Evidence
Historical Evidence Library
A growing collection of the sources cited by selected articles. It does not yet cover every article. Each record says what the source itself contains, and then, separately, what Ralph makes of it. Where an edition or a page was never named, the record says that too.
The records
Ancient literary textNo year in the verseJesus and Edessa
Matthew 23:35
Matthew 23:35
The Latin says that all the just blood shed on the earth may come upon them, from the blood of just Abel to the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom they killed between the temple and the altar.
Ancient literary textNo year in the verseJesus and Edessa
Luke 11:51
Luke 11:51
The Latin runs from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias, who perished between the altar and the house. It does not add the father’s name that Matthew 23:35 has.
Ancient literary textNo year in the verseJesus and Edessa
Matthew 23:5–6
Matthew 23:5–6
The Latin says they broaden their phylacteries and enlarge the fringes so as to be seen, and that they love the first places at dinners and the first seats in the synagogues. No rebel leader is named.
Ancient literary textNo year in the verseJesus and Edessa
Mark 12:38–39
Mark 12:38–39
In his teaching, the Latin says, beware of the scribes who like to walk in long robes, to be greeted in the marketplace, to sit in the first seats in the synagogues, and to take the first places at dinners.
Ancient literary textA siege, no year in the verseJesus and Edessa
Luke 19:43
Luke 19:43
The Latin says the days will come upon the city, and its enemies will surround it with a rampart, encircle it, and press it in on every side.
Ancient literary textAD 70Jesus and Edessa
Tacitus, Histories 5.13
Histories 5.13
In the public translation on Perseus, the chapter begins with prodigies at Jerusalem. Later it reports a prediction, found in the priests’ records, that the East would grow powerful and rulers from Judea would gain empire. Tacitus says the prediction referred to a Roman emperor, while the Jews applied it to themselves and rebelled.
Ancient literary textAD 60sJesus and Edessa
Suetonius, Vespasian 4
Life of Vespasian, chapter 4
The Perseus text of this chapter is Suetonius’s life, not Ellis’ paragraph. Ellis prints one English passage and attaches both this chapter and Tacitus, Histories 5.13. He calls that paragraph a conflation. It should not be treated as a critical translation of Suetonius alone.
ManuscriptMedievalJesus and Edessa
The Estoire del Saint Graal, Joseph’s forty-three years
Volume 1, pages 15–18
By page 15 Joseph is already in the prison the text gave to Caiaphas on page 14. These pages then count reigns: Tiberius a good ten years after the crucifixion, Gaius seven, Claudius fourteen, then Titus, with Vespasian his son. In the third year of Titus, the text says, Joseph is released. Vespasian, cured of leprosy, asks how long Joseph thinks he has been shut in. Joseph says from Friday until that day. Caiaphas answers that he is told it is forty-three years, fully completed. Joseph does not recognise Caiaphas, his wife, or his son.
Ancient literary textPatriarchal narrativeJesus and Edessa
Genesis 28:18
Genesis 28:18
The Latin says that in the morning Jacob took the stone he had put under his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on it.
InscriptionAD 165Jesus and Edessa
The Sogmatar inscription of Seleucid year 476
Sumatar Harabesi. Healey 2009, no. 49, OSI As37 (D24). The stone’s date in his translation is Shebat of the year 476.
In the English Ellis publishes, the inscription says that in Sebat of the year 476 a pillar was set on the blessed mountain and a seat was erected for the one who maintains it. If the seat is withheld, or the pillar ruined, the god will judge. Set beside Healey 2009, no. 49, the pillar, the blessed mountain, the seat, and the judgment agree in sense. Healey’s translation also names Manish son of Adona, Maana, Alkur, Belbena, and Tiridates the governor, and it says the recompense is from Maralahe. Ellis does not print those names. His wording is not a copy of Healey’s, and his translator is not named.
Academic publicationLate PleistoceneClimate and Ice Ages
Modulation of ice ages via precession and dust-albedo feedbacks
DOI 10.1016/j.gsf.2016.04.004
The published abstract says that northern ice sheets keep temperature and carbon dioxide low through a glacial, that carbon dioxide falls to about 200 parts per million, and that the resulting dust darkens the ice so that the next rise in northern sunlight melts it. This record does not copy the paper.
Ancient literary textPatriarchal narrativeEgypt and the Exodus
Genesis 2:10
Genesis 2:10
The Latin says a river went out from the place of pleasure to water paradise, and from there was divided into four heads.
Ancient literary textFirst centuryArthurian Britain, Jesus and Edessa
Josephus, Antiquities 3.7.7
Antiquities 3.7.7
Whiston’s English of this section describes the high priest’s vestments, the sardonyx stones, and the twelve stones, which the text itself says can be read as the months or the zodiac. The Perseus page is that English. It is not a Greek edition.
Ancient literary textFirst centuryEgypt and the Exodus
Josephus, Against Apion 1.73–92
Against Apion 1.73–92
Josephus says he cannot quote the Egyptian records themselves, and he quotes Manetho instead. In this stretch Manetho, in the second book of his Egyptian history, tells of an eastern people who took Egypt in the reign of Tutimaeus, made Salitis king, and fortified a city called Auaris, east of the Bubastis arm of the Nile, in the Sethroite nome. He gives their name as Hycsos, which he explains as king-shepherds, and lists six rulers. Josephus then says those kings and their descendants held Egypt for 511 years, that the kings of the Thebaid later shut them into Auaris, and that under a treaty with Thummosis, son of Misphragmouthis, 240,000 of them left Egypt for Syria and built a city in the country now called Judaea, which they named Jerusalem.
The articles that use these sources are in the research journal.