Princeps, Domine, Kurios

To a large degree, Gaius Octavius Caesar, The August One, absolutely was a responsible altruist who believed he was serving the common good. Even Tacitus, who is hyper critical of Emperors in general, says of Augustus, “He had put the commonwealth in order not to make himself king or dictator, but under the title of princeps” (Annals 3.28). And there is no denying he seized peace for the earth, even though conquering and uprisings went on throughout his rule.

But I came across this gem searching the OCD today: “both Augustus and Tiberius took pains to suppress the use of the title dominus, though it remained a conventional form of polite address within Roman society.” The article also quotes the Princeps himself, who said, “I excelled in all influence, although I possessed no more official power than others who were my colleagues in the various magistracies.” (Res Gestae 34)

From this, I make the following observations: first, I think the Emperor’s political humility is something different from the false humility Paul decries in his letters. But I also notice Jesus did not eschew the title domine in its greek equivalent, kurios, right from the very beginning. “Many will say to me Lord, Lord…” shows an absolute lack of political humility. He’s entirely open about the fact that He’s the one who’s going to be in charge. I can’t help contrast that with professional ministers who insist on more comfortable titles like “Brother”, because they know they’re not supposed to be in charge, even though they are.

Of course, the honorary title Augustus can also be translated as Reverend. Some things to think about…

Paul's Epistles - Philosophy or Drama?

Why is it so much more likely for biblical scholars to write about what went on inside ancient Jewish and Christian heads, than it is for them to write about what was going on in their lives? If we don't know their lives, how can we know their heads?

I'll admit reconstruction is daunting, and NT chronology hasn't been nailed down yet. But why are Paul's letters so much more valued for their philosophical content than for their ability to increase our sense of the Story that went on in the first century?

To whatever extent this is even a problem, I would blame the Reformation more than the Enlightenment, but evidently the 'early fathers' were no better. Why does Aristotle still dominate the New Testament? Why so rarely Aeschylus or Euripides?

There's deep drama in Paul's epistles. How often do you hear it brought out?

Jesus Rested from Ministry

In my humble opinion, the three year chronology of Jesus' ministry years is too dense, too packed with activity. (The rarely held two year view is absurd!) More realistically, Cheney's four year chronology reveals long periods of silence in-between recorded activities, and these periods often occur during winter.

The ordeal of his forty days fasting must have required recuperation for several weeks before that first passover of John's 2nd chapter. That gets surprisingly overlooked. So does the fact that events for the whole year or so from the Woman at the Well until the Sermon on the Mount leave plenty of time for rest and prayer, including another whole winter. After that, Jesus sends his disciples out in pairs into "the harvest" (autumn) and seems to have been laying low when they meet up with him again around Passover (spring). It seems a third winter was spent "off".

The three and four year chronologies basically agree on that much, up to John's beheading. Everything after that either gets packed into one single year or spread out into two. Granted, Jesus seems to push harder near the end, and that lack of rest contributes to the stress under which he sweats blood and dies after only six hours on the cross. But Cheney's chronology gives him a third year that is more consistent with the first two, followed by a fourth year that shows nearly constant motion all over Judea.

Jesus traveled so much during that phase, running from Antipas, touring the Decapolis, Phoenicia and the Golan, and visiting at least 35 towns in Judea. In a three year model, the travel time alone means the ministry would have to be virtually non-stop. Personally, I don't think Jesus waited so long to get back into Judea and then gave it such a shoddy once-overing. Besides, did he never take a week off?

Jesus' life in general shows that times of rest and spiritual recovery (and preparation) were very important to him. This may not be much of a historical argument, but it should definitely add weight to the four year model and cause much reconsideration among its opponents.

Then again, if anyone can convince me Jesus was a western style corporate executive, I'll reverse my view entirely. ;)

Did a Josephson Just Say That?

My wife and kids have been re-watching the Harry Potter movies. The snob kid, Draco Malfoy, has a marvelous sneer in his voice when he talks about Ron Weasley's family. "They let you in? Really? A Weasley?"

Point being, it just occured to me that when the Nazarene Jews said "Isn't this Joseph's son?", that was as close as they could get to saying his last name. Not that they said it with any special disdain, but simply in shock that the son of a carpenter would suddenly be so impressive at teaching from the scriptures.

Back in my home town, I can think of a few things shocking enough to make people say, "One of the Heroman boys did that?!?" Not that I'm sayin what. Just imagine something either really good or really bad. ;)

Quarry Time on Herod's Temple

Apparently the Israel Antiquities Authority has uncovered another Herodian quarry. (h/t RC, natch) Here's the beautiful and surprising part of the quote from Dr. Ofer Sion: "...before Herod built the Temple he prepared the infrastructure for it: the quarrying of the Temple's stones lasted eight whole years. The Temple itself was built in a relatively short time of two years."

