Luke does NOT name a Specific Governor of Syria.

 First in the actual Greek text of Luke 2:2 the word translated Cyrenius is the last word and Syria the second to last word.  And the word for "governor" is not a noun and should be more literally translated "governing".  In fact the most accurate rendering of the verse should be something like.

"This counting was first made during the governing of Surias Kureniou"

The last two words I chose not to transliterate and represent them as they are spelled in the Greek.

The only reason why Bible Skeptics insist this MUST be the AD 6 Census in-spite of all the ways it's nothing like that Census (Empire wide not local, and while Herod was still King) is the name of Kureniou.

But it's not even grammatically written as the name of a person.  Now if you look at the Strongs entry for Cyrenius it will claim that the name ends with the specific form of the letter Sigma that in Koine Greek any personal name of a male individual should, and that also ends many descriptive titles.  But in the actual Textus Receptus Greek text it does not.  (And the Sinaiticus is the same.)  And Quirinus does end with an "s" in the original form in it's original language, so there is no excuse for there not to be a Sigma at the end.

In Josephus it's spelled Kurinios, which, like I would expect, uses more then one Iota.  Also there is no "e".  It is a much more plausible Greek rendering of Quirinus.

I'm not sure how early on this confusion started.  Maybe simply because Luke refereed to the AD 6 Census in Acts 5:37 people made the wrong assumption it must be the same Census.  Or maybe the translation of Luke into Latin played a key role in the confusion, when Translations of The Bible into modern languages finally began to happen after the reformation, they were greatly influenced by the Vulgate directly or indirectly, even the KJV.

But Tertullian in his against Heresies book IV chapter XIX simply states Saturninus was governor of Syria at the time without any acknowledgment that supposedly Luke identifies someone else as Syria's Governor.  That tells me that neither he or his readers had heard of the idea that Luke tells us who the governor was.  (Note, identifying Saturninus would fit it being the 8 BC Census).  And none of the 3 Lustrums of Augustus would have extended into the 19-21 AD Governorship of Gnaeus Sentius Saturninus, so the claim that Tertulian was referring to younger siblings of Jesus being born then doesn't work.  It was the earlier Saturninus who's administration of Syria coincided with a documented Roman Census.

To be exact, Tertullian said that Roman records proved the fact that censuses (he used the plural) were conducted in Judea when Saturninus was governor.  Also in his Apology to the Jews Tertullian clearly dates the Nativity to 3-2 BC saying it was 27 years from the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra.  Though that is hard to reconcile with the Saturninus reference.

Since I'm contending that Kureniou doesn't mean Quirinus, what does it mean?

Below is how Cyrene and Cyrenian (of Cyrene) is rendered in various Greek NT verses.  Because these will be using 2 different Greek letters for o, lower case o is Omicron and capitalized O is Omega.

Matthew 27:32, Kurenaion
Mark 15:21, Kurenaion
Luke 23:26,  Kurenaion
Acts 2:10, Kurenen
Acts 6:9,  KurenaiOn
Acts 11:20, Kurenaioi
Acts 13:1, Kurenaios

It's rendered differently almost each time, in total 5 different ways, and Luke used all 5.  So that Kureniou is identical to none of them means little.  Interestingly the last one is almost identical to how the Strongs incorrectly claimed Cyrenius was rendered (Kurenios) with the only difference being the added Alpha.

The differences are all a matter of vowels and what the closing suffix should be.  All of them begin with Kuren just like Kureniou does.

Ending with iou is the same as how Luke renders Jesus of Nazareth in Luke 24:19 (Iesous tou Nazoraiou).

So perhaps Luke 2:2 wasn't referencing the Governor of a province at all but two provinces.  Or I could point out that the word for Syria here does end with that specific form of the letter Sigma that signifies a personal name or possibly title of a male individual.  No where else does Luke in his Gospel or Acts render Syria as ending with a Sigma if it's referring to the region rather then a person.  But he does use that form of Sigma when referring to Naaman of Syria in Luke 4.

I could also note that when Luke identifies Pilate as Governor of Judea in Luke 3:1 he lists the name of the Governor before the name of the province.

Maybe the verse should just be translated as saying "when a Syrian was Governing Cyrene"?  Or perhaps that a Cyrenian was governing Syria.  Plausible translations are "during the Governing of Syria and Cyrene" or "during the Governing of Syria by Cyrene" or "during the Governing of Cyrene by Syria".  But I feel from everything I've observed above the best translation is "during the Governing of the Syrian of Cyrene".

An Atheist who is unlike me willing to consider the text hasn't been perfectly preserved should consider that a name is missing, that it's saying someone of Cyrene was Governing Syria.  Heck what Tertullian said you could use as evidence Saturninus was named in the texts he had.

The Roman Legion called the Legio III Cyrenacia was based for some reason in Bosra Syria;  Again I note the terminology of Luke properly translated is not necessarily identifying a person as Governor at all.

The last known exploit of this Legion before the time frame of The Nativity (from the timeline of the Legion Wikipedia has anyway), was being involved in a conflict between Rome and Nubia in Egypt in 23 BC.  The next time they show up is 7-11 BC when the Nikopolis fortress is established.

I'm thinking it's possible this Legion carried out the Census in Judea.

Given how often modern Translations claiming to be directly translating the Greek are still influenced by the Latin translation, I was prepared to consider the Latin Vulgate perhaps the origin of this mistake.. But to my surprise the Latin doesn't mention Quirinius here, Jerome or whoever actually wrote the Vulgate did not recognize this as a Greek transliteration of a Latin name, it spells the name Cyrino.

haec descriptio prima facta est praeside Syriae Cyrino

According to Google Translate, everything preceding the two names at the end is, "This was the first President of the".  That is distinct from how the Vulgate does make references to Cyrene, but the main distinction there is using an E where that spelling has an I, something that isn't a difference in the Greek.  So the Vulgate translation is mistaken, but I find it fascinating that the educated Latin speakers who made it didn't see it as clearly a form of a specific Latin name.  This may possibly be similar to the version of the verse Tertullian would have read.

