From: Bruce Evry Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 11:25:20 -0400 Organization: FanTek - World's most unusual group of Friends! Dear Friends, Lucretius is one of my favorite historical persons! > > I have yet to research this fellah Lucretius who I imagine was > some ancient dude from the Isles of Greece (so if anyone has a > succinct summary it would be good to see how he fitted into the > evolution of scientific thought ... methinks an early atomist.) He was the teacher and philosophical leader of a revival of the Epicurean philosophies in ancient Rome in the later years of the First Century BC. He had a great influence on many of the younger aristocracy, especially the Emperor Augustus' daughter Julia who attempted to lead a philosophical rebellion against the severe Paternalistic Repressive society that was then, and still is, dominant. Okay, so maybe her methods were a bit unusual, like holding an orgy on the steps of the Roman Senate. But if they had succeeded then the history of the world and especially science would be far different. It is my opinion that the banishment and execution during the next century of Roman history that led to the downfall of Rome and the dark ages. There is nothing quite like destroying your entire class of engineers and philosophers in the name of the old-time religions to set back science and technology a few centuries! Anyway, Lucretius is always called "the Mad Poet Lucretius". His major work is De Naturem or On Nature... He hated Religion and Superstition with a passion. Lucretius was also a formative influence on one certain heir to the throne of Israel who was raised and educated by Tiberius Caesar, the husband of Julia. This person's Latin Name was Herod Marcus Julius Agrippa Magnus. As the Annointed King of Israel, Julius Agrippa also held the title of "annointed saviour" or, as we say today "Jesus Christ". By the way, did I mention that Epicuris and Lucretius taught a philosophy based on Love? Your Friend -- BRuce Evry PS - there is more info on Lucretius and Agrippa hidden on our club's Website at: http://www.fantek.org Come visit us!! By Bruce Evry bruce@fantek.org Agrippa - The Last King Of Israel Better known by the Greek form of his Hebrew name, "Jesus" Actually "Jesus Christ" is Not a name, it is a Title - meaning "Annointed Saviour" 1. Born late in the reign of King Herod the Great. 2. Descended from the royal Maccabean Princess Mariamne. 3. (and as was commonly rumored, Joseph, Prime Minister of Israel) 4. His father and uncle were slaughtered by Herod. 5. On false evidence brought against them by the Pharisees 6. Along with 300 of their young followers. 7. He was the eldest surviving male child of the Maccabean Line. 8. As such he was the Only rightful heir to the throne of Israel. 9. His mother fled with the young crown prince to distant lands 10. He was Not raised as a poor carpenter's son in Nazareth 11. He was raised, and adopted by Tiberius Caesar 12. He was educated with the other sons of the Imperial Family of Rome 13. His best friend, Tiberius' son Drusus was poisoned by Sejanus Sejanus was Tiberius' head of the Praetorian Guard and trusted righthand man. He was also the friend and sponsor of Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas. 14. Sejanus led Tiberius to blame Agrippa for Drusus' death, saying that the two of them had stayed out all night drinking and discussing philosophy. 15. Agrippa was forced to flee Rome. 16. He returned to Judea in about 27 or 28 AD. 17. There he hid in a fortress near the Dead Sea called "Malatha". 18. He was depressed and considered suicide. 19. His wife (he was married) got him a job through his sister. 20. The job was as mayor of the Galilean capitol city of Tiberias. 21. The Galilee was then ruled by Herod Antipas. 22. Who had just married Agrippa's sister. 23. This marriage would have given Antipas a real claim to Israel's throne. 24. Except for the fact that his ne'er-do-well brother-in-law was alive. 25. The treason of Sejanus was discovered and he was executed. 26. Sejanus' appointees and friends had reason to expect the worst. 27. Agrippa's friends were now in positions of authority. 28. Herod Antipas and Agrippa had an argument. (early 32 AD) 29. Agrippa was forced to flee once again. 30. It was not until the Spring of 36 AD that he sought to return to Rome. 31. He was carrying evidence to Tiberius against Pilate and Antipas. 32. He tried to borrow funds from one Peter, freedman of his mother. 33. Agrippa was arrested by the Procurator of Jamnia. 34. There was a miraculous escape. 35. Agrippa made his way to see his adoptive Father, Tiberius. 36. Tiberius took his prodigal son back into his good graces. 37. Shortly there-after Pilate was removed from office. 38. The high priest Joseph Caiaphas was also removed from office. 