I'm thrilled to see somebody counting out years of prep work, but is he citing actual research or are these unpublished conclusions? For his statement to be accurate he must mean quarrying for the whole complex was done in eight years and the sanctuary building went up during two of those early years. Otherwise, if he means the sanctuary stones took eight years to quarry, how did they quarry and build all the rest in time for the Battle of Pentecost in 4 BC, at which time Josephus describes how the collonades and courtyard structures collapsed in a fire set by Varus' Legion.

At any rate, it's great to see a public piece that goes into construction time without the common generalism, "Herod's Temple took about 80 years to complete." I also hope Sion is also right that "Herod began quarrying closest to the Temple and worked away from it". Now I'll wait eagerly to see how far away they find quarrying for the pavement - that being what most likely accounts for the fact there was any work yet to be done under Agrippa II.

If anybody knows what research Sion was citing, please let me know.

Click Herod's Temple in the index below for my old posts on this topic.

UPDATE: Apparently he's just extrapolating from Josephus' Antiquities 15:420 that the porticos and outer courts were built in 8 years. That doesn't mean the corresponding quarrying hadn't been going on for 9 or 10 years or more, but I guess I'm quibbling now. (h/t David Meadows again!)

Site Redesign

All done, unless somebody can tell me how to shrink or stretch wide the new picture up top. Other than that, how does it look? Or what should I tweak?

Links

This first batch of links is most of the Bible and/or History blogs in my Google Feed/Reader. Some of them are my favorites, some I agree with more than others, and some I learn more from than others - but those three categories are definitely NOT all the same category. There are hundreds of 'conversations' going on in the world of professional Biblical Studies and I'm doing my best gradually to learn as much about them as I can, or can stand to. ;)

A New Testament Student * Addenda & Errata * Ancient Hebrew Poetry * Ancient World Bloggers Group * ArchaeoBlog * Archaic Christianity * Awilum * Ben Witherington * Bible and Ancient Near East * BiblePlaces Blog * BibleX * biblicalia * Biblioblogs * Bread and Circuses * Bryn Mawr Classical Review * Café Apocalypsis * Chrisendom * Christ, My Righteousness * Chronicon Blog * clayboy * Crypto-theology * Dunelm Road * Ecce Homo * Euangelion * Evangelical Textual Criticism * Ferrell's Travel Blog * Gentle Wisdom * Heilsgeschichte * Hypotyposeis * Idle musings of a bookseller * if i were a bell, i'd ring. * Jesus, Paul, and Luke * Judy's research blog * kata ta biblia * KATAGRAPHAIS * Ketuvim * Mark Goodacre's NT Blog * Michael Burer's Blog * Narrative and Ontology * New at LacusCurtius & Livius * New Epistles * New Testament Interpretation * New Testament Perspectives * New Testament Studies Blog * nijay k gupta * NT Gateway Weblog * On Not Being a Sausage * Parchment and Pen * Paul's Epistle to the Galatians * PhDiva * Pisteuomen * Primetime Jesus blogs * Purging my soul...one blog at a time. * Quadrilateral Thoughts * R P B S Blog * REVIEW OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE BLOG * Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth * Roger Pearse * rogueclassicism * Roman Archaeology * Roman History Books and More * SansBlogue * Sibboleth * Singing In The Reign * Sitz im Leben * So Much for Straw A Blog about the Epistle of James * Suzanne's Bookshelf * Text, Community & Mission * The Biblioblog Top 50 * The Busybody * The Golden Rule * The Theological Ramblings of an Anglican Ordinand * Thoughts on Antiquity * Withering Fig * συνεσταύρωμαι: living the crucified life * ἐν ἐφέσῳ: Thoughts and Meditations *

For the motherlode of academic Biblioblogs, click here. And for the actual scriptures themselves, of course, you can always visit the Blue Letter Bible.

Some time you might want to check out what I call Scholar-Palooza, aka, "Alphabet Soup": SBL, IBR, ETS, APA, CAMWS, SPHS, SPRS (among others, of course).

After all that, you may also want to see some OLD ONLINE PROJECTS from yours truly.

9 BC to 14 AD: Year-by-Year
Thessalonica in 51 AD
The Grown-Up Story Bible

And finally, here are some more blogs and feeds I enjoy reading: "Earth's Crammed With Heaven" * 22 Words * Inklings Resource Blog * Billy's Flowerland * Christ In Y'all * inky * PHD Comics * Reimagining Church * The Orange Mailbox * The Scilla Blog * George F. Will

About This Blog

This research blog is about improving our view of the New Testament Story in its full historical context. Faith based NT Chronology really should be able to settle on much greater precision in dating the key events. I strongly believe there IS one, most likely, most plausible reconstruction for the timeline of the New Testament and scholars who accept the NT cannon as reliable testimony should be able to agree on this new Chronology with minimal reservations.

