Evoking Archelaus in Matthew

I think words primarily evoke images; secondarily, emotions. This post begins as reflections to that effect about how literature works and then it turns toward applying such considerations to Matthew's evocation of Archelaus. If you want to jump to that part, I've bolded his name where it picks up, below. 

A thousand words cannot replace most pictures(*), but a single word or two can potentially conjure thousands of images in mind of engaged readers. Engage, if you please, and consider now. War. (pause) Interstate Highway. (pause) Food court. (pause) NFL Football. (pause)  Shopping mall. (pause) Sunday services. (pause)

Do you see? No. Did you see?

It is precisely because words are so limited that the writer's task is always to do more with less. But it's precisely because words are so pregnant that the writer believes she can communicate. In the final analysis, "good writing" may be nothing more than whatever happens to provide a particular author and a particular reader with a communicative link.

Reconsidering those pauses at top, my choice of "NFL Football" likely evokes more for some readers than others. It does well if you happen to have that experience. It fails utterly if you do not. For analysis of literature, however, my success or failure may not matter so much. That is, estimating the likelihood that I have strategized effectively (for any particular readers) may be less important than recognizing the fact that I have, in fact, strategized deliberately. My choice of "NFL Football" reflects that I spent a moment of believing you would recognize that term and recall visual images and remembered knowledge about what "NFL Football" denotes, and connotes. If I had then proceeded to mention "Superbowl parties" it might imply my expectation that you, my reader, have almost certainly been to at least one superbowl party. Unless, that is, I went on to explain and describe in detail what a "Superbowl party" is like.

This is the essence of what I've been getting at in my recent posts about composing through ambiguity.

Exposition implies authorial insecurity. The lack thereof implies assumed reader knowledge. 

Getting back to images, specifically, it's worth considering that most human memory is probably emotional or sensual, auditory or visual. Sometimes I remember striking words seen on a page or words said to me with a bold tone of voice. When you say my Dad's name, I don't think verbally. I conjure images and I remember emotions. It's the same way, collectively, when I say, "Barack Obama" or "Richard Nixon" or "General Custer" or "Archelaus", in that you probably conjure an image more than anything else.

It doesn't matter that you've never seen the man called General Custer. You probably conjure whatever image your mind first constructed the first time you heard the story of Little Big Horn. If there's no such memory, the word probably has no meaning. Or perhaps the word only recalls for you the confusion you felt at some time when you heard the name but received no exposition. In such a case, the image you recall is of your own past experience, and whatever emotions you associate with slight to moderate confusion.

Likewise, since you've not likely seen images of King Herod's ultimate heir, the name "Archelaus" may only evoke for you personal memories; perhaps you may recall visually seeing that text in the Gospel, or recall where you were sitting on the last memorable occasion when you heard the name, or read the scripture. Alternatively, as some do for Custer, you draw the mental blank, and I've evoked only confusion.

However, suppose I go on to exposit the term. "Archelaus was Herod's son who took the crown briefly in 4 BC, was demoted to ethnarch and later exiled by Augustus". Now you're most likely accessing mental files that have to do with "Herod" and "crown" and "Augustus" and perhaps "4 BC". You still have no precise picture in mind for "Archelaus", but the next time you hear "Archelaus" it should evoke some collage of these newly associated images.

Quick sidebar: In Thursday's post I mentioned "Senator Barack Obama" with no hesitance. You understand I am referring to the man as he was during a brief window of time. I should be able to speak the same way of General Washington, candidate Lincoln, David the shepherd boy, or baby Moses. In composing literature, we often seek to evoke awareness of temporal distinction just as efficiently as we do anything else. If the audience is aware of something (or at least, if the writer believes them to be aware of that something) then the writer can (or at least, will) reference that something as efficiently as possible. You already know Washington and Lincoln and Obama became Presidents. You already know David and Moses grew up, and the rest of their stories. Therefore, I have no reason to waste words by reminding you of what you already know! Our purpose in this composition is to connect with each other and consider ideas about these people, whom we both already know.

Another word on this evocation in general: Some writers attempt to capture their mood or surroundings with descriptive details. This style can be popular, but it is not extremely common, most likely because it requires tremendous duration (as I noted about Dickens, Hugo and Rowlings). The more efficient, which is to say, the more evocative writers find ways of conjuring up moods and images that already exist in the reader's mneumonic vocabulary (so to speak). It is this evocation, this efficiency, that makes a writer more effective, IFF he correctly connects with a reader's memory - or with readers' collective memory/ies.

