So yeah, the mods on /r/AcademicBiblical have permanently banned me. Ask me anything.

Contra Geoffrey Smith and Brent Landau of last year, I will reject "Option 3," that the material Smith found was a forgery, but not by him. (They claim it was written ca 600-700 CE by monks at Mar Saba to justify same-sex relationships known to have a certain frequency in the monastic world at this time, some platonic, some likely not.)

I have always rejected "Option 2," that Smith found "the real deal." (That said, I consider it barely more tenable than Option 3.)

And, that leaves Option 1.

My discussion of that, and the related matter of the "discovery" of the Book of the Law, based on a piece by Paul Davidson of "Is That in the Bible," and on Idan Dershowitz's work on Moses Wilhelm Shapira, whom he says DID discover an apparent "Proto-Deuteronomy."

if anyone is interested in biblical chronology there is information available at the link.

Biblical Chronology

Is anyone aware of an English translation of Wellhausen’s Die Composition des Hexateuchs?

Hi all. I’m trying my to compile an exhaustive list of books/commentaries/websites that delineate the JEDP sources throughout the Pentateuch/Hexateuch - through color-coding or otherwise. Can anyone kindly help complete the following list?

Historico-Critical Inquiry Into The Origin And Composition Of The Hexateuch (Abraham Keunen)

Die composition des Hexateuchs (Julius Wellhausen) (English translation?)

Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Julius Wellhausen)

Books of Genesis-Deuteronomy (Samuel Rolles Driver)

Anchor Bible Series (Yale)

The Life of Moses (John Van Seters)

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary

The Bible with Sources Revealed (Richard Elliott Friedman)

The First Book of God (Tzemah Yoreh)

https://opensiddur.org/shared/readings-and-sourcetexts/weekly-torah-readings/annual-cycle/sefer-bereshit/parashat-bereshit/ (Tzemah Yoreh)

r/SkepticsBibleStudy or https://www.reddit.com/r/SkepticsBibleStudy/ both should land you there. But i am attempting a believer/unbeliever bible study. It will require all kinds of people. If you are interested, we open with the Gospel of John

Greetings, everyone. I would like to ask if anyone has some books, articles or other materials regarding the use of the word "psyche" in the Old Testament and why was it used to translate "nefesh" and such.
Thank you!

Hello,

I thought some of you might be interested in checking out r/AcademicQuran (disclosure: I'm a mod there). Our sub is similar to this one except we focus on Qur'anic studies, Islamic origins and early Islam, as well as relating these to trends in the pre-Islamic period. Feel free to check it out!

-chonkshonk

Saw this post on Reddit that cracked me up so hard.

Is Being Circumcised So Painful And Incredible Physical Impediment That You'd Be Helpless In A Fight? Would It Actually Be Possible For A Single Man Take On A Room Of Over 50 Guys Just Circumcised Few Days Ago And Defeat Them?

The question sounds silly but after reading the story of Genesis 34 where two guys Simeon and Levi slaughter an entire city of guys who just got circumcised like a week earlier all by themselves with blades, I am very curious just how painful and physically handicapping it is after you are circumcised. Is it so debilitating even after a few days of rest?

Would it be easy for you to defeat someone of say Bruce Lee's physical prowess and fighting skills easily after they rested a day or to and get released from the hospital but with bandages all over their penis and they need to avoid exhausting physical exercise like jogging despite being released from the hospital?

Would it actually be possible for like 5 men to wipe out an entire small suburb of males just circumsized five days ago? Even a small entire circumcised town with just two people? Maybe even a city of circumcised dudes with one man?

Or is this utter complete BS from the Old Testament? Is there any truth tot he story at all regarding the consequences of circumcision?

Other than how much the premise made me laugh so much literally almost died because of lack of breath........

In all seriousness is the massacre of the town after the mass circumcisions by just two men in the aforementioned Genesis 34 story plausible? Would circumcision actually weaken you enough for in whats called in military terms a squad (8 men minimal, 14 at most) or even a fireteam (4 men and the smallest unit at least in the US Army) to go around and wipe out what amounts to a small military fort with nothing but bronze age blades and heavy wooden sticks?

Hey guys I believe in Jesus and I need a expert opinion because I know in the Bible it says to not make any carves images of God it is therefore an abomination but with the amount of times and metonia that I pray to God for I have had this gift and sealed as from a vision that God blessed me with this awesome gift but I want to use it the way God wants me to help!

