The last few days I’ve been distracted from my planned reading and posting as a result of reading something quite unexpected by Andreas Bedenbender in Frohe Botschaft am Abgrund: das Markusevangelium und der Jüdische Krieg. Since I don’t read German (except sort of through machine translators) and since most of Bedenbender’s references are in German, and since I don’t sit in a major library, that has been no easy task. But the gist of the surprising suggestion arises from one particular Greek word behind the passage in the Gospel of Mark about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, 10:8 (RSV):
And many spread their garments upon the way; and others branches (στιβάδας), which they had cut from the fields.
Branches cut from the fields, presumably from trees in the fields. Would not they become an obstacle for any donkey trying to navigate the road? Other evangelists do not use that word, “branches”. Compare:
Matthew 21:8 uses κλάδους, also translated as “branches”, but not the same word as in Mark.
Luke 19:36 scraps that Markan detail completely and says only that the crowd spread their garments on the ground. No branches at all.
John 12:13 uses a different word again, “branches of palm trees” (τὰ βαΐα τῶν φοινίκων), and more sensibly than in Mark implies that they were waving them rather than setting up an obstacle course for the donkey.
Now it appears that Mark’s word for “branch/branches”, (στιβάς / στιβάδας), is unique in the Bible:
For στιβάς is found, for example, in Euripides and Herodotus, but in the New Testament it is nowhere except in Mark 11:8. It is missing in the LXX, in the Greek Pseudepigraphen to the AT, in Philo and Josephus. What, then, did Markus take after “straw-shafts,” when “branches” were within his reach? That κλάδος, which he used in 4:32 and in 13:28, will scarcely have disappeared! (Bedenbender, p. 312, adapted from machine translation.)
So Mark elsewhere used the more common word for “branches” and that makes his use of “stibas” in the triumphal entry scene more odd.
Andreas Bedenbender does not argue “strongly” for Jesus’ triumphal entry in the Gospel of Mark being invested with Dionysiac allusions, but he does point to some details that make the question reasonable.
We have already mentioned the unrealistic detail of dumping branches cut from trees in the fields in the way of a donkey. (Mark’s gospel is permeated with surreal details like this one; I will do another post of Bedenbender’s list of them.) Bedenbender suggests that the author was setting up a contrary thought to the garments being placed on the road: the garments smooth out the road, and so have a positive effect; the first line the crowds cry out is “Hosanna” or praises to Jesus. All good so far. But the next phrase is the stumblingblock: they expect him to come as a Davidic conqueror. That’s not so good. Recall Jesus called Peter Satan for making the same proclamation after the transfiguration.
And many spread their garments on the road,
and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields.And those who went before and those who followed cried out,
“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! …..”
Garments, good; branches, bad; Hosanna, good; kingdom of David, bad.
Mmmm… okay, what else does Bedenbender say?
He says that “stibades” played a special role in the cult of the god Dionysus, or Bacchus. The cult
was characterized typically with στιβάδες, usually with fresh hay or with ivy.
We tend to think of Dionysus/Bacchus as the libertine god of wine; but in ancient myth he was so much more than a common dirty minded cross-dressing drunk. He was also the conqueror of Asia. He conquered as far as India. Alexander the Great was said to have emulated him. Alexander’s successors are known to have identified with Dionysus. Ptolemy IV of Egypt offered privileges to Jews who would voluntarily be branded with Dionysiac emblems, according to 3 Maccabees. Antiochus IV of Syria attempted to institute Dionysiac rites among the Jews, according to 2 Maccabees 6.
- Enemies of Rome took on the persona of Dionysus, most notably Mithridates.
- Mark Anthony presented himself as the “new Dionysus” from Egypt in his war with Octavian.
