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Post by rakovsky on Dec 25, 2019 15:43:56 GMT -8
As for Question 5 about Antonia's refusal to remarry, the "Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors" says:Footnote 5 above cites Josephus and Valerius Maximus, discussed below.
The Armstrong Economics article on Antonia said:
In The Women of Pliny's Letters, Jo-Ann Shelton writes that according to Valerius Maximus, Antonia's avoidance of remarriage was due to her desire to repay her husband's love with exceptional loyalty. According to Rebecca Langlands in Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome, the idea in Valerius' quote below was that Drusus did not cheat on her in his lifetime so she rewarded him afterwards by staying single.
Valerius Maximus, in his early-mid 1st Century book Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings, Book IV, writes:
Josephus was writing decades after Valerius, and so he was likely picking up on this earlier view of Antonia's virtue.
Emily Kittell-Queller's article "Widows and the Univira in Ancient Rome" says:
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Post by rakovsky on Dec 25, 2019 16:46:32 GMT -8
Because except for Levirate marriage, in Judaism a man and his brother’s widow cannot marry. Question 5 was about Antonia, a non-Jewish Roman noblewoman, and the passage didn't refer to the emperor asking her to marry a particular person, like her brother in law. There was a Roman law at the time encouraging widows to remarry in order to increase the population, so the emperor's request was likely motivated by this sentiment. |
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Post by rakovsky on Dec 25, 2019 19:10:36 GMT -8
Alcohol does induce thirst, but if you are thirsty anyhow it can satisfy. Especially with a meal. The writer must mean that Agrippa didn't have anything to drink, including wine. Wine was common in ancient Roman meals. The writer didn't mean that wine was the only thing that could quench thirst. The writer Vincent Karuhanga writes in "Can alcohol quench thirst?", In "On a desert island, would it be better to drink wine or go thirsty?", Luis Villazon writes: As for inducing thirst, one factor is how much alcohol is in the wine. If it is low in alcohol, it will make you less thirsty. The article "THIRST QUENCHING WINES THAT AREN’T ROSÉ" on the Winepicker website lists low alcohol wines like Vinho Verde, Txakoli, and Cviček. The abstract for the article "Thirst sensation and oral dryness following alcohol intake" in The Japanese Dental Science Review says that substantial alcohol consumption does induce thirst: |
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Post by rakovsky on Dec 25, 2019 20:32:23 GMT -8
(Question 7) How can fortune have "power"? Isn't fortune or destiny in effect the path of history and events from the past into the future? Supposing that the future and past are already set in place, thus creating destiny, then how does destiny have power? It seems to just be the status and state of affairs in the future. The state of affairs would just exist like the ocean exists or rocks exist. It would just be the way that things are, and not itself a "power". Or does this mean that human will, the soul, the state of affairs, and destiny are different "forces" that can act on each other?Josephus makes this comment about Agrippa and the "power of fortune": My acquaintance suggested to me that <<"Power of fortune" is just another way of saying "the favor of God(s/the Fates)." They concluded that Agrippa could only have risen from poverty like that if he had divine favor.>> The quote from Book XVIII, Chp. 6, section 11, in Loeb's translation says that the Roman empire gave Agrippa permission to return to Judea, and: Josephus uses "Fortune" and "Fate" interchangeably or synonymously in Book XVI.11:In other words, Fate is an "inevitable necessity" (per Whiston's translation). Josephus goes on to compare the doctrine of Fate with the doctrine of the pharisees that he seems to endorse, Josephus describes the pharisees' beliefs in Book xviii (MS. section 12-15):As I mentioned earlier, Josephus is not saying that Fortune is a literal being, because earlier in Book XVI, Josephus wrote about Herod: "In truth, a divine power had given him a great many instances of good fortune". Here, fortune is a result, a set of events, and they are caused or given by the divine power. Beings are not caused, so much as created. One one could explain it is that he conceives that the future set of events have a force such that people are compelled to experience them. The events are predetermined, and as in Herod's case in Book XVI, a divine power can determine the fortune. So a person, in Josephus' view, can affect their future, but fate, ie. the predetermined set of events, also affects the set of events. The events have their own power, their necessity or inevitability, that makes a person experience them, even though a person also plays a role in what those events ultimately turn out to be. |
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Post by rakovsky on Dec 25, 2019 21:10:49 GMT -8
