul just doesn't cut it.
My point was that we never hear from James or the other "Pillars" anything resembling Paul's new Christology. All we hear is what's reflected in Paul's letters, and that is all stuff that Paul is opposed to. He doesn't waver in his opposition to the central teachings of the Zealots.
Obviously the Zealots were xenophobes convinced of their superior "Righteousness", and Paul is all about inclusiveness and humility. I would say that these things are incompatible.
The superior righteousness comes from strict adherence to the "Laws of God". According to the Zealots, there was no other way to be good. If you happened to not be Jewish, then sorry, no soup for you! This was central to the whole movement, but not Paul.
We don't hear anything from a lot of groups; not just James.
Heck, even the groups we do hear from, many are lost to history.
I strongly have reservations about thinking James had any power at all in Alexandria and all the way up to Asia Minor; that's pretty obscene to comprehend given what we have.
That would make James more powerful than any one figure in the Levant region and about on par with the power of the Hittite empire itself.
We know James didn't like Paul's ideas; that's not a big secret or shock.
But consider this: Paul didn't write any gospel-like texts.
Paul wrote to groups and that's what we have.
Maybe James wrote to people to, but those peoples didn't keep those letters, or if anyone did keep them around, no one turned them into venerated texts for guidance (because they would have been strict Hebrew observers who don't do that).
Paul's main group of followers weren't Hebrew saturated people - they were Hellenistic groups familiar with praising men and their works while those men were still alive, and using instructions written by men as guidance and to be handed on.
The Hebrew culture relied more on oral passing of such information and considered texts to be finite and specific; not open-source.
Look how long it took to get the Talmud in any written form compared to how long the oral Talmudic tradition had been around.
Yes.
One was Tarsus, Paul's home, but it was mostly known as Tarsus because the full name with Antioch was Antioch of the Cydnus (river of Tarsus).
Another was Antioch of Mygdonia (around Thessalonica).
If we can believe the end of Acts, the Romans did release him. He is living happily ever after in a rented house in Rome. I've always wondered how he paid for that.
And all throughout Acts, every time Paul gets arrested somewhere for disturbing the peace or whatever, he doesn't stay locked up for long. A Miracle happens and he is released. Yay God.
But I don't believe in miracles and I think there is a more mundane explanation - they let him go.
He didn't rent it; he was on house arrest because they couldn't figure out what do with him since all official records had been so confused on what charges to put against him, but they equally couldn't let him go because he was a prisoner.
Paul had to pull a huge amount of tricks out of the bag to get that deal swung, and at the same time; I'll point out that no one knew who Paul was.
That's not something we should see happen if he was so all powerful and an agent of Rome working with Herod for some gran Roman conspiracy.
Doesn't the Roman soldier in Acts tell him as much after he starts that riot in the Temple?
I'm not sure why that affects the sense of his letters. He's not exactly about to tell anybody that he is doing this for some ulterior motive.
The Roman soldier in Acts is amazed that Paul stayed put when he could have ran.
That doesn't mean the Romans were protecting him; that most likely means that Paul saw that he had two options and figured staying in jail was by far safer than running out to Jews who wanted him dead.
Also, it's a pretty bad sign for an idea when we start thinking about how a lack of evidence for our conspiracy idea proves our conspiracy idea.
But Herod doesn't control "The Camps in The Wilderness". He doesn't appoint the Head Zealot. They are outside the Establishment powers and were a constant threat to them. It's why Herod killed John The Baptist, he was too popular.
These Zealots considered themselves the "True Priesthood" the real "Sons of Zadok", they didn't give a rat's arse for the Priests appointed by Herod. If Herod had given Paul some exalted Priestly title, he never would have got in with James and Co. in the first place.
As it was, Paul made a big song and dance about heavenly visions, curtailed his overt persecution of them and started subverting them (my personal speculation).
If Paul could get in; then everyone would be dead, if the conspiracy idea were to be true.
No one shows any signs of behaving differently than this during this era in the Levant region or in other Roman provinces.
This is reaching far too far into trying to make it plausible from what little is there, and does so using logic that is anthropologically inconsistent with what we have evidenced to us.
What you are saying reads to me like saying the modern Israeli Government could solve their problems with the Palestinians by putting an Israeli in charge of Hamas. How on earth could that work?
I see it more like Paul infiltrating Hamas and spreading confusion within the ranks (this may or may not be what Eisenman thinks, I'm not sure).
Paul doesn't do this, and no it's not like what you are stating.
What I'm stating is that if you toss out the conspiracy idea, then of course Paul bows to James.
If you put the conspiracy idea into play then there's no reason for Paul to be bowing to James at all, unless we are to imagine the idea you presented before that he was involved as a covert operations to sneak in and switch things up...but that's not how things were.