And now, a final word on Archelaus: The more I read up on lit theory and the more I consider such things for myself, the more I am convinced that I'm not imagining things, and that it can be demonstrated how Matthew intended this one verse to evoke readers' collective memory/ies of Archelaus' early rule, at the precise period of time when he was, de facto, "King". The word 'basilewei' was not enough by itself, or else Josephus' two uses would have been confusing. [Citation forthcoming; check Perseus if I don't get around to it soon.] But where Josephus appears to refer to the young ethnarch's 10 seasons of rule in general (an idea apologetical translators may or may not have followed knowingly) the reference in Matthew is buttressed by other aspects that make temporal precision more certain. These I have mentioned here repeatedly, and will no doubt mention again soon.

But today it is the simple task of language at work that impresses me most. By itself, this point is no wise conclusive, but it's just impacting me greatly today. The fact that language must evoke (or else exposit ad nauseam) in order to communicate succinctly - and Matthew's reference to Archelaus is nothing if not succinct - strongly suggests Matthew cannot have meant nothing. But more precisely, the combination of elements - even the "when Joseph heard" expresses freshness - altogether, I'm convinced, show that Matthew himself intended to evoke King Archelaus, and not other memories of him.

Finally, to bring all this together: In terms of evoking visual and emotional memory, the evocation of Archelaus would have been something like 9/11 or the Kennedy assassination or Pearl Harbor; but especially that last one. There was no television in December of 1941, but millions of Americans got the news on that day, and for decades later - even before artificial commemorations of the audiovisual variety began compromising the integrity of remembered details - many of these rememberers could still tell you fifty and seventy years later where they were and how they felt, what they heard, and how it affected everyone.

I believe it is reasonable to reconstruct the natural consequences of that Passover massacre, the way news gradually filtered back throughout Israel/Palestine, the way every soul who'd not lived through the experience had to "hear" (as did Joseph, in Matthew's story) about the new tyrant, the new acting King, the new Archelaus. In fact, I believe we can reasonably show through a reconstructed chronology  that many families left for Jerusalem before news of Herod's death had even got around, and so the first news about Archelaus, for some high proportion of all Judeans and Galileans not at the festival, would have been the massacre. Thus, "afraid" also connects directly with what Matthew's readers most likely recalled, at the evocation of "Archelaus".

All in all, it must have been a powerful bit of rhetoric, at the time.

I hope I can eventually do half as well in demonstrating that it was.

Work continues...


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(*) "Words and Images" go together like chocolate and peanut butter, and they have a long history of doing so. Without question, visual storytelling has profound advantages over text, a fact recognized long before film, TeeVee, graphic novels, the Sunday funnies, or Sports Illustrated, there were Egyptian hieroglyphs, cave paintings, Grecian urns, and the Sistine Chapel. In those cases, the words would be spoken, as the artist surely intended. I mean, you can't imagine Michaelangelo did all that work on that ceiling without anticipating - and desiring - all the discussion it would generate? Or the glyphs and urns, constructed somewhat ambiguously by artists who doubtless expected that verbal-aural interpretation would accompany the visual media on occasional viewings. But spoken-visual storytelling eventually inspired textual-pictorial storytelling. Art students can trace the development from stained glass windows with captions engraved underneath, to moralizing or allegorical triptychs in the middle ages, to Linus, Snoopy, Nancy, Sluggo, Dilbert & XKCD. All of this, by the way, is available in far more detail via the brilliant, singular and acclaimed study produced by Scott McCloud, in graphic form, called Understanding Comics.

King Archelaus: a Microchronology of 4 BC

It's well known that, but not when, Augustus Caesar demoted Archelaus to 'ethnarch' of Judea. Commentators often write as if the official demotion was retroactive, but I doubt anyone living in 3 BC cared to re-label their memories of Archelaus from 4 BC. Today, we may say "Senator Obama scared Republicans to death" and nobody misunderstands. It's a reference that plays on historical knowledge and requires basic chronological nuance.

Recognizing from Josephus that Archelaus indeed ruled as "King" briefly - and quite impactfully at the time - allows a new reading of Matthew 2:22. It now appears the Gospel writer was employing historical irony, speaking to readers who he assumed could recall (collectively if not individually) the different temporal context between the fresh "King Archelaus" and the humiliated "Ethnarch Archelaus". There are other clues: mentioning "immediately" after Herod's death (twice), using the word Basileuei, qualifying the dominion as being 'anti' Herod's, and playing on the chrono-geographical irony of whether Galilee was safe-already or safe-almost (as Matthew has God predict that it would be).

In the guild, some may suspect this seems too good to be true. Did Matthew really intend to set this episode (whether fiction or non) in such a precise window of historical infamy? And even though this reading only provides a contextual verisimilitude, without proving the historicity of Jesus, Mary or Joseph reacting to these things, how can scholars feel confident this new reading is not merely wishful thinking or christian apologetics in scholarly clothing?