[C.C McCown observed](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3259543?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents)

The central section of the third gospel (9 51 -18 14), which has long been a scholars puzzle, has been variously described. Certain ealry students of the Gospels called it a "gnomology," a collection of proverbial sayings, in a travel narrative. Over a century ago the pious Catholic, Hug, remarked that it was not connected history but detached fragments, or if the word be preferred, "collectanea", it recorded the beginings of at least two journeys from Galilee to Jerusalem, but did not finish them....

Abstract From Stephen Young's paper

>> This article examines how Evangelical Christian inerrantist scholars theorize their biblical scholarship and its relation to the broader academy, highlighting (1) their self-representation as true academics, and (2) the ways they modulate historical methods to prefer interpretive options that keep the Bible inerrant. Using these characteristics of inerrantist theorizing, the article redescribes their scholarship in terms of the religious studies rubrics of “protective strategies” and “privileging” insider claims. It then exploits this redescription to explore various characteristics of inerrantist religiosity from a Practice Theory vantage point, noting especially inerrantist religiosity’s highly intellectualized nature as well as features of its fields of discourse production and consumption, and their participants, that differentiate them from broader academic fields focused on the Bible. Overall the article thus provides a detailed positive account of inerrantist scholarship and introduces scholars to the utility of this data set for studying contemporary religiosity and religious “protectionism.” https://brill.com/view/journals/bi/23/1/article-p1_1.xml

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An interesting discussion by Andrew Henry, about AI and [apocalyptic thought](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk2aUz00_AY)

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>>What happens when the lines between ancient prophecies and modern technology blur? In this video, we explore the striking similarities between religious apocalyptic literature and the predictions surrounding artificial intelligence and the Singularity. Discover how scholars like Robert Geraci and Beth Singler have identified the echoes of ancient apocalyptic narratives in the works of AI theorists like Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec.

Mark Goodacre discusses revising his 2001 study, The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze.

Mark Goodacre asks in his most recent episodeon NT Pod

What is a soul?

Does God have a soul?

Does God have three souls, one for each member of the Trinity?

It is said that there is one God who is three persons of which Christ is one and that Christ being one person has two natures one that is completely human and one that is completely divine, if that is true would that mean that Christ has two souls and the Trinity has four?

Or would you say that Christ is one person and only has one soul and one nature and that one nature is completely human and divine?

Maybe God in eternity past had no soul but when Christ became incarnated the Trinity gained a single human soul, could that be right?

Is it profitable to ask questions that we do not have authoritative answers to?

To that last question I think the answer is yes but I do not think we should divide or argue vehemently about whatever answers we come to.

Do you find posts like this helpful or should such conversations not be had in the sight of non believers and only had in person after a few drinks with friendly academic theologians :)

USING THE 70 "JUBILIEE COVENANT" CALENDAR TO DETERMINE ABSOLUTE DATES IN ANCIENT BIBLE HISTORY

INTRODUCTION: If you can come up with an absolute date for an event in ancient history, it's just incredible. The Israelite Jubilee Calendar requires absolute dates for the Exodus, the return from Babylon and the reigns of David and Solomon for starters.

The Bible has its own historical timeline. It dates many events using relative chronology. In addition, the Israelites were under a 70-jubilee covenant for a period of 3430 years from 1435 BCE to 1996 AD. Jubilees occur every 49 years. The jubilee is celebrated on the first year of each 49 years, which is also the 50th year of the previous 49 years. We can use this calendar to fix the absolute date for the Exodus and from there we can date David and Solomon as well as the year the Jews came out of exile from Babylon. We just need one reliable absolute date in the covenant calendar to arrive at absolute dates for every other event in the calendar. That one good absolute date is 29 CE, the year Jesus was baptized.

The covenant is for seventy jubilees. The covenant also breaks up into seven days of 490 years each. Jesus Christ fulfills the 70th week of the third day of the covenant at the first coming, as well as the 70th week of the seventh day of the covenant at the second coming. The third day of the covenant is from 455 BCE to 36 CE. The 70th week of the first coming is from 29-36 CE. Jesus dies in the middle of the week, thus fulfilling the first half of the 70th week. Jesus fulfills the second half of the 70th week at the second coming. We can calculate to the end of the seventh day of the covenant by adding another four consecutive days of 490 years each.