Paul had next to zero pull in the Levant region; no one listens to him anywhere.
The only places Paul has sway are in places outside of the Levant region; thereby making it rather amusing to consider the idea that Paul was trying to sneak in and disrupt the Levant region sects, of which James is supposed to be the ring leader of wide out in the open and not yet dead by the incredibly violent Herod.
Paul saw it differently than James; ergo the fights.
Paul saw anyone outside of the Levant region as available and James as that in the Levant region.
James, clearly, understood things differently and assumed Paul would only be talking to non-Jew Gentiles; not Gentilian Jews as well.
Is that really James misunderstanding, or could it be that Paul lied to him?
Yes, he did change the focus, but not the central concept of the philosophies; quite a lot of folks think of Paul as completely changing the philosophies themselves, but when you look at it anthropologically that view doesn't really hold up.
But just one example off the top of my head is Jesus saying not to "cast pearls before swine" in the context of talking religion to people who didn't know the Law. How does Paul preserve that?
Those aren't overlapping sects; those are very distinct ideas; that's like claiming that Baptists, Mormons and Catholics are all overlapping sects that can be treated as one.
I'm not saying James had the power of a King. Just that he was very popular. Kings like Herod might have been reluctant to make a martyr of James.
If James was such a nefarious figure to the ruling powers, he would have been so dead and made into a huge symbolic figure in his death so to warn all following.
We don't see this happen; Herod doesn't go on a mad James hunt.
I agree that there were many groups; I disagree that they were funneled into James, or even any one leading figure - even representative or lightly.
Several of these groups were in direct opposition of themselves (Life of Brian style).
I strongly have reservations about thinking James had any power at all in Alexandria and all the way up to Asia Minor; that's pretty obscene to comprehend given what we have.
That would make James more powerful than any one figure in the Levant region and about on par with the power of the Hittite empire itself.
Not sure why you think I said that. I'm saying that he/they had communities in those places, not that they ruled the region.
We know James didn't like Paul's ideas; that's not a big secret or shock.
But consider this: Paul didn't write any gospel-like texts.
Paul wrote to groups and that's what we have.
Maybe James wrote to people to, but those peoples didn't keep those letters, or if anyone did keep them around, no one turned them into venerated texts for guidance (because they would have been strict Hebrew observers who don't do that).
Do you think the Epistle Of James in the bible is an accurate reflection of James' Theology?
Paul didn't write a Gospel, but isn't Mark supposedly cobbled together from the sermons of Peter? I think by the time Peter is preaching in Rome, he has adopted Paul's theology, at least partly.
Eisenman argues that Peter's vision of the tablecloth in Acts reflects this. Peter is on his way to visit "Cornelius" a "Pious and God-Fearing" Roman when he has a vision that tells him that it's OK to eat non-Kosher foods. Why on earth would he need to have this vision if Jesus had taught him that already? On this basis Eisenman argues that any references to Jesus being OK with eating "unclean" food or disregarding Mosaic Law generally didn't come from Jesus, but the teachings of Paul.
Eisenman then sidetracks into a discussion of the Lex Cornelia de Sicarius et Veneficis, a body of Roman Law at the time which talks about a ban on bodily "mutilations" like circumcision, the penalty for which is death. It also links the word "sicari" to the knife used to carry out the procedure. He then talks about "Those of the circumcision", who might as well be called Sicarii.
Paul's main group of followers weren't Hebrew saturated people - they were Hellenistic groups familiar with praising men and their works while those men were still alive, and using instructions written by men as guidance and to be handed on.
The Hebrew culture relied more on oral passing of such information and considered texts to be finite and specific; not open-source.
Look how long it took to get the Talmud in any written form compared to how long the oral Talmudic tradition had been around.
OK. But there were foreigners who were allying themselves with Zealots. Notably Queen Helen of Adiabene and her sons. There is some sort of controversy about her and her sons converting and whether or not they need to be circumcised. They appear to have been given conflicting instructions about this.
Now if you were Herod, which religion would you prefer your wealthy neighbours to convert to? Zealous Judaism or accommodating Christianity?
I don't follow the implications of this statement.
He didn't rent it; he was on house arrest because they couldn't figure out what do with him since all official records had been so confused on what charges to put against him, but they equally couldn't let him go because he was a prisoner.
Paul had to pull a huge amount of tricks out of the bag to get that deal swung, and at the same time; I'll point out that no one knew who Paul was.
I don't know if I'd say it was a grand Roman Conspiracy, more like a mediocre Herodian conspiracy.
The Roman soldier in Acts is amazed that Paul stayed put when he could have ran.
That doesn't mean the Romans were protecting him; that most likely means that Paul saw that he had two options and figured staying in jail was by far safer than running out to Jews who wanted him dead.