Your acquaintance is probably right. I don’t study Josephus works, so I really cannot give a good educated opinion on how he thought. But I suspect his opinions would reflect those of a Hellenized Jew, and said characteristics would lean to the Greek since he wrote for his Roman audience. The underlined statements above are how I would answer the question at my first attempt, and that saying that fortune has "power" is a simplification or vulgar attempt at explaining how things work. But I am not sure. Let's say that there are a set of future events, determined by a set of forces like gravity or God's Will. Maybe I want to change those events to make something else happen, but I can perceive fate pulling me toward the predetermined outcome. For instance, I keep getting weighed down by gravity when I jump and try to launch myself to the top of a tree, and so I can perceive that my "fate" is to stay living on the ground, or at least remaining unable to jump so high. And I can imagine or interpret this "fate" as the power of fate against my own free will. But maybe "fate" is not really the best way to explain all these things. Maybe it is a mystification, and that if you understood everything that happened, you would not call it fate's "power", you would call it the power of "gravity", the power of God's will, etc. Josephus apparently endorsed the pharisees'/rabbis' views on the question of what role different forces play. He was saying that the pharisees see fate/fortune as having a role, along with peoples' own decisions, in how events turn out. Marcus suggests that in terms of Hebraic thought, Josephus was talking about "Providence" when he referred to "Fate". To give you a Protestant theological comparison: I don't know how much you are familiar with Calvinism, or how much Calvinism plays a role in Evangelical or Baptist theology, but strong, rigid, or Deterministic "Predestination" was a key feature of Calvin's theology. Traditional or original Calvinism, as I understand it, is pretty strict about how strongly "Predestination" predetermines events. In their theology, when God made the earth, he knew how everything would turn out, including who would be saved and not saved, and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do to change this destiny. If you are not among the elect, or chosen, then there is nothing that you can do to change this, even if you wanted to. There was little or no room for "free will" in Calvin's system. I would have to dig up quotes to be more precise about this, but Calvin's explanations were very strict, rigid, and what we today would call "Deterministic." Alot of Calvin's ideas like this one had some basis in St. Augustine's theories, which in turn had some basis in Paul's ideas, as well as probably some other Biblical ideas. But Calvin placed more emphasis on this kind of Determinism than the Bible did. To go back to Josephus, he, Judaism, and the pharisees/rabbis, would see Providence, Destiny, and humans' actions and will as all playing a role in how events unfold. The EO view accepts the concept of Providence, that God has a Predetermined Plan, but the EOs also see Calvinism as too Deterministic. They would say that God has foresight and Providence of the future, but God's foreknowledge doesn't have such a lockdown that a person couldn't change it. Like God could know ahead of time that a person is going to have salvation or not, but just because God knows this doesn't mean that the person's own free will won't play a role. There are alot of times in the Bible where a prophet says that something bad will happen as punishment, and passes this on as a divine message, but then the people repent and God has mercy instead. The story of Job and Nineveh is a good example. Maybe Nineveh was fated for disaster in the story, and this fate could seem to have a force pulling Nineveh onto its destruction, but the people of Nineveh had their own free will, which in turn also had a force, and so they were able to repent and avoid it. I feel like this question deserves more thought. |
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Post by alon on Dec 25, 2019 22:45:05 GMT -8
Where do I start!? 
I guess finishing this, then move on to the next page. You must have edited while I was typing ... a common occurence since my typing is notoriously slow.
We wrote:I must not have made clear what I meant about "John's baptism" being specific to his ministry somehow, as opposed to being no different than regular Tevilah, because I don't think that Catholics and Baptists in general would differ on the point- even if in reality John was only preaching normal Tevilah. Below I will share some examples for why I suppose that it is the most common view among Evangelical Protestants and some Messianics too. Oh, a lot of people/denominations/sects hold that view! Remember, like EO all other denominations came out of the RC system, and never entirely left it! And while the early Nazarenes were not of that system, many of the sects or assemblies in the contemporary Messianic movement came out of one or more of these denominations. And without good, qualified Rabbis to lead them many fall into some of the same errors. There are probably more Messianic congregations who do the one-and-done-dip-and skip method than who do it correctly. Doesn't make them right.Hanoch ben Keshet writes in the Kesher Journal article about Ezekiel 36 as the Besorah for Israel: "Beasley-Murray admits Yohanan’s rite and Messiah’s soon outpoured Spirit are widely thought represented in John 3:5 and are derived from Ezekiel 36:25-27". I take the phrase John's rite to mean that his baptismal practice was somehow specific to his ministry. More likely it is from Num 19 and Heb 11. The ashes of the Red Heifer were kept outside the camp, available to those not of the royal household in need of purification. Some of the blood was sprinkled toward the tent of meeting, but most burnt with the heifer. Those using the ashes mixed them with clean water and were sprinkled with the mix making them taharah, ritually pure. These were probably the Judges (Heb 11) and possibly others. Sprinkling water in Ezek 36 also may harken back to the sprinkling of blood at Sinai and on Yom Kippur. Yeshua already covered us in His blood, so in the end times He may sprinkle water. Not really sure.The article "Why Did John the Baptist Baptize with Water" by a born again author on the 4JesusOutreach website says: "Unlike the frequent Jewish Mikveh washings, John’s baptism was a one-time event for a renewed people of God." Yep, one-and-done, dip-and-skip theology. Only one baptism, dip 'em and then skip the rest of it. Yahoo! As we want, so shall we do!