4x490=1960+36=1996

Thus the seventh day of the covenant ends in 1996. The seventh day of the covenant is from 1506-1996. The 70th week of the seventh covenant day is 1989-1996. Jesus comes in the middle of the week to end the Lord's Supper, which is a form of gift and sacrifice. The midweek Passover is in 1993. Thus Jesus must arrive for the second coming sometime after Passover of 1992 but prior to Passover of 1993.

We can calculate the beginning of the jubilee covenant period by adding two days of 490 years to 455 BCE. 2x490=980+455=1435 BC The beginning of the 70 jubilee covenant begins in 1435 BCE. The Exodus is the first jubilee of the covenant, which is 49 years after the covenant begins. Thus the absolute date for the Exodus per the Jubilee Covenant Calendar is 1386 BCE.

1435-49=1386 BCE

Now, the first thing we want to do is compare this date with archaeology. Archaeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon says that Jericho fell at the hands of the Israelites between 1350-1325 BCE.[1] The Jubilee Covenant Calendar dates the fall of Jericho 40 years after the Exodus in 1346 BCE, which falls within the range determined by archaeology. The popular date for the Exodus by the scular timeline in 1446 BCE or by Jehovah's Witnesses in 1513 BCE[2] are both far too early. The secular date is 60 years too early and the JW date is some 127 years too early. Biblical archaeologists and Jehovah's Witnesses both use the revised timeline date of 537 BCE as the basis of their chronology.

1446-1396=60; 1513-1386=127

THE RETURN FROM BABYLON: We can now assign absolute dates to persons and events such as David and Solomon orthe return from Babylon, both being directly connected to the Exodus. Let's do the return from Babylon first.

The Israelites had to pay back 430 years of missed sabbaths which amounted to 70 years that had to be paid back; the land was to lie desolate for 70 years. The ten tribes were fined 39 years each (10x39=390 years) and Judah was fined 40 years. This combines to 430 years of missed sabbaths.

(390+40=430)

We divide 430 years by the two kinds of agri-sabbaths to be kept, which was the 7th-year sabbath and the 50th year sabbath.

430/7=61.4 430/50=8.6 61.4+8.6=70

The Israelites kept the sabbaths only half the time, so we double the time of the missed sabbaths of 430 years to get 860 years and then add in 70 make-up years, which is 930 years. This is one year shy of exactly 19 jubilees which is 931 years. We then subtract the 931 years from the Exodus date of 1386 BCE. This gives us the absolute date of the return from Babylon in 455 BCE.

19x49=931 1386-931=455 BCE

An astronomical text called the VAT4956 has double dating to both 568 BCE and 511 BCE. The text is dated to year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar. When we use 511 BCE as the original date for year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, his 23rd year falls in 525 BCE. This is the year of the last deportation when the 70-year desolation began. (Jer. 52:30) Thus the 70 years of exile and desolatoin did actually end in 455 BCE. The VAT4956 actually gives us the original dating!

525-70=455 BCE

Likewise, in 1913, Martin Anstey in his "Romance of Bible Chronology" also concluded that per the Bible, the 1st of Cyrus and the return from Babylon should be dated to 455 BCE. 455 BCE begins the "70 weeks" prophecy leading to the appearance of the messiah at the first coming in 29 CE. Cyrus must fulfill this prophecy. He concluded that the Persian period had been artificially expanded some 82 years.

Briefly, here's what happened. The Persians influenced Xenophon to add extra years to the Greek timeline. He ended up adding 56 years. The Persians then stole 26 years from the Neo-Babylonian period. Thus all the records from Babylon including the Babylonian chronicle are copies from the reign of Darius II during the Persian period. These 26 years plus the 56 years added up to a total of 82 extra years for the Persian timeline.

56+26=82

So to arrive at the true date of the return, we simply subtract 82 years from 537 BCE, the revised date the new timeline assigns to the end of the exile, which also gives us the correct date of 455 BCE.

537-82=455 BCE

ABSOLUTE DATES FOR DAVID AND SOLOMON: We can calculate the absolute dates for the reigns of David and Solomon by subtracting 480 years from the date of the Exodus (1 Kings 6:1), which gives us year 4 of Solomon. Year 4 of Solomon occurs in 906 BCE, therefore his rule would be from 910-870 BCE. David's rule would begin 40 years earlier in 950 BCE, his rule being from 950-910 BCE. Low Chronology dates the end of the Philistine pottery period c. 950 BCE.[3] So this dating is very much in line with Low Chronology dating.