Well I wasn't really thinking that. Just that saying: "He isn't plotting anything, because he doesn't tell us that he is plotting anything", is also a bad argument.
If Paul could get in; then everyone would be dead, if the conspiracy idea were to be true.
No one shows any signs of behaving differently than this during this era in the Levant region or in other Roman provinces.
This is reaching far too far into trying to make it plausible from what little is there, and does so using logic that is anthropologically inconsistent with what we have evidenced to us.
Paul doesn't do this, and no it's not like what you are stating.
What I'm stating is that if you toss out the conspiracy idea, then of course Paul bows to James.
If you put the conspiracy idea into play then there's no reason for Paul to be bowing to James at all, unless we are to imagine the idea you presented before that he was involved as a covert operations to sneak in and switch things up...but that's not how things were.
Paul had next to zero pull in the Levant region; no one listens to him anywhere.
The only places Paul has sway are in places outside of the Levant region; thereby making it rather amusing to consider the idea that Paul was trying to sneak in and disrupt the Levant region sects, of which James is supposed to be the ring leader of wide out in the open and not yet dead by the incredibly violent Herod.
I'm not convinced that Herod knew anything about these people that they didn't want Herod to know. They were a secretive lot, not exactly wide out in the open. More like Hezbollah than your local Church.
Paul has no sway in the Levant, but what he is doing outside the Levant is trying to establish religious communities more favourable to the Herodians. Maybe he hopes it will spread back to Palestine . I don't know.
All I know is that the Zealots were crushed and that Paul's religion eventually took over the Roman Empire. The Jews that survived hated the Zealots for bringing the war and wrecking the Temple etc.
Firstly I'd like to say thanks to Jayson for being so patient. It can't be easy when an Amateur like me starts making preposterous statements related to your field of expertise. Thanks.
Having said that, I'm now going to put on my Magical Tinfoil Underpants and embrace my inner Nutjob, because I'm better at that than writing rigorous academic papers.
I present:* "The Movie They Will Never Make".
Easily offended Jews, Christians, Muslims, Herodians, Anthropologists, Historians, or Romans should look away now. (If you are the head of a major studio who wants to make this film, PM me.)**
...
Starring: Paul Rudd, as Paul.
Anthony Hopkins, as Gamaliel.
Danny McBride, as Costobarus.
Jeff Goldblum as The "High" Priest
...
(please help with casting suggestions)
...
and Aaron Paul, as Herodion.
Also Starring: Bryan Cranston (as an unspoken "They-all-look-alike-to-me" gag); Every Roman man, and Kate Winslet as every Roman Woman, from Peasant Number 2 right through to Nero. They can do wonderful things with CGI, and I just can't get enough of those two.
Anyway, our story starts in Tarsus when young Paul sets off for Jerusalem to study under the great Teacher Gamaliel. Boo Hoo, "Bye Bye young Saulus, don't forget to write!"
He impresses his teachers with his Rhetoric, but disappoints them by being a bit wild. But in the end he graduates and is out on his own in the big bad Jerusalem. It's not so bad, he is one of the "Bloody Romans" after all.
Lets not dwell on his Herodian ties here, he is too minor in the family to be very rich or important. We let the Audience think that he is Roman, just because people from Tarsus generally were Romans.
Now remember that the Roman system of Government was very different from ours. They had something called Patronage. To get anywhere you needed a Patron. This was pretty much the same in the corrupt, Roman controlled Jewish Bureaucracy that was Second Temple Jerusalem. (Herod was off in Caesarea or somewhere) It was very much like the Hollywood presentation of "The Mob". (Watch: I Claudius. Amazing)At this point in our story Paul/Saul is a bit like a young "Soprano" trying to get "Made".
In the meantime, he gets a job making tents from goat skins. A horrible job. He still Parties with his old College Buddies when he can, while at work he is mixing with a rougher sort. He hates it, but he gets tough nevertheless in spite of himself.
He gets an offer of a little job from the "High" Priest himself. He and his Drinking Buddy Costobarus are asked to go kick a few heads of this deviant Cult of "Jesus" - Ancient Style. (It's worse than "Medieval" by about 500 years.) The job has money and Prestige, so they jump at it.
It doesn't take long for Paul to realise that there is a level of toughness he can't get to and doesn't really want to get to. His Job is dragging innocent men women and children from their homes and beating them in the street. For nothing more than the crime of their beliefs, Paul has to beat them, sometimes "even unto death"...
He thinks there has to be a better way to deal with these people. He learns as much as he can about their strange cult of "Jesus". Most of the time he can't even torture them enough to talk, they die first. Occasionally one would crack and he pieced together enough info to track down the HQ and the things he would need to do to learn more about them. The only way was for him to join them.
None of them knew what he looked like because he always concealed his face when he was doing the beatings. Couldn't have the Neighbours seeing you Bashing people for a living, you have to sleep sometime, and word gets around... Looks sinister, but really it's just common sense.
