The Mysteries of John the Baptist by Tobias Churton

Author:Tobias Churton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biography/Religion
ISBN: 9781594775055
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2012-10-24T02:00:00+00:00

FROM JOHN’S EXECUTION TO JESUS’S CRUCIFIXION

The years 36 to 37 were tumultuous and confused for the eastern Roman Empire. Newly made Consul Lucius Vitellius, a rising star, had been sent by Tiberius to Syria to deal with the threat of a Parthian invasion of the strategically vital province. Vitellius had four crack legions at his disposal. In spite of the fact that the Syrian legions were the last resort in the case of rebellion in Judea to the south, the Parthian threat from the east and northeast was Vitellius’s chief concern. The last thing the empire needed was a war with Aretas IV and a breakdown of order in Palestine.

Prefect Pontius Pilate occupied an unenviable position. He had no automatic jurisdiction in Herod Antipas’s territory but knew perfectly well what was going on and the threats posed to order in Judea and Samaria. If the worst should happen, and the Parthians should unite against Rome, the whole eastern border could collapse. Herodias’s egging on of her ambitions through her husband must have appeared to Roman eyes distinctly irritating, if potentially exploitable.

The Emperor Tiberius had decided to join the late Philip’s tetrarchy to Syria, unwilling to let it go to Antipas and Herodias. Tiberius doubtless held it as a bargaining prize. Had Antipas defeated Aretas in 36, instead of the other way around, Antipas might reasonably have expected it to go to him. This would explain why, if there is any truth in Mark’s story of a “dancing Salome,” Philip’s widow had gone to live with her mother and her mother’s new husband. To put Salome back in her late husband Philip’s inheritance, Antipas needed a victory. If John’s word had blunted the will to win against the Nabataeans, little wonder John found himself in custody. John would probably have found himself being investigated at a deep level, by someone like Saul of Tarsus, who according to Acts, specialized in zealously investigating unto death religious leaders who threatened the Herodian religious order. There is no reason whatever to think that Saul only came “on the job” in time for the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles narrative. Indeed, Eisenman wonders if the Christian Paul was not “Saulus,” grandson of Costobarus, Idumaean wife of Herod the Great. This would explain why Saul went to “Arabia” after he was parapsychologically confronted by the realization that he was still pursuing the “Son of God,” who was supposed to be dead, finished, politically neutralized. It would also explain Saul’s Roman citizenship and influential political positioning.

By joining Philip’s tetrarchy to Syria, instead of giving it to Antipas, Tiberius must have realized he had made Antipas a potential ally of Artabanus II, the anti-Roman king of Parthia, whom the emperor was keen to unseat permanently when the time was right. Tiberius’s chief instrument of policy, Vitellius, brought a Roman-backed Parthian prince, Tiridates, to north Syria. Many Parthians backed Tiridates. It is no surprise to find that when Tiridates crossed the Euphrates with Roman escort on his

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