Herod The Great probably was not of Idumean ancestry

The common claim that Herod Idumean is built entirely on one passage in Josephus that itself acknowledges that isn't the only view of Herod’s ancestry.  Yet everyone on this issue is inclined to trust Josephus over Nicolaus of Damascus in spite of the fact that Josephus himself had an agenda in writing this History the way he did.

First I’m going to Copy/Paste here exactly the relevant passage from Josephus.

Antiquities of The Jews Book 14 Chapter 1 Section 3.

https://gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848-h.htm#link142HCH0001

“ But there was a certain friend of Hyrcanus, an Idumean, called Antipater, who was very rich, and in his nature an active and a seditious man; who was at enmity with Aristobulus, and had differences with him on account of his good-will to Hyrcanus. It is true that Nicolaus of Damascus says, that Antipater was of the stock of the principal Jews who came out of Babylon into Judea; but that assertion of his was to gratify Herod, who was his son, and who, by certain revolutions of fortune, came afterward to be king of the Jews, whose history we shall give you in its proper place hereafter. However, this Antipater was at first called Antipas, and that was his father's name also; of whom they relate this: That king Alexander and his wife made him general of all Idumea, and that he made a league of friendship with those Arabians, and Gazites, and Ascalonites, that were of his own party, and had, by many and large presents, made them his fast friends.”

Here are my issues with what Josephus says about this.

First: It makes no sense to me that Alexander Janneus would appoint someone who was an Idumean to govern a people they’d recently conquered and forcibly converted in a region they intend to fully annex.  In that situation like when Rome appointed governors of full provinces you appoint someone full of the ruling nation not the local population.  What was Idumea during this period was Biblical the heart of Judah's tribal allotment, so I see a lot of logic in letting a descendent of David govern it.

Second: When Rome appointed Client Kings they were always of someone with legitimate verifiable Royal Ancestry over the people they are being appointed to rule.  Even Tigranes V of Armenia did descend from Tigranes The Great through his mother.  I know a lot of modern fictionalization of Ancient Rome want to make seme like anyone with enough Money could just Bride the Senate into making them a King, but the Romans understood that in order for a puppet King to be accepted in a culture used to hereditary Monarchy he needed something of a valid ancestry. Herod would have needed to be of Davidic Ancestry especially if he indeed wasn’t a Hasmonean.  Because Rome didn’t crown him King of the Idumeans but King of The Jews.

Third: Look into the history of Costobarus the man who actually led the Idumeans during Herod’s reign, Herod oppressed the Idumeans in a distinct way he can said to oppressed the Jews, he clearly viewed them as a Subjected people not his own people.  Josephus talks about this in Antiquities of The Jews Book 15 Chapter 7 sections 9 and 10. 

https://gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848-h.htm#link152HCH0007

It frustrates me how many Christians take this so for granted they try to read this subtextually into Herod’s New Testament significance, saying that when The magi said “Born King of The Jews” it’s partially a dig at Herod’s Idumean heritage.  The New Testament doesn’t address Herod’s ancestry one way or the other.  By showing that Jesus’ descent from David could still be documented it does testify against the plausibility of Nicolas of Damascus being able to get away with simply making an ancestry up. When Josephus wrote Antiquities however much of those kidneys of records had been destroyed with The Temple in the War, so he could lie about Herod’s ancestry without being fact checked.

If the Magi were commenting on an issue with Herod's legal right to rule at all, it could just be him not being the Senior Heir even to his father, he was not Anipater's First-Born.

Now you may object that “Josephus wasn’t even hostile to all the Herodians, he seems to have liked both Agrippas?”.  They had Hasmonean heritage either way through Mariamne.  Josephus claimed a Hasmonean connection for himself at the start of his autobiography so that kinship may have meant more to him than descent from David anyway.

I often allude to this view of mine when discussing other things, so I felt it was about time I devoted a BlogPost to defending it. 

Edom and Christianity

In Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature both Rome and Christianity are often identified with Edom.  The popular assumption is Rome was identified with Edom first then it was applied to Christianity after it became the dominant religion of Rome.  However both these identifications seem to start in the Fourth Century, so the identification going the other way is just as plausible.

There is a poetry to associating Christianity with Edom from a Jewish POV that I think many overlook.  Christianity is an Abrahamic Religion but one that unlike Islam identifies itself with Isaac over Ishmael in Romans 9:7-9 and Galatian 4:28.  The relationship between Edom and Israel in The Hebrew Bible is complicated, they are often enemies yet their shared kinship is never forgotten.  In Deuteronomy 23:7 God tells Israel to always welcome Edomites even though the then contemporary King of Edom refused to let the Israelites pass through their territory back in Numbers 20:14-21.  Esau himself is not ultimately a bad person and in fact plenty of Rabbis will acknowledge that he was partly  in the right in his conflicts with Jacob.  And sometimes the worst aspects of Edom’s legacy is entirely placed on Amalek.  From a Protestant POV you could say if Christianity is Edom then Catholicism is Amalek.

One of the very few direct references to Esau in the New Testament is in Romans 9:10-13 where Paul quotes Malachi’s opening verses.  What Calvinists ignore is the role this plays in the greater context of this part of Romans going into chapter 10 and 11 where now those God “hated” before are being blessed and Israel is under temporary spiritual blindness.  Paul himself is arguably poetically identifying Gentile Christianity with Edom.  There’s also the interesting case of how Acts 15:15-17 quotes Amos 9:11-12.

I’m a Leftist, but one common opinion among Breadtubers I don’t like is the notion that Judeo-Christian is a problematic term that shouldn’t be used.  They say it from two angles, one of “how dare you suggest Jews and Christians have common ground”, but the other angle is that it’s offensive to exclude Muslims.  However this fact that Jews see Christianity as Edom itself proves that they do see the common Isaac based heritage and more so see Christianity as closer to them then Islam is in some senses at least.  However the name of Isaac does not phonetically lend itself to making a derivative term like “Abrahamic”.  I’m not one of those Conservative Christians who wants to deny Islam is Abrahamic, for better and for worse they are the true heirs of Ishmael, but there are contexts where it’s necessary to be more specific.