1386-480=906 BCE

There are many different dates out there for the Exodus and for David and Solomon and for the Neo-Babylonian Period.But these dates are the official Biblical dates for these events based on the Jubilee Covenant Calendar, which is in perfect agreement with archaeology.

References:

[1] Kathleen Kenyon: Digging Up Jericho, Jericho and the Coming of the Israelites, page 262: "As concerns the date of the destruction of Jericho by the Israelites, all that can be said is that the latest Bronze Age occupation should, in my view, be dated to the third quarter of the fourteenth century B.C. [1350-1325 B.C.] This is a date which suits neither the school of scholars which would date the entry of the Israelites into Palestine to c. 1400 B.C. nor the school which prefers a date of c. 1260 B.C."

[2] Insight On The Scriptures, Exodus from Egypt, page 536. "As a group , Israel departed from Rameses in Egypt on Nisan 15, 1513 B.C.E."

[3] Brewminate: A Bold Blend of News and Ideas, August 6, 2023: "According to Fikelstein's Low Chronology, the Iron Age I lasted until the middle of the 10th century BCE [950 BCE]..."

In Daniel 9:2 the writer says that Jeremiah's prophecies are talking about a 70 year period of desolation for Jerusalem. This is true because there is a 70 year period between Babylons destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon's temple (587/586 BCE) to the completion of the second temple in Jerusalem (517/516 BCE). However when we look at the prophecies in Jeremiah which Daniel is referring to, that being Jeremiah 25:11 and 29:10, it is talking about a seperate 70 year period in which the nations (including Judah) serve Babylon from 609-539 BCE. Is Daniel misinterpreting the passages in Jeremiah and getting them mixed up with the other 70 year period or am I reading the passage in Daniel wrong and he isn't referring to Jerusalem being desolate for 70 years altogether?

Daniel 9:2 (in the first year of his reign I Daniel meditated in the books, over the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish for the desolations of Jerusalem seventy years.)
Jeremiah 25:11 (And this whole land shall be a desolation, and a waste; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.) Jeremiah 29:10 (For thus saith the LORD: After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will remember you, and perform My good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.)

If the years in which Jerusalem is desolate are the same as the years of Judah's servitude to Babylon it wouldn't make any sense since it would either place the siege of Jerusalem at 607/606 BCE rather than 586/587 BCE, or it would mean that the Babylonians started ruling 20 years before or later (i think) than what the evidence shows.

Please let me know where I'm going wrong on this as I know that 607 BCE is rejected by pretty much everyone except the Jehovah's Witnesses as the date for Jerusalem's destruction

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Short summary:

For many modern Biblical scholars, the Matthean tomb guard narrative is thought to have been apologetically crafted in response to a contemporaneous Jewish accusation that the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus from the tomb, in an effort to “fake” the resurrection. This short article questions the existence, or in any case the significance of any such contemporaneous Jewish accusation. Instead, it focuses on how this accusation — especially as framed in Matthew 27:62-66 — functioned as part and parcel of the Matthean author’s own literary creation. Several crucial elements in Matthew 27:62-66 (and perhaps the entire notion of the disciples’ potential intervention at all) instead appear to have been based on the narrative of Daniel in the lions’ den in Daniel 6, in fitting with a larger pattern of Matthean intertextual appropriation. Ultimately, this functioned as a necessary part of Matthew’s attempt to revise or “correct” the tomb narrative in the gospel of Mark and its perceived problems.

"The circumstance of a guard is . . . an inconsistent and obvious invention of Matthew" (Johann Michaelis, 1827, citing the view of unnamed interlocutors).

I've long believed Mark 16:4 to be the skeleton key that most forces us to confront critical issues about the historicity of the resurrection and empty tomb narrative.

It's not particularly well-known as a problematic passage in its own right, the same way that Mark 13:32 or 15:34 is, or Matthew 10:23. "When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back." So reads the translation in NRSVue. Granted, the word "already" isn't explicitly in the Greek text; this is simply paraphrase. But there can be no doubt that it perfectly expresses the sentiment and the syntax: when the women come to visit Jesus' tomb after the Sabbath, they find that it was already lying open.

