Who Was Jesus If Not Joshua Ben Joseph AND Being Hellenized?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

 In about 1948 BCE, Abram- Abraham, son of Terah,  on the walk from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan with his family will make a pit stop at Haran.  Abraham is considered to be the biblical patriarch of the Jewish people, for our history started here with this first of monotheism.  Most agree that he lived at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE.  Descendants of Abram-Abraham  Fathers were usually noted with a person for identification as first names were limited and needed clarification.  

1  [3] Abram-Abraham b: 1948BCE in Ur of the Chaldees in 2nd millennium d: in Hebron

.. +Sarai-Sarah b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Kiriath-Arba Hebron, Canaan m: in Haran m: in Haran

2  Isaac b: 2048 BCE in Negev ....

+Rebekah bat Bethuel b: in Aram

... 3  [1] Jacob-Israel b: 1900 BCE d: in Goshen, E. Egypt age 147

....... +Leah b: in Aram m: in Haran m: in Haran

                Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

In Jewish history, a man is identified by his father.  During most of the history, people did not use surnames.  They were Joshua son of David...Keeping genealogies was as important as having a resume and documents like passports.  Families kept their genealogy, whether oral or finally written.  

I started wondering.  Jesus, who is the source of creating Christianity, and is even part of the story of Islam, had a father named Joseph, and was a carpenter. Jesus also worked in carpentry.   His mother was Mary.  

"Joseph isn’t mentioned in any of the stories of Jesus’ adult ministry, while Mary His mother occasionally is (Mark 3:31; John 2:1; 19:25). The absence of Joseph in the stories of Jesus’ ministry has led many to believe that Joseph died sometime between when Jesus was a young boy (Luke 2:42) and when He launched His public ministry as an adult (Luke 3:23). The fact that Jesus, as He was dying, committed the care of His mother to John gives strong indication that Joseph had indeed passed away by that time (John 19:26–27).  His mother was mentioned quite often.  

Although the Bible does not give many specifics about who Joseph was as a person—and the Bible records no actual words that Joseph spoke.  He tried to follow the law of the land by traveling with a pregnant wife about to give birth to pay taxes. In those days there were no excuses.                         

       Today's Nazareth.  

All we know is that they were from Nazareth.  "Nazareth was a Jewish village during the Roman and Byzantine periods and is described in the New Testament as the childhood home of Jesus.

Both of the gospels which describe the nativity of Jesus agree that he was born in Bethlehem and then later moved with his family to live in Nazareth".  However, Bond makes the case Jesus died around Passover, between A.D. 29 and 34. Considering Jesus' varying chronology, he was 33 to 40 years old at his time of death.  So Jesus-Joshua could have been born about 11 BCE in Bethlehem.  

                                                    

                 David, youngest son of Jesse, king of Israel from 1,000 BCE to 960 BCE  born in Bethlehem, was a youth of 25 when selected to be arms bearer for King Saul.  

Bethlehem is 5.25miles south of Jerusalem.  It's the birthplace of King David and is the background city of the Book of Ruth.  Roman emperor, Constantine and his mother Helena built the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 330 CE. Constantine became a Christian after his mother had converted.     

My Jewish friends and relatives may wonder why I am wondering about the family of Jesus.  Well, it's because of the reputation we have because of history written about Jesus and his family by the gospel writers that have damned us so badly, one of the first anti-semitism in writing.  

Jesus, which is a Greek name for Joshua, according to Jewish history, died in 29 CE, Joshua being a common name though other Jesus's existed .  There are no independent Jewish sources for the life of Jesus of Nazareth.  Since a Greek name is used for  instead of Joshua, it implies to me that this was a history when Greek influence of Hellenization was still active even though it was a time of Roman occupation in Jerusalem and had been going on for a long time already. To name a child Jesus and not Joshua shows me that they were Hellenized Jews using the preferred Greek name.  

  Jewish life in both Judea and the diaspora was influenced by the culture and language of Hellenism. The Greeks viewed Jewish culture favorably, while Hellenism gained adherents among the Jews. While Hellenism has sometimes been presented (under the influence of 2 Maccabees, itself notably a work in Koine Greek) as a threat of assimilation diametrically opposed to Jewish tradition.  The Roman Latin translation is Jeshua.  proper name, biblical successor of Moses as leader of the Israelites, from Late Latin Jeshua, Joshua, a transliteration of Hebrew Yehoshua, literally "the Lord is salvation." In the top 10 list of names for boys in the U.S. since 1979.

The main phase of the Maccabean revolt lasted from 167–160 BCE and ended with the Seleucids in control of Judea, but conflict between the Maccabees, Hellenized Jews, and the Seleucids continued until 134 BCE, with the Maccabees eventually attaining independence, with Hellenization leaving its mark on many of the Jews.  