Such an accomplishment wouldn't necessarily have served the position of denominational theologians or ecclesiastical authorities in centuries past, but the past hundred years has engendered a more eccumenical approach. Today, it seems conservative New Testament scholarship is transitioning from the entrenched positions of the old guard to a more open minded and faith based rationalism. More and more, Christian scholars of all denominations are searching together for the best answers to good questions - not just their bishops' pet answers.

Verifiable history will always trump theology, but Chronology gives reconstruction a full fourth dimension. Journalists know the Who, What, When & Where of a story is infinitely more discernable in most cases than the Why. To put that another way: Character, Plot, Conflict and Setting are the concrete aspects of any dramatic non-fiction, but Theme is always a bit subjective. Solid literary analysis should always focus on those concrete aspects, the first four W's, before ever declaring itself on the deeper interpretations, but faith based Biblical Studies has not necessarily followed this pattern as thoroughly as it could have.

This blog exists to proclaim that "backgrounds" and "culture" are not enough context for our sacred texts. We need to reconstruct the events. Classical scholars are staunch critics of Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio et al, but they work as a whole towards reconstructing what actually happened in as much detail as possible. Christian scholars haven't been interested in doing that with the events of scripture, practically ever - not in a thorough way, strictly for events' sake.

The context of a text cannot merely be more text. The context of a text is the author's entire life, plus the lives of those touched by whatever events the text relates and refers to. We need to reconstruct the Historical Events of the New Testament as more than a sketchy mish-mosh, and we need to give it more than piecemeal lip service before launching into theology and homeletics by isolating epistles. We need ONE, most likely, leading, cohesive, comprehensive, exhaustive chronology of the entire New Testament. So why don't we have it?

The first European missionaries to the Americas wrestled with the concept of 'invincible ignorance' - withholding the gospel so natives might not be held accountable by God for their sins. But ecclesiastical authorities have treated the Lord's flock in a similar way. For centuries, Church leaders have covered over a multitude of specific doubts by projecting a strong general doubt about all historical approach to the details of scripture. The punchline to that sick joke was the 20th century gnosticism of Bultmann. But saints, if Christ be not raised physically, we have no hope whatsoever.

We may or may not need to defend the resurrection, but we definitely need to believe it. We may or may not solve the Synoptic Problem, but we should do our best to spell out how, when and where the Christ of our Faith walked around in the Historical Palestine. We cannot put together all the details with one hundred percent certainty, but we CAN put together a plausible reconstruction, based on a minimal number of conditional assumptions. Since Faith is most effective as the foundation of Reason, the end of our christian historical arguments should be reconstructing the Facts.

Classical Scholars do not know for certain who ordered the death of Augustus' last grandson, Agrippa, in 14 AD. It was either Caesar, his wife or Tiberius. We have all three scenarios and many opinions on which is most likely, but that is enough. We do not avoid reconstructing their general histories because of a few specific doubts.

We have more than enough information about the details of scripture to make a reliable, faith based reconstruction on the historical lives of Jesus, Peter and Paul. But we must overcome our own christian history if we ever want to know the Historical Context of the New Testament's Events. We must also focus primarily, for a time, on the Chronology.

So that's what this Site is About. Please argue vigorously with any point above you feel needs to be challenged. And please come back to this site as I do my part to help work out these issues in greater detail.

Under Construction

The ongoing blog-format changes are being delayed because it's time now to go swim, barbeque and blow stuff up. Things should improve when the chaos and carnage is over.

GNOSTOLALIA

Gnostolalia means babbling on about special knowledge, which is how I feel sometimes. Until Blogger gets hip and copies the Wordpress format, this will be the "PAGE" where I post indexes for all my pet topics. You know, the old posts I really, really, really STILL hope to get feedback on. No pressure, of course. Come back anytime. ;^)

You might enjoy these posts working Towards A Historical Nativity.

I recently completed a series called A New Take on John 21.

For the moment, here's all I've said about John the Baptist and Sejanus.

My synoptic hypothesis is that Matthew journaled first, but gospel'd last.

Event wise, Occam's razor suggests Paul Fled Damascus Twice.
(Or else, how'd he manage to tick off the Nabatean Ethnarch before visiting Arabia?)

There's much more... but that'll do for now. I'm adding a link to this "PAGE" that should rest above my top post from now on. Just click "GNOSSOLALIA" if you want to check back for more updates! :-)