September 9 BC
Zechariah the successor of the
Zadokites was officiating on the Day of Atonement in the
Essene substitute sanctuary at Mird- Hyrcania. After the
ceremony he would step down, becoming "dumb", not preaching,
because he would undergo his first wedding at the age of
36. His wife Elizabeth was not barren, simply a Virgin, a nun. She was
"advanced in her days" (v.7) because as a superior of Gentiles she kept the
post-position of the south solar calendar.
(Luke 1:5-22).
December 9 BC
As dynasts had to wait three months
until the least holy season before they had sex.,
the conception of John the Baptist was dated the solar 31st in
December, meta tautas tas hēmeras, "after These Days", Wednesday
December 18 (v.24). May 8 BC Month 5, mēnas pente,
May 1 Julian, Elizabeth's pregnancy was showing and she hid
herself (Luke 1:24).
June 8 BC
Joseph would be 36 in September 8 BC (born Sep 44 BC, Luke 14:18 above). He and Mary should
have had their first wedding then, with sex in December, but at the time of
their binding betrothal in June they had sex and Jesus was conceived.
en tais hēmerais tautais, "in Days These" (word order makes
it June). (Luke 1:39 ). For Essenes and their Pharisee associates he was
illegitimate, but for more liberal Sadducees legitimate.
September 8 BC
John the Baptist was born. (He was 12 in September 5 AD,
Luke 1 :57-59, 8th day, see notes
on Acts 7:8 below.)
March 7 BC
Jesus was born. Month 3, mēnas
treis, March 1, Julian, Luke 1:56. He was 12 in March, 6 AD, the year of the census of Quirinius
(Luke 2:1), so the year
of his birth was 7 BC. (See also: pesher of Luke 2:6,7)
THE CRITICAL PERIOD FROM 4 BC TO 6 AD
After the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, factions broke
out in the country, with a number of would-be kings aiming to take over the
monarchy. Herod in his final tormented years had put to death or disinherited
his sons, born of his nine wives. Only Archelaus was left, as the only one who
had not displeased Herod. His full brother Antipas had at one time been
promised the succession, but Herod had changed his mind.
After 4 BC both brothers, Archelaus and Antipas, went to Rome
to challenge for the succession in the Roman courts. Jews in Rome were socially
divided between them, many supporting Antipas."When he (Antipas) arrived in Rome,
all his relatives went over to his side, not out of goodwill to him but because
of their hatred of Archelaus"
(Josephus, Antiquities 17, 227).The right to rule was
granted to Archelaus, but he was made an ethnarch only, not a king. It was
plain from the decision that Rome was on the verge of taking over rule of the
country, which was close to anarchy.
About this time Theudas appeared, determined to fight for
his country's freedom in the face of the growing Roman shadow. He became head
of the Egyptian Therapeuts, and in terms of their Exodus imagery he took on the
role of the Joshua who would lead his countrymen into a Promised Land of
political power. He appears under that name in
Acts 5:36, and in Josephus' history he appears as Saddok the Pharisee
(Josephus, Antiquities 18, 7-8). Theudas figures
as the Prodigal Son of Luke's parable. He was still alive, as an old man, in
the gospel period.
The freedom fighters soon found a problem with Archelaus,
who joined them because he too was hostile to Rome following his demotion. The
conduct of Archelaus and his wife Glaphyra did not improve their morale. Qumran
was given over to "loose living". When Judas the Galilean appeared, as the
most famous of the freedom fighters, he brought the militants together again.
In 6 AD a peace party brought about the dismissal of
Archelaus. The Romans occupied the country, ruling it through procurators.That
was the Period of Wrath of CD 1: 5-9. The local leader was a Sadducee high
priest of the Annas line, answerable to Rome
(Josephus, Antiquities 18,26).
At the end of December, 1 BC, Joseph the son of Jacob-Heli,
with his wife Mary, moved into the dynastic marriage house at Ain Feshkha,
south of Qumran, for the purpose of conceiving their second child. Jesus
their first child, conceived pre-nuptially, had been born in March of 7 BC.
The question of his legitimacy was raised whenever Pharisee views prevailed,
for only Sadducees accepted that his conception at the time of the binding
betrothal of his parents made him the legitimate heir of the Davids. The
second son James, conceived at the season for the first child, was born in
September 1 AD.
In the original system in which the heir of David was the
third in a triarchy of Priest, Prophet and King, he had close associations with
the Therapeuts while he was in the conjugal state. He could also play the role
of the Joshua in their Exodus ritual, a name that was Jesus in its Greek form.
The military role was natural to a king, one of his emblems being the Lion of
the Four Living Creatures. His wife enacted the role of Miriam the sister of
Moses, the female leader of the Therapeuts' choir of women. Her name became
Mary in Greek.
Theudas the Prodigal Son, head of the Egyptian Therapeuts,
reflected the constant changes of politics among Jews in Alexandria. At times
they were co-operative with Rome, at other times hostile. The Prodigal Son's
periods of repentance were when he joined the peace party that had grown up in
opposition to the destructive militarists.
When the Prodigal Son was "sent into the fields to feed swine"
he was sent to Rome to join the house of Antipas Herod. It was from his house
on the Tiber Island that mission to Gentiles was conducted. Antipas was called
"swine" by his nationalist opponents because when he was in Rome he did as Rome
did, breaking the Jewish food regulations. He also broke the strict Essene
marriage rules, having married his half-brother's wife Herodias.
The traumatic events of the period included the
assassination by the militarists of the Essene Zadokite Zechariah in his
substitute sanctuary at Mird-Hyrcania. The son of Zechariah, John the Baptist,
who was 12 years old at the time of his father's death, grew up to be a leader
of a party of politically active monastic Essenes called the Plant-root.(CD 1:5-9)
Judas the Galilean's uprising against the Romans failed in
March, 6 AD. In June, 6 AD, the Essene substitute sanctuary that had been at
Mird-Hyrcania since the earthquake of 31 BC was transferred to a monastery in Damascus.
Being outside the boundaries of Judea, it gave a place of refuge to men wanted
by Rome who had taken part in Judas' revolt. It remained the center for
anti-Roman politics, as well as anti-Herodian feeling, throughout the 1st
century AD. Its records were collected in the Damascus Document found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls.
The events of the period 1 to 46 AD are told through Part A
of the Book of Revelation, 8:6-11:19. The sets of 7 angels with 7 trumpets record
the events of every 7 years. Their pesher is given in my Jesus of the
Apocalypse. The story is in agreement with what is given in the gospels and
Acts, and develops the interests of Jewish Christians beyond what is given in
those sources.
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