Why did a transnational revolt, with the Jews at its centre, erupt in 116, capable of seriously challenging the Roman empire, which at that very moment had reached the phase of its greatest expansion? . . . What events, in 115 and then 116 CE, first led to Greek-Jewish clashes in Mediterranean cities, and then … Continue reading “Rebellion of the Diaspora — the world in which Christianity and Judaism were moulded”
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How we would love to know more about the times between the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE. That period is surely a decisive one for how both Christianity and Judaism developed into what they are today. Some have suggested that this period saw … Continue reading “Reconstructing the Matrix from which Christianity and Judaism Emerged”
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276 VI. Hadrian and Christian Gnosis. 1. The Empowered Nero. Among the five emperors who, after the fall of the last Flavian, allowed the Senate free hand in legislation, Hadrian occupies the same position as Nero in the line of Julio-Claudian princes. Those five had risen above the embittered mood with which the first emperors … Continue reading “BRUNO BAUER: Christ and the Caesars – VI. Hadrian and Christian Gnosis”
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183 IV. The House of Flavia and Judaism. I. The Invasion of the West by the East. Rome was not able to enjoy its power, at its peak, with a joyful heart. In the rising and setting of the sun, there were images of terror and danger that it did not feel capable of facing … Continue reading “BRUNO BAUER: Christ and the Caesars – IV. The House of Flavia and Judaism”
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We come now to the red horse and its rider. The first thing W [=Thomas Witulski] brings to his readers’ notice is the different manner in which this second horse is depicted: And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto … Continue reading “The Red Horse of the Apocalypse and Its Rider”
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In the preceding post I copied extracts from Demetrios Kritsotakis’s thesis Hadrian and the Greek East that illustrated the unprecedented level to which the Roman emperor Hadrian was exalted as a divinity — all in the context of Thomas Witulski’s thesis that the Book of Revelation is best dated to the time of Hadrian (117-138 … Continue reading “Hadrian — Man, Program and Impact in the Context of Revelation”
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Why do I always seem to catch up with the older work last? Here are my notes from Alfred Loisy’s Origins of the New Testament (originally 1936) on the evidence for tradition concerning the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John was a latecomer and “the elders” in Asia, specifically Ephesus, who were pushing for … Continue reading “Loisy on The Gospel of John”
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