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THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE OMENS IN JERUSALEM By FLORENCE SUSANNA MARIA COBBEN Supervised by PROF. DR. LEONARD RUTGERS Abstract This paper explores the relationship between several descriptions of the same collection of portents, written by five different authors in the 1st century CE. According to Josephus and Tacitus, these omens prophesied the Fall of Jerusalem. According to biblical sources, these were events that occurred in Jesus’ lifetime. These authors used these portents as tools to communicate their opinions on a wild variety of topics- monotheism, Judeophobia, Roman imperialism, messianism, and more. The question posed in this paper is why these portents specifically garnered so much attention to the point where they were recorded by this many authors, who represent such a variety of economic and cultural backgrounds. Through a method that considers their accounts from the lens of audience, intent and historical context, this paper aims to show that the theological and social issues surrounding Jerusalem around the time and after the Second Temple fell caused such confusion and lack of consensus that each author felt it necessary to support their own controversial opinions with the divine sanction of an omen. As a result of these conclusions, this paper proposes new methodological considerations in classical writing: to read portents as a literary tool for justification, and as an indicator of what opinions would be considered the most controversial to the author’s audience. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................... ii CHAPTER 1Introduction.................................... 1 2TheStarofBethlehem............................. 3 3TheRendingoftheTempleCloth...................... 6 4TheAscension.................................. 11 5Pentecost..................................... 14 6Comparisons&Conclusions.......................... 16 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................... 19 iii 1 Introduction In Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus’ work The Jewish War (around 75 CE), he bemoans that the Jews of Jerusalem were persuaded to oppose the Romans during the Judeo-Roman war by “false prophets” and ignored the omens that Jerusalem was going to fall, which eventually occurred in 70 AD. These “omens” were a “star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year.” In a later year, the temple doors opened by themselves, sightings of chariots and trumpets in the sky, an earthquake and a mysterious voice saying, “Let us remove hence”.1 Similar to Josephus, in his work The Histories (100-110 CE) the roman historiographer Tacitus includes these portents, but describes them differently. He describes a host battling in the skies, the opening of the Temple doors and a mortal voice describing the Gods departing.2 Perhaps most intriguing are the similarities these omens have with events in Jesus’ life according to the Synoptic Gospels—Matthew (c. 80-90 CE), Mark (c. 66-70 CE), and Luke-Acts (c. 80-90 CE). The Star of Bethlehem, the rending of the Temple cloth, the ascension and Pentecost display certain resemblances to Josephus and Tacitus’ descriptions. The obvious question is- why? Why do these four portents appear in five such radically different sources? Classical authors are known to find omens important- because they are the only moments when the God(s) “speak”, if the meanings just happen to coincide with the author’s opinions, the author’s argument is supported by the highest and most divine authority. But that this selection of portents was recorded by not only this many authors, but also from such varying social and economic backgrounds, is unprecedented. I aim to show that these portents ultimately acquired their inflated importance because of the highly theological and social issues at stake surrounding Jerusalem in the 1stcentury CE. Each of these authors uses these portents as divine sanction for their differing opinions on “the Jewish problem.” This includes topics such as messianism, monotheism, Judaism, Judeophobia, the “gentile problem”, and Roman imperialism. In order to support this thesis statement, these differing opinions will be unearthed by showing how each author depicts the portents based on the influence of historical context, audience, and intent (another essential aspect will be tracing the role of divine sanction.) In summary, I intend to show that even though they describe the same or similar events, each account is noticeably different as each author manipulates and is influenced by these three factors, in order to support and ultimately claim divine justification for their opinion on these “hot topics” surrounding Jerusalem. The history of scholarship on these portents is surprisingly short. While Christian theologians have been linking Josephus and biblical events for centuries, academic researchers have been slow in drawing systematic links between them. SV MacCasland’s 1932 article “Portents in Josephus and in the Gospels” compares some of the portents described in Josephus and the Gospels in order chart the time between the witnessing or collecting of these stories and their physical documentation. However, he did not consider these passages as describing the same event, merely comparable ones, making them a convenient basis from which to make observations about classical writing.3 He concludes that Josephus appealed to his Roman audience by claiming that Vespasian was the fulfilment of omens that were (apparently) Messianic.4 Christians used these portents to show that Jesus was the Messiah, as omens were symptoms of the “miraculous” nature of his time on earth.5 MacCasland ultimately aims to engage in text criticism and does not explicitly address why each author was prompted to include these portents in their work. It seems that HW Montefiore was the first scholar to systematically lay the link between the accounts, in his 1960 article “Josephus and the New Testament”. Unlike MacCasland, he also includes Tacitus, although this consists of small mentions.6 However, just like MacCasland, any discussion on authorial intent is only to aid text criticism, showing how Josephus’ accounts corroborated Biblical 1Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, trans., A.M. William Whiston (Auburn and Buffalo: John E. Beards- ley, 1895), 6.5.3, Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01. 0148%3Abook%3D1%3Awhiston+chapter%3Dpr.%3Awhiston+section%3D1. 2Cornelius Tacitus, The History,inThe Complete Works of Tacitus, eds., Alfred John Church, William Jackson Bro- dribb (New York: Random House, Inc., 1942), 5.13, Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0080. 3HW Montefiore, “Josephus and the New Testament,” Novum Testamentum4, vol. 2 (Dec., 1960): 313 4SV McCasland, “Portents in Josephus and in the Gospels,” Journal of Biblical Literature 51, no. 4 (Dec., 1932): 331. 5HW Montefiore, “Josephus and the New Testament (Continued),” Novum Testamentum4, vol. 4 (Dec., 1960): 313 6Montefiore, “Josephus”, 139-160. 1 events. There is no attempt to explain why so many authors included these portents in their works. Erich S Gruen is the only academic to briefly address Tacitus’ intents in his descriptions of the portents. In his 2008 book The Construct of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism,GruenexplainsthatthewayTacitus depicts the Judaean portents was to justify his Judeophobia.7 Ultimately any discussion on why these authors placed such emphasis on these portents and depicted them the way they did has been relegated to a brief mention. Moreover, none of these authors (exempting perhaps MacCasland’s attention to allusions) notice the literary nature of these works. This paper adds to this discussion by using a more comprehensive method (outlined below), and by inspecting why these portents were so popular. To properly analyze the sources discussed in this paper, it is necessary to summarize recent method- ological developments. Until the 1980s, most scholarship in the field of “Josephan studies” was focused on reading what scholar Steve Mason calls “through Josephus” to get the “facts” of history. This ap- proach focused on text criticism. Later scholars increasingly began to study Josephus as a narrative to understand his motives and intentions. Mason compares reading Josephus to watching Gladiator- “we know that the production was well researched and that it is based on much reliable information. But it is quite obviously an artistic construction, with every element calculated to contribute to the whole effect.”8 Josephus’ works are valuable for how they are written (his language, assumptions and effect) instead of what they are written about.9 Thus, one should study the allusions, themes, and use of language and similar techniques. This shift was spurred on by the Rengerstorf/Shalit Concordance (1968-1983), Heinz Schreckenberg’s text-critical and bibliographical studies, Feldman’s annotated bibli- ographies and a growing collection of digital tools which provided the means to perform a systematic study of these complex works.10 Still, this shift had not yet reached its modern form because of struc- turalist methodology, which excluded historical context and audience, instead studying the ‘text itself’. This occurred not just in Josephan but also in biblical studies. For example, Mary Ann Beavis explains that it was “not uncommon” to study Mark with a formalist methodology.11 However, Beavis believes that reader response criticism – a method that remains aware that