The Cross [part 2]

So let's get back to the Cross. Let's try to make sense of its mystery. The gospel which Mark wrote around the time of the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem tells us that thirty some years ago Jesus appeared crucified. This event was central to the 'mystery' unfolding at the time of Mark's composition of the gospel. What was this mystery? Well, at its most basic the temple of Jerusalem either WAS ABOUT to be destroyed or HAD JUST BEEN destroyed depending on which theory you accept about the date of the composition of the gospel.

What date do I accept? Let's break it down bit by bit.

I suspect that Mark was Marcus Agrippa.

When Weeden assembles evidence to support an original composition at Paneas I believe him only that I add that the composition coincided with Agrippa's banishment there in 66 CE (Paneas was also the headquarters of the Imperial war effort in the earliest days of the war).

When Weeden argues that it was written against Simon and the false Church centered at Jerusalem - I believe him with the additional caveat that 'Mark' was Agrippa and 'Simon' was Simon bar Giora.

All that I add is that Christianity was developed by Mark as part of the 'what do we do with the conquered Jews and proselytes' after we overcome them with military force.

Just think of it this way. Jesus crucified is central to the mystery of Christianity. At its most basic the Jews end up getting Jesus crucified in the year of the Passion. Now thirty something years later the descendants (and indeed many of the original witnesses who were there at the Passion) are seeing themselves or their sons, brothers or friends ending up crucified facing Jerusalem as a 'curse' against the war effort.

All that I ask is that the reader takes close notice of what Josephus says about this strange 'mystical' aspect of the war effort spearheaded by Titus. We read:

War 5: Chapter 6
Josephus reports that the Romans crucified many before the walls of Jerusalem during the siege of 70 C.E. The idea was to terrorize the population and force a surrender. The number reached 500 a day at one point until there was no wood left in the area for this purpose!

5. Now it happened at this fight that a certain Jew was taken alive, who, by Titus's order, was crucified before the wall, to see whether the rest of them would be aftrighted, and abate of their obstinacy. But after the Jews were retired, John, who was commander of the Idumeans, and was talking to a certain soldier of his acquaintance before the wall, was wounded by a dart shot at him by an Arabian, and died immediately, leaving the greatest lamentation to the Jews, and sorrow to the seditious. For he was a man of great eminence, both for his actions and his conduct also.

Chapter 11
1. So now Titus's banks were advanced a great way, notwithstanding his soldiers had been very much distressed from the wall. He then sent a party of horsemen, and ordered they should lay ambushes for those that went out into the valleys to gather food. Some of these were indeed fighting men, who were not contented with what they got by rapine; but the greater part of them were poor people, who were deterred from deserting by the concern they were under for their own relations; for they could not hope to escape away, together with their wives and children, without the knowledge of the seditious; nor could they think of leaving these relations to be slain by the robbers on their account; nay, the severity of the famine made them bold in thus going out; so nothing remained but that, when they were concealed from the robbers, they should be taken by the enemy; and when they were going to be taken, they were forced to defend themselves for fear of being punished; as after they had fought, they thought it too late to make any supplications for mercy; so they were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures, before they died, and were then crucified before the wall of the city. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them, while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they caught more: yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that were taken by force go their way, and to set a guard over so many he saw would be to make such as great deal them useless to him. The main reason why he did not forbid that cruelty was this, that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterwards be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies.

I hope by now at least some of my readers can put together some of the lines of reasoning I have been developing over the last couple of days ...