And although such was the character of [Lucceius] Albinus, yet did Gessius Florus who succeeded him, demonstrate him to have been a most excellent person, upon the comparison: for the former did the greatest part of his rogueries in private, and with a sort of dissimulation [concealment of one’s thoughts, feelings, or character; pretense]; but Gessius did his unjust action to the harm of the nation after a pompous manner and as though he had been sent as an executioner to punish condemned malefactors. He omitted no sort of rapine [the violent seizure of someone’s property] or of vexation.
where the case was really pitiable, he was most barbarous…nor could anyone contrive more subtle ways of deceit than he did. He indeed thought it but a petty offense to get money out of single persons, so he spoiled whole cities…
Accordingly, this his greediness of gain was the occasion that entire [districts] were brought to desolation. A great many of the people left their own country and fled into foreign provinces.
And truly, with Cestius Gallus was president of the province of Syria, nobody did as much as send an embassage to him against Florus, but when Gallus came to Jerusalem upon the approach of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the people came about him in numbers not fewer than three million. They besought him to commiserate the calamities of their nation and cried out that Florus was the bane of their country.
But as Florus was present standing next to Gallus,
Florus laughed at their words.
However, Gallus, when he had quieted the multitude and had assured them that he would take care that Florus should hereafter treat them in a more gentle manner, returned to Antioch, Syria.
…Gallus, for the purpose of showing his anger against the people of Judea, planned a war against them by which means he would conceal his enormous faults.
He expected if peace continued, the Jews would accuse him before Caesar, but if he could provoke them to revolt, he could divert their laying lesser crimes to his charge, by a misery that was so much greater. He therefore did every day augment their calamities in order to induce them to a rebellion.
Josephus translated by William Whiston. The Wars of the Jews, Book 2, Chapter 14, Section 2, Lines 277-279, and Section 3, Lines 280-283, ps 615-616.
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Jesus’s Son of Man Movement was not as important as the gospels claim.
Well, one can say the Tribulation was not just the destruction of Jerusalem but maltreatment by Roman governors, too. If so, the Parable of the Wicked Tenants is not proven because, then, they would be equally unworthy in the eyes of the owner of the vineyard (the Holy Land).
We already know that what the Gospels claim is just an exaggeration and theological push of the historical facts.
Josephus’s passages about Christians are already been questioned about their authenticity. And he’s almost the only one (outside Paul) to give some mixed historical testimony of those times.
I don’t see how the “Parable of the Wicked Tenants” could be proven.
I mean, dude, you should go back to school and reflect (and act upon) on symbolic thinking.
janmaru
I don’t see how the “Parable of the Wicked Tenants” could be proven. Reflect and act upon on symbolic thinking.
Steefen
There is no question that Jerusalem was taken from the tenants, taken by rebels of the Jewish Revolt, and ultimately taken by Rome which put down the revolt.
The owner of the vineyard probably disagreed with the killing of James, killed by a high priest. The owner of the vnieyard probably disagreed with the killing of John the Baptist.
When the Jewish Revolt got underway, there were killings in the Temple complex, there were more reasons of sacrilege for taking Jerusalem with its Temple from the Jews.
Well, yes. “Probably,” like the “Puss in Boots,” you tell the country folk along the road to tell the king that the land belongs to the “Marquis of Carabas”.
You should not mix your theology with scriptures.
The Parable of the Wicked cannot be taken out of context. And, forthcoming, there’s no way you cant take a parable on a fact check.
For instance the broken window fallacy. A small boy breaks a window in a small town. His father will have to pay the damage and the damaged spend the extra money on something else.
You can say that the fact stimulates the economy. What you cannot say that it can falsify or not something.
The story stands on its own and generates meaning. But codes are necessary for any communicative activity.
The Biblical Jesus, apocalyptic prophet, told the parable for the meaning it would convey.
You have yet to identify the components and what they convey.
The owner of the vineyard is Jesus’ notion of god.
The vineyard is Judea with Jerusalem as the focal point of Temple Judaism.
“I will take it from you and give it to those more worthy because you killed my servants and my son” are rejected holy people, including the Biblical Son of God, Jesus.
Was Jerusalem and Temple Judaism taken from the Jews? The answer is yes.