To show more conclusively that this reading deserves pride of place among scholars, a more cautious and rigorous study is underway, examining the verse from exegetical, literary and historical perspectives. However, since the foundation of this reading comes from knowing about the events of the year 4 BC, it's worth considering that in the first place. 

What follows here remains only a sketch for the moment. It may even have mistakes I've not caught yet. But a better version is, alas, for the future. Thus, without further ado, here's what I have at the moment.

King Archelaus: a microchronology of 4 BC

It is famously well known that Herod the Great died about mid to late March, but Augustus cannot have rendered his final verdict on Herod's will until around October. First, the Emperor's judgment followed a final report from Governor Quinctillius Varus on the violence in Judea that summer, and that final stage didn't begin to wind down until at least August, on top of which the imperial post should have taken about 48 days for Varus' report to arrive. Similarly, the last-minute sea voyage of Philip (the Herodian prince, soon to be named tetrarch, who sailed from Antioch no sooner than August, and more probably later) journeying to Rome must have taken a minimum of six weeks, and likely more with the late summer Norwesterlies (the etesian winds) blowing hard throughout August. Basically, September is the earliest possible date for Augustus' decision, and circumstances mixed with probability lean hard toward a slightly later occasion, especially for the Emperor who lived by festina lente.

What and where was Archelaus, in between? From before April until no later than June, Archelaus was in Jericho, Jerusalem, and Caesarea. (Cf. Josephus' Antiquities17.188-222) In Jericho, the soldiers acclaimed him as King, a title Archelaus later claimed he refused, but with title or no title he still ordered them onwards. In Jersuaelm, Archelaus stood high on a golden throne and platform when he made his "I'm-not-calling-myself-king" speech of the week, and afterwards, of course, he made promises only a king could have offered to keep. At the Passover the Judean not-a-King commanded the royal army with such authority they entered the Temple on what Josephus calls the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, and brutally massacred thousands of innocent pilgrims along with the outspoken protesters. Following that, the non-King decreed that every non-Jerusalemite at the Passover had to exit the city and return home, immediately. In other non-Kingly actions, Archelaus had also (earlier) sent an appeal to Governor Varus, and obviously commandeered the royal treasury and the royal palace(s) in each city he visited, and presumably also the royal fleet, once the sailing was good.

There is more. Standing before Caesar in Rome, at an early hearing, probably sometime in June, one Antipater (son of Salome, sister of the departed King Herod) argued that a primary reason for Augustus to forbid Archelaus the kingship was precisely because "since he had in fact taken over the royal power before Caesar granted it" (Ant.17.230). In Josephus' words, Antipater continued, and "assailed him with reproaches for the changes that he had made among the officers of the army, for publicly seating himself upon the royal throne, for deciding lawsuits as if he were king, for assenting to the requests of those who publicly petitioned him, and for his entire performance, which could not have been more ambitious in conception if he had really been appointed by Caesar to rule." And so forth.

On the larger chronology, the eclipse of March 12/13 was most likely at Purim, with the fast on the 12th an effective occasion for Herod to require Israel's chief men assembled in Jericho; the Passover was then about April 11th (as it ought to have been for all practical purposes, and not because of metonic-cycle hypotheses). When we chronologize the activity required all before the battle at Pentecost (Ant.17.254ff) we see that if Varus' arrival at Caesarea was indeed brought on by Ptolemy's appeal (Ant.17.221) as Josephus claims, then Ptolemy's commission cannot have been given after Passover. [In other words, there was not enough time between Passover and Pentecost for all the additional activity after Varus' arrival, if not only the Legion's departure from Antioch but also Ptolemy's travel to Antioch (300+ miles) had not begun until April 12th. Moreover, beyond chronological impossibility, sending Ptolemy to Varus within hours of Herod's death was the smart thing to do, politically, and Nicolas of Damascus Aunt Salome was supportive enough of Archelaus in those early days that she absolutely would, or at least should have suggested it.]

In other words, Ptolemy's trip to Antioch must have begun prior to April 11th, and not after. However, if Josephus is also accurate in locating Ptolemy among the royal party exiting Jerusalem on the morning of April 12th, then Ptolemy must have had time to both reach and return from Antioch  before festival time. Estimating Ptolemy's speed as much as 50 miles a day (if commandeering fresh horses and nightly lodging en route) the latest King Herod may have died would have been somewhere between March 20th and 24th.

This means Archelaus began ruling as King sometime between March 20th to the 24th. His departure for Rome probably wasn't right at the (slightly dangerous) start of the Mediterranean sailing season, so most likely late April or early May.