The "Messianic Apologetics" website says:I take the words "Derived his practice from" to mean that the practices were somehow distinguishable. You could take it like that. But that reads a lot into the statement. And from a source which might be wrong, or you might more likely misunderstand them. You made a good catch in your post below where John 7 associates the spirit with water allegorically. Even a blind squirrel finds the occasional acorn. But thanks.
When I wrote:"Your question misconstrued what I wrote", I didn't mean that you were deliberately trying to make what I said wrong. Your question was Why would John be telling them to make Tevilah part of their religious practice, since as I said, Tevilah was already part of their religious practice? I must not have made what I was saying clear. I must have meant it in the sense of John preaching to his audience to stay constant in their observance of repeated immersions, not in the sense of introducing Tevilah into Judaism, which as you said, was already there. I think it would have been assumed they would continue tevilah as commanded. Even if you (erroneously) believe  was nullified by Yeshua, in whole or in part, at the time of John's ministry Yeshua had not yet died. They were still under the OT law (a misnomer, but then I didn't coin the phrase or the theology).
I'll work on the others later.
Shalom, l'hitra'ot. (see ya later) |
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Post by alon on Dec 26, 2019 11:01:57 GMT -8
As for Question 5 about Antonia's refusal to remarry, the "Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors" says:Footnote 5 above cites Josephus and Valerius Maximus, discussed below. The Armstrong Economics article on Antonia said: Valerius Maximus, in his early-mid 1st Century book Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings, Book IV, writes: Josephus was writing decades after Valerius, and so he was likely picking up on this earlier view of Antonia's virtue. Emily Kittell-Queller's article "Widows and the Univira in Ancient Rome" says: |
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Post by alon on Dec 26, 2019 11:14:57 GMT -8
Alcohol does induce thirst, but if you are thirsty anyhow it can satisfy. Especially with a meal. The writer must mean that Agrippa didn't have anything to drink, including wine. Wine was common in ancient Roman meals. The writer didn't mean that wine was the only thing that could quench thirst. The writer Vincent Karuhanga writes in "Can alcohol quench thirst?", As an ex-heavy drinker, I can say with authority he is right. One of the "great things" (sic) about alcohol is it always leaves you wanting more!
In "On a desert island, would it be better to drink wine or go thirsty?", Luis Villazon writes: As for inducing thirst, one factor is how much alcohol is in the wine. If it is low in alcohol, it will make you less thirsty. The article "THIRST QUENCHING WINES THAT AREN’T ROSÉ" on the Winepicker website lists low alcohol wines like Vinho Verde, Txakoli, and Cviček. The abstract for the article "Thirst sensation and oral dryness following alcohol intake" in The Japanese Dental Science Review says that substantial alcohol consumption does induce thirst: |
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Post by rakovsky on Dec 26, 2019 17:51:54 GMT -8
Hanoch ben Keshet writes in the Kesher Journal article about Ezekiel 36 as the Besorah for Israel: "Beasley-Murray admits Yohanan’s rite and Messiah’s soon outpoured Spirit are widely thought represented in John 3:5 and are derived from Ezekiel 36:25-27". I take the phrase John's rite to mean that his baptismal practice was somehow specific to his ministry. More likely it is from Num 19 and Heb 11. The ashes of the Red Heifer were kept outside the camp, available to those not of the royal household in need of purification. Some of the blood was sprinkled toward the tent of meeting, but most burnt with the heifer. Those using the ashes mixed them with clean water and were sprinkled with the mix making them taharah, ritually pure. These were probably the Judges (Heb 11) and possibly others. Sprinkling water in Ezek 36 also may harken back to the sprinkling of blood at Sinai and on Yom Kippur. Yeshua already covered us in His blood, so in the end times He may sprinkle water. Not really sure.Sure, it makes sense that the concepts of cleansing spiritually by sprinkling blood and by sprinkling water are related. They are both involving cleansing spiritually using different purifying liquids, so there is a shared concept. |
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Post by rakovsky on Dec 26, 2019 18:06:37 GMT -8
How did we get on THIS particular line of thought? 