In 63 BCE the Roman General Pompey fought against the Jewish Hasmoneans (remember Chanukah?)  and also John Hyrcanus, son of Simon the Hasmonean who ruled from 135-104 BCE  and Aristobulus I who reigned from 104 to 103 BCE, who was also the high priest and possibly 1st king of occupied Judea, the eldest son of John Hyrcanus to occupy Jerusalem.  The city went through much travail, being captured by the Parthians,  in 40 BCE, it fell, following a long siege...to Herod in 37 BCE who ruled it as a Roman vassal until his death in 4 BCE.  Herod had been a mad king of Judea and was son of Antipater, the Idumean by his Nabatean wife, Cypros.  So Herod was not originally a Judean but half Idumean and half Nabatean and appointed by the Romans!   The problem was the Judea was then in the hands of the Romans who ruled the land.   He was not a king from the hereditary kings of Israel or Judah.                            

 He was appointed governor of the Galilee by his father, showing a strong hand by executing dissidents.  It was so bad that he was summoned by the Jewish Sanhedrin and only saved from death by the intervention of Hyrcanus and Sextus Caesar, governor of Syria.  Besides being bloodthirsty, he loved to build.  He built a palace in the NW quarter of the city and had towers protecting it.  One was called the Tower of David.  He also rebuilt the Temple and erected walls around it of which we see part called the Western Wall or Wailing Wall, the only place Jews are allowed to pray for the area is ruled by Jordan's religious police because of the good intentions of Moshe Dayan in 1967 when we won a battle they helped to start.

It was after Herod's death when all Hell broke loose in the land.  The deposition of his son and successor went to Archelaus in  6CE and the city was ruled by Roman Procurators, except for the brief reign of Agrippa I from 41 to 44 CE who began to build a 3rd Wall to the North.  

During the rule of one of these procurators, Pontius Pilate, Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem in 29 CE.  This was a death used by Romans for the littlest of crimes, and mostly Jews were the victims being the soldiers were in their lands. When in Jerusalem, the procurators resided in Herod's palace.  After all, they were the governors of Judea under the Roman emperors of the day.  Pontius Pilate,  Latin in full Marcus Pontius Pilatus, (died after 36 ce), Roman prefect (governor) of Judaea (26–36 ce) under the emperor Tiberius who presided at the trial of Jesus and gave the order for his crucifixion.  Tiberias reigned from 14 to 37 CE.  Early on in 19 CE he expelled the Jews from Rome because of fraud  on a Roman lady sympathetic to Judaism. 4,000 young Jewish men were sent to Sardinia to fight the brigands.  All of Palestine (that's what the Romans had renamed Judea and Israel) was harshly administered under Tiberius's rule with the crucification going on  of Jesus and other Jews.  

 In the end, the Jews couldn't take the Roman rules anymore and revolted in 66 CE.  This was a big  revolt.  The people had independence for 3 years!  Titus led the Romans in again and Jerusalem fell to him despite heroic resistance in 70 CE.  The Temple and most of the buildings were destroyed and a Roman garrison encamped on its ruins.   

Sixty-two years later, General Bar Kochba of the Jewish army's descendant tried again to regain Jerusalem with more men with him in 132 and held the city until 135 when he was killed in battle.  

We had to wait until the year 1948 CE, for Israel to be re-birthed.  A new century, a new time, and new leaders and still Judaism existed for 2018 years more since 70 CE.  We've had new commentators since then, and see with new eyes and new understandings from the older days along with shocking new events like the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews.  Our religion lives and so does our people.  

Resource:

https://www.gotquestions.org/Joseph-the-father-of-Jesus.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/08/07/how-old-was-jesus-when-he-died/7700029001/#:~:text=However%2C%20Bond%20makes%20the%20case,at%20his%20time%20of%20death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_Judaism

Romans and The Infamous High Priest Caiaphas of Judaea, and His Father in Law, Annas

Nadene Goldfoot                                          

                           High Priest Annus with son in law-next high priest, Caiaphas

Aaron, brother of Moses, became the 1st high priest of the Israelites, chosen by Moses himself.  Aaron never lived to see the Promised Land. He died on Mount Hor, near the southern end of the Dead Sea when he was 123 years old. The Israelites mourned him for 30 days, the same number of days that they mourned when, some time later, Moses died. Aaron was succeeded as High Priest by his son Eleazar.  It was an inherited position from the family of Levi.  To be a high priest is to be a direct descendant. They were the Cohens.    Other Levites became Levites in the conduct of Jews praying.  Today our Y haplogroup  of DNA can show who is a Cohen, who is a Levi, etc.  Cohen is one of the most common Jewish surnames. 