- Virgil in his founding epic for Rome made a point of comparing emperor Augustus favourably with Dionysus:
- For there is Caesar, and all the line of Julius, who are destined to reach the brilliant height of Heaven. And there in very truth is he whom you have often heard prophesied, Augustus Caesar, son of the Deified . . . . Yes, not even Hercules ever traversed so much of the earth, . . . . nor even Bacchus (=Dionysus) himself when he drove his tigers from Nysa’s high crest and in triumph guided their yoke with reins of vine. . . . (Aeneid, 6. 804f, Jackson Knight’s translation)
But Dionysus was not himself, personally, a warrior god. Again, an adaptation of a machine translation from another German source:
See Merkelbach, 1988, 71: “You could give yourself without fear, because enemies of Dionysus could not exist. Without being a warrior himself, the god overcame all enemies, as the mythical tales of his victories over Pentheus, Lycurgus, and his victorious campaign against the Indians showed.” (Merkelbach, R. 1988. Die Hirten des Dionysos. Cited in Bedenbender, p. 313)
We have seen other commentary comparing the Dionysus of the play by Euripides being compared with Jesus. Like Jesus, Dionysus has the power to conquer enemies by his mere presence, a word, a thought.
- Jesus and Dionysus: The Gospel of John and Euripides’ Bacchae
- Jesus and Dionysus (2): Comparison of John’s Gospel and Euripides’ Play
Not all Jews were thought to be so opposed to the Dionysiac customs as were the Maccabees.
- Valerius Maximus, according to an article by Peter Wick (“Jesus gegen Dionysos?”, in Biblica, 85 2004), tells us that Jews in Rome in 139 BCE wanted to introduce the cult of Jupiter Zabazios, a deity associated with Dionysus.
- Tacitus informs us that some people believed that the Jews did indeed worship Dionysus, also known as Liber:
- But since their priests used to chant to the accompaniment of pipes and cymbals and to wear garlands of ivy, and because a golden vine was found in their temple, some have thought that they were devotees of Father Liber, the conqueror of the East . . . .
- Mention is also made of an unusual coin dated 55 BCE inscribed with a commemoration of a Roman victory over a Jewish “Bacchius”. (There’s a whole book out there written about this single coin, but it doesn’t look easily accessible to me so I am unable to check the arguments.)
We may say, I think, that Dionysus was a major god who was seen to represent the great conquerors of the East and opposed to Rome. Jews were also thought to have worshiped him, or at least in some way their god was associated with or a mutation of him.
But all of this may seem like a very long bow, and indeed it is, if all we have is but one word in Mark.
But there is more.
Guess what animal was closely associated with Dionysus! Did you say donkey? Correct!
Dionysus and his followers were depicted with and riding donkeys. (Or one author says the animal was a mule and suggests that the reason was that it represented pointless, entirely hedonistic, sex. I’m not sure how he can tell the difference between a donkey and a mule from the pottery paintings, though.) Drinking cups honouring Dionysus could be shaped like donkey heads.
Bedenbender further tells us that the god Dionysus was sometimes called Kyrios, or Lord. He suggests the possibility of an echo in the way Jesus requisitioned the donkey for his entry, verses 2 and 3.
“Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord (Κύριος) needs it and will send it back here immediately.’”
Bedenbender, as I said above, does not argue the point in any “strong” sense. He offers the idea as a “probability” at the very best. But he does see an analog in Acts that contributes somewhat to the possibility that Mark was intending an allusion to Dionysus here.
Recall in Acts 14 that Paul and Barnabas enter the town of Lystra, heal a man crippled from birth, and suddenly find themselves being equated with pagan gods, Zeus and Hermes. No sooner to Paul and Barnabas pull out all stops to prevent the locals from sacrificing to them than the crowd turns on them — at the instigation of Jews arriving from Antioch and Iconium — and stone them. Jesus enters Jerusalem and received as a pagan deity one day, and not long afterwards, at the instigation of the Jewish leaders, the same mobs turn on him demanding his crucifixion.
