User:ImTheIP/AncientTexts

In this essay you will learn why citing ancient texts is discouraged on Wikipedia.

Definitions
The following definitions will be used throughout this essay:


 * Religious texts - texts related to a religious tradition
 * Scripture - a subset of religious texts considered to be especially authoritative, revered, sacred, canonical, or of supreme authority within a religious community
 * Ancient texts - texts that are "very old," often stemming from antiquity

Given these definitions, we see that scripture forms a subset of religious texts which in turn forms a subset of ancient texts. There are, of course, many modern religious texts too, but they are beyond the scope of this essay.

The problem
Freedom of speech is a very recent invention. For much of history, writing something that would have displeased the king would have cost you your life.

Examples
This section contains examples, demonstrating why citing ancient texts is dangerous.

Testimonium Flavium
The Jewish-Roman historian Josephus was a contemporary with Jesus. Josephus mentions Jesus in his works. For example in Antiquities: "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."

There is just one problem with this; most historians believe that the above wasn't written by Josephus himself, but rather inserted into his manuscript by Christian monks. So, unless you are an historian who can spot these kind of forgeries in ancient texts, don't cite them!

The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma
The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma is a hagiography (biography of a holy person) of Barsauma, a 5th century monk who led a band of pugilist Christian monks, wandering the Near East, torching synagogues and assaulting Jews.

The Byzantine Empress Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II, lived in Jerusalem. According to Life, in 438 BCE, the Jews of Palestine, who at this point were not allowed to enter Jerusalem, petitioned her to let them pray at the Temple Mount. She agreed to their request and the overjoyed Jews sent word of the news. 103,000 Jews came to pray at the Feast of Tabernacles. This enraged Barsauma and his followers who thought that the presence of Jews defiled the holy city. As the Jews gathered on the Temple Mount platform, stones rained down from the heavens at them and many died. More were trampled to death in Jerusalem's narrow alleyways as they tried to flee. Of course, the Jews "lied" and said that Barsauma's monks had thrown the stones.

What is true and what is fiction? Did God throw the stones at the Jews? Probably not. Did the monks throw the stones? Sounds more like it, but that is not what the book says! And how could the author of Life know that exactly 103,000 Jews came? What an oddly specific number! Life is the only source for the story, can we even now that it happened? Perhaps it is better to not cite hagiographies at all and let historians figure it out...

When was Jerusalem renamed to Aelia Capitolina?
In 132 CE, the Bar Kokhba revolt broke out in Judea which took the Romans til 135 CE to put down. According to the antique historian Eusebius, Jerusalem was renamed to Aelia Capitolina and reformed as a Roman colony to punish the Jews for revolting. But according to another antique historian, Cassius Dio, the renaming happened before the revolt. So who was right and who was wrong?

As it turns out, Eusebius was wrong and Cassius right. Archaeologists have recently found coins from 128-130 CE minted in Aelia Capitolina. Since these coins stem from the time before the revolt, the city must have been renamed before the revolt.

Numerical exaggerations
It is well-known that most numerical estimates in ancient texts can't be trusted For example, the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus estimates that during the siege of Jerusalem in the First Jewish–Roman War a whopping 1.1 million died:

"Now the number 1 of those that were carried captive during this whole war was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, the greater part of whom were indeed of the same nation [with the citizens of Jerusalem], but not belonging to the city itself; for they were come up from all the country to the feast of unleavened bread, and were on a sudden shut up by an army, which, at the very first, occasioned so great a straitness among them, that there came a pestilential destruction upon them, and soon afterward such a famine, as destroyed them more suddenly."

In the same text, Josephus estimates that there were 204 villages in the Galilee, of which the smallest had a population of 15,000: "Moreover, the cities lie here very thick, and the very many villages there are here are every where so full of people, by the richness of their soil, that the very least of them contain above fifteen thousand inhabitants."

That comes out to a population of at least 3,060,000. According to archaeologists, the total population of Palestine in antiquity did not exceed 1 million.