The high priests belonged to the Jewish priestly families that trace their paternal line back to Aaron—the first high priest of Israel in the Hebrew Bible and elder brother of Moses—through Zadok, a leading priest at the time of the reigns of David and Solomon over the United Kingdom of Israel. This tradition came to an end in the 2nd century BCE during the rule of the Hasmoneans, when the position was occupied by other priestly families unrelated to Zadok.

High Priest (Hebrew: כהן גדול, romanized: Kohen Gadol or הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל, ha'kohen ha'gadol, ^]was the title of the chief religious official of Judaism from the early post-Exilic times until the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. 

Here's the sad part.  In 6 CE, Judaea became a newly formed Roman province.  The Romans had deposed Archaelaus, the Ethnarch of Judaea, which put Judaea directly under Roman rule. Herod Archelaus  23 BCE – c. CE 18) was the ethnarch of Samaria, Judea, and Idumea, including the cities Caesarea and Jaffa, for nine years ( c. 4 BCE to 6 CE ).                  

                                     Annas the High Priest

Annas was appointed by the Roman legate, Quirinius, as the 1st High Priest. Publius Sulpicius Quirinius (c. 51 BC – AD 21), also translated as Cyrenius, was a Roman aristocrat. Ananus, took the high priesthood, who was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews,

After the banishment of the ethnarch Herod Archelaus from the tetrarchy of Judea in AD 6, Quirinius was appointed legate governor of Syria, to which the province of Judaea had been added for the purpose of a census.

 Annas's son-in-law was Joseph Caiaphas.  Ananus was one of the main leaders of the Great Revolt of Judea, which erupted in 66 CE. He was appointed as one of the heads of the Judean provisional government together with Joseph ben Gurion in late 66. In 68, Ananus was killed during the inter-rebel civil war in Jerusalem. Josephus in The Jewish War considered Ananus "unique in his love for liberty and an enthusiast for democracy" and as an "effective speaker, whose words carried weight with the people."  After Ananus was deposed as high priest, he continued to exercise leadership. "Under the guidance of former high priest Ananus ben Ananus, they (the Sanhedrin) exhorted the populace for support against the radical priestly Zealots, as these 'persuaded those who officiated in the Temple sacrifices to accept no gift or services from a foreigner' (BJ II, 409-414)." Later, he marshaled recruits to fight the Zealots, resulting in the Zealot Temple Siege. While commanding the Jews during the siege, Ananus was killed by the Idumeans.

                           Caiaphas

According to Josephus, Caiaphas was appointed in CE 18 by the Roman prefect Valerius Gratus who preceded Pontius Pilate. He famously presided over the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus. The primary sources for Caiaphas' life are the New Testament, and the writings of Josephus. Josephus records that he was made high priest by the Roman procurator Valerius Gratus after Simon ben Camithus had been deposed.  Simon ben Camithus was a 1st-century High Priest of Israel, who was given the office by the Roman procurator Valerius Gratus and held the office from 17AD to 18AD. Very little is known of him, however he is briefly mentioned in the Talmud as one of the seven sons of Kimchit to serve as high priest, and according to Josephus was succeeded as High Priest by Joseph Caiaphas.

Valerius Gratus was the 4th Roman Prefect of Judaea province under Tiberius from 15 to 26 CE. He succeeded Annius Rufus in 15 and was replaced by Pontius Pilate in 26. The government of Gratus is chiefly remarkable for the frequent changes he made in the appointment of the high-priesthood. He deposed Ananus, and substituted Ishmael ben Fabus, then Eleazar, son of Arianus, then Simon, son of Camith, and lastly Joseph Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Ananus. 

 Pontius Pilate was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 CE. He is best known for being the official who presided over the trial of Jesus and ultimately ordered his crucifixion.                                                       

It seems clear that the primary cause of the trial and execution of Jesus was his role in an incident at the Temple in Jerusalem. The incident occurred in April, 30 C.E. (or possibly in 33 C.E.) during Festival time, the period including the Day of Passover leading into the week of the Unleavened Bread.  In the New Testament, the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus refers to the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin (a Jewish judicial body) following his arrest in Jerusalem and prior to the trial before Pontius Pilate. It is an incident reported by all three Synoptic Gospels of the New Testament, while the Gospel of John refers to a preliminary inquiry before Annas. The gospel accounts vary on a number of details. Jesus was taken to the house of Caiaphas the High Priest of Israel, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together. Mark 14 (Mark 14:53) states that Jesus was taken that night "to the high priest" (without naming the priest), where all the chief priests and the elders gathered.