Other scholars have seen in Mark’s narrative allusions to a world outside of, and opposed to, the Jewish nation in Palestine at the time, including ironical roles for Jesus:
- Jesus as Counter-Emperor in the Gospel of Mark
- Recognizing the Triumphant Conqueror in Mark’s crucifixion scene
Given the gospel’s interest in facing and condemning the view that Jesus came to become a great earthly conqueror, it would not be surprising if the author added a mock or ironical triumphal entry scene with Jesus being welcomed as the god who historically conquered all earthly enemies in the east and threatened to do the same to Rome. And since the Gospel of John introduces a wealth of Dionysian allusions, it is not unreasonable think that his foil, the Gospel of Mark, knew of them, too. And don’t forget the dog that did not bark: why did the evangelists subsequent to Mark drop that tell-tale(?) word, στιβάδας?
And you thought that Zechariah 9:9 was all we there was to enable us to interpret Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
Neil Godfrey
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Fascinating! Articles like these are why I love you so, Neil…
-DF
On the “Bacchius Iudaeus” coin of 55 BCE and the book by James M. Scott, “BACCHIUS IUDAEUS: A Denarius Commemorating Pompey’s Victory over Judea” (Gottingen, 2015): I wrote the following question to the author on Dec. 30, 2016, sent to the email address on his university website, but received no reply.
That makes sense.
As the James Scott study and references therein bring out, the obverse of the coin, Cybele (not Pompey directly), was closely associated with Dionysus and evokes Pompey’s conquest of the East. On the inscription on the reverse there is an ambiguity discussed by Scott: “bacchius” can mean Dionysus the god, but it can also mean “devotee of Dionysus”, worshipper of Dionysus. The ambiguity is so difficult to resolve that Scott suggests the coin-designers may have intended both meanings, a double-entendre–though in his conclusion Scott seems to weigh in favor of the single meaning of the god Dionysus.
Scott discusses whether the figure on the reverse (Aristobulus II, per highly reasonable argument) is intended to represent the god Dionysus himself (Scott argues “no”) or is rather intended as an image standing in the place of the god (Scott argues “yes”, on the grounds that Pompey had entered the temple in Jerusalem and found no actual image of Yahweh, therefore portrayed the acting high priest, Aristobulus II, as the next best way to portray the Jewish god, whom Pompey/Pompeians were identifying with Dionysus).
Scott cites a comparative example in coins of Scythopolis in which an actual local cult of Dionysus was portrayed in Roman coins as Dionysus endorsing Roman (Pompey via Gabinius) rule. However, the parallel is not quite exact, given that Scott’s argument is that Pompey’s claim that the Jewish temple cult was worship of Dionysus is an “interpretatio Romana”, a Roman interpretation/equation of the Jewish Yahweh with Dionysus, but not an equation necessarily self-understood by the Jews.
Scott gives a detailed and erudite survey of the contexts and issues surrounding the Bacchius Iudaeus coin, especially in the context of Pompey’s power in Rome following his third Roman Triumph of 61 BCE and his dedication of a theatre-temple in Rome in 55 BCE aggrandizing his conquests, of which the Jewish nation and its king were one. The coin was issued in Rome among others in this context by a pro-Pompey subordinate of Pompey for the purpose of aggrandizing Pompey, and likely at the direction of Pompey, as Scott summarizes.
I believe the answer to the question of my letter to Scott (why did Scott not identify the inscription of the reverse as an allusion to Pompey instead of to the image of Aristobulus II on the reverse?), is: it is the totality of the positive argument for the interpretation which Scott gives in the entire book. But it seems to me that Scott does not establish that the coin-designers intended the figure on the reverse (Aristobulus II) to represent a high priest of Dionysus (= Yahweh), standing in for an image of Dionysus himself.
