Quoted By:
>But Socrates is not dead, because of Plato; neither is Pythagoras, because of the statue of Juno; nor is the wise king, because of the “new law” he laid down.” (emphasis added)
>The reference to the “wise king” being killed by sectarian Jews rather than by Romans matches the passage from 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15 mentioned earlier, which also places blame on Jesus’ death on Jews. This scenario would only make sense in a pre-Roman context when the state of Judah still had the ability to execute people for heresy. The Pauline Epistles in the New Testament likewise refer to Jesus bringing a “New Covenant” just as Mara says the wise king instituted a “new law”. The fact that this King of the Jews was nameless is interesting in light of the Talmud’s claim that the name Yeshu is an acronym for yemach shemo vezichro, meaning: “May his name and memory be obliterated”. If so, it was perhaps the greatest irony that the Greek variation of that name would become the most famous name in the world for the past thousand years
>Mara Bar Serapion’s quote is dated sometime between the first and third century CE. Most scholars assume that the part about the Jews being driven from their kingdom refers to the fall of Jerusalem by the Roman Emperor Titus in 73 CE, but the very short and failed occupation of Jerusalem by three competing Jewish factions between 68 and 73 CE could hardly have been a “kingdom”. The Jewish kingdom referenced by Mara must have been the Hasmonian kingdom, which fell shortly after the death of Salome Alexandra (called Salina by Epiphanius) in 63 BCE, to Pompey, the famous Roman ally/rival of Julius Caesar
