I beg leave to doubt that it’s not about being “politically correct”. It’s hardly new information that Dionysius Exiguus got the date of Jesus’ birth wrong, and it’s not so long ago there was a long discussion in IMHO about how it was offensive to non-Christians to force them to use A.D.
I have read that in Islamic teachings about heaven righteous men will be eternally 33 years of age as it’s considered some sort of ideal age (old enough to have some experience but still young, etc.). Does anybody know if the notion of 33 being a mystical/perfect age is a Middle Eastern one that may have influenced it being Jesus’s traditional age? Or for that matter if the fact it’s the traditional age of Jesus may have influenced Islam?
Doesn’t Mark imply that he was there personally at Gesthemane? The kid who ran off bare-ass.
(Or maybe that’s a wild theory.)
Yes, I am well aware of that,and that is why I question what is written, It can be true or not. I am sure the World Book writer used some form of information such as reading some history that would set the date. I know that for years people thought that the AD was the division of time from the birth of Jesus. until it was learned that Herod the great died in 4 BC and wasn’t alive when Jesus was said to be born, so the date of his birth had to be earlier. Now instead of saying before Christ it is called “Before Common Era” Or BCE.
It’s the latter.
Technically, Paul claims to be an eyewitness of Jesus, and we have his writings. However he describes his encounter with Jesus occuring at least a few years after Jesus’ death. In any case he provides no clues about the dates of Jesus’ birth or his age when he died.
Well, if you count that, you would also have to count pretty much any Christian today who professes a “personal relationship with Jesus.”
I wouldn’t go that far, but there have been numerous saints and mystics in the last 2,000 years who have reported visions of Jesus. So yeah, I don’t think we can count those.
This is not true. The Gospel of John is generally conceded by most Biblical scholars and Historians to have been dictated by the Apostle of that name. True, it was some 60+ years later, while John was around 90, and likely suffered editing at the hands of Johns disciples, but it’s a known eyewitness account.
But you are correct, there are only a few period mentions of Jesus- Josephus and Tacitus. Many think that this is unusual, but it’s rare to have even that much on any one who wasn’t a great general or high political leader. In fact, it wasn’t until fairly recently we had direct archaeological proof of Pilate. And his birth date is also unknown. So, we don’t have much on a man who was the Governor of Judaea. (Pilate is also mentioned in Josephus)
This is not true.
If Joseph had to go to Bethelem to register then wouldn’t there be some record kept some where as a way to verify some of the writings? If Joseph brought Mary (who had to travel by donkey) and was 9 months pregnant, with him if would seem they had some way of registering Jesus birth, and Mary. Other wise why would Joseph not let Mary stay in Nazareth, and make the journy alone? He did a lot of running around going to Jersulam when Jesus was 8 days old to be Circumcised, then back to Bethelem so the Wise men could see him, then take them into Egypt? It must have been important enough to have them with him when he registered.
Unfortunately, Imperial census records from that time still can only be found on reel-to-reel data tapes and haven’t been fully transitioned to microfiche or other more accessible formats.
There was no requirement for anybody to return to their ancestral homes to register for the census. Luke made that up (see Dex’s staff report). There also aren’t any records of births, or records of much of anything at all from 1st Century Judea.
The magi are from Matthew, not Luke. Matthew and Luke tell completely different and frequently contradictory birth stories. They both wanted to devise ways for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem because that’s where David was born, and that was the expected birthplace of the Messiah. Both accounts contain wildly ahistorical claims. Jesus was probably born in Galilee, as both Mark and John imply.
Nearly all the records from that period are gone. For example, not only don’t we have Pilates signature or seal on any official documents from that period, we have *no mention of him at all *in any official document from that period.
Dudes have also asked “why don’t we have a record of the execution of Jesus?” and the same answer is give- almost no records remain.
There’s a persistent popular myth that we have exhaustive Roman records of everything they did. That’s complete hokum. As has been noted, we barely even have archaeological corroboration that Pontius Pilate existed. We certainly do not have birth and death records for peasants in the provincial sticks.
Thank you,Dex’s staff report was very interesting.
I realize that Matthew and Luke’s account didn’t jibe. I have often wondered why Joseph would leave Bethlehem for Jesus to be circumsised then go back to the stable, instead of going home to Nazereth, but when the Magi arrived, they then fled into Egypt. (This of course was reading the different accounts of Matthew and Luke).
Would any records even have been kept of a ‘paint by the numbers’ criminal trial? It’s not like they had court reporters. I can see “We executed 32 zealots by crucifixion this month” being a line in a report to Rome perhaps but even in 29 A.D. I doubt you’d have actually had a list of them. People in Rome certainly wouldn’t know or care who ‘Simon the son of Obadiah and Big Billy the son of Salathiel’ were unless they or their family were people of great significance (high ranking priests or rebel leaders or particularly rich merchants or whatever), while people in Jerusalem would probably already know who it was.