Aelia Capitolina (Traditional English Pronunciation: /ˈiːliə ˌkæpɪtəˈlaɪnə/; Latin in full: COLONIA AELIA CAPITOLINA) was a Roman colony, built under Emperor Hadrian on the site of Jewish Jerusalem, which had been almost totally razed after the siege of 70 CE,[1] this being one apparent reason for the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136 AD. Aelia Capitolina remained the official name of pagan Jerusalem[2] until the rise of Christianity under Emperor Constantine I, who brought back the name Jerusalem in 324.[3] The first part of the Roman pagan name was still in use in Arabic in 638 CE, when the Muslim armies conquered the city which they called ‘إلياء’, Iliyā’.[4]
Aelia came from Hadrian’s nomen gentile, Aelius, while Capitolina meant that the new city was dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus, to whom a temple was built on the Temple Mount. Under the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, before King Herod’s reign, the site of the Second Temple at the Temple Mount had already been reconsecrated to Zeus. This led to the Maccabean Revolt—which resulted in the Jewish-Roman alliance.
See the whole Wikipedia entry for Aelia Capitolina.
The “vineyard” was taken from the Jews and given to its patron empire, the Roman Empire, which renamed the “vineyard.”
According to rabbinic sources, when the Roman emperor Hadrian vowed to rebuild Jerusalem from the wreckage in AD 130, he considered reconstructing Jerusalem as a gift to the Jewish people. The Jews awaited with hope, but after Hadrian visited Jerusalem, he was discouraged from doing so by a Samaritan.[8] He then decided to rebuild the city as a Roman colony, which would be inhabited by his legionaries.[9] Hadrian’s new city was to be dedicated to himself and certain Roman gods, in particular Jupiter.[10]
There is controversy as to whether Hadrian’s anti-Jewish decrees followed the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt or preceded it and were the cause of the revolt.[8] The older view is that the Bar Kokhba revolt, which took the Romans three years to suppress, enraged Hadrian, and he became determined to erase Judaism from the province. Circumcision was forbidden and Jews were expelled from the city. Hadrian renamed Iudaea Province to Syria Palaestina, dispensing with the name of Judaea.[11]
Jerusalem was renamed “Aelia Capitolina”[12] and rebuilt in the style of a typical Roman town. Jews were prohibited from entering the city on pain of death, except for one day each year, during the holiday of Tisha B’Av. Taken together, these measures[13][14][15] (which also affected Jewish Christians)[16] essentially secularized the city.[17] The ban was maintained until the 7th century,[18] though Christians would soon be granted an exemption: during the 4th century, the Roman Emperor Constantine I ordered the construction of Christian holy sites in the city, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Burial remains from the Byzantine period are exclusively Christian, suggesting that the population of Jerusalem in Byzantine times probably consisted only of Christians.
Matthew 21:41
He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and will rent out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his share of the fruit at harvest time.”
The wretched end was the Jewish Revolt and the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
The new tenants renamed the vineyard and made it a territory without revolt against the Roman Empire for more than 100 years.
Back to Gessius Florus
Upon taking office in Caesarea, Florus began favoring local Greek population of the city over the Jewish population. The local Greek population noticed Florus’ policies and took advantage of the circumstances. One notable instance of provocation occurred while the Jews were worshiping at their local synagogue and a Hellenist sacrificed several birds on top of an earthenware container at the entrance of the synagogue, an act that rendered the building ritually unclean. In response to this action, the Jews sent a group of men to petition Florus for redress. Despite accepting a payment of eight talents to hear the case, Florus refused to listen to the complaints and instead had the petitioners imprisoned.[2]
Florus further angered the Jewish population of his province by having seventeen talents removed from the treasury of the Temple in Jerusalem, claiming the money was for the Emperor. In response to this action, the city fell into unrest and some of the Jewish population began to openly mock Florus by passing a basket around to collect money as if Florus were poor.[2] Florus reacted to the unrest by sending soldiers into Jerusalem the next day to raid the city and arrest a number of the city leaders. The arrested individuals were whipped and crucified despite many of them being Roman citizens.[3]
After the outbreak of the First Jewish–Roman War, Florus was replaced as procurator by Marcus Antonius Julianus.[4]
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It’s nice literary device that the Biblical Jesus, in his Parable of the Wicked Tenants, called down the destruction of Temple and City as justice and punishment for his being handed over to the Romans for crucifixion by the Sanhedrin, but this prophet should have also found blame in Gessius Florus. The problems in the area were not limited to Jews killing holy people, there were problems with Rome as well.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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