Paul should have realised his tactic of disguise worked both ways. This "Dangerous Cult" had been responsible for a spate of attacks on people in public places. They were Terrorists, but not with bombs, they used small knives. One of their enemies would be in the market buying fruit or something and he feels a stab, sees people running away as he dies. People were terrified, no one felt safe because they couldn't be sure if they were enemies or not. But no one ever chased them until they were already gone and no one noticed what they looked like before the attack (or so they said).
Now, Paul knows about the sort of "Tent City" that is in the wastelands near the Dead Sea, everybody did. The Current Herod's father cleared them all out 50 years ago because they spoiled the view from his Palace in Jericho (or something), but they came back after he died.
Everybody also knew them as a gentle sect of reclusive, Monastic, wouldn't hurt a fly Pacifists, because that was how they presented themselves. Paul was surprised to learn that they were the "Dangerous Cult" he had signed up to persecute.
The people he had been beating were not even full members. Just Candidates. He knew that the Essenes (that's what they were called by outsiders who only knew their kindly "Love Your Neighbour" appearance) numbered in the Thousands. They had been steadily growing for decades since the Romans took over and started taxing the country. And that was just around Jerusalem, these people were all over the country. This was BIG.
He gets the High Priest to send him to Damascus to persecute cult leaders there, because Paul has a cunning plan... He knew that the only people who could stop this cult - more like a mass movement really when you take into account similar Cults who were just as Anti-Establishment- were the Romans and as a member of Herod's family, albeit a minor distant one, he saw his first obligation was to his Family over the High Priest. Come the Revolution, his head would be on the chopping block along with all his Family.
He knows going directly to Herod is no good, because Herod and Claudius had a falling out and weren't talking to each other. He writes to his cousin Aristobulus in Rome about the situation and together they resolve to bring down the Revolt before it starts.
I think if I ever do write this story, it won't be on a public forum. Maybe somebody else will write a story/novel/movie whatever, based on these ideas and I won't bother.
I just wanted to put my perspective on things, so people didn't think I was advocating some grand Imperial Roman Conspiracy to retell the life of Caesar as some kind of God-man.
In the scenario Paul and his cousin make long-term plans. Aristobulus is to ingratiate himself at the Palace, network his ass off and try to stay alive. But this was the Rome of Claudius, not Caligula or Nero, so it wasn't that hard.
Paul's not sure what he'll do until he finds out more. It takes three years to get through the initiation and then you are on Probation more or less permanently. He will write again when he knows more.
Montage.
etc etc.
I know I haven't convinced you Jayson and I think I understand why. Really, I can't expect that my summary of this, er, unconventional hypothesis, has convinced anyone at all.
I'll probably keep plugging away at it, because in my mind it still hasn't been shown to be impossible. Plausibility is a different question, and opinions seem to differ widely on that, everywhere from "Preposterous Nonsense" to "Could Be Possible" to "This Is The Truth!!!!11!eleventyleven!!!".
All of these HJ scenarios have lots of "ifs" and "maybes" built into them, this is no different. It has one major "IF" right at the start, and then a lot fewer "maybes" as you go along than the others I've seen.
In My Amateur Opinion, of course.
Maybe time will tell. Maybe not. Maybe they'll dig up some scroll somewhere next week that changes everything.
I think if I ever do write this story, it won't be on a public forum. Maybe somebody else will write a story/novel/movie whatever, based on these ideas and I won't bother.
...
Maybe time will tell. Maybe not. Maybe they'll dig up some scroll somewhere next week that changes everything.
Maybe I'll "Dan Brown" the **** out of it:* "The Letters Of Saul and Aristobulus"... In an ancient corridor beneath the Vatican (where else?) Workers renovating the plumbing make a surprising discovery... Skullduggery ensues.
I can see this film of mine needs a bit of a marketing push, so I've got this clip of one of the cast (Paul Rudd was unavailable, and Coogan's audition was fantastic...) on - "Location" - as we call it in the film business. He is talking about a scene that was just shot about Paul inventing a Herodian Religion*:
*Not really, I'm joking.
People seem to be reading the thread, but no one is commenting.
Is it too silly?
Is it "who cares"?
Is it let the Scholars fight over it, we'll never know either way?
Is it: Ease up Turbo, I'm still reading up on all this crap.
What?
...The DSS isn't a single unified text; it is in different languages and different hands.
Either they were being collected from various pools or the caves in that area were being used by multiple groups.
The languages are Paleo-Hebrew, square script Hebrew, Official Aramaic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Nabatean Aramaic, 'Christian' Palestinian Aramaic, Koine Greek, Latin, and Arabic.
