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: Okay, going to try to read all of book 7! We'll see how this goes.

Comments

Re: Recap

[cahn]

Yeah, how even would that work for any kind of astronomical object to stop over one place. Clearly it was an alien satellite in geosynchronous orbit :P

I've always thought it was kind of hilarious that Matthew has that whole genealogy of... Joseph's descent from David, whom of course it then goes on to say that Jesus isn't actually related to. I guess I could put my apologist hat on and talk about the importance of adoption in NT theology (which I'd probably do if talking about this at church), but also I think it's funny.

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.

I actually didn't know this! That's interesting.