According to John's gospel, Jesus was taken not to Caiaphas but to Annas, who questioned him only privately. A former high priest and father-in-law of Caiaphas, Annas remained very influential. The fact that Jesus was taken not to Caiaphas but to Annas is explained on the ground that the latter's palace was nearer the place of arrest than that of the former. Peter and other disciples, however, being ignorant of the state of affairs, went to Caiaphas' house in the night.

The gospels report that Jesus was brought before high priest Joseph Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, the Jewish supreme governing council and court.  Mark and Matthew report a trial at night in the house of Caiaphas, whereas Luke explicitly states that Jesus was tried in the morning before the Sanhedrin. Some scholars doubt the accuracy of of the gospel accounts.  They note that Jewish law prohibits both capital trials on the eves of a festival and trials by night.  

The 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus is considered the most reliable extra-biblical literary source for Caiaphas. His works contain information on the dates for Caiaphas' tenure of the high priesthood, along with reports on other high priests, and also help to establish a coherent description of the responsibilities of the high-priestly office. Josephus (Antiquitates Judaicae 18.33–35) relates that Caiaphas became a high priest during a turbulent period. He also states that the Legate of Syria Lucius Vitellius the Elder deposed Caiaphas (Antiquitates Judaicae 18.95–97). Josephus' account is based on an older source, in which incumbents of the high priesthood were listed chronologically.

The Sadducees were the party of high priests, aristocratic families, and merchants—the wealthier elements of the population. They came under the influence of Hellenism, tended to have good relations with the Roman rulers of Palestine, and generally represented the conservative view within Judaism.  They knew that good intensions of Romans was just a pretense and that they could also be on a cross, so they had to be careful.  Just like Josephus, the general who because a historian for the Romans.  He knew he was writing for a Roman audience and could easily be killed according to how he worded his history.  The Jews were not dealing with reasonable men who thought first before taking lives. In years ago, a life was worth very little except for work.  The Roman culture was one that enjoyed watching people died in a stadium from horrible deaths.  The more gory it was, the better !      

According to John, Caiaphas was the son-in-law of the high priest Annas, who is widely identified with Ananus the son of Seth, mentioned by Josephus. Annas was deposed after the death of Emperor Augustus, but had five sons who served as high priest after him. Augustus, also called Augustus Caesar or (until 27 BCE) Octavian, original name Gaius Octavius, adopted name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, (born September 23, 63 BCE—died August 19, 14 CE, Nola, near Naples [Italy]), first Roman emperor, following the republic, which had been finally destroyed by the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, his great-uncle and adoptive father.  Caiaphas was the son-in-law of Annas by marriage to his daughter and ruled longer than any high priest in New Testament times. For Jewish leaders of the time, there were serious concerns about Roman rule and an insurgent Zealot movement to eject the Romans from Israel.

 The terms of Annas, Caiaphas, and the five brothers are:

• Ananus (or Annas) the son of Seth (6–15)

• 1.Eleazar the son of Ananus (16–17)
• Caiaphas, properly called Joseph son of Caiaphas (18–36/37), who had married the daughter of Annas (John 18:13)
• 2. Jonathan the son of Ananus (spring 37)
• 3. Theophilus ben Ananus (37–41)
• 4. Matthias ben Ananus (43)
• 5. Ananus ben Ananus (63)

Previously, in the Israelite religion, including during the time of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, other terms were used to designate the leading priests; however, as long as a king was in place, the supreme ecclesiastical authority lay with him. The official introduction of the term "high priest" went hand-in-hand with a greatly enhanced ritual and political significance bestowed upon the chief priest of the Israelites in the post-Exilic period, especially from 411 BCE onward due to the religious transformations brought about during the time of the Babylonian captivity and due to the lack of a Jewish king and kingdom.

According to Helen Bond, there may be some references to Caiaphas in the rabbinic literature. 

Reference: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Priest_of_Israel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caiaphas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontius_Pilate

https://www.britannica.com/topic/prefect-ancient-Roman-official

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerius_Gratus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananus_ben_Ananus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Archelaus#:~:text=Herod%20Archelaus%20(Ancient%20Greek%3A%20%E1%BC%A9%CF%81%E1%BF%B4%CE%B4%CE%B7%CF%82,4%20BC%20to%20AD%206).

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3903-caiaphas

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Augustus-Roman-emperor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontius_Pilate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_ben_Camithus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirinius

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanhedrin_trial_of_Jesus

April 17, youtube: From Jesus to Christ, The First Christians, Part I=(informative), mentioning Caliphas on Pilate)