In first century historical time, the significance of this line was recognized all but instantly, so to speak. It was recognized that this represented a serious explanatory problem vis-à-vis belief in Jesus’ resurrection: how was the tomb opened, and for how long had it been in such a state prior to its discovery?

The Markan narrative itself immediately introduces an angelic subject to (partially) answer this, informing readers that the emptiness of the tomb is due to Jesus' resurrection and presumptive ascension from earth. Yet as easy as it would’ve been for people to accept the possibility that the tomb was indeed open when the women arrived, so it would have been to question the claim that the women had encountered an angel within. The angel effectively appoints the women as heralds, to "go, tell his disciples and Peter..." that Jesus had been raised — just as the lone witness to the deified Romulus, Julius Ascanius, was selected by him to "announce [ἄγγελλε] to the Romans from me, that the genius to whom I was allotted at my birth is conducting me to the gods, now that I have finished my mortal life, and that I am [the god] Quirinus" (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 2.63.4).[1]

Yet in Plutarch’s life of Romulus, he’s all too aware of those who “leveled the patrikioi/elders with the accusation of imposing a silly [ἀβέλτερος] tale upon the people” (27.8). (Incidentally, immediately after this, Plutarch compares such mythologoumenoi with the legend of Aristeas of Proconnesus — whose disappearance after having died in a fuller's shop represents one of the closest conceptual parallels to Jesus' own translation from the tomb. Cf. Robert Miller, "Mark's Empty Tomb and Other Translation Fables in Classical Antiquity.")

The angelic epiphany in the empty tomb will also become the subject of ridicule to early critics of Christianity: “Who saw this? A hysterical female, as you say, and perhaps some other one of those who were deluded?” (Origen, Contra Celsum, 2.55), in typical sexist polemic (cf. Stanton, “Early Objections to the Resurrection of Jesus”).

The author of the gospel of Matthew was almost certainly keenly aware of the problem this might create. And regarding the already-open tomb in Mark: perhaps in the heightened polemical context around Christianity in the latter half of the first century, the author of Matthew simply could not afford to have such a gap of uncertainty. As Randel Helms puts it, “[w]hat for Mark had been the only visible evidence for the resurrection had become powerful evidence against the resurrection" (Gospel Fictions, 138). For Matthew, then, this necessitated the development of something radically different from what’s found in Mark’s narrative, which he had before him.

When we turn to the events that the author of Matthew describes at the end of chapter 27, to any reader who can summon just a modicum of skepticism, it's obvious that the "chief priests and the Pharisees" (27:62) didn't actually believe that the disciples were planning on stealing Jesus' body to make it seem like he had been resurrected. It's remarkable that the author of Matthew doesn't even attempt to offer any greater logic here. Especially considering the abandonment of the disciples, who all would even know — or care — about Jesus' tomb? Even in Matthew's own narrative, the location of Jesus' tomb is only known to "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary," and then Joseph of Arimathea — who, incidentally, in Matthew is simply a "rich man from Arimathea," and isn't even named as a member of the Sanhedrin as he is in Mark 15:43.

But if the disciples had really planned on stealing the body from the tomb, could they have really had any realistic expectation that their own fabricated testimony on this alone would be enough to convince anyone it was true (with no other witnesses)? Or to ask it more properly, could anyone else have reasonably imagined that the disciples would think such a ruse would be at all successful, such that they’d take such drastic measures to try to stop the disciples’ attempts?

Granted, as mentioned above, there was another third party with knowledge of the location of Jesus' tomb: Joseph of Arimathea. Theoretically, he could have served as something like an independent witness that Jesus' tomb was subsequently empty, as he knew for certain that it was formerly occupied. Yet having offered up his own tomb for Jesus' burial right after his death, why would Joseph have stuck around to even be able to confirm that the tomb was now empty? (And if not, how would he know what happened in the interim, and that it wasn't simply the disciples themselves who were responsible for the ruse, having been led to the tomb by one or both Marys?)

These last questions start to reveal the conundrum that the author of Matthew was faced with. Matthew wants to somehow "close" Mark's conspicuously open tomb; or rather, to close it earlier, and have it remain closed, erasing any explanatory ambiguities around what happened to Jesus’ body. Yet having no preexisting characters who were able to serve as independent witnesses to the closed tomb before the necessary moment of its opening, the author conjures up the fantasy of the Jewish elders’ paranoia about a falsified resurrection — nothing more than an arbitrary catalyst that enables other parties to come onto the scene and attest to the continuous closure of the tomb.

