Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
Question: at about ** you do not have permission to see this link ** Walsh says Kloppenborg says we don’t have any evidence until the second century of Romans at the senatorial level being Christians.What about Clemens and Flavia Domitilla?
I googled contact Prof. Robyn Faith Walsh, got a result, and submitted the question above.
Steefen said
brenmcgIf they had witnessed the temple being destroyed, or if they had read Josephus’s account, they would know that fire was the essential element in the temple’s destruction. This essential element is absent in Jesus’s prophecies in all three synoptic accounts. Not one of them has this essential element.
Steefen, Argumentation Specialist and author of Historical Accuracy
Tell us about how fire alone destroys the massive stones at the Temple–or what accelerants were used.
Tell us about how fire alone destroys marble at the Temple–or what accelerants were used.
The fire started with Jewish rebels, not Rome, the Jewish rebels set the Temple aflame a day earlier than General Titus had planned.
What accelerants were Jewish rebel using to burn massive stones and marble?
The Romans had “engines” of destruction and rams which demolished the Temple. Fire would destroy what was flammable.
The Roman military had engines to dismantle fortresses.
Fire can destroy “skin and muscles” but not the “skeleton” of the Temple.
Fire can damage glass, metal, wood, cloth material, scrolls at the Temple.
[Not tonight will I open the Works of Josephus and go to the passages about the destruction of the Temple.]
Mark’s account may have been based on a testimony of witnesses who saw the temple when it was in the process of being torn down stone by stone.
[The Temple was not torn down stone by stone by fire.]
Both Matthew 24:2 and Luke 21:6 speak of stones to have been “thrown down” as the way the temple was destroyed.
[Not fire.]
Since Matthew and Luke speak of the temple’s destruction in the sense that stones were “thrown down” supports the idea that Mark’s account about the fate of the temple is accurate and that he wrote after the war.
“Do you see all these great buildings?” Jesus replied. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
Mark 13: 2
Jesus did not say all of the stones of the Temple will catch fire.
= = =
Adela Y. Collins is wrong to date Mark before the Romans demolished the Temple after Jewish rebels started the fire at the Temple.
In Collins camp is Martin Hengel:
Mark may have formulated 13: 2 simply in view of the threatening situation in Judea from the time of the sixties.
Steefen, Argumentation Specialist
In view of the threatening situation in Judea from the time of the sixties:
Jesus did not formulate the sentence in view of a threatening situation in Judea from 27-33 CE under Pilate and Tiberius.
The Biblical Jesus had a beef with the Pharisees, not Rome. What beef did Jesus see Rome having with Judea that it would demolish the Temple–and he saw this before the Temple was even completed.
The building was begun in 19 B.C. and finished in 10 years, but the work of decoration was not completely finished until A.D. 64
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Adela Collins also dates Mark before the destruction of the Temple based on
/ the desolating sacrilege
and
/the call to flee from Judea to the mountains.
pick up at p. 43 of The Gospel of Mark and the Roman-Jewish War of 66-70 CE
Collins thought “let the reader understand” meant both the sacrilege and the call to flee was immediately relevant at the time of his writing [and his hoped-for audience of readers at the time of writing].
Hengel thought the abomination would be an appearance of an anti-Christ (some Nero figure).
Collins thought of a physical statue being the abominator. She rejected zealot rebels occupying the Temple as being abominators.
Steefen, Argumentation Specialist
Well, what would it take for her not to reject zealot rebels occupying the Temple to be an abomination? Would the rebels leaders have to kill someone at the Temple? Well, they did that!
They killed high priest Jesus and stepped on his dead body, Adela.
I don’t think Mark was an eyewitness to anything. I’m willing to entertain a later dating than 70ish but you’ll have to convince me he depended on Josephus. Mark was an apocalypticist and he clearly associated the destruction of the Temple with Jesus and the Parousia. Odd if the gospel was composed early in the second century.
brenmcg said
@10:28 – jokingly against the claim Mark is written in 70AD “Well Mark 13 means this is written basically while they’re watching the temple burn.”That the temple was destroyed by fire is one of the most significant factors of Josephus’s account.
“As the flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamor, such as so mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered anything to restrain their force, since that holy house was perishing…thus it was the holy house burnt down.“
“It is certain that when from the upper city they watched the temple burning they did not turn a hair, though many Romans were moved to tears.“
This destruction of the temple by fire is completely absent from Matthew 24, Luke 21 and Mark 13. The natural conclusion is that neither Matthew nor Luke nor Mark read Josephus.
Stephen Simon Kimondo, PhD
The Temple was pulled down. Curtains/tapestries from the Temple were part of the spoils that were displayed during the triumphal procession in Rome (J.W. 7:162). This implies that the fire was not sever enough to melt the huge limestones that made up the temple walls. Otherwise, the soldiers would not be able to withstand its heat.
Steve Campbell, author of Historical Accuracy
The fire started by Jewish fighters a day or approximately 12 hours before Titus gave the order to the Roman military to take the Temple–that fire did not get to the tapestries.
The following day with Roman destruction, accelerants were added to fires started by the Roman military?
The first fire started by accident by Jewish fighters had no need of fire accelerants?
Then there is the question of location of the fires–outer court vs inner court vs Holy of Holies.
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