Saturday, March 09, 2019

Eusebius, EH.1.6: Christ and Herod



Image: Bronze prutah (small value coin) from the rule of Herod of the Great (c. 37-4 BC).


A new installment to the series on Eusebius of Caesarea’s The Ecclesiastical History has been posted, book 1, chapter 6. Listen here.

Notes and Commentary:

Eusebius here focuses on the fact that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod, who was the first, as he sees it, non-Jewish king of Israel. Herod, if an Idumean on his father’s side and an Arab on his mother’s side, was “the first foreigner to hold the sovereignty of the Jewish nation.”

For Eusebius this fulfilled Genesis 49:10: “A ruler shall not fail from Judah nor a leader from his loins until he comes for whom it is reserved.”

He also sees the birth of Jesus as fulfilling a prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27, regarding “the number of certain weeks” and the coming of the Messiah.

We see again how Eusebius sees continuity OT prediction and NT fulfillment.

JTR

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