But now let’s also look specifically at the Fourth Century Context of Jews in The Roman Empire.  

The Empire was claiming to now worship their God yet was still enforcing Hadrian’s ban on them entering their Holy City of Jerusalem.  Hadrian didn’t just forbid Jews entering Jerusalem but even living anywhere Jerusalem was visible from, Jerusalem is visible from as far away as Bethlehem.  Hadrian didn’t resettle the area only with immigrants from Italy, Rome didn't quite do Colonialism like that, no most of it was moving around nearby Gentiles.  

The Idumeans seemingly disappeared from history after AD 70.  I imagine some Christians want to interpret Bible Prophecy so this is when they were wiped out, fulfilling many Hebrew Bible prophecies about Edom, but if The Jews survived this then the Idumeans who were even less centered around Jerusalem certainly did.  What I do think happened was that they mostly stopped practicing Judaism (which they were forcibly converted to by the Hasmoneans in the first place) and either reverted to Paganism or started becoming Christians, and during the Fourth Century those that were Pagan gradually converted to Christianity.  I suspect it was to a large extent Idumeans who made up the new population of Aelia Capitolina and its surrounding villages, and the modern Palestinian Christians in this same region are their descendants.

But some Idumeans may have remained where they were before.  The city of Eleutheropolis is an interesting case, also known as Bayt Jibrin and Baitogabra.  In Josephus it seems the Idumeans of this town were completely wiped out or expelled in AD 68, but its references in the Midrash Rabba (Genesis Rabba, section 67) show Jews still saw it as Edomite well past that point.  The Roman Emperor Septimius Severus gave it the status of ius italicum meaning its citizens were all legally considered Roman Citizens.

Whether or not this city actually had a Pre Fourth Century Christian Community is hard to say, tradition says Joseph Barsabas Justus of Acts 1:23 was its first Bishop but there are no historically confirmed Bishops till Macrinus who was at The Council of Nicaea, that could be just because they didn’t practice Episocal Polity till Nicaea.  In the Fourth Century Eleutheropolis is said to have the largest territory of any Bishopric in Palestina which is shocking considering that Province includes the very important Early Christian cities of Caesarea and Jerusalem.

Christian Rome also refused to let Jews live in Hebron, a city important in The Pentateuch but that has also become Idumean after the Babylonian Exile.

The Bishop of the Christian Community in Rome when the Edict of Milan was issued was named Militades, a Greek name that comes from a Greek word for Red that more specifically means “Red Earth”.  Edom is a Hebrew word for the color Red deliberately spelled the same as Adam which means Earth.  

So the logic behind seeing Christianity as the heirs of Edom in the Fourth Century both locally in Palestine and in the heart of the Empire is sound.

Maybe this Jewish Identification of Christianity with Edom even influences the early development of Islam.  Esa/Isa the name for Jesus in the Qurran is famously not a logical Arabic form of Yeshua or Yehoshua or Iesous.  But I’m not the first to notice that it oddly does work as an Arabic form of Esau.

Cleopatra and Julius Caesar had a Daughter

 In May of 44 BC Cicero wrote to a friend indicating that Cleopatra (who was in Rome at the time) was pregnant with Caesar's child:

"I am grieved to hear of Tertia's loss of an expected child...(but) I should be glad of such a loss in the case of the queen (Cleopatra) and that [expected] scion of the breed of Caesar.​" [Cicero, ad Atticum, 14:20:2, 14:20:2, 15:1:5, 15:4:4]

There is also a coin of Cleopatra's which shows her suckling a child, usually interpreted to be Caesarion, and marked 'Kupr' (Cyprus).  Cleopatra only acquired control of Cyprus in 43 BC, when Caesarion, who was born in 47 BC, would be too old to be a suckling infant, and her children with Anthony weren’t born yet either.

This additional child with Caesar escaping further documentation is only plausible if it was a daughter, the Romans would not have considered a daughter a potential heir, Augustus had to adopt his Maternal Grandsons for them to be heirs.

You may ask why she's not mentioned in the Donations of Alexandria in 34 BC if she existed and was still alive then,  since Selene is implying women aren't left out.  Given the prior traditions of Ptolemaic Egypt I think this Daughter of Cleopatra was planned to simply be married to Caesarion and that's why she wasn't given a Kingdom of her own.  

Now others before me who’ve argued that this daughter of Cleopatra and Caesar existed seek to identify her with Musa the wife of Phraates IV and mother of Phraates V.  And I followed suit the first time I wrote something online about it.  But I no longer think Augustus would have given such a valuable daughter to the Parthians. And if Musa was actually some kind of Royalty and not the Italian Slave Girl historians have assumed her to be, it's have to be an inheritance more relevant Parthia not a connection to Egypt and Caesar.

If Augustus did intend to use this daughter for some Dynastic marriage then given her age he’d have done so before 20 BC, the significantly younger Cleopatra Selene was married to Juba in 25 BC (though she didn’t start bearing him children till over a decade later).

The thing is there was another woman named Cleopatra who got married to a Client King of the Roman Empire in 25 BC and whose ancestry is a complete mystery.  Cleopatra of Jerusalem the fifth wife of Herod The Great.  This Cleopatra started having children much sooner making me assume she was older then Selene, because contrary to popular myth no it wasn't normal for women back then to be forced to have children as young as 12-15.  If Cleopatra of Jerusalem was born in 44 BC then she would have been 20 by the time she had her first son by Herod who was also named Herod, the second was named Philip and is the Tetrarch mentioned in Luke 3:1.   And Judea has bene part of Ptolemaic Egypt at times so there was a relevant connection there.

Matthew 14:3, Mark 6:17 and Luke 3:19 all say Philip was the name of the brother of Herod Antipas who Herodias left to Mary Antipas.  But in Josephus this was the Herod who was the son of the daughter of High Priest Simon Boethus.  Because of this many theologians just want to call both these men “Herod Philip” but there is no real evidence either used the other name.  I think it’s Josephus (or our current versions of Josephus) who got Herodias’s husband wrong and also Philip’s wife wrong, I don’t think he was ever married to Salem daughter of Herodias but rather I think he’s the father of Salome.

