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Author | Topic: "Jesus was Caesar" by Francesco Carotta | |||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Just looking at the materail in this post I can see two obviosu problems.
1) Caesar was already a very powerful man - one of the three most powerful men in Rome (The First Triumvirate) - before even going to Gaul. To describe crossing the Rubicon as the beginning of his "rise" leaves out an awful lot. 2) The argument on place names is also weak since the place names are all genuine. There is no way that the early Christian writers could reasonably arrange for convenient place names, so much of the similarity must be accepted as simple chance or casued by other factors. While I am open to the idea that the story of Julius Caesar might have influenced the Gospel writers I would need to see something far strogner than this.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
It's all very well to describe these points as trivia but they are the main evidence offered here. If he has better points why not list those ?
At present I see no reason to beleive that Carotta has anything more than a few minor coincidences.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
This sounds even worse. In an account supposedly starting with the civil wars between Caesar and Pompey, Pompey is seen as a simple predecessor to Caeasar ? And why would Pompey be seen as the originator of baptism anyway ?
No, this makes even less sense. The names look like another coincidence, and I have to question whether all the translations are correct. Why would Metellus refer to mutilus and not the perfectly good Latin word metellus ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
You're not taking account of the context. Supposedly the story BEGINS with Caesar crossing the Rubicon, initiating the armed conflict. In that conflict Pompey is the leading opponent. So Pompey's role in this part of the story is markedly different from the role of John the Baptist.
And why see Pompey as setting the foundations for "one man rule" ?Surely Sulla is a better candidate ? And I agree that the lustrations were probably an old custom. So why are baptisms not presented as an old custom in the Gospels ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
The important point is that the account is supposedly dealing with the period when Caesar and Pompey were enemies. Why then should the description of their relationship be solely based on their previous history together ? (And even that vaguely, omitting important details).
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
But the fact is that Sulla forced his way into the Dictatorship and held it, refusing to resign after 6 months according to the tradition.
So in terms of establishing the rule of a single man over Rome, Sulla is more of a precedent than Pompey (who never achieved that). And as I understand it the Sol Invictus connection is supposed to go back only to Constantine. That's too late to have a major effect on the Gospels.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I'd have thought that a partisan of Caesar would rather downplay the earlier relationship of Pompey and Caesar.
And if the case of the book is relying on a supposed resemblance between the Gospels and a completely hypothetical propaganda piece I can't say that I can see much value in it.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Carotta:
The Gospel of John first presents John the Baptist within a clash between light and darkness: ‘And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.’ The context is the argument between Jesus and the Baptist, or more specifically between their followers, which once more is taken up and stated more precisely in Jn. 3:22.
Just one. problem - it isn't true. The verse is John 1:5. The following verses refer to John the Baptist - his first mention in the Gospel - but hardly indicate conflict between John and the light - or conflict between the followers of Jesus and the Baptist respectively:
6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
It would be a stretch to say that the immediately ofllowing verses define the context, becasue to do so you would have to ignore the preceding verses, of which John 1:5 is a continuation. However since the immediately following verses do not mention this supposed conflict either - nor does any verse in the entire chapter.
As to the "mistranslation" idea, that seems a convenient excuse for the low quality of the evidence. The more so since the verse that Carotta takes as referring to Pharsalus comes before Jesus' crossing of the river Jordan which Carotta refers to Ceasar's crossing of the Rubicon. (And having checked I see that Carotta is wrong on that point, too - Jesus crosses the Jordan INTO Galilee - Mark 1:14 - not as Carotta has it FROM Galilee, and that after John the Baptist had been arrested)
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Is there any evidence for this reading of the first few verses of John or has it been concocted just to keep Carotta's ideas from being falsified ? If there were evidence I could beleive it but I cannot think it likely without support.
Crassus appears to be an even better match for John the Baptist - like Pompey he was a sponsor of Caesar. However like John - as he appears in the Bible anyway - he was taken off the scene before the main act, and his head was taken and presented before a royal court - that of Hyrodes of Parthia - and I suppose by Carotta's standard Herod is even a plausible corruption of Hyrodes. But this illustrates a point - parallels of this sort are too easy to generate to find them plausible. And if you can understand Carotta's footnote relating to Jospehus' mention of John the Baptist then I would like an explanation:
In respect to the persons mentioned, only two and a half of them are historically documented: Pilate, Herodes and maybe John the Baptist [277]
[277] John and Jacobus only have a historical background if they are identical with the persons of the same names in Actswhich is purely hypotheticaland they also have to be the same persons who show up in Flavius Josephus. But then the father Zebedee is missing
John the Baptist is mentioned by Josephus, yes. But what is the footnote trying to say ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Well, if for instance one could produce direct evidence of a stage play of the life of Caesar that include those lines or similar lines in a similar context, then we would have evidence of Carotta's thesis. But I have to be dubious of any work where the "context" of a line refers not to the text we have but to a hypothetical original -apparently reconstructed for the purpoise of providing support for the thesis under discussion. Not only is it misleading to neglect to state that the "context" refers to a hypothetical text and not the one where the line is actually found, the argument itself involves an element of circularity that renders it of no real value.
My feeling on Carotta's work is that: 1) Some of the more convincing - or less unconvincing - coincidences are genuine coincidences. The place names and gens names he uses are examples because they are things which are not under the writer's control. 2) Carotta is sloppy and his supposed parallels can turn out to be weaker on closer examination (e.g. Jesus going INTO Galilee instead of OUT of Galilee as Carotta has it). 3) The lack of "rules" makes it easier to produce ad hoc "fits". Which leaves evne more room for coincidence. The reason I asked about the note is that it seems to confuse John the Baptist and James*, the brother of Jesus with John and James the sons of Zebedee. The former are mentioned in Josephus, but to the best of my knowledge the latter are not. Both Johns and both James are mentioned in Acts (although John the Baptist - unsurprisingly - does not appear). *Jacobus is a form of James (hence the followers of the Stuart King James and his heirs are called Jacobites).
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