Considering the dates range from loosely 400 BCE to 200 CE, it is incredible to think that all of these ranges of dates and languages found on the near 1,000 pieces of text are singular in identity in such a fashion; especially the Latin and Arabic, both of which are well after any such groups as Sicarii or Essenes would have had contact.
I also think it's a stretch to link Sicarii and Essenes together, or Essenes to the DSS; linking the Essenes to the DSS is a heated and strongly debated hypothesis currently.
The circumstantial evidence once used to draw that conclusion has since been drawn into considerable question. ...
Thanks for the reminder of the tremendous diversity of the DSS.
I suppose you could compare them to the Oxyrhynchus PapyriWP, in that they give us intriguing glimpses into the past.
...Paul's main group of followers weren't Hebrew saturated people - they were Hellenistic groups familiar with praising men and their works while those men were still alive, and using instructions written by men as guidance and to be handed on.
The Hebrew culture relied more on oral passing of such information and considered texts to be finite and specific; not open-source.
Look how long it took to get the Talmud in any written form compared to how long the oral Talmudic tradition had been around. ...
Thanks for the reminder of the tremendous diversity of the DSS.
I suppose you could compare them to the Oxyrhynchus PapyriWP, in that they give us intriguing glimpses into the past.
Regarding the diversity of the DSS, they are written in diverse hands and languages, but they are unified in terms of their ideological content. Possibly reflecting Jayson's idea that there was a movement to unite all of the "Hebrew People", Samaritans etc, if they are all here scribbling away for a common purpose.
The scrolls that aren't just copies of OT books (No copies of "Esther" though), are all Apocalyptic, Ultra-Nationalist, Messianic and "Zealous for the Law".
They use the apocalyptic imagery from Daniel and treat him like a prophet (unlike later Rabbinic tradition). Same for other OT "Prophecy" texts that later Christians and sometimes Muslims, but not Jews, revere.
Those Scrolls were expensive, and there were thousands of them. Not dozens or hundreds, thousands. It takes more than 20 fanatics in a cave to put together a library like that. And it takes longer than a couple of years. Those caves had shelves, they weren't just dumping the scrolls in holes in the ground.
And nobody came back for them. The scrolls lay undiscovered for thousands of years. The fact that a scroll identical to the DSS was found buried under the floor at Masada, might explain that. There was no one left alive to dig them up.
I think that 400 BCE to 200 CE dating just shows why Carbon dating is not ideal in this case. For this type of material at this age, the margin of error is enormous.
Paleography is even worse, because they have no other contemporary manuscripts to compare them with.
The only way to date them is by content. The content places them in the 1st century of the common era.
Some names end up with social stigma attached to them due to some cultural occurrence; Benjamin was definitely one of these names even though it started out as a good name involved in primary leadership.
It's hard to say, and lacking the ability of better information, I stop short of judging individuals in history and just list what we can at the least confirm; what we can at the least confirm is that they understood things rather differently in regards to what was agreed upon; as Galatians highlights.
But just one example off the top of my head is Jesus saying not to "cast pearls before swine" in the context of talking religion to people who didn't know the Law. How does Paul preserve that?
Well, firstly, we have to understand that Pauline concepts are inferred through letters and epistles, not by a gospel.
As such, we can't do a direct comparison like we can between the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mark, or the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of John.
With Paul it is more like we have a pastor's notes and letters from 1800's and nothing else, and from this we can compare sympathies and contrasts against concepts in other texts, or more specifically, other dogmas of the same family.
So in Paul, I cannot give a direct comparison, but instead, I can show you how we can see what Paul understood of the same concepts.
As such, I point to Romans 14 for this comparison.
In Romans 14 we can understand that Paul would see the concept as to not push the beliefs upon others who do not open to them, but to only spend time on those willing to listen and learn; for he fears that spending the quality of the good on those who see it as vial as a return of only loss and further harm to the reputation of the ideology and community.
This is Paul's understanding of the same idea.
Where Jesus may have very well understood the concept to be far more divisional and much more a statement to not bother with non-Hebrews in general, assuming them to be incapable of understanding or appreciating the concepts, Paul sees it free (as Paul does in all things) from race or culture and instead creates a sliding curve akin to Epicurean ethics; that if it is viewed as vial by one, then do not press it further, as it is not good for that which is good to be seen as evil - thereby, do not spend time on those who see what you hold as vial.
Herod shows no signs in any other regard to this kind of behavior.
Herod took over and just started wiping people out and establishing his rule.
Herod was very much an embodiment of the 'Morning Star' idiom of the Hebrew peoples.
I can't actually think of a single move that Rome made that could have more guaranteed the downfall of the Jewish stability.
Of course, I equally can't think of a single way for Rome to have ever held onto Judea in general; the Hebrew people really wanted sovereignty, and their rightful culture in solidarity.
Herod was the antithesis of this.