Herod, grandson of Boethus, was not one of the Tetrarchs, he was actually living in Rome like many other non ruling Herodians at the time.  I’m sure many assume this is why Herodias wanted to change husbands, but this geographical distance makes arranging the swap difficult.  

When Antipas married Herodias he divorced his prior wife who was the daughter of Aretas IV of Nabataea, Aretas went to war over this in AD 34 and Philip The Tetrarch gave him assistance, so it sounds like they had a shared grievance.  

I’ve also seen it claimed that in Slavonic Josephus Herodias was married to Philip, but that’s easy to dismiss as altered by Christians and I’m not sure I trust what people say it says.

So if Salome was a great granddaughter of Cleopatra VII, does the line continue?  She married Aristobulus of Chalcis, a son of her mother’s brother, and had three sons named Herod, Agrippa and Aristobulus.  

The Very Name of God contradicts Divine Immutability

I have a prior post on this blog covering my dislike of Divine Immutability.  But now I have realized an even stronger argument against it.

At the burning bush God famously responds to Moses asking for His Name with “’ehye ’ăšer ’ehye” which the KJV and other well translations render as “I Am that I Am”.  However few scholars think that’s actually the best translation of the phrase.

Popular alternatives include.

“I will become what I will becoming”

“I am what I will be”

“I am what I am becoming”

“I will become what I choose to become”

“I am who I shall be”

“I shall be who I shall be”

I am about to use Wikipedia as a source, given recent Internet controversies I feel I need to be upfront about that fact.  Wikipedia can be crap, but in this case it’s accurately reflecting Hebrew Scholarship in a way that’s easy to understand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_that_I_Am

Biblical Hebrew did not distinguish between grammatical tenses. It instead had an aspectual system in which the perfect denoted any actions that have been completed, and imperfect denoted any actions that are not yet completed.[5][6][7] Additionally, if a verb form was prefixed by וַ־‎ (wa-), its aspect was inverted; a verb conjugated in the imperfect and prefixed by וַ־‎ would read as the perfect, while a verb conjugated in the perfect and prefixed by וַ־‎ would read as the imperfect. The word אֶהְיֶה‎ (ehyeh) is the first-person singular imperfect form of hayah, 'to be', which in Modern Hebrew indicates the future tense 'I will be'; however, it lacks the prefix וַ־‎ which would necessitate this reading in Biblical Hebrew. It therefore may be translated as 'I am', but also as a modal form such as 'I may be', 'I would be', 'I could be', etc. Accordingly, the whole phrase can be rendered in English not only as 'I am that I am' but also as 'I will be what I will be' or 'I will be who I will be', or 'I shall prove to be whatsoever I shall prove to be' or even 'I will be because I will be'. Other renderings include: Leeser, 'I Will Be that I Will Be'; Rotherham, 'I Will Become whatsoever I please'.

In other words it is perfectly valid to see the fundamental meaning of this phrase as Defining God defining Himself as still a Work in Progress.

Egypt and Japan (April Fools Day Post)

The surviving ancient depictions of Queen Nefertiti the wife of Akhenaton are kind of an Ethnic Rorshaq test.  In my time browsing the fringes of the Internet I’ve seen Afrocentrist Websites place one up with certainty that any unbiased observer would conclude she looks like a Sub Saharan Black African woman, and I’ve seen White Supremacists show the same images with equal confidence that she looks like a Blond Haired Blue Eyed Aryan.  Meanwhile I as a Weeb look at them and see Sanae Horikawa.

Now I have no actual desire to argue that any inhabitants of the Japanese islands (Yamato, Ainu or Ryukyuan) are the true rightful heirs of Ancient Egypt rather than the Copts. But as seemingly the only person in the Venn Diagram of people who are 1. Weebs, 2. Well informed of how Lost Tribes style fringe history works, and 3. Know more than the average person about Ancient Egypt.  I feel like making the argument facetiously just to show how easy it is to make up the more serious versions.

The Passion and Resurrection happened in 30 AD

I'm aware 33 AD is a more common date to cite, so I'm going to explain all the reasons I favor 30 AD. I won't bring Daniel's 70 weeks into it, in order for the Prophetic significance of that to be impressive we must prove independently that it points to the same date, so I'll do address that in a separate study.

The biggest chronological mistake made when dealing with the Crucifixion is when people incorrectly state that John refers to three or four Passovers occurring during Jesus's ministry. (The discrepancy between three and four is a Feast being refereed to that isn't identified.) John 2 (It's second story), John 6 and 12 all refer to Passover clearly, the last being the Passover season of the Crucifixion. John 5 refers to a Jewish feast but doesn't identify which, many then assume this is Passover. Since the Passover is largely the thematic heart of John's narrative I believe he would have identified it if it was Passover. I believe the one in John 5 is possibly Purim or Pentecost.

So John has three at most. The problem is the basic narrative of the Synoptics do not seem to allow more then a Year and a few months for Jesus' Ministry. The thing people overlook is that John's Gospel is the most Mystical of the Gospels, and because of that it's not always purely Chronological, sometimes events are described next to each other for symbolic reasons, not because they actually happened side by side.

John 2 describes two stories. The first is the miracle of turning water into wine at a wedding banquet. That story clearly seems to be at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, since it's presentedas his first public miracle. The second story involves The Temple. I believe they're told side by side because together they make John 2 a Beth chapter. Beth is the second letter of the Hebrew Alphabet, and it also means house. So John 2 deals with both The House as in the Family and The House as in the House of God. Both also refer to a three day period of time.

What is so often and to me annoyingly overlooked is that John 2 gives clearly a more detailed account of the Cleansing of The Temple. Which the Synoptics clearly place in the same week as the Crucifixion. Some would suggest it happened twice, but in the Synoptics it's clearly the last straw that drives the ScribesPharisees Pharisees and the Priesthood to want Jesus dead, if he'd done the same thing 2 or 3 years before that wouldn't make much sense. It's also interesting that the Synoptic account alludes to what only John records Jesus saying here, (About destroying this Temple and rebuilding it in 3 days) in the form of false witnesses misrepresenting it, but my point here is it's presented as something He said recently.

