Theophilus ben Ananus
Theophilus (
The honorific, kratiste, would also provide evidence that the Gospel of Luke was written during his high priesthood, 37 to 41 CE. The period coincides with the reign of Gaius Caligula, his persecution and planned ethnocide of the Jews and Nazarenes, and the desecration of the Temple with his giant, idolatrous statue.
Theophilus was the son of
Archeological evidence confirming the existence of Theophilus, as an ossuary has been discovered bearing the inscription, "Yehoḥanah (Johanna) daughter of Yehoḥanan (John) son of Thefilus (Theophilus)[a] the High Priest".[5] The details of this ossuary have been published in the Israel Exploration Journal. Therefore, Theophilus had at least one other son, named John, father to Johanna.
The name Johanna appears twice in the New Testament in the Gospel of Luke. First as one of women healed by Jesus who travels with Jesus and the disciples to Jerusalem. Her second appearance also in the Gospel of Luke is on Easter Sunday when she and other women visits the empty tomb. It is unlikely, however, that the Johanna in the Gospel of Luke is the same Johanna as the one mentioned on the ossuary. According to Richard Bauckham, Johanna was "the fifth most popular woman's name in Jewish Palestine,"[6] and the Johanna of the Gospel of Luke was likely from Galilee, not from Jerusalem.[7] High Priests took office when at least 30 years old (Hebrew reckoning). Caiaphas was thus probably older than Theophilus. It was unusual for a son-in-law to take precedence over a son. If Theophilus was in his thirties in the period 37-41 CE, then a granddaughter, Johanna, would not have been born in the period of the Gospels up to 30 CE.
See also
Notes
- Ancient Greek: θεοφιλα. It is a translation of a Hebrew name ידידיה (Yadidiyah), which means friend of Yah.
References
- JSTOR 27926007.
- ^ Josephus, Antiquities xix.vi.§ 2
- ^ The earliest known person to suggest that most excellent Theophilus was none other than the High Priest was probably Theodore Hase who contributed a short article to Bibliotheca Bremensissome time prior to 1802 when this contribution is mentioned in the Introduction to the New Testament, tr. and augmented with notes by Johann David Michaelis and Herbert Marsh. David L. Allen, Lukan Authorship of Hebrews (2010); David Heilbron Price, Jesus, James, Joseph, and the Temple, 2006-19, Richard H. Anderson, Who are Theophilus and Johanna? The Irony of the Intended Audience (2010); "Theophilus: A Proposal," Evangelical Quarterly 69:3 (1997) 195-215; "The Cross and Atonement from Luke to Hebrews," Evangelical Quarterly 71:2 (1999), 127-149; "Luke and the Parable of the Wicked Tenants," The Journal of Biblical Studies, January–March 2001, Vol. 1, No. 1; "A la recherche de Theophile," Dossiers d'Archeolgie, December 2 – January 3; Josep Rius-Camps, Jenny Read-Heimerdinger, The message of Acts in Codex Bezae: a comparison with the Alexandrian tradition, Volume 4, (2009) 3-4 and prior volumes
- ^ Robert F. O'Toole, "Theophilus," Anchor Bible Dictionary 6:511-512
- ^ D. Barag and D. Flusser, "The Ossuary of Yehohanah Granddaughter of the High Priest Theophilus", Israel Exploration Journal, 36 (1986), 39-44.
- ^ Richard Bauckham, Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 143
- ^ Richard Bauckham, Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 144.
- This article is a summary of an article appearing in Dossiers d'Archeologie as "A la recherche de Theophile", December 2 – January 3; A detailed description of the ossuary mentioned in this article is contained in an article by D. Barag and D. Flusser, "The Ossuary of Yehohanah Granddaughter of the High Priest Theophilus", Israel Exploration Journal, 36 (1986), 39–44.