I see nothing compelling me to believe that Herod was actively after James anywhere in anyone's notes, nor that Herod was just hoping James would quietly go away.
James doesn't appear to be a militant figure in the historical record (in fact, in some records, he's even allowed in the Holly of Hollies, as on equal qualifications as a High Priest - unconfirmed); we don't find anyone hunting for this man, or accounting for him in such a fashion of militant movements.
There's just nothing noting a militant style of James anywhere that we look around, unless we really go out of our way to cut the puzzle pieces ourselves so that the pieces fit to make the puzzle image of a militant James.
The Middle East is still like that.
But James was "The Righteous One", no one else had a title like that.
The title doesn't mean much to me.
That he was called any specific title as that does not tell me anything about his infamy as a militant rebel leader; if anything it somewhat lowers the odds.
For if he was well enough known by such a name, then someone somewhere in some record would have bothered to mention the military campaigns.
Aside from stretching things in very, very tenuous means (and I mean, really...what we're asked to do by Eisenmann to consider this is much, much more than one or two points of accepting a twist on connecting dissociated dots and reading between the lines); we haven't any such evidence indicating a military campaign leader of James.
Not sure why you think I said that. I'm saying that he/they had communities in those places, not that they ruled the region.
I'm saying that's the implication of what you are suggesting because that's what it essentially states: that James had ruling power over peoples in these regions stretching these distances, even though no such uniformed presence or adherence to James is found present.
Just because groups existed in these regions who follow ideas similar to each other; this doesn't indicate that they were of the same following, and especially it doesn't indicate that they all followed James.
Do you think the Epistle Of James in the bible is an accurate reflection of James' Theology?
Yes and no.
I think we can understand that some of these things in here would be sympathetic to James' ideology and way of thinking, but that it has been heavily ran over back and forth by many hands.
When I stated that we don't really have something from James, what I'm referring to is the massive absence of what we have of Paul.
Most of the reason that we have this one 'book' is because it, mostly, comes from Alexandrian groups who found value in it early on; specifically groups of Jews attempting to follow the more ascetic means James would probably have understood better than his understanding of Paul.
About the only solid thing we can find in this book is that it does help that it counters Paul's ideologies in most places, but not in all - and some editing has surely taken place that changed some of the tones.
Paul didn't write a Gospel, but isn't Mark supposedly cobbled together from the sermons of Peter? I think by the time Peter is preaching in Rome, he has adopted Paul's theology, at least partly.
Mark is a mid-point between James and Paul; having sympathies with both ideologies, but favoring neither all that well, as well as having its own distinct ideas from either ideological types (which permits it to be sympathized by "Gnostic" ideologies).
It is more like James' styles of ideology up to a point, but there's a somewhat new slant on it that is similar to Paulinism, but not exactly the same as Paulinism - that is, it is distinct.
Further, if we did grant Mark as Paulinist, then it would cripple the Herodian link as Mark is incredibly hard on the Herodians, taking plenty of opportunity to scorn them.
"Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.", for example.
Eisenman argues that Peter's vision of the tablecloth in Acts reflects this. Peter is on his way to visit "Cornelius" a "Pious and God-Fearing" Roman when he has a vision that tells him that it's OK to eat non-Kosher foods. Why on earth would he need to have this vision if Jesus had taught him that already? On this basis Eisenman argues that any references to Jesus being OK with eating "unclean" food or disregarding Mosaic Law generally didn't come from Jesus, but the teachings of Paul.
These texts are rarely for the individuals within them, but instead for those reading and learning.
Jesus most certainly does address the issue in multiples of manners in just about every text, by pointing out things like the Sabbath, that the Law wasn't made to be the point, but to help the point; that if it stands in the way of the point, then to not concern over the issue and instead stay true to the point.
To declare that Jesus wasn't changing the way the Law was understood is to erase any point in Jesus philosophies being worth any notice by anyone at all.
The entire point of Jesus' philosophies are to notice the difference between the point of the Law, and the letter of it.
That's not just in Paul; that's in every gospel.
Where people become confused is in attempting to point out that Jesus states not removing anything from the Law; yes, he wasn't. The philosophy considered all of the issues of pedantic adherence to be things not of the Law, but of man adding to the Law and worshiping that adherence more than the point of the Law's morality.
Eisenman then sidetracks into a discussion of the Lex Cornelia de Sicarius et Veneficis, a body of Roman Law at the time which talks about a ban on bodily "mutilations" like circumcision, the penalty for which is death. It also links the word "sicari" to the knife used to carry out the procedure. He then talks about "Those of the circumcision", who might as well be called Sicarii.
Lex Cornelia de Sicarius et Veneficis?
As in, the Law of murder and poisons/drugs?
Where exactly does this law discuss circumcision?