Book of Maccabees


Two of the Books of the Maccabees, the First Book of the Maccabees (1 Macc) and the Second Book of the Maccabees (2 Macc), chronicles the Maccabean revolt. Historians believe that these books were written a few decades after the revolt. These books contradicts each other and also describes miracles.

A brief timeline of the background and initial stages of the revolt:


 * 200 BCE - The Seleucid Empire conquer Palestine.
 * 175 BCE Antiochus IV Epiphanes ((r. 175 – 164)) becomes the Seleucid emperor.
 * 174 BCE - Antiochus appoints Jason as high priest of the Jerusalem Temple.
 * 172 BCE - Antiochus replaces Jason with Menelaus as high priest of the Jerusalem Temple because the latter offers to pay a much bigger tribute.
 * Late 170 BCE/Early 169 BCE - Antiochus invades Egypt but decides to return.
 * Autumn 169 BCE - On his way back from Egypt, Antiochus raids the Jerusalem Temple and confiscates its treasures.
 * Spring 168 BCE - Antiochus invades Egypt but the Romans force him to withdraw. Meanwhile, rumors spread in Judea that the king has died and the disposed high priest Jason launches a surprise attack on Jerusalem, captures the city, and kills his rival Menelaus' supporters. Antiochus interprets Jason's attack as a rebellion and sends an army that retakes Jerusalem and drives Jason's followers away.
 * Autumn 167 BCE - Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlaws Judaism in Judea and allows pagan worship in the Jerusalem temple.
 * Spring 165 BCE - Antiochus campaigns against the Parthians.
 * 164 BCE:
 * Spring - Antiochus repeals the ban on Judaism and promises amnesty for the rebels. The provincial land-tax from 167 BCE is abolished. The Maccabees does not take up the Seleucids offer and the revolt continues.
 * Summer - The Maccabees takes revenge by attacking people who had participated in the persecution against Jews.
 * Autumn/Winter - Judas enters Jerusalem and the pagan artifacts are removed from the Temple. Meanwhile, Antiochus dies, igniting a century-long war of succession in Antioch, the capital of the Seleucid empire.

Divine intervention
The Second Book of the Maccabees describes how the Seleucid minister Heliodorus attempted to rob the Jerusalem Temple but was turned back by three angels:

"While they were imploring the almighty Lord to keep the deposits safe and secure for those who had placed them in trust, Heliodorus went on with his plan.

God Protects the Temple. But just as Heliodorus was arriving at the treasury with his bodyguards, the Lord of spirits and all authority produced an apparition so great that those who had been bold enough to accompany Heliodorus were panic-stricken at God’s power and fainted away in terror. There appeared to them a richly caparisoned horse, mounted by a fearsome rider. Charging furiously, the horse attacked Heliodorus with its front hooves. The rider was seen wearing golden armor. Then two other young men, remarkably strong, strikingly handsome, and splendidly attired, appeared before him. Standing on each side of him, they flogged him unceasingly, inflicting innumerable blows. Suddenly he fell to the ground, enveloped in great darkness. His men picked him up and laid him on a stretcher. They carried away helpless the man who a moment before had entered that treasury under arms with a great retinue and his whole bodyguard. They clearly recognized the sovereign power of God."

Internal inconsistencies
How did Antiochus die? We have two different accounts in 2 Macc:

"When their leader arrived in Persia with his seemingly irresistible army, they were cut to pieces in the temple of the goddess Nanea through a deceitful stratagem employed by Nanea’s priests. On the pretext of marrying the goddess, Antiochus with his Friends had come to the place to get its great treasures as a dowry. When the priests of Nanea’s temple had displayed the treasures and Antiochus with a few attendants had come inside the wall of the temple precincts, the priests locked the temple as soon as he entered. Then they opened a hidden trapdoor in the ceiling, and hurling stones at the leader and his companions, struck them down. They dismembered the bodies, cut off their heads and tossed them to the people outside. Forever blessed be our God, who has thus punished the impious!"