So in truth John gives a Ministry of only just over a year (many Atheists criticize the Gospels by saying the Synoptics clearly depict a ministry of only about a year and that John's three year model is then a contradiction. I've provided the means to refute that,) or maybe even less.  And since John 2 is recording the Passover season of the Crucifixion, that is very useful since John 2 dates itself.

"Forty and six years has this temple been in building". The renovations of the Temple Herod started wasn't finished till the 60s, so this is referring to them speaking 46 years after Herod's renovations began. 20/19 BC is when Herod first announced the project, but as a careful study of Josephus shows it really began in late 18 or early 17 B.C. So 46 years latter on Passover brings us to 30 A.D.  Ussher dated John 2's Temple incident to the same year, but repeated the error I explained above.

Even John 6 might actually have the same Passover season in mind, since the preparation for Passover in a sense begins an entire 30 days before in Rabbinic custom, around Purim, and in John 6 they're not in Jerusalem yet  But that could go either way for my current theory to work.  John 6 is either the 30 or 29 AD Passover.

--Lactanius, "On the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died", .2, tells us that only "25 years" lapsed, "until the beginning of the reign of Nero". Nero became Emperor in 55 A.D.

What else can give further support to 30 AD? In the Talmud Yoma 39b it says

Our Rabbis taught: During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple the lot [‘For the Lord’] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-coloured strap become white; nor did the westernmost light shine; and the doors of the Hekal would open by themselves, until R. Johanan b. Zakkai rebuked them, saying: Hekal, Hekal, why wilt thou be the alarmer thyself? I know about thee that thou wilt be destroyed, for Zechariah ben Ido has already prophesied concerning thee: Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.

40 years before The Temple's destruction takes us to 30 AD The reference to Johanan ben Zakkai confirms this is the second destruction, not the first.  Why link the beginning of this period to the Crucifixion?  Because the Veil was torn when Jesus died.

On the Roman calendar calendaryears were always named after the Consuls at the year's start. The solider who pierced the side of Christ came to be named Longinus in extra Biblical tradition. It is often explained as only a pun on the Greek word for spear John used, Logche (long'-khay). But Longinus was a real Roman name, as a family name of the Cassius who killed Caesar, so that Longinus's feast day in Catholic tradition becomes the 15th of March is interesting. The Longinus who was Consul for 30 AD was a great Nephew of the killer of Caesar, however a direct descendent Suffect Consul later in the year. Perhaps the name became linked to the Crucifixion because it was linked to the year it happened.

This is mostly something I already wrote on my retired Prophecy Blog in 2014, I'm more open to having mind changed on this now then I was back then, so feel free to leave counterarguments in the comments.

Reformism is Good Actually

Now Reformism can mean different things to different people in different contexts.

Bad Mouse made a recent video critiquing Electoralism and I agree with most of it. I also refuse to be bullied into voting for the lesser of two evils, but he then ties that into his overall anti-Reformism.  You can be an Anti-Reformist who engages in Electoralism, getting allises into the state to help the Revolution from within is a valid strategy.  And you can be a Reformist who rejects Electoralism, but even I don’t reject Electoralism entirely, I am willing to vote for someone who isn’t even a fellow Communist, but they have to be advocating for actual meaningful Reforms like the Basic Income or Universal Healthcare, not the mere bandages the Democrats run on.

When Karl Marx famously said about certain Socialist in France "ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas marxiste" ("what is certain is that [if they are Marxists], [then] I myself am not a Marxist"). He was talking about the radical Anti-Reformists, Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue. And their opposition to reformists tactics is exactly what he was objecting to, not any of their policy goals (I very much like and recommend LaFargue’s The Right To Be Lazy).

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm

After the programme was agreed, however, a clash arose between Marx and his French supporters arose over the purpose of the minimum section. Whereas Marx saw this as a practical means of agitation around demands that were achievable within the framework of capitalism, Guesde took a very different view: “Discounting the possibility of obtaining these reforms from the bourgeoisie, Guesde regarded them not as a practical programme of struggle, but simply ... as bait with which to lure the workers from Radicalism.” The rejection of these reforms would, Guesde believed, “free the proletariat of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers ’89.” [4.] Bernard H. Moss, The Origins of the French Labour Movement, 1830-1914, 1976, p.107.

Now I’m not the kind of Leftist who thinks Marx was infallible and thus his opinion is all I need.  There are in fact some things that I feel History has not vindicated Marx on, however his assessment of the nature of French Anti-Reformists was very vindicated.

During the Dreyfus Affair the Anti-Reformists said that Socialists shouldn't get involved in such internal conflicts of the Bourgeois with the one exception of Jean Allemane, besides him the Socialists actively flocking to oppose the birth of modern Anti-Semitism were the Anti-Reformists like Jean Jaures and the Possibilitists lead by Paul Brousse and Benoit Malon.  Honestly it sounds a lot like today where a certain type of Marxist-Leninist sees it as a distraction to get involved with anything that even remotely seems like a “Culture War '' issue or “Identity Politics”.

Wikipedia is very frustrating, the Wiki Pages for some of these Reformist figures I just mentioned have clearly been partially edited by people who just accept at face value that notion that Reformism is itself Non-Marxist even though on other pages Wikipedia itself quotes what Marx said in favor of Reformism.

Modern Anti-Reformist like Bad Mouse love to cite the history of the SPD as a vindication, that their support of entry into WWI and every betrayal of the working class they committed after the German Revolution is the result of them once being well intentioned Marxists who were corrupted by involvement with the State.  And the funny thing is these Marxists wind up without realizing it agreeing with the very Kropotkin Anarchist attitude that is the very reason I largely stopped calling myself an anarchist, their very cartoonish “Power corrupts absolutely” worldview.

First of all Germany wasn’t the only country with an established Socialist Party when WWI started.  In Italy and Britain and the United States it was the Pro-War Socialists who were the minority forced out of the established Party to start new ones, and those new parties they started became early Fascism or something analogous.  And no, those Socialist Parties were not any less engaged in Electoralism and Reformism then the SPD was.  The Labor Party had Pro-War elements but no one claims they were ever Marxists.

