Does this say anything to you?

Omni_Skittles · Post by **Omni_Skittles** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 12:32 am

Josephus writings? Anyone heard about it? well basically this guy decided to write pretty much a history of the times that just happened to be around the time Christ was born and stuff... Well anyway in the bible it talks about King Herod. Or Crazy King Herod... as my prof likes to say. Anyway basically it pointed out where his tomb was. He also had a lot of stuff about the different people around that time and all of it went straight from the bible... so yea what do you think this proves? honestly i see it as another validation of the bible! which oh my gosh if the Bible is real... then what? (not that i didn't believe before)

moonpie · Post by **moonpie** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 1:15 am

I just don't know what to say - are you preaching to us?

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 4:11 am

Omni_Skittles;782575 wrote: Josephus writings? Anyone heard about it? well basically this guy decided to write pretty much a history of the times that just happened to be around the time Christ was born and stuff... Well anyway in the bible it talks about King Herod. Or Crazy King Herod... as my prof likes to say. Anyway basically it pointed out where his tomb was. He also had a lot of stuff about the different people around that time and all of it went straight from the bible... so yea what do you think this proves? honestly i see it as another validation of the bible! which oh my gosh if the Bible is real... then what? (not that i didn't believe before)

The bible tells the story of a primitive people and their making sense of the world around them. geological events like earthquakes etc are explained by it being an act of god, events like the flood have parallel stories in other cultures around the world, there is plenty of archeological evidence that sea levels have risen dramatically in the past not just in the Mediterranean but off the coasts of japan and india and that the climate has changed dramatically as well. If crops fail for no reason that you can see then god is as good an explanation as you are going to get. Imagine the shock of an earthquake if you don't understand the cause.

when they won a victory over a rival tribe god was on their side. When they were defeated it was because they had gone away from god. Life was harsh and fate seemed fickle so the god they imagined was. They were heavily influenced by other people they came in to contact with just as they influenced those around them for good or ill.

You can cross reference a lot of things in the bible and validate events as being real which make it an interesting insight in to past times and events in the middle east. But there was an awful lot going on elsewhere in the world and in other cultures that influenced us just as much. In a lot of ways the bible has been a baleful influence especially when people take it literally and don't use their common sense when reading it.

Josephus is one of a number of historians around at the time-a roman collaborator and a traitor to his people or a man of his times depending on your point of view, although I can't claim to have read a lot of his writings.

Post by **spot** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 4:17 am

He's slightly later than you think, he was there when the Romans trashed Israel after the Jews rioted once too often around AD70, so he was born a bit after Jesus died. That's what made him write his history of his own people because they'd just lost their country, he was saving what was remembered (as well as writing his own autobiography). So yes, he knows about the various King Herods and he mentions the Christians in a couple of sentences, I think he mentions Pontius Pilate as well (I'd need to look to remind myself). It's a good read if you like histories.

Omni_Skittles · Post by **Omni_Skittles** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:17 pm

moonpie;782585 wrote: I just don't know what to say - are you preaching to us?
lol i am not a pastoral ministry at all... sheesh lol It's under Christianity's topic!!!

Omni_Skittles · Post by **Omni_Skittles** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:18 pm

fuzzy butt;783894 wrote: Yeah I've read a few things he's written skittle, there are also pages missing from his writings as well, believed to be scattered throughout the world.

oh and if you do get a chance to read him , he has a wicked sense of humour.lol i will try to read them someday... not like i have anything better to do!

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:47 pm

Some of the posts in this thread have mentioned King Herod, so I'd like to go off at a slight tangent here. Herod has been called Herod the Great in some writings (Ok, not in this thread). My question is quite simply what did Herod do to earn the title Great?

He can't have been a particularly strong king, surely, or the Romans would have got rid of him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he was a Roman king, so that would maybe make him a local king co operating with the Romans. In other words a weak king.

Any contributions welcomed. Thankyou.

Omni_Skittles · Post by **Omni_Skittles** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:49 pm

Joe;784021 wrote: Some of the posts in this thread have mentioned King Herod, so I'd like to go off at a slight tangent here. Herod has been called Herod the Great in some writings (Ok, not in this thread). My question is quite simply what did Herod do to earn the title Great?

He can't have been a particularly strong king, surely, or the Romans would have got rid of him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he was a Roman king, so that would maybe make him a local king co operating with the Romans. In other words a weak king.

Any contributions welcomed. Thankyou.
lol random... I don't think i have ever called him herod the great... crazy king herod, king herod Herod... well he did have a son named herod... so that might be him... idk honestly....

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:41 am

Joe;784021 wrote: Some of the posts in this thread have mentioned King Herod, so I'd like to go off at a slight tangent here. Herod has been called Herod the Great in some writings (Ok, not in this thread). My question is quite simply what did Herod do to earn the title Great?

He can't have been a particularly strong king, surely, or the Romans would have got rid of him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he was a Roman king, so that would maybe make him a local king co operating with the Romans. In other words a weak king.

Any contributions welcomed. Thankyou.

I'm not religious but that decision wasn't made without a lot of consideration. If all you read is the bible then you end up with a very distorted view of the world.

http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodians/h ... eat01.html

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsi ... herod.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 2:06 pm

Thanks for those links. They confirm that Herod was called the Great, & they're interesting for what they say about his life & the extent of power he had. But what they (& other sites I've looked at since) fail to do is answer the question.

Not many kings worldwide have the Great after their name. Alexander is one of the easier ones to remeber who does. But Herod was just a puppet king & hardly in the same league.

OK, we don't know why he was regarded great, he doesn't seem great to me, but if anyone can shed any firther light on this I'm still interested to know.

Thanks.

Post by **spot** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 2:34 pm

Perhaps he was Herod the Great in contrast with all the other littler lesser Herods. None of them might have been totally huge on the world stage but one of them may well have outshone the others by a significant margin, I'm sure the language allows Great in that context.

Post by **spot** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:44 am

You couldn't lay it out as effectively if you did.

I'd not noticed before that Herod the Great was never a king of anything.

He's the one who went round slaughtering the innocent, establishing a tradition in that part of the world which is celebrated to this very day.

Pretty encyclopaedia, Fuzzy.

Ted · Post by **Ted** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:38 pm

Herod was known as the "Great" partly because of his massive building projects. Going on memory I believe he had the city of Sepphoris built Of course he was a lackey for Rome but wielded his power in such a way as to keep Rome happy.

Shalom

Ted:-6

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:16 pm

OK, a picture is beginning to emerge.

I admit I never felt Herod worthy of the title Great in the conventional sense of the word. But that's only from views coloured by the one sided account of him in the New Testament.

If he did oversee massive building programs that may have boosted his reputaion greatly amongst his followers.

And early kings are probably united in the brutality with the way they delt with perceived threats to their dynasties. Herod was probably no different to any other ruler at the time in ordering the slaughter of the innocents, terrible though that seems to us now.

Thanks for the extra information.

Ted · Post by **Ted** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:52 pm

Joe:-6

One of the great problems that comes up in history is that of judging the past. It is very difficult because it is our tendency to judge the past in terms of the present and this is simply in error. An historical event must be judged on the basis of its own time. Hind sight is always 20/20.

We do know how Jesus felt about "empire". He was totally opposed to the oppression of the empire and its lackeys which included the high priests of the temple. His crucifixion was a direct result of disturbing the social milieu, high treason and suspected of being a leader of a potential rebellion. Jesus' judgment is one from that era.

Shalom

Ted:-6