As far as I'm aware, that's a law regarding homicide and possibly a bit on some drugs and poisons, and we know hardly anything about it, as we never had an actual copy, but only inferences from others.
If he's relying on this for some tying in for his idea, that's not really giving me confidence in his methods.
That more sounds like someone looking for things in history which are not well known due to a lack of information in general about them, and then using that chance as an opportunity to draft convenient links between them since there's no real contest to the contrary due to the lack of information about it.
De Sicariis et Veneficis. A law of the Twelve Tables contained some provision as to homicide (Plin. H. N. XVIII.3), but this is all that we know. It is generally assumed that the law of Numa Pompilius, quoted by Festus (s.v. Parici Quaestores), "Si quis hominem liberum dolo sciens morti duit paricida esto," was incorporated in the Twelve Tables, and is the law of homicide to which Pliny refers; but this cannot be proved. It is generally supposed that the laws of the Twelve Tables contained provisions against incantations (malum carmen) and poisoning, both of which offences were also included under parricidium: the murderer of a parent was sewed up in a sack (culeus or culleus) and thrown into a river. It was under the provisions of some old law that the senate by a consultum ordered the consuls P. Scipio and D. Brutus (B.C. 138) to inquire into the murder in the Silvia Scantia (Silva Sila, Cic. Brutus, 22). The lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis was passed in the time of the dictator Sulla, B.C. 82. The lex contained provisions as to death or fire caused by dolus malus, and against persons going about armed with the intention of killing or thieving. The law not only provided for cases of poisoning, but contained provisions against those who made, sold, bought, possessed, or gave poison for the purpose of poisoning; also against a magistratus or senator who conspired in order that a person might be condemned in a judicium publicum, &c. (Compare Cic. pro Cluent. c54, with Dig.49 8). To the provisions of this law was subsequently added a senatusconsultum against mala sacrificia, otherwise called impia sacrificia, the agents in which were brought within the provisions of this lex. The punishment inflicted by the law was the interdictio aquae et ignis, according to some modern writers. Marcian (Dig.49 tit. 8 s8) says that the punishment was deportatio in insulam et bonorum ademtio. These statements are reconcilable when we consider that the deportatio under the emperors took the place of the interdictio, and the expression in the Digest was suited to the times of the writers or the compilers. Besides, it appears that the lex was modified by various senatusconsulta and imperial rescripts.
The Lex Pompeia de Parricidiis, passed in the time of Cn. Pompeius, extended the crime of parricide to the killing (dolo malo) of a brother, sister, uncle, aunt, and many other relations enumerated by Marcianus (Dig.49 tit. 9 s1); this enumeration also comprises vitricus, noverca, privignus, privigna, patronus, patrona, and avus who killed a nepos, and a mother who killed a filius or filia; but it did not extend to a father. All privies to the crime were also punished by the law, and attempts at the crime also came within its provisions. The punishment was the same as that affixed by the lex Cornelia de sicariis (Dig. l.c.), by which must be meant the same punishment that the lex Cornelia affixed to crimes of the same kind. He who killed a father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, was punished (more majorum) by being whipped till he bled, sewn up in a sack with a dog, cock, viper, and ape, and thrown into the sea, if the sea was at hand, and if not, by a constitution of Hadrian, he was exposed to wild beasts, or, in the time of Paulus, to be burnt. The ape would appear to be a late addition. The murderers of a father, mother, grandfather, grandmother only were punished in this manner (Modest. Dig.49 tit. 9 s9); other parricides were simply put to death. From this it is clear that the lex Cornelia contained a provision against parricide, if we are rightly informed as to the provisions de sicariis et veneficis, unless there was a separate Cornelia lex de parricidiis. As already observed, the provisions of those two leges were modified in various ways under the emperors.
It appears from the law of Numa, quoted by Festus (s.v. Parici Quaestores), that a parricida was any one who killed another dolo malo. Cicero (pro Rosc. Am. c25) appears to use the word in its limited sense, as he speaks of the punishment of the culleus. In this limited sense there seems no impropriety in Catilina being called parricida, with reference to his country; and the day of the dictator Caesar's death might be called a parricidium, considering the circumstances under which the name was given (Suet. Caes. c88). If the original meaning of parricida be what Festus says, it may be doubted if the etymology of the word (pater and caedo) is correct; for it appears that paricida or parricida meant murderer generally, and afterwards the murderer of certain persons in a near relationship. If the word was originally patricida, the law intended to make all malicious killing as great an offence as parricide, though it would appear that parricide, properly so called, was, from the time of the Twelve Tables at least, specially punished with the culleus, and other murders not. (Dig.49 8, 9; Paulus, Recept. Sentent. V tit. 24; Dirksen, Uebersicht, &c. der Zwölftafelgesetze, Leipzig.)