39. Agrippa expected to soon return to Israel, as its King... This is the point where the Gospels end their story, with Jesus going to see his Father in Heaven to obtain the grant of the Kingdom of Israel. This is not by any means the end of the story of Agrippa. It is just the very beginning... _________________________________________________________________ The Whole Story From before the Beginning to after the End Julius Agrippa was born in about the year 10 BC, but his story starts a long time before that. Perhaps the very beginning was when Abraham, the son of an idol maker in ancient Sumeria, decided that it was wrong to worship statues made of clay and stone as if they were gods. Maybe it was when Moses brought the Children of Israel that first commandment that said "Thou shalt not worship other gods before me." Israel is the crossroad between the continent of Africa and the Middle East. In ancient times it lay between the two earliest great cultures, that of Sumer (later Persia) and that of Egypt. The Children of Israel were also part of both these cultures, born in Sumer and sojourning for 400 years in Egypt. Israel was not just the connection between Egypt and the Mid-East, it was their continual battleground. For centuries ownership of Israel passed back and forth between the great empires, conquered first by one side, then by the next. For whoever held Israel also held control over the trade routes and the roads to further military conquest. Alexander the Great conquered all of it, the then known world, and he treated the Jewish people very well. But he died too young and his 3 generals split up his Empire between them. At first Israel was under the protection of the Egyptian house of Ptolomy. Then the Selucid Empire based in Syria and Persia conquered Israel, and one of their kings decided to force the Jews to worship him as a god, for after all it was what all the other peoples he had conquered had willing submitted to. But the Jewish people had no room in their beliefs to allow them to bow down before any man and worship him. They worshipped only One God. Very simple. And they rose up and revolted against the Persian god-king and threw him and his armies out of the land of Israel. And the leaders of this revolt were the family of Hasmon, the Hasomeans, also known better as the Maccabeans from the later generalship of Judah Maccabee. The child born to be King of the Jews and given the Latin name of Herod Marcus Julius Agrippa, was the great great great grandson of Judah Maccabee's brother. As such we have a complete detailed family history going back for generations, for theirs was the Royal Family of Israel. The Maccabean Kings The revolution against the Greek God-King Antiochus Epiphanes was successful and the Hasmonean family founded the first truly free state of Israel since the Babylonian Captivity. As such they were considered not only heroes, but also as "saviours" of the Jewish People. The Maccabean Kings held all three offices for which the process of annointing with sacred oils. This is reflected in the hebraic word for "annointed" which was Messiah, which is the same as the Greek "Christos" or Christ. In addition their family name perhaps comes from the hebrew word for Oil, and so it too may simply mean "the annointed ones". The followers of the Maccabean Royal Family were the priestly Sadducees, and their bitterest opponents were the rabbinic Pharisees. The word Pharisee is usually said to mean "separated" but it is far more likely that it means just exactly what it says, "Persian". In fact the modern word for Persian is still "Pharsee" and so their name probably reflects their being influenced by the long stay in Persia by the exiled Judeans. The feud between the Pharisees and the Sadducees goes back a long way, but the first historical mention of it is when the Pharisees started spreading gossip that one of the Maccabean Kings grandmother had been a captive. This was not true according to Josephus, the early Jewish historian, but good gossip is always more powerful than boring truth. The final blow was the Pharisees throwing citrus fruit at one of the Maccabean Kings during a festival at the Temple in Jerusalem. Now then, it is always to be considered bad manners to throw fruit at people and very dangerously stupid to throw fruit at Kings. From this idiotic beginning a series of civil war between the Sadducees and the Pharisees broke out, ending eventually with two brothers of the Maccabean Royal Family leading the two sides into a bloody conflict. The civil war ended with both sides inviting the Roman General Pompey to come in and help their side win. Pompey accepted the invitation and decided to keep Israel for himself and Rome. Thus it was that sibling rivalry ended the freedom of the Jewish People. _________________________________________________________________ The Coming of Herod Pompey appointed the Pharisiac brother to be the High Priest after slaughtering the Sadducees in the Temple while they prayed. Or to be more kind to Pompey, he allowed the Pharisees to slaughter them. This ended for all time the control of the Temple by its rightful priesthood. But Pompey appointed the chief advisor of the Pharisiac Party to be the Roman Governor of Judea. His name was Antipater and he had a young son named Herod. However the Romans were just about to begin their own civil wars, which made those of the Jews look small in comparison. These wars involved the entire known world of that time. By the time the Roman civil wars ended, Pompey was dead, Julius Caesar was dead, the noble families were decimated and Rome was no longer a Republic. And in all this the family of Antipater and Herod were principal actors. They fought for nearly every party and every side, managing to change sides in the middle of battles and always to end up on the winning side. They were intelligent, ruthless and clever men, both father and son. At the halfway point of their civil wars, Mark Antony and Augustus Caesar had won against those who had slain Julius Caesar. They split control of the new fledgling empire between them. Antony took Egypt and Augustus took Rome itself. _________________________________________________________________ Mary and