Finally, the early hearing around June was dismissed without ruling from Caesar, who waited first until Quintus Varus was satisfied in Judea that all rebellion had ended, plus approximately six weeks for an imperial messenger to arrive in Rome with Varus' dispatch to that effect, plus some further days if not weeks of deliberation before announcing his decision, at the Temple of Apollo, near the Rome's (Jewish) Trastavere district. That was probably October-ish, give or take.

In sum, that means that Archelaus' Kingship - in practical terms - lasted only for about four to six weeks at the most, even though Archelaus' Kingship - in retroactively officialized terms, according to our modern perspective - lasted for either five to six months (if based on Herod's final will) or perhaps zero days long (if based on Caesar's eventual failure to ratify that will).

Despite all modern attempts at categorization or characterization, the micro-chronology of 4 BC shows, first, that Archelaus was proclaimed King in late March, ostensibly declined premature coronation as a show of false humility, but in fact continued right on ruling as if King with complete and virtually unquestioned autonomy, at least until leaving Jerusalem on April 12th. Second, the micro-chronology of 4 BC shows that while the official position may have been murky, the practical situation was entirely straightforward; or to put that another way, if the official political truths were entirely straightforward, then the practical situation contradicted it fully. 

Whether king or not-king, Archelaus was acting as king for those few weeks. What is more, Archelaus' general inactivity after April 11th was unknown to those pilgrims who left Jerusalem, as was the non-King's eventual departure for Rome.

In short, the plain facts not only present an Archelaus who was acting as King for all practical purposes, they show that no commoner in Judea at that time had any good reason to think of him otherwise. Neither did any Passover pilgrim, and thus, neither did Joseph. And thus, it absolutely appears that Matthew 2:22 at least happens to be set within a well known historical context - or what ought to be a well known historical context - with exacting chronological precision.

For more work on Matthew's intention as author, and what modern critics should reasonably expect of his readers...

Stay tuned!

Jesus' Eyewitnesses as Community

Anthony Le Donne has me thinking tonight about Memory and Eyewitnesses again. Googling (to see what/who Anthony might have been critiquing) was inconclusive, but the following quote sparked something worth posting on here. First, the quote, from D. E. Nineham, cited in Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (p.348):

The formal, stereotyped character of the separate sections, suggestive of long community use, the absence of particular, individual details such as would be irrelevant to community edification, the conventional character of the connecting summaries, all these point to a development which was controlled by the impersonal needs and forces of the community and not immediately by the personal recollections of the individual eye-witness. ... [Thus, the form critics conclude/d] that the Gospel tradition owed the form in which it reached our evangelists almost entirely to community use and its demands, and hardly at all to direct intervention or modification on the part of the eye-witnesses.

That makes good sense, to a point, but maybe I'm missing something. Why are Jesus' original followers seen as a collection of personally interested individuals, whereas the later christian associations are seen as "communities"?

Although Form Critical theory, as described by this quotation, may no longer be much in vogue, it does seem to have maintained its influence quite strongly. If nothing else, much of Bauckham's Eyewitness project seems designed to refute these basic claims, in attempting to show that eyewitnesses could indeed have produced the Gospel material as we now have it (or something close to that, perhaps). As you all know, I'm no expert on any of this; as usual, this is just enough bridge to make my own point, to ask my own question, today.

What if the Gospel traditions about Jesus were taking shape according to community needs even while Jesus himself was still walking around, leading them all? In my personal theory, the whole community enlisted their one or two members who were literate enough to start writing things down. Those original journals were eventually used by Mark, who brought his own agenda to the task (or perhaps, or if you prefer, that of his own later community). Then Matthew used Mark and the journals to make his own version. Then Luke came along and used all three.

But the foundation -- the first "oral traditions" or the first "collective memories", or the first "community versions" of FAQ talking points, or whatever -- regardless of however accurate or general they all may have been -- I still suspect much of that material had begun the transition (from social and oral to written journal form) long before Jesus marched into Jerusalem.

Point one: these guys thought he was that special. How could they NOT elect a parliamentarian some kind of record keeper? Point two: these guys weren't all soldiers in Jesus' marching retinue. They were as autonomous as he was approachable. But maybe that's the real sticking point that scholars haven't considered. (?) Seriously. Am I missing something or have I just nailed something here?

Why do scholars seem to think that latter 'early-christendom' developed "communities" as if Jesus' original followers were just mindless walk-behind-ers and occasional cheerleaders? Who decided Jesus must have been some kind of (gregariously) charismatic (ministerially) authoritarian preacher who did all the talking, took all the initiative, and encouraged his people to receive the content of his preaching, but not to reproduce or retransmit or re-represent any of that material during his lifetime?

Are we thinking too much of other powerful ministers we've known?

Hmmmm....