In France the split the war caused was closer to being 50/50 but it was mostly the surviving Anti-Reformists (with Allemane not being an exception this time) who supported the War and became firmly Nationalists, Guesde, Hubert Lagardelle, Gustave Hervé and they too like other Pro-War Leftists are tied to the origins of French Fascism.  Meanwhile the leading French Reformist Jean Jares virulently opposed the War and was Martyred for it, he’s the Rosa Luxemburg of France. 

Even Anarchists, the people more Anti-Electoralism than any Marxists back then had a split over the War with even Kropotkin himself supporting it.  Lately a lot of MLs on Twitter have been trying to build an “Anarchism to Fascism pipeline” thesis based on how many Italian Anarchist became Fascists, however it was only Pro-War Anarchists who became Fascists and plenty of Pro-War Marxists and even a Leninist became Fascists in Italy.

The problem with painting the SPD’s history as Bad Mouse likes to is that the SPD was founded by Ferdinand Lassale not Marxists, the German Socialists who never even claimed to believe that the State should ever be abolished or wither away.  Marxists wound up being in the Party but its leadership was always more Lassalean even if they sometimes paid lip service to Marxist ideas.  So they can’t be identified with any internal disagreement between Marxists.

The Reformist Marxists were Kautsky and Bernstein, they were different from each other  in a lot of well documented ways, but Kautsky was always a Reformist the claim of Leninists that he betrayed his early ideals while reacting to the Russian Revolution is a lie, he in the 1890s sided with the French Reformists I talked about above.  Tristam Pratorius has some Medium articles defending Kautsky and Bernstein, they seem to be more a Bersnteinist while I like Kautsky more but still her articles are good.

One important observation they make is that when Marx and Engles talked about “Bourgeois Democracy” they were being literal not euphemistic, Britain, Germany and even much of the United States still had property requirements on the very right to Vote.  It never meant that Communists are supposed to reject anything that a Liberal would recognize as Democratic.  Now I do believe we need more Direct Democracy and less Representative Democracy, but even a Representative Democracy as corrupt as ours still can be used.

Let’s take this historical analysis even further back.  The Marxist view of history is often oversimplified as making The French Revolution of 1789 the key turning point from Feudalism to Capitalism.  And that helps cause some Marxists to think of Reform as futile, if it took a fully blown violent Revolution for Capitalism to overthrow Feudalism then certainly it will have to be the same for the replacement of Capitalism.

The problem is France was closer to being the Last nation to become Capitalist than the first.  Marx was born and raised in Prussia then lived in Britain from 1848 till he died.  So the Capitalism he knew was Capitalism as it functioned in countries that became that way by Reform not Revolution.  

But even France had also been subject to a lot of Capitalist Reforms before 1789 without which the Bourgeois Revolution could not have happened.  Anne Robert Jacques Turgot was doing Reaganomics already in the 1770s.

As I explained in a prior post about Basic Income and The New Deal, when the so-called Working Class Party is opposing something obviously helpful to the Working Class on the grounds of “it’s a Capitalist Appeasement” or whatever it alienates the Working Class from that party.

Agape and Eros and other words for Love

I have a prior post on this Blog deconstructing the notion that the various Greek words for Love are mutually exclusive types of Love, and I've touched on the subject in some others.  I stand by essentially everything I said there but I've also refined my understanding a bit.

Eros is absent from The New Testament, that fact is the main cause of this commotion, the idea that Eros is the only Greek word for Love that is inherently Sexual is the invention of Augustinian Puritanical Christians who want to separate Sex form all the positive Love talk in The New Testament, especially when it says God IS Love and that Jesus commanded us to Love one another or when it mentions Love Feasts as a sacrament.  Because if they did they might have to accept that The Church was meant to be a giant Polycule.

Problem is the Septuagint Greek Translation of The Song of Songs aka The Song of Solomon also only uses Agape and never Eros, the most obviously "Erotic" book uses Agape not Eros.  Elsewhere the Septuagint uses Agape and Eros interchangeably to translate the Hebrew Ahav.  You also can't define Agape as the pure kind of Love that can't be corrupted by Sin when the Septuagint also uses a form of Agape when it says Amnon "loved" Tamar when he raped her in 2 Samuel 13:1.

People who have bought into this concept can't even agree on how to define Agape, in ContraPoints' new excellent video on Twilight (which I'll mention again later) Agape is defined as "Spiritual Love", the King James Bible in many passages translates it as "Charity".  Now the concept of Charity is very Biblical but every appearance of that word in the KJV is a mistranslation of Agape.

The issue with Agape is the overwhelming vast majority of Ancient usage of the word is by Christians and Greek Speaking Jews.  It does exist in Greek independent of that influence, a form of it does appear in Homer.  But using it as a standard part of every day vocabulary as much or more then Philia and Eros seems to have been the exclusive practice of Abrahamic Monotheists.

There is usually said to be Five Greek words for Love, but only three concern me here.  Eros, Philia and Agape.  There are distinctions between them that would cause a careful writer to prefer one over the other in a given context, but those differences are more connotative then definitional.

Because I'm a Weeb I'm once again going to use some Japanese words to help clarify how I feel these three Greeks should be thought of.

Agape = Ai

Eros = Koi

Philia = Suki

In the 24th episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion the character Kowaru uses the word Suki to describe how he feels about Shinji.  In the first ever officially licensed English Localization of NGE which was the ADV films VHS Subtitled release Suki was translated Like "I like you".  Later ADV releases however would upgrade this to "I love you".  And so when the Netflix versions of Eva went up a few years ago well a lot of things were disliked for good reasons but the most intense discourse was about it translating Suki as Like, with most not even knowing that was what ADV did the first time.  The idea that this decision inherently straight washed the scene is silly because what makes Kowaru and Shinji's relationship very obviously Gay are the Vibes not any of the specific words they use.  The English word Love is not always Romantic/Sexual and English usage of Like very much can be, I know this because I'm an older Millennial with a lot of childhood memories of watching The Wonder Years.