Regarding the diversity of the DSS, they are written in diverse hands and languages, but they are unified in terms of their ideological content. Possibly reflecting Jayson's idea that there was a movement to unite all of the "Hebrew People", Samaritans etc, if they are all here scribbling away for a common purpose.
The scrolls that aren't just copies of OT books (No copies of "Esther" though), are all Apocalyptic, Ultra-Nationalist, Messianic and "Zealous for the Law".
They use the apocalyptic imagery from Daniel and treat him like a prophet (unlike later Rabbinic tradition). Same for other OT "Prophecy" texts that later Christians and sometimes Muslims, but not Jews, revere.
Those Scrolls were expensive, and there were thousands of them. Not dozens or hundreds, thousands. It takes more than 20 fanatics in a cave to put together a library like that. And it takes longer than a couple of years. Those caves had shelves, they weren't just dumping the scrolls in holes in the ground.
And nobody came back for them. The scrolls lay undiscovered for thousands of years. The fact that a scroll identical to the DSS was found buried under the floor at Masada, might explain that. There was no one left alive to dig them up.
I think that 400 BCE to 200 CE dating just shows why Carbon dating is not ideal in this case. For this type of material at this age, the margin of error is enormous.
Paleography is even worse, because they have no other contemporary manuscripts to compare them with.
The only way to date them is by content. The content places them in the 1st century of the common era.
That's already a big issue for a singular ideological strain hypothesis.
Then there's the variations of languages.
Then there's the content:
Mezuzot are not found in every cave dwelling; only some of them.
That's somewhat fascinating, as Mezuzot (to make a terrible comparison so people grasp this a bit easily) are like the Hebrew form of "Wicca ward protections", except that they weren't for protection or anything like that - they were to saturate the mind with right thinking.
It is a bit odd to consider the same people placing Mezuzot on only some sites while not on others.
Further, ANY error in making a Mezuzot invalidated them entirely, and required versed precision in the Torah to high levels.
This is not something you just had anyone do; this is something a sofer does, and at that, specific individuals who are typically long in their years of being such.
There's lots of varying content, and it's not uniformed.
There's Hebrew apocrypha, such as Sirach, which is somewhat like a rival to Proverbs a bit.
Then there's the issue of the Epistle of Jeremiah, which cannot be any later than 100 BCE; as an extreme, and heavily responds to conditions surrounding the Maccabean revolt and the Babylonian exile.
Several documents, but not nearly all, use the Pesher method in post-script entry of a line and as such are clearly Danielic in adherence, matching the fascination of apocalyptic trend of Danielic followings - note: not all texts have this tonality or phrasings.
Sectarian texts in the findings describe multiple different daily behavioral patterns; not a singular communal adherence.
There's different daily rituals being described, and they are not all entirely sympathetic to each other.
This is part of what caused DSS editors to reject linking everything to one sect, or even identifying that one sect as "Essene".
There's no sense in one sect having contrary daily rituals to each other.
For istance, the 'Yahad' grouping differs in practices from the 'Pesher' grouping practices.
Furthermore, in caves 5 and 6, we have letters of operations of Simon bar Kokhba, a military leader of the first century, and a principle figure of the Bar Kakhba revolt (aka, the 'Third Jewish War', which kicked off in the 130's).
There is not one single operational letter of the Church of Jerusalem or of James.
We have several such operational letters of the military of the above mentioned revolt, but nothing otherwise.
As to the claim about the content being of the same time period; that is just simply not true.
Aside from the letters above which I just referred to, there's also MUR 17, which is at least around the First Temple and Babylonian exile period.
Then there's Wadi Daliyeh Samaritan legal documents which specify dates in themselves around the 4 c BCE (Second Temple period); for instance, we have papyrus deeds for slave sales in this regard.
Then there's the Hellenistic period, which are most of the Qumran cave areas, but in this they are of different eras within that overall era, spanning from Hellenistic rule, Ptolemaic and Seleucidic rule, Hasmonean, Maccabean revolt, and even notations of the civil wars between Hyrcanus II and Aristobolus II.
For example, we have 4Q448, a prayer text which notes, favorably I might add, "King Johathan"; the high priest.
Then we get to the Herodian period with such texts as the 11Q5 Psalms scroll; this is a period where most texts were being copied rather than composed.
But it continues beyond this, as texts found at Khirbet Mird, such as MUR 173, are Arabic amulet writings; not something any militant group alleged to follow James would have ever carried; especially considering these are from 7th-11th c CE - far too late.
Then there's also some texts from the crusader periods in the Medieval period.
So I cannot agree with this idea of a unified sect or content in the DSS findings.
The DSS editors entertain several ideas by many about what these varying texts may be, but this idea of linking them to some conspiracy of Essenes and James, and Paul, is pretty far beyond plausible just on the face of the material evidence alone.
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