If the inscription means “Judean worshipper of Dionysus”, then I propose the sense is: “Aristobulus is worshipping Dionysus/Pompey”, an image of the Jews’ subordination to the mighty conqueror Pompey. In this reading the inscription on the reverse indeed would apply to and be illustrated by the image on the reverse, but it would be an image of the Jewish ruler (pictured) subordinated to Dionysus/Pompey (unpictured on the reverse, evoked on the obverse and by ancient known context)
If, however, the inscription means “Judean Dionysus”, then I propose the allusion is to Pompey himself, as the Judean Dionysus, conqueror of the Jews, with Pompey’s conquest evoked both by Cybele on the obverse (= associated with and whose worship was almost identical with Dionysus, standing for Roman conquest of the East), and by the kneeling subordinated Jewish ruler of the reverse. By this second reading, the ancient reader of the ancient coin would know that the coin was about Pompey’s conquest, that the inscription “Judean Dionysus” referred to Pompey himself, and that the conquered Judean/Jewish ruler was Aristobulus II. As for Pompey called “Judean Dionysus”, compare Pompey called “hierosolymarius”, “the Jerusalemite”, at Cicero, Letters to Atticus 2.9.1.
If both of these meanings of the word “bacchius” are viable in light of the discussion of Scott’s study, is Scott’s suggestion of an ancient intentional double meaning (as one possibility Scott sympathetically discusses) in the end possible or true?
But my point: neither of these two arguably viable readings have either Aristobulus or the god of the Jews as a priest of Dionysus or Dionysus, in terms of ancient contemporary intent of the coin-makers. Thus, my difference from the Scott monograph, which enters only at the final stage of interpretation/synthesis.
Yes, Tacitus and others later unquestionably dealt with claims and counterclaims that Yahweh = Dionysus. But is it established that the 55 BCE bacchius iudaeus coin is testimony to or reflects an instance of such? Scott argues that that coin does. I question that, for reasons given. It seems to me that Scott’s monograph is brilliant in erudition but that it misfires in the specific synthesis/interpretation of the data. I will be interested in what other classicists assess.
Note that even if Scott’s interpretation is accepted (i.e. that the coin portrays Aristobulus as a high priest of Dionysus), Scott is not claiming that Aristobulus or the Jews believed they were worshipping Dionysus. Scott’s claim is that the Romans were creating the Yahweh = Dionysus equation, not that the Jews had already done so or thought so in Jewish self-understanding. As to whether Yahweh-worship had Greek gods in its cult history/worship practices, etc., those would be distinct issues concerning which this coin does not contribute either positively or negatively, by my reading.
It will be quite some time before I can hope to access Scott’s book but I do have one question based on another review by G. Anthony Keddle on academia.edu: Does Scott also argue that Pompey presented himself as a New Dionysus conquering the East? I don’t understand how that suggestion ties in with what I gather is his main argument about the “Bacchius” on the coin.
Yes he does. He has a section (pp. 34-41) entitled “Imitatio Dionysi” developing just that. (“Pompey promoted himself as an imitator of Dionysus … the theatre-temple complex [of 55 BCE in Rome, built by Pompey and dedicated to Dionysus], the fourteen statues of the nationes [including Judea] within it, and the denarii minted around the time of the dedication very likely stem from Pompey’s Dionysian pretensions. Pompey used Dionysian imagery to identify himself with the mythical conqueror of the East.”)
You home in on the problem of Scott’s thesis: he has Dionysus conquering Dionysus. The defeated Jewish ruler as Dionysus of Judea subordinated to Pompey the New Dionysus does not seem to make sense.