Seen this way, it's not so much a pressing contemporaneous Jewish accusation of body theft that necessitated the subsequent tomb guard narrative, itself apologetic or polemical against this. Raymond Brown argues, for example, that “[t]he ending of the Matthean account has a polemic bent: It refutes a story circulating among the Jews, namely, that Jesus' disciples stole his body and then fraudulently proclaimed the resurrection” (The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels, Volume 2, 1309; cf. Matti Kankaanniemi, “The Guards of the Tomb [Matt 27:62–66 and 28:11–15]: Matthew’s Apologetic Legend Revisited,” 223; Luz, Matthew 21-28, 586). Against this, however, it was simply the author of Matthew's dissatisfaction with Mark itself that necessitates a new narrative; and the Jewish theft accusation then becomes convenient or indeed necessary to effect this. Regardless of whether there really were a contemporaneous Jewish accusation of theft, there's nothing clever or plausible in the leaders’ alleged attempt to preempt the disciples' fraud, as portrayed in Matthew.

At best, there’s narrative irony here: ἀσφαλίσασθε ὡς οἴδατε, "secure it as (best) you know how" (27:65); and their own standards end up facilitating the most direct witnesses to the resurrection. As John Chrysostom will later similarly characterize it, "because of your preventive measures the proof of his resurrection is incontrovertible" (PG 58.781). Moreover, the very involvement of civic forces from Pilate in securing and sealing the tomb may be doubly artificial, intertextually recalling Darius and his imperial forces’ seal over the lions’ den in Daniel 6:17 — among other possible Danielic allusions that are new here in Matthew. Such a connection was already noted as early as Hippolytus of Rome. In terms of the present argument, the most conspicuous common element may be Matthew 27:64’s μή ποτε ἐλθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ [αὐτοῦ] κλέψωσιν αὐτὸν — "lest [his] disciples come and steal him" — and either Daniel 6:17(18?)’s ὅπως μὴ ὑπ᾽/ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἀρθῇ ὁ Δανιηλ (OG), “so that Daniel might not be removed from/by them,” or ὅπως μὴ ἀλλοιωθῇ πρᾶγμα ἐν τῷ Δανιηλ (Θ).

EXCURSUS:

It's occasionally been suggested that the scheme that the Jewish elders are worried about also bears a resemblance to that which Vipsanius Clemens undertook re: the murdered Postumus Agrippa, the grandson of Augustus — described in Tacitus, Annals 2.39, and compared with the narrative in Matthew already by Johann Michaelis, The Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ: According to the Four Evangelists (106). In this incident, Clemens himself had sought to impersonate the deceased Agrippa, taking his ashes and then arranging for the rumor to be spread that Agrippa was still alive. However, the parallels shouldn’t be overstated. In this case, it's not certain for what purposes Clemens took Agrippa’s ashes. Barbare Levick notes that "[t]hey would not prove Agrippa dead, nor would their loss prevent the authorities producing other ashes as Agrippa’s," and suggests instead that "[t]he only motive can have been devotion to the memory of Agrippa, to secure the ashes fitting burial" (Tiberius the Politician, 118).

On another note, there may be other points of connection between Daniel 6's portrayal of Darius in general, and Matthew's portrayal of Pilate. The latter is often thought to be unique in its attempts to downplay or exonerate Pilate from culpability for condemning Jesus in certain aspects of his behavior (though cf. Callie Callon, "Pilate the Villain: An Alternative Reading of Matthew's Portrayal of Pilate"). Similarly, in Daniel, "[w]hen the king heard the charge, he was very much distressed. He was determined to save Daniel, and until the sun went down he made every effort to rescue him." (For the ways in which the Old Greek of Daniel slightly diverges from the original Aramaic in this section, cf. Meadowcroft, Aramaic Daniel and Greek Daniel: A Literary Comparison, 90.)

Even more specific descriptions and languages might be shared between them in this regard.[2] Compare, for example, the helplessness of Darius and Pilate in OG Daniel 6:15(16) and Matthew 27:24, respectively: οὐκ ἠδύνατο ἐξελέσθαι αὐτὸν, "he was not able to rescue him" || οὐδὲν ὠφελεῖ, "he could do nothing.” Pilate’s recognition of the Jewish leaders’ ultimate motive of phronos in condemning Jesus in Matthew 27:18 is also implicit in Daniel, and is explicit in Josephus’ description of the narrative (Antiquities 10.256). There may also be a threefold connection between OG Daniel 6:16 — “your God . . . will deliver you from the power of lions” — Psalm 22:8, 21, and Matthew 27:43.