Joseph Coming soon, the full story of the Princess Mariamne and the Prime Minister of Israel, named Joseph. And how everyone died... _________________________________________________________________ A message to Tom Simms, (on the historical Jesus list) Dear Tom, Back when I first started on this list I had tried to quote from memory certain passages from Philo Judaeus. Have now received from Amazon Books "The Works of Philo", which contains the complete translation done by C. D. Yonge. Of course this "new" book, like most of the other translations of source material was written in the 1850's. So the English in it is a bit old-fashioned. The one portion I had specifically mentioned was a letter from Agrippa to Caius Caligula asking the Emperor to leave off his plan to place a statue of himself in the Temple in Jerusalem. In this passage King Agrippa describes those good things which Caius had done for him before the madness (possibly caused by a severe illness in late 38 AD). He later offers to give up his kingship and even his life if the Emperor will just stop the orders to place the statue in the Temple. "If I were to enumerate the benefits which I myself have received at your hands, the day would be too short for me; besides the fact that it isnot proper for one who has undertaken to speak on one subject to branch off to a digression about some other matter. And even if I should be silent, the facts themselves speak and utter a distinct voice. "You release me when I was bound in chains and iron. Who is there who is ignorant of this? But do not, afer having done so, O emperor bind me in bonds of still greater bitterness: for the chains from which you released me surrounded a part of my body, but those which I am now anticipating are the chains of the soul, which are likely to oppress it wholly and in every part." "You abated me from a fear of death, continually suspended over my head, you received me when I was almost dead through fear, you raised me up as it were from the dead." Here we have a King of the Jews, writing in the year 41 AD, descibe himself as being "raised up... from the dead". As you know, the word "resurrection" literally means "to be raised up". (Philo,"On the Embassy To Gaius", 323-325) Now then, it is an unusual thing for a King of the Jews to be raised up from the dead. It's just not something that happens every week. In fact we only have one other set of accounts which describe a certain "king of the Jews" being resurrected. They are called the New Testament... Yours -- Bruce Evry _________________________________________________________________ From bruce@fantek.org Tue Apr 1 14:01:48 1997 From: Bruce Evry To: Bob Schacht (another message posted by me to the Historical Jesus list Crosstalk) Dear Bob, The question of whether Jesus should be worshipped is the one insurmountable barrier between Judaism and Christianity. It might be helpful to get a First Century opinion as to whether a man should be worshipped as a god. The following passage is from Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" and is a description of King Agrippa's visit to Cesarea in 44 AD: "Now, when Agrippa had reigned 3 years over all Judea, he came to the city Cesarea, which was formerly called Strato's Tower; and there he exhibited shows in honor of Caesar, upon which being informed that there was a certain festival celebrated to make vows for his safety."At which festival, a great multitude was gotten together of the principal persons, and such as were of dignity through the province. "On the second day of which shows he (King Agrippa) put on a garment made wholly of silver, and of a contexture truy wonderful, and came into the theatre early in the morning; at which time the silver of his garment being illuminated by the fresh reflection of the sun's rays uon it, shone out after a surprising manner, and was so resplendent as to spread a horror over those that looked intently opon him; "and presently his flatters cried out, one from one place, and one from another (though not for his good) that he was a god; and they added, "Be thou merciful to us; for although we have hitherto reverenced thee only as a man, yet shall we henceforth own thee as superior to mortal nature." "Upon this the king did neither rebuke them, nor reject their impious flattery. But, as he presently afterwards looked up, he saw an owl sitting on a certain rope over his head, and immediately understood that this bird was the messenger of ill tidings, as it had once been the messenger of good tidings to hi; and fell into the deepest sorrow. A severe pain also arose in his belly, nd began in a most violent manner." "He therefore looked upon his friends, and said: "I whom you call a god, am commanded presently to depart this life; while Providence thus reproves the lying words you just now said to me; and I, who was by you called immortal, am immediately to be hurried away by death. But I am bound to accept of what Providence allots as it pleases God; for we have by no means lived ill, but in a splendid and happy manner." (Josephus, Antiquities, Bk 19, Chapter 8, v. 343-347) This then was the manner in which King Agrippa, a contemporary of Jesus, answered the question of being worshipped as a god. One might also note that Agrippa was the only historical Jewish King ever to be worshipped as a god, so perhaps this would be our best information about what a King of the Jews would think about such worship. Yours -- Bruce Evry _________________________________________________________________