Here is as close as I can find to Scott proposing to explain this in terms of his interpretation, from the conclusion:
“The two sides of the coin are in fact in dynamic interaction with each other: Cybele, a Roman goddess of victory for the Romans who is portrayed on the obverse, is strongly connected with Dionysus in Greco-Roman tradition. The submission scene on the reverse, it was argued, portrays the image of Bacchius Iudaeus in the form of his earthly representative, the Judean high priest/king–the only image of the otherwise unseen god that was accessible, as Pompey found out through personal inspection of the Holy of Holies, perhaps on the Day of Atonement itself. It is the earthly representative–and not the Jewish god himself–who kneels in submission to the conqueror. Hence, the Bacchius Iudaeus coin magnifies Pompey’s victory over the East as the ‘New Dionysus,’ while simultaneously linking it to earlier Republican victories through Cybele … as in Plutarch’s later sympathetic portrayal of the God of the Jews and his cult in the Jerusalem Temple, Pompey seems to have emphasized the similarities of their cult with that of Dionysus” (p. 127).
One thing I have gotten out of all of this is a nice little bibliography (English, French and German) of discussions on possible links between Yahweh and Dionysus. It will take me a little time to go through them all. It’s an idea I no doubt have stumbled across in the past but have till now chosen to ignore.
Through Jim Davilia’s site I see two articles related to questions raised in the above post:
and more in depth, published in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2011
Both by Nissam Amzallag.
I cannot comment on either of the articles yet. The main one is 29 pages and I’ve only just now been alerted to them.
Read also “Dionysos and Dionysism in the Third Book of Maccabees” : https://www.academia.edu/21801876/Dionysos_and_Dionysism_in_the_Third_Book_of_Maccabees
Note that Euripides Bacchae is over-used.
Then if you can access the book ” XIII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies: Ljubljana, 2007″
Read “Euripides und das Alte Testament zum überlieferungsgeschichtlichen Horizont der Septuaginta” by Evangelia G. Dafni (machine translation worked for me)
To see the connection between OT and Euripides Bacchae. She believes in an earlier translation of the OT before the Septuagint and this frees her to write about the similarities.
Read from the same book ” Dionysus and the Letter of Aristeas” by James M. Scott
He connects OT with ieros logos (thus with Dionysus) and with the document “BGU 6.1211”
Read also: “Dionysos and Christ as Paralell Figures in Late Antiquity” : https://www.academia.edu/2614393/Dionysos_and_Christ_as_Paralell_Figures_in_Late_Antiquity._In_A._Bernab%C3%A9_M._Herrero_de_J%C3%A1uregui_A._Jim%C3%A9nez_San_Crist%C3%B3bal_R._Mart%C3%ADn_Hern%C3%A1ndez_eds._Redefining_Dionysos_Berlin_Mythos_eikon_poiesis_5_De_Gruyter._ISBN_978-3-11-030132-8._2013_pp._464-487
Note that Nonnus was a bishop!
Dear Neil, if you send me the German quotes, I’d be happy to translate them into English.
Best,
Gilbert.
Thanks, Gilbert. I’ll keep your offer in mind as I prepare another post from the same book.
!
A carefully reading of Celsus’s original argument reveals that he said (a) the Dionysian cult associated with Linos was the ‘true logos’ from which all other cultures true (this is Herodotus’s claim but Celsus seemed to have taken it over) and (b) the story of Christianity (presumably the gospel) was a poor, imperfect copy of this ‘true logos’ associated with Dionysus and ritually preserved by Linos – the Christians aren’t even among the ‘first nations’ all of who venerate this original logos.
Can you give us references to point us to the particular books and sections in Origen’s Contra Celsum?
The reference to Linos is at c.Celsum 1.16.
Tacitus’s golden vine tallies with Josephus’s description of the Herodian temple (BJ 5.5.4), which describes a golden vine, with man-size grapes, over the entrance to the inner sanctuary.This may have been a replica of a Hasmonean original, as Josephus tells of Aristobulus presenting Pompey with such an item in 63 B.C.E., later seen by Strabo in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in Rome (Ant. 14.3.1).
Josephus uses Dionysiac technical terms to describe the ‘lulav’ : ‘thyrsus’ (Ant.13.372), ‘eiresionè (Ant.3.245), which at least shows that those terms, like ‘stibas’, were ‘live’, explicatory, in the first century.