All that context is why I identify Philia with Suki, even Philia is not inherently asexual as shown by there being a sexual goddess named Philotes, in fact it survived in how many modern terms use Philia to describe a Sexual attraction.  However it is the only of the three that can be used with a complete absence of Passion.  In John 11 Philia is used twice when it is only Jesus feelings for Lazarus being described while Agape is used of Lazarus and his Sisters.  That's why when it comes to the "Beloved Disciple" verses in later chapters I view it as Mar (Magdalene and "Of Bethany" are the same Mary in my view)y when Agape is used but Lazarus the one time Philia is used.

Ai is a word for Love that is clearly associated with Romantic Love and Sexual Love and Love that is neither of those.  Koi however is the most connotatively sexual of the Japanese words for Love in a way that makes it more likely to be used in the title of a Hentai.  

Eros isn't absent from the New Testament because what it does refer to is inherently sinful, it's just not the best word for what these authors are focusing on.  It has to do with the association of Eros with not just Passion but intense uncontrollable Passion. Agape absolutely does include what a modern English Speaker usually mean by Romantic or Erotic Love.

In ContraPoints's Twilight video she introduces the discussion of Eros by repeating the common error that the Greek words for Love refer to different things.  However her elaboration on Eros shows that she understands it connotatively to be even more specific then just Romantic/Sexual, it's about Passion, Desire, Longing, Craving, a bunch of obscure words I've already forgotten.  The problem is when you equate that proper understanding of Eros with the notion that the other Greek Words for love have nothing to do with Sex or Romance it causes one to have a very demeaning view of Romantic relationships that lack this unbridled Passion and thus her characterizing most Committed Long Term Relationship where the Passion has died out as not even truly being Romantic anymore.  I think it cam be very Romantic to just wholesomely enjoy another person's company.

And that's my only criticism of the video, overall it's fantastic.  

Well I'm also annoyed by her reference to Stoicism, once again the average YouTube Philosopher's understanding of Stoicism is entirely filtered through Late or Roman Stoicism which had incorporated aspects of Pythagorean Sexual morality.  Zeno Stoics were the Communist Free Love Hippies of the Hellenistic World.  Zeno tried to redefine Eros in a way that made it no longer about uncontrollable Passion but still absolutely Sexual.  It is still my hypothesis that there is a connection between Zeno's Eros and New Testament Agape.

Jezreel is New Testament Nazareth.

 I'm not questioning the traditional identification of Nazareth because I'm impressed by any New Atheist pseudo Archeological claims it didn't exist till the 2nd century.  I think that Nazareth is perfectly Ancient but probably wasn't called Nazareth originally being one of the villages of Japhia mentioned in Joshua 19:12-16.

The Problem is Matthew 4:13-15's application of Isaiah 9:1 (which I'd often willfully misread in the past) clearly says that when Jesus left Nazareth for Capernaum He was entering the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, meaning where He was before can't be part of either of those tribal allotments.  And both traditional Nazareth next to Japhia and Sepphoris which was my former alternative theory are firmly in Zebulun.  Since NT Nazareth was definitely part of the Greco-Roman era definition of Galilee that pretty much narrows it down to Issachar, possibly including areas originally first allotted to Issachar that Manasseh wound up taking according to Joshua 17:11, Judges 1:27, 1 Chronicles 7:29 and 1 Kings 4:12.

Why is Zebulun seemingly already added to Isaiah 9's definition of Galilee since everywhere else the name of Galilee appears in the Hebrew Bible it's just to the sea of Galilee and thus when talking about west of the Jordan tribal allotments only tied to Naphtali?  Well Isaiah was contemporary with the Fall of the Northern Kingdom when the people of Naphtali were carried away into captivity by Tilgathpilneser King of Assyria, Zebulun however was among the tribes specifically not deported, they are still there for Hezekiah's Passover.  So I think once Naphtali's lands were depopulated the people of Zebulun who had a pretty small allotment originally basically expanded to absorb formally Naphtalite territory.  And that's why I believe all of the 12 Disciples except Judas Iscariot were of the Tribe of Zebulun.

The popular theory that the name of Nazareth is related to the Hebrew word for Branch used in Isaiah 11 is often criticized on the grounds that the Hebrew letter Tsade usually becomes a Sigma in Hellenic transliteration, so the spelling of Nazareth in the Greek texts of the NT using a Zeta implies the letter for Z used in the Hebrew or Aramaic was probably Zayin.

Did you know the medieval/modern Arabic name for the city of Jezreel is Zir'in?  At first glance I found that weird, but it does descend from the same Semitic root that is the core of the Biblical Hebrew Jezreel, the Hebrew word Zerah commonly translated Seed.  And indeed in both Zerah and Jezreel the Hebrew letter for Z is Zayin.  Meanwhile the Hebrew letter for N is sometimes used as a Prefix meaning "we will".  If Jezreel is the Hebrew and Zir'in the Arabic then it could be that in-between Nazareth was the Aramaic.  Meanwhile the meaning of "Branch" is still related poetically.

Joshua 19:18 placed Jezreel in the territory of Issachar which is outlined in Joshua 19:17-23, though it could be that verse is referring to the valley not the city.  Being associated with the border it could indeed be an area that was ultimately taken by Manasseh.  I think in the NT era those tribally of Issachar were called Iscariot and that the family of Mary was probably of Manasseh.

The Prophet Hosea mentioned Jezreel by name four times in total, thrice in chapter 1 in verses 4, 5 and 11, and then one last time in chapter 2 verse 22.  They first speak of YHWH Avenging the blood of Jezreel agaisnt the house of Jehu.  The concept being alluded to there is the Goel/Redeemer of The Torah who is supposed to be a Kinsman.  

But then the other uses of the name are more positive happy ending references.  They also involve Hosea naming one of his sons Jezreel.  I think it's reasonable to interpret Hosea as foretelling that the Messiah who will Redeem Israel will be of Jezreel, and that this is the Nazarene Prophecy Matthew 2:23 spoke of.  Also Paul in Romans 9:25 quotes passages of Hosea that were in the context of those Jezreel prophecies.