All Rome cared about was collecting its taxes and keeping the provinces from rebelling. There were no records of criminal trials of peasants. Properly speaking, there really weren’t even formal trials at all, as we would think of them. According to the preeminent Historical Jesus schoalr, JD Crossan, the arrest and execution of someone like Jesus would have been extremely casual. It was Passover. Jerusalem was full to the gills with people from the country. The Romans were tremendously outnumbered. It was a time where they were extremely paranoid about riots (with good reason). Pilate hears that some nutcase was knocking over tables in the Temple courtyard, getting people upset, some people are saying he’s the King of the Jews? We don’t need that. Go find him, beat his ass and nail him up. Make an example before he starts a riot.
He probably wasn’t even the only nutjob they crucified that weekend. To the Romans it was no more noteworthy than rousting a drunk. Not something that anyone would have made a written record of.
I think this was one of the most surprising things I learned when I started researching the history of the Bible when I was a teenager. I suppose I still mentally pictured the Cleansing of the Temple the way it was depicted in grade school on the flannel/felt board or in the children’s books and even to some degree in Jesus of Nazareth (imo the best film depiction of the life of Christ to date): Jesus goes to the temple, gets p.o.d, and knocks over a few tables manned by greedy old shylocks (I remember in the children’s Bible books most of the Biblical characters looked like they were at a Donna Reed Show casting call but the bad guys were often hook nosed Semitic charicatures)- something like a cross between TV trays and flea market booths- and then when he calms after a few seconds he decides to have a “teachable moment” where he decries commercialism, then everyone calls it a day goes home.
I know that Dio knows this but in case there is anyone who doesn’t: it wouldn’t have worked like that. Herod’s Temple was HUGE and would probably have been included on Strabo’s list of the Seven Wonders had it been completed before he wrote his Geography; it was an architectural and technological masterpiece, bigger than almost any small town in the kingdom, The Wailing Wall being nothing more than a part of its foundation. It was vast. It was probably the single most expensive building project in the Roman Empire to that time, and Israel (first under Herod then his son and then Rome’s governor) was understandably very proud and very protective of it, so it was heavily fortified and armed.
Add to this that the actual temple part of the temple complex was a tiny fraction of it, most of it was vast enclosed courtyards that served as the center of commerce for that part of the Empire. On any given day (except for Sabbath perhaps) the Court of Gentiles would have THOUSANDS of people doing all kinds of business. Lawyers, contractors, professionals and paraprofessionals of every kind would have been there hawking their services and doing business. The moneychangers alone would have numbered in the hundreds, and they were a major source of revenue for the Temple (which when you have more than a thousand priests and unbelievable upkeep to pay for you need the money), and the moneychanging itself was actually a religious service.
Judaism of course forbade graven images, which meant pretty much any human likeness was taboo but a likeness of an emperor who had divine attributes (or, like Alexander who was still pictured on some currency, was an outright god) as well as pagan deities- anathemous. It’d be worse than paying a tithe in a Baptist church today with a check marked “THERE IS NO GOD BUT ALLAH”. The temple used it’s own currency which was marked in Hebrew and had acceptable emblems, but it was also only used in the Temple, therefore people exchanged their Roman or otherwise pagan money for these coins, and of course the moneychanger they exchanged it with took a commission that fluctuated depending on the coin received and the day, and then of course there were the sacrificial animals and even souvenirs.
SO, a crazy man knocking over these tables and driving out the moneychangers would be about like a man walking onto the floor of the NYSE and shooting a pistol over his head. First there’s chaos, then security is going to come running from all corners, and even if nobody’s hurt and it turns out it was just a starter pistol it’s going to make the nightly news and it’s a very big deal. If the Biblical accounts are right and Jesus really did “cleanse” the temple, it most likely means there was a riot that would have involved at least hundreds and probably thousands of people, and of course when many people get spooked in an enclosed area there’s going to be stampeding and people getting trampled and or otherwise hurt. It almost could not happen bloodlessly, and it would probably require many followers to actually clear out the money changers, and then they’d have to fight off the Temple guards.
So if there’s any factual basis to the cleansing of the temple it probably went like this: Jesus became furious, began vandalizing the booths and scattering money, his disciples and perhaps other followers got in on the act, the overcrowded mobs inside the Court of Gentiles were probably wondering “WTF IS HAPPENING HERE?” and after some panic and vandalism Jesus and the Disciples made their way out before the guards could get through the crowds, but people everywhere were saying “It was Jesus and his followers”, and this probably was why he was arrested and tried for treason. (The Romans could not have given less than a tinker’s dam whether he was religiously offensive to the Jews and at the same time this wasn’t blasphemy and in fact if Jesus really went around saying he was the Messiah and the begotten son of God it wasn’t blasphemy, which was the only thing the Sanhedrin had the power to kill for [and that by stoning rather than Crucifixion]).
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Something I’ve wondered that’s semi-related though: the Sanhedrin could sentence a man to death by stoning for heresy or blasphemy. IF a Jew was found guilty of heresy or blasphemy and condemned BUT claimed to have become a follower of Jupiter or any of the many other pagan gods, would Rome have intervened (assuming said Jew was not a Roman citizen)?
The complex was about 145,000 square meters.