The locus classicus for the contemporary view of the Judean cult resembling that of Dionysus is Plutarch’s ‘Who is the god of the Jews?’ (Quaest. Conviv.671C ff.).
The coins of Antigonus Mattathias (40-37 B.C.E.) depict ivy and grapes; those of the first revolt, vine leaves; those of the bar Kokhba revolt, vine leaves and grapes.
As for the actual cult of Dionysus in C1-C2 Palestine, some have tried to use as evidence Achilles Tatius 2.2-3.3. More securely, there is plenty of numismatic evidence from several Palestinian cities, notably Scythopolis (Beit She’an).
‘Ironically’, coins referencing the cult of Dionysus are plentiful from Aelia Capitolina, i.e. Jerusalem re-founded as a non-Jewish city by Hadrian.
There is certainly much to be gained in trying to be sensitive to visual cues when attempting literary analysis. Hope some of this helps !
Per Amzallag, “The first point is the broad diffusion and popularity of the cult of Dionysus in ancient Israel”. Can we get an exact time period and geographic area? Does it include: Judah, Samaria, Idumaea, the Decapolis and costal (Paralia)–city states, the territorial environs of Syria, Phoenicia, Arabia (Nabataeans) ?
I’ll be posting on Amzallag’s views in the coming weeks, I expect.
That shouldn’t be hard to do.
The story of Jesus is based on the myth of Dionysus and the Triumph of Titus Flavius. All historians are right when they compare Jesus with Dionysus. Triumphal March of Jesus by T.E. Schmidt compares Jesus’ Triumphal entry with the Triumph of a Roman general. Joseph Atwill shows us the relationship between the Titus Flavius Campaign and the Ministry of Jesus. In War of the Jews by Flavius Josephus we can find all the prophecies and events of the Gospels as:
1) WAR BETWEEN KINGDOMS AND NATIONS
(Matthew – 24: 7)
“These terrible calamities that involved the Jews were “the GREATEST of all, not only those that have occurred in our times, but, in a way, those that have NEVER been heard; in those in which CITIES FIGHT AGAINST CITIES, or NATIONS AGAINST NATIONS …”
(War of the Jews – Book V – 10)
2) HUNGER
(Luke 21: 10-20)
“Then HUNGER increased its progress and devoured the people for houses and whole families. The upper rooms were full of women and children who were starving to death: and the city streets were full of the bodies of the elderly. Children too, and young people wandered the market places like shadows, all of them were filled with HUNGER AND FALLED DEAD, wherever their misery caught them.”
(War of the Jews – Book V)
3) EARTHQUAKS
(Luke 21: 10-20)
“For there a prodigious storm broke out during the night, with the greatest violence and very strong winds; with the biggest rain shows; with continuous illuminations, terrible thunders and surprising concussions and screams from the earth that was in an EARTHQUAKE. These things were a clear indication that some destruction was coming on men.”
War of the Jews – Book IV – chapter 4
4) GREAT SIGNS IN THE SKIES
(Luke 21: 10-20)
“Thus, there was a STAR, LIKE A SWORD, that was over the city: and a COMET, that continued for a whole year.”
(War of the Jews – Book VI)
5) PEST
(Luke 21: 10-20)
“Now, when they were killing them, he made this curse on them, so that they could suffer both HUNGER and PESTILENCE in this WAR; and on top of all that, they could come to a mutual slaughter of each other: all the curses that God confirmed against these wicked men.”
War of the Jews – Book IV – chapter 3
6) THERE WILL BE A LARGE TRIBULATION, AS IT HAS NOT BEEN SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD
(Matthew 24: 21,22)
“There were 97,000 sold as slaves and 1,100,000 people who perished during the TERRIBLE TRIBULATION of those days.”
(War of the Jews – Book VI, 9: 3,4).
“That no other city has suffered such miseries, or any age has ever generated a generation more fruitful in evil than it was, SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD.”
