Help! Joseph of Arimathea.

[Minimalist]

Yeah because they were a Jewish order.

The whole Essene thing has taken a number of hits in recent years. Forgetting Magen and Peleg's archaeological research, and since you are so fond of Josephus, why not accept Josephus at his word. According to him, the Essenes did not live in monasteries in the countryside. They lived in the cities.

Poor Father Roland De Vaux was a French monk and apparently let his European imagination run wild. Magen and Peleg found evidence of Qumran being a pottery factory.

[Polaris]

Isn't he a pastor?

Also thanks. I'll save that for a future read. I was not aware of many who favored such a late date for that book...the other books in the NT of course, they have a large number of scholars who prefer the 2nd century completion dates.

So what that he is a pastor?

You do need to evaluate somebody's position by the strength of their arguments, not wither they have the "proper qualifications" or not.


Anyway David Trobisch has argued for the compilation and editing of the whole New Testament by Polycarp. As Trobisch argues, Polycarp along with that, heavily edited the Gospel of Luke, wrote the Book of Acts , along with the Pastoral Epistles as a way of refuting the macronites.

I would subscribe to a 2nd century date for acts on the basis of a character named Tertullus who is the prosecuting lawyer hired by the Jewish high priests in Acts 24. That name is so much like that of the church father Tertullan, who was said to have been a laywer.

I actually place Acts at 66-67 CE based primarily on it not having historical references past that date. I would assume if it was compiled later, they would have included other information. But that begs to question why these dates were not included when they started editing later on.

[King_Charles]

I got this from Price's famous book:

"Joseph of Arimathea provides another important piece of the puzzle. Like Judas, Joseph is a fictional character who grows in the telling. For one thing, as Dennis R. MacDonald has shown, he is based on King Priam, begging Agamemnon for the body of his son Hector. It is because he corresponds to the slain hero's father that he is called Joseph.' (Postbiblical legend seems to understand this, since it came close to making this explicit, casting Joseph of Arimathea as Jesus' great uncle,' taking the place of the elderly, then deceased Joseph, husband of Mary.) His town of origin, Arimathea, is made into a pun marking Joseph as another of Todorov's "narrative-men."

Robert M. Price. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? (p. 326). Kindle Edition. "

I don't think you have to be a Christian apologist to point out that someone begging/questing/fighting for the body of a loved one for a proper burial was a very common occurrence in real life (in the ancient world, with the importance attached to decent burial in ancient religion), myth and literature and saying it is "copying" the Iliad makes about as much sense saying that every instance of the dawn in literature is copying Homer's description of the dawn, or every description of a duel copying the duel in Homer, etc... it's such a vague parallel that it becomes meaningless.

And anyway it wasn't Agamemnon, it was Achilles who gave Hector's body to Priam. Is that a really a quote? It beggars belief that it could get published with such a glaring mistake.

That aside, the latter stuff about Joseph of Arimathea coming to England with Jesus, a la, "And did those feet, in ancient time....", and him getting mixed up in the Arthurian legends, obviously pious fiction (though darn good pious fiction if I may say so... ).

The gospel accounts? Depends on how historically viable you think the gospels are, but he does appear in the earliest version of of the gospel of Mark, just as the guy who gave up his tomb for Jesus. Plausable enough, but ultimatly unproveable one way or another if he actually existed.

[Minimalist]

No one has ever found "Arimathea" for "Joseph" to be from in the first place.

Also, it seems to be a Greek word which would be odd for an alleged member of the Sanheddrin.

[Polaris]

No one has ever found "Arimathea" for "Joseph" to be from in the first place.

Also, it seems to be a Greek word which would be odd for an alleged member of the Sanheddrin.

It is Greek because the Bible was translated into that language and the Greek portion of the Bible was the best preserved. The Hebrew word I mentioned earlier I believe.

[Minimalist]

There is no evidence, at all, that the NT texts were ever written in Hebrew or even Aramaic.

Further, the style of address is Greco-Roman. "Joe of ........ " was used in the Greco-Roman world. A jew and a member of a priestly family would have been known as "Joe son of Whoever."

[Polaris]

There is no evidence, at all, that the NT texts were ever written in Hebrew or even Aramaic.

Further, the style of address is Greco-Roman. "Joe of ........ " was used in the Greco-Roman world. A jew and a member of a priestly family would have been known as "Joe son of Whoever."

So you want word-for-word translations? We don't even tend to do those today for translating works between languages...when we do, we get those really cheesy, low-budget Kung-fu movies.

[Minimalist]

I dispute your contention that the bible was translated into Greek.

It was written in Greek.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I dispute your contention that the bible was translated into Greek.

It was written in Greek.

This one is a real drongo Min.

[King_Charles]

Why are you complaining about a greek word being in it then? Aramatheia is most likely a hebrew placename that was lost in translation when it was translated it into Greek.