END OF EXCURSUS

There’s another giveaway that the Jewish leaders’ paranoid request is little more than a literary construction. In their language in Matthew 27:63, they effectively function as convenient mouthpieces for Jesus’ own kerygma — reminding believing/receptive audiences of his earlier prediction in similar language to that of the angel’s own in Luke 24, along with the women’s response to this:

λέγοντες Κύριε, ἐμνήσθημεν ὅτι ἐκεῖνος ὁ πλάνος εἶπεν ἔτι ζῶν Μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἐγείρομαι

...and said, “Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’” (Matthew 27:63)

...καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστῆναι, καὶ ἐμνήσθησαν τῶν ῥημάτων αὐτοῦ

“...and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words. (Luke 24:7-8)

Finally, one of the other most obvious reasons to question the historicity of the entire narrative is one that's surprised rarely mentioned. How on earth might the author of Matthew have come to intimately know this exchange between the Jewish leaders and Pilate — especially when the former are then portrayed as so careful to conceal their subterfuge in 28:11-15?

Perhaps in a more traditional explanation, God has preternaturally made this knowledge available to the author. But clearly this won’t suffice for any critical historical analysis. As has been seen, such an explanation is unnecessary if it was Daniel 6 that in fact supplied several of the most important narrative raw materials for Matthew here. Randel Helms uses "prophecy" to describe how the Matthean author treated the Danielic building blocks for this: "Matthew has constructed a conscious literary fiction based on what he convinced himself was a prophecy more accurate than Mark's history”: viz. he "seems to have consulted the Septuagint version of Daniel and believed that he found there details of a more accurate account of the happenings of that Sunday morning some sixty years before, than could be found in the pages of Mark" (Gospel Fictions, 138; 134).

In any case, finally, the villainy of the Jewish leaders is eventually elevated to nearly parodical heights in what transpires after their original plan collapses.

11 …some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this λόγος is still told among the Judeans to this day.

NOTES:

[1] Similarly, various first-person witness accounts were also offered to the apotheosis of several Roman emperors.

[2] There may also be a slight echo of Bel and the Dragon, which also involves Daniel and the sealing of a temple to prevent priests’ entry into it in order to perpetuate a deceptive ruse — one that they still do, but which Daniel ultimately foils (cf. v. 19, δεῦρο ἰδὲ τὸν δόλον τῶν ἱερέων).

This is a conference aimed at laymen and will include presentations, Q&A by Dale Allison, Candida Moss, James Tabor, Robyn Walsh and others

According to Kipp Davis

This is the first of three videos in which I examine Richard Carrier's handling and understanding of early Jewish literature in his book, "On the Historicity of Jesus," which he uses to ground his "Minimal Jesus Myth" theory. In this video I show how Carrier clearly misreads the Babylonian Talmud.

For those interested, I have recently published an open access translation and commentary to Joshua. It is available for free download at https://archive.org/details/joshua_202305 and also at https://www.academia.edu/100764736/Joshua_A_new_translation_with_commentary. Similar to my other translations, the translation is written in the style of modern-day English and is organized according to the Masoretic sense divisions (or parashot) rather than the traditional chapter divisions.

In my introduction to the book, I summarize the theory of the composition history of the Torah and Former Prophets that I have developed over the course of my translation work, and I place Joshua within that framework, discussing how it came to be connected both to the books of the Torah and to the Former Prophets. The commentary accompanying the translation focuses on issues of translation, language, and composition history. After the commentary I provide an essay that summarizes my (necessarily speculative) views on the composition history of Joshua. In that essay, I assign each of the parashot to one of the five major compositional stages that I identify, which span a period of more than three centuries, from the early sixth century BCE to the mid-third century BCE.

Most notably, in my treatment of Joshua's composition history, I view nearly all the material added to the book between the end of the Babylonian exile and 400 BCE as the result of a collaborative effort between Yahweh's priesthoods at Mount Zion and Mount Gerizim. The material that I identify as written principally by the Samarian priesthood is especially interesting, as it provides a window into the compromises required of the leaders at both cult locations in order to maintain a set of common texts in their respective cult libraries.