We were talking about whether wine induces thirst, so I cited a scientific article about how drinking substantial amounts of alcohol makes you thirsty. |
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Post by rakovsky on Dec 26, 2019 20:49:11 GMT -8
Regarding Question 7 (How can fortune have "power"?), Josephus writes in Book VIII:
In the story, King Ahab tried to deceive the fate foretold in Micah's prophecy by changing his clothes with the king of Jerusalem, but Ahab was killed anyway as Micah had predicted. So King Ahab believed what sounded nice to him, instead of believing the dark prophecies of Elijah and Micah, which came to pass anyway. Josephus concludes that there is no way to avoid fate, even when it is known ahead of time, and this inevitability shows the "power" of fate. Josephus doesn't think that there was nothing that Ahab could have done to avoid his doom, but Ahab's mistake was in disbelieving the warning prophecies. It follows that if the way that the future is laid out and seen by the prophets had no "power", then it easily might not happen. But the fact that Ahab's prophecied doom happened regardless of his expectations and the warnings shows that the future plan had enough "power" to become reality.
That is, Ahab tried to avoid his fate of doom, but it occurred anyway regardless of his efforts against it, and this outcome shows the "power" of the fate, which he was resisting.
In The Plan of God in Luke-Acts
, John T. Squires writes about Ahab's story:
In Josephus's Interpretation of the Bible
, Louis H. Feldman says that in Wars of the Jews Book IV, Josephus used "the decree of fate" as something equivalent to God's will when he wrote that the decree of fate was responsible for the death of High Priest Ananus. Feldman writes that Josephus equates fate (Eimarmeni) with Providence (Pronoia - Foresight) in Wars Book IV where Vespasian
Feldman also writes:Feldman also comments that Josephus' comment in Book VIII that even with foreknowledge it is impossible to escape the power of fate points to a conflict between the impersonal power of fate and a personal God, "in which sometimes the latter's effort to protect people from harmful courses is frustrated by the workings of fate."
In his commentary on Romans 7, St Cyril says that if someone believes about Fate's power in a rigid way, "Suppose, he [the believer in such rigid power] might say, that we have been bound by this hard and unyielding Necessity which determines what we must or must not do, so that we have absolutely no power over ourselves but must instead submit to outside powers, by which we are imprisoned against our will." Cyril went on to argue that if Fate was so unwielding and Free Will so lacking, then it would not make sense for God to judge people based on the Law, as they would not have power for themselves to freely choose whether to obey or break it. This is in effect an argument against Calvin's rigid concept of Deterministic "Predestination."
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Post by rakovsky on Dec 26, 2019 21:44:19 GMT -8
Also for Question 7, I asked: Isn't fortune or destiny in effect the path of history and events from the past into the future?
Yes, because as the Oxford Lexico dictionary gives this definition for Destiny: "The events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future." It gives this example sentence: "The intricate events and various destinies interplay into a complicated story."
I asked: "Supposing that the future and past are already set in place, thus creating destiny, then how does destiny have power?
"
The idea for those who ascribe "power" to destiny is that once the future is set in place, then those events have an inevitability, whereby they must come to pass, and this inevitability, which resists efforts to change the events, has power in this resistance. It is like the power of a wall to resist being moved by someone who wants to walk right through it to get to the other side of the wall. The wall is in place and resists efforts at moving it. When a person pushes against a wall or other standing object, the object exerts a force against the person trying to move it. If there was no pushback by the wall, then the wall would move effortlessly.
I asked: "It seems to just be the status and state of affairs in the future. The state of affairs would just exist like the ocean exists or rocks exist. It would just be the way that things are, and not itself a "power". Or does this mean that human will, the soul, the state of affairs, and destiny are different "forces" that can act on each other?
"
The answer that I gather from what I cited earlier is that the soul has power/force, and so does the will, which can act on the state of affairs or destiny to change it. The will is a force, whereas the state of affairs, including those in the future, and destiny have force in staying the way that they are currently set to be now and in the future. The will can act on the state of affairs and on destiny to change it. I think that the state of affairs can also act on a person's will to affect their will. For example, a traumatic state of affairs could make someone depressed to the point where they lose willpower.
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Post by alon on Dec 27, 2019 1:26:13 GMT -8
What Fieldman, Cyril, and the OxLex all have in common is they are saying what I was thinking while reading about Q7: pagans (which includes Hellenized Jews) believe in fate. Believers in the God of Israel believe in grace, forgiveness, redemption. God may know ahead of time whether a man will repent, and may tell His prophets. But He never takes that man's free will. Never. There is no fate, only choices and consequences. Therefore speaking about the power of fate is a non sequitur.