(War of the Jews – Book V, 10: 5)
7) FALSE PROPHETS
(Matthew 24:24)
“There were now a great number of FALSE PROPHETS subjugated by tyrants to impose on people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for God’s deliverance.”
(Wars of the Jews – Book VI, Chapter 5)
8) JERUSALEM WILL BE SURROUNDED AND CONQUERED BY A NATION OF GENTILES
Luke 21: 20-24
“And when Titus heard this turmoil, as he was not far from the wall, he shouted: “Soldier brothers, now is the time; and why do we delay, when GOD IS GIVING the Jews to us? Take the victory you are given …”
(War of the Jews – Book III – Chapter 10)
“It was certainly GOD, therefore, who led the ROMANS to PUNISH the Galileans, and then exposed the people of the city, each of them manifestly to be destroyed by their bloody enemies.”
(War of the Jews – Book III – Chapter 7)
9) TALENT STONES FALLING ON MEN
(Revelation 16: 1-21)
“At the same time, engines that were meant for that purpose threw spears at them at the same time with a loud noise, and stones of the weight of ONE TALENT were thrown by engines that were prepared for that purpose, along with fire, and a vast crowd of arrows.”
(War of the Jews – Book III – Chapter 7)
10) WILL BUILD WALLS AROUND JERUSALEM
(Luke 19)
“They must BUILD A WALL AROUND THE WHOLE CITY; which was, he thought, the only way to prevent the Jews from leaving anyway, and then they either either desperately despaired of saving the city, and so surrendered to it, or they would still be more easily conquered when the famine it had weakened them further;”
(Wars of the Jews – Book V, 12, 499-501)
11) JERUSALEM SURROUNDED BY ARMIES, THEN ITS DESOLATION IS NEAR
(Luke 21: 10-20)
“Then, these publicly declared that this sign predicted the DESOLATION that was coming over them.”
(War of the Jews – Book V)
“So were miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and as God himself denied. While they did not appear, nor did they give credence to the signs that were so evident, and did so clearly to predict their future DESOLATION.”
(War of the Jews – Book VI)
12) JEWS WILL BE SOLD TO OTHER NATIONS
(Luke 21: 23,24)
“For they left only the population; and SELL THE REST OF THE CROWD, with their wives and children; and each of them for a very low price: and because those that WERE SOLD were many, and buyers very few.”
(War of the Jews – Book VI – Chap. 8)
13) THE SON OF MAN RETURNING WITH HIS ARMY ON THE CLOUDS
(Revelation 19: 1-21) (Matthew 24:30)
“A prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose his account seems to be a FABLE. For, before sunset, CARRIES and SOLDIER TROOPS in their ARMATURES were seen running between the CLOUDS and SURROUNDING the cities.”
War of the Jews – Book VI – Chapter 5
Everything that Jesus predicted in the year 30 CE was fulfilled 40 years later, according to Flávio Josefo in the year 70 CE and recorded in the book GUERRA DOS JUDEUS.
40 years means ONE GENERATION for Jews.
According to the Myth of Adonis or Dionysus, women would burn incense in Adonis. Once the plants withered, the women cried and mourned loudly Adonis’ death, TEARING HER CLOTHES AND HITTING Breasts in a public display of sadness. The women placed an Adonis statuette on a bier and then carried it out to sea with all the withered plants. In the Gospels, Jesus’ clothes were torn and the people beat their chests in protest: “And all the people who had come together to witness what was happening, when they saw this, they started to BEAT THE CHEST and walk away. But everyone who knew him, including the women who had followed him since Galilee, stayed at a distance, watching these things. (Luke 23: 44-49)
Both in the story of Jesus and in the myth of Dionysus we have stories of women following the heroes, Religious rituals, Sexual relationship between a god and a human virgin, Kingdom of Mystery, Prostitutes, Wine, Birth and Resurrection etc.