Meanwhile the role that Megiddo plays in the history of Jehu in 2 Kings 9:29 and how it parallels Megiddo's role in the fate of Josiah in 2 Kings 23:29-30 and 2 Chronicles 35:22, has me thinking that the avenging of the Blood of Jezreel agaisnt Jehu is tied to the Eschatological role of Megiddo in Zachariah 12:11 and Revelation 16:16.  After all the Valley of Jezreel is also called the Valley of Megiddo.

When Herodotus in Book 2:159 of his histories while discussing Pharaoh Necho refers to the Battle of Megiddo where King Josiah died, he spells the name of Megiddo as Magdolos.  Maybe the Magdalene epithet used in The Gospels actually refers to Megiddo?

There is also the matter of Jesus foretelling He would not be accepted in His "own country", or Hometown in some translations (referring to Nazareth) in Luke 4:24, Matthew 13:57, Mark 6:4 and John 4:4.  Traditional Nazareth and nearby Japhia/Yafa became Christian in antiquity and still have significant Christian populations to this day, in fact they were majority Christian as recently as the British Mandate Census of 1922 and again in 1931.  But Jezreel never became Christian, it was visited by Christian Pilgrims in the 4th century who depict it as still practicing it's Pre-Christian rites, and then Zir'in was a purely Muslim city.

Now you could argue that Muslims view Jesus as a Prophet so Zir'in accepted Jesus as a Prophet and as Messiah Ben-David when they became Muslim, but that's a very roundabout indirect way to accept Jesus.  When one converts to Islam it is the Prophethood of Muhammad they are chiefly accepting, Jesus just plays a role in that message.  It would be like referring to Christian Europe as Mosaic.

It can also be argued that Jesus meant at the time, clearly all those past Prophets "not accepted in their own town" He had in mind were accepted Posthumously by their Prophecies becoming canonized Hebrew Scripture.  And as a proponent of Universal Salvation I believe everyone accepts Jesus eventually.  So no I would not rule out traditional Nazareth and look for a city that never became Christian based on this argument alone. It again comes down to these Hosea prophecies, can they arguably be viewed as not fully completely fulfilled till everything in Revelation is fulfilled?  I think they can but I don't see it as something to be dogmatic about.

But also just how shocking it is that this city never became Christian even during the Byzantine period when it was the dominant Religion in the region and some Emperors actively sought to persecute those who didn't convert?  Jezreel's stubborn refusal to convert is frankly admirable in that context.

No Purgatory still isn't Biblical in Universal Salvation based Theology.

Every now and then I'll see an ally on Universal Salvation say something like "The Catholics were right about Purgatory" and even I have bordered on the sentiment in the past.  However that completely misunderstands the purpose Purgatory has in Augustinian, Mediaeval and Tridentine Theology.

The root word that Purgatory comes from is Biblical, there is talk about Purging Fire in Scripture, however it is used as a verb not a noun.  Purgatory as a name of a plane of existence is based on pointing to the verses that most undeniably refer to Corrective Judgment like in Malachi 3 and 1 Corinthians 3 and all the Refining Fire passages The Total Victory of Christ likes to talk about and saying they are referring to something different from The Lake of Fire in Revelation or from the Gehenna Fire Jesus warned of .  While those of us who have a proper Biblical understanding of Universal Salvation conclude those are all the same and can't be separated from each other.  

Augustine was clear that Purgatory was only for the Baptized.  It was in origin explicitly about rejecting Universal Salvation by creating an alternate explanation for the existence of Corrective Punishment passages.

It also when combined with the Platonist denial of Soul Sleep created a teaching that Purgatory is a place many of the dead currently are in, and this is where the idea of Praying for The Dead came from, which lead to the whole Indulgences thing, the Indulgences never claimed to get anyone out of "Hell" they were about shortening one's potential stay in Purgatory.  I however view all of the relevant passages as not happening till The White Throne Judgment after the Bodily Resurrection of even Unbelievers.

Purgatory was not an incidental doctrine that came to be labeled Catholic during the Reformation, it was actually vital to understanding the inciting Incident, Martín Luther wasn't even agaisnt the Office of the Papacy yet when he nailed the 95 Theses, everything he initially talked about were Symptoms of the false Doctrine of Purgatory.

Purgatory isn't a term for affirming Corrective Punishment, it's a term for limiting it only to Believers.

The Sheep and Goats Judgment is a Judgment of Nations not Individuals

While I don't always agree with The Total Victory of Christ YouTube channel (like their overreliance on the Creeds) their discussions of the Sheep and Goats Judgment of Matthew 25 are pretty good.  What I have to say here is in addition to all of that not in opposition to it.

Because another key point believers in Universal Salvation should stress is that this is a judgment of Nations not Individuals, that is explicitly the word used in verse 32.  I know Dispensationalists want to say "nations" here means "Gentiles" and that "the least of these my brethren" are The Jews.  But the Hebrew "Goyim" Biblically meant Nations, the modern "Gentiles" meaning came later, even if it is relevant to some NT uses of "Ethnos" it's not universal and in a context like this certainly doesn't work.  It's obvious from the context that "the least of these my brethren" means the poor and suffering and marginalized and least privileged of society not people literally genealogically "brethren" to Him in a way others are not.  Jesus is The Son of Man, all children of Adam are his brethren no matter if they recognize Him as their Savior yet or not.

As a Parable I don't think this is the most literal depiction of what the coming Judgment will look like. But the Moral of the Story is that Nations will be Judged based on whether or not they fed and cared for the poor and needy, an idea The Hebrew Bible already communicated in Ezekiel 16:49.

And so this understanding of Matthew 25 isn't just relevant to Universal Salvation but also to Christian Communism.  The argument of Conservative and Libertarian Christians that the Communalism of the Early Church in Acts or all the stress Jesus put on caring for The Poor all over this Gospels are only calling for Voluntary Charity and do not support Government Action are destroyed by this clear and simple reading of Matthew 25:31-46.  Yet everyone forgets to consider it relevant to that topic because we're so caught up in arguing over what it says the Punishment will be rather then who's being Punished and what The Sin is.