But later,

"“To the worthy Jewish citizens, Antiochus, king and general, sends hearty greetings and best wishes for their health and prosperity. ... Now that I am ill, I recall with affection your esteem and goodwill. On returning from the regions of Persia, I fell victim to a troublesome illness; so I thought it necessary to form plans for the general security of all. I do not despair about my health, since I have much hope of recovering from my illness. ... I have therefore appointed as king my son Antiochus, whom I have often before entrusted and commended to most of you, when I made hurried visits to the outlying provinces. I have written to him what is written here. ... I am confident that, following my policy, he will treat you with equity and kindness in his relations with you.”

So this murderer and blasphemer, after extreme sufferings, such as he had inflicted on others, died a miserable death in the mountains of a foreign land."

Clearly, both accounts can't be true. If Antiochus was stoned to death by the priests of Nanea then he cannot have died from illness on his way home from Persia and vice versa!

Contradictions
Antiochus' 167 BCE decree outlawed Judaism which is believed to have ignited the revolt. However, in 2 Macc the decree is described as having been issued in response to the revolt. Jona Lendering writes: "Shortly afterwards Antiochus issued a decree that caused a revolt by the people. At least that is what it says in First Book of the Maccabees. Conversely, the Second Book of the Maccabees describes the decree as being issued in response to the revolt."

- Jona Lendering

In the first chapter of 1 Macc Antiochus' religious persecution is described:

"Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and abandon their particular customs. All the Gentiles conformed to the command of the king, and many Israelites delighted in his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath.

The king sent letters by messenger to Jerusalem and to the cities of Judah, ordering them to follow customs foreign to their land; to prohibit burnt offerings, sacrifices, and libations in the sanctuary, to profane the sabbaths and feast days, 46 to desecrate the sanctuary and the sacred ministers, 47 to build pagan altars and temples and shrines, to sacrifice swine and unclean animals, 48 to leave their sons uncircumcised, and to defile themselves with every kind of impurity and abomination; 49 so that they might forget the law and change all its ordinances. 50 Whoever refused to act according to the command of the king was to be put to death."

In the second chapter we hear about how the religious persecution angers the priest Mattathias who organizes a rebellion:

"But Mattathias answered in a loud voice: “Although all the Gentiles in the king’s realm obey him, so that they forsake the religion of their ancestors and consent to the king’s orders, yet I and my sons and my kindred will keep to the covenant of our ancestors. Heaven forbid that we should forsake the law and the commandments. We will not obey the words of the king by departing from our religion in the slightest degree.”

As he finished saying these words, a certain Jew came forward in the sight of all to offer sacrifice on the altar in Modein according to the king’s order. When Mattathias saw him, he was filled with zeal; his heart was moved and his just fury was aroused; he sprang forward and killed him upon the altar. At the same time, he also killed the messenger of the king who was forcing them to sacrifice, and he tore down the altar."

But in chapter five of 2 Macc we read:

"But Judas Maccabeus and about nine others withdrew to the wilderness to avoid sharing in defilement; there he and his companions lived like the animals in the hills, eating what grew wild."

And then in chapter 6: "Not long after this the king sent an Athenian senator to force the Jews to abandon the laws of their ancestors and live no longer by the laws of God, also to profane the temple in Jerusalem and dedicate it to Olympian Zeus, and the one on Mount Gerizim to Zeus the Host to Strangers, as the local inhabitants were wont to be. This was a harsh and utterly intolerable evil. The Gentiles filled the temple with debauchery and revelry; they amused themselves with prostitutes and had intercourse with women even in the sacred courts. They also brought forbidden things into the temple, so that the altar was covered with abominable offerings prohibited by the laws."

In 1 Macc Mattathias organizes a rebellion in response to Antiochus' decree. In 2 Macc the rebellion is already ongoing when Antiochus issues his decree.