The Jewish War: Last half of book 6

[cahn]

Last week:Lament for the destroyed trees and landscape around Jerusalem. A woman eats her own child. More discussion of Titus and whether he wanted to spare the Temple or not. The Carthage and Alexandria precedents for Romans treating defeated opponents. Torching a temple = REALLY BAD LUCK. The timetable of the siege of Jerusalem set by Vespasian's ascent as emperor.

This week: The aftermath of the burning of the temple, and the end of the siege of Jerusalem. Still some pretty awful stuff.

Next week: First half of book 7... isn't this the last book?! OK, selenak, give us a stopping point... :)

Comments

Re: Recap

[cahn]

Yeah, I don't think the star is described as sword-shaped anywhere, but I was thinking of Matt 2:9: After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. (NIV) Of course, the place where it stopped was described as Bethlehem, not Jerusalem...

it continues to be brutal, no matter how often Josephus repeats that Titus is a merciful guy at heart.

Yeah :/ So our edition seems to have a note every time Josephus has a number that it's not to be trusted (I don't actually recall if it says that here) but it's still got to have been really bad even if his numbers aren't right.

Pure speculation: his father did survive, but the reunion wasn’t a happy one, Josephus got cursed by his Dad, and that’s why he can’t bring himself to write about it.

Aw, that would be sad! But sounds reasonable. Does his autobiography say anything?

Ah, thanks for the note on Imperator! Our edition talked about this a bit but not in the detail you did.

Re: Recap

[cenozoicsynapsid]

A comet isn't a terrible option for the Star of Bethlehem; the University of Wikipedia links to this article http://www.observadores-cometas.com/Star_of_Bethlehem/English/Chinese.htm which has a lot of details on potential observations of comets or novae of the period. If the "star" were a comet, it would likely have had a visible tail, which perhaps the Gospels simply do not bother to describe. There may have been more than one comet. Halley's, specifically, was visible in 12 BC, and "not a particularly spectacular apparition" in the Chinese sources. There was likely another "bushy star" in 5 BC.

I believe the scholarly consensus (back in the dark ages when I took this class) is that the tradition of Jesus's birth in Bethlehem is entirely specious and that he was likely born in Nazareth. The Gospels really want him to be born in Bethlehem because (as you pointed out wrt. Micah 5:2) it is the hometown of King David, and therefore the prophesied home of the anointed heir of David (literally what 'Messiah' means). (So, Matthew has a whole genealogy of his descent from David, Luke says he's descended from David and doesn't say how, and John straight-out says (7:41-2) "But others said, “Is the Messiah supposed to come from Galilee? Doesn’t scripture say that the Messiah is from the line of David, and from David’s village of Bethlehem?")

Anyway, we've all seen a comet, I think, and the idea that it "stops" at some particular place in the countryside is ridiculous. They may point in particular directions in the sky, but unless you're Arthur Dent, an astronomical object is not a van and it doesn't pull over for a rest every so often.