Summary The episode of the cursing of the fig tree in the Gospel of Mark is not good theater. It follows the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and brackets the Temple Incident (TI). The fig-tree episode should have some relationship to either the triumph or to Jesus’s actions in the Temple. But instead, Jesus explains to…
Month: September 2020
Review of Caesar’s Messiah, by Joseph Atwill
Introduction Caesar’s Messiah presents a tissue of preposterous theories. It does not deserve your time. Robert M. Price uses the words “mad,” “ludicrous,” and “perverse and gratuitous interpretations of the text” in his review of Caesar’s Messiah (the 2005 edition). Curious, I read the entire Caesar’s Messiah (2011 revised edition, the only one available as…
The origin of Saint Veronica: Berenice, Judean princess
Summary In this post I speculate that the origin of Saint Veronica was the real-life Berenice, Judean princess and mistress/fiancée to Titus Flavius Vespasianus. I suggest that in the 80s CE, after Titus’s death, Berenice participated somehow in the Roman congregation of Mark and Flavia Domitilla. I suggest that for many decades after Berenice’s death,…