Dan C
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Post by rakovsky on Dec 27, 2019 13:41:55 GMT -8
Anniversaries hold a special emotional charge for people. So I am sure they took note and made every use of the date in their cause. But unless you can find a prophecy concerning the event, whether the “synchronicity” was random or paranormal is pure speculation. However the pagan in us does like to attribute such timing to “the gods.” And men, in marking historical events such as loss of freedom can date events to their own ends, as such events can be dated from different events. It makes sense that this could be a random coincidence and that the Romans were fixating on the happenstance because of the importance of anniversaries in people's minds. Without more than this just being a coincidence of dates (100 years) and meanings (loss of the Republic and the potential to regain it), it is hard to have a strong sense of whether there is a real paranormal synchronicity involved. Paranormal Synchronicity, as Jung explained it, is a coincidence of two events that are connected in meaning, but for which there is no direct detectable causal link. A good example of this in early Christian/Nazarene literature is in the Lives of the Prophets, when Nathan the prophetIn the story, there was no direct causal link between the death of the naked man on the road and David's killing of Uriah. It wasn't as if the dead man was actually Uriah himself or the soul of Uriah. Rather, it served as a sign that the prophet was able to interpret. Nathan found the corpse the same night as David killed Uriah. Both events were connected in time, occurring the same night, and were connected in meaning, ie. involving an impure or violated state of a deceased person or corpse- one being publicly exposed on the road and the other being a murder victim. An comparable example of the Roman Republic having a chance at resurfacing 100 years after it was destroyed is the case of the Jews' liberation about 70 years after its conquest by the Babylonians. A key difference between the two situations - that of the Roman Republic and the Jews in Captivity - is that there was a prophecy by Jeremiah that the Captivity would last 70 years. Jeremiah 25 has: In Josephus' passage, the Romans did not explain the coincidence of 100 years as an omen or as synchronicity, but just that they were amazed and incredible about it: However, in Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History Victoria Emma Pagán sees in Josephus' account as pointing to coincidences with earlier parts of Roman history. She notes that Brutus committed suicide and Cassius killed himself with the dagger that he used against Julius Caesar, whereas the conspirator Chaerea who was involved in Caligula's death asked to be killed with the sword that killed Caligula, and Sabinus killed himself on his own sword. She writes: Donna Hurley writes in Rhetorics of Assassination:Suetonius draws comparisons between Caligula and Caesar. Caligula's full name (Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus) included the name Caesar. Hurley continues: So it looks like there are enough coincidences involved with the end of the Republic by Caesar and the potential resurfacing of the Republic after Caligula's assassination to consider that there could be paranormal synchronicity involved, but it looks hard to say. For instance, the password "Libertas" in Caesar's story did not happen at the end of the Republic, but rather at Caesar's death, which came years later. Josephus sees coincidences between the assassinations of Caesar and Caligula, but the 100 year period did not run between their assassinations, but rather from Caesar's taking power up until Caligula's assassination. |
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Post by rakovsky on Dec 28, 2019 9:35:57 GMT -8
In the pagan world of the time, one did not disrespect the gods of a land. Claudius would have had no problem with the Jews worshiping their God, as this was just another in the pantheon of gods to him. But there being Jews scattered throughout much of his empire he would have had a real problem with this God of a people interfering with the gods of the lands where they resided. When men converted then, it was not like we think of them just going to another church. They abandoned their gods, their people, their families- everything they were was changed as they followed this new God (or gods). ... Remember Naomi’s speech to Ruth? “I will go where you go, your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.” This is what she was saying: "I’m leaving everything I was behind me to live in your land, become a Jew and worship your God alone.”Your answer above is basically correct for Number 9. Setting at nought the other gods would mean that the Jews would be openly proclaiming to the pagans and the Roman world that the other gods were nothing. It couldn't mean that the emperor was prohibiting the Jews from teaching themselves that their God was the only real God, since this was a known key feature of Judaism, and the emperor was clearly allowing Judaism. So the prohibition against setting at nought the other gods must be a ban against them doing this in a practical sense, not just teaching themselves that only their God was true. That is, the emperor was banning them from practically annulling the other gods via preaching this to the other gods' followers. In Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods
, Eckhard J. Schnabel writes: In Divine Honours for the Caesars: The First Christians' Responses, Bruce W. Winter writes: |
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- there are 70 faces to 
