ANNA & SIMEON ENDNOTES OF SCHOLARLY SOURCES
{Where document name is cited first, it is quoted.}
1.� Six centuries earlier, the ten northern tribes of Israel (the Jews' 12 tribes) were exiled to Assyria, including the tribe of Ashur.� They intermarried with the Assyrians and gradually absorbed into that culture.� However, a remnant of the people - the poorest - were left behind by their conquerors.
2.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:36a - The prophet Anna was also there in the temple.� She was the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher....
3.� The province of Asher, the Jewish tribe to which Anna belonged, was located along the Mediterranean Sea, much of which included Phoenicia in Jesus' day, and Lebanon in our day.
4.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:37a [MV] - She had been married seven years and a widow for eighty-four.�
5.� THE BIBLE, ROMANS 8:28 - We know that God is always at work for the good of everyone who loves him.� They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose.
6.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK. 14, 4:2 - ....he brought his mechanical engines and battering-rams from Tyre, and placing them on the bank, he battered the temple.
7.� THE BIBLE, I KINGS 6:7-9; NEHEMIAH 10:39 - In building the Temple...stairway led up to the middle level and from there to the third...side rooms....where the ministering priests, the gatekeepers and the singers stay.
8.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK. 14, 4:3 - The priests were not at all hindered from their sacred ministrations, by their fear during this siege, but did still, twice each day...offer their sacrifices on the altar, nor did they omit those sacrifices if any melancholy accident happened by the stones that were thrown among them.
9.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK. 14, 4:3 - ....fell upon them and cut the throats of those who were in the temple, yet could not those that offered the sacrifices be compelled to run away....thinking it better to suffer...than to omit anything that their laws require.
10.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK. 14, 4:4 - ....full of slaughter; some of the Jews being slain by the Romans, and some by one another; nay, some there were who threw themselves down the precipices....Of the Jews there fell 12,000.
�11.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:37b; 1 CHRONICLES 28:11b - Night and day she served God in the temple by praying and often going without eating....the main rooms of the temple, including the porch, the storerooms, the rooms upstairs and downstairs.
�12.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XIV, 9:2 - [Antipater, father of the future Herod the Great]....made Phasaelus, his eldest son, [lieutenant] governor of Jerusalem...but committed Galilee to Herod [the Great], his next son, who was then a very young man, for he was but twenty-five years of age.
�13.� THE BIBLE, JEREMIAH 35:4-5 - I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the room....next to the room of the officials [Sanhedrin] which was over that of...the doorkeeper.
�14.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XIV, 9:2 - [Herod]...opportunity of signalizing his courage; for, finding there was one Nezekias, a captain of a band of robbers...seized him and slew him, as well as a great number of the other robbers that were with him.
15.� THE BIBLE, MARK 14:55 - The chief priests and the whole council tried to find someone to accuse...could put him to death.� [This council was made up of 70 religious leaders and was the supreme court of the Jews.]
�16.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XIV, 9:4 - Herod might undergo a trial before the Sanhedrim for what he had done....not like a private man, but with a guard, for the security of his person....Herod stood before the Sanhedrim...he affrighted them all, and no one of his former accusers durst after that bring charges....Sameus...rose up and said, "...whosoever he be, that comes to be tried by this Sanhedrim, presents himself in a submissive manner, and like one that is in fear of himself....but Herod, who is accused of murder...stands here clothed in purple...and by overbearing justice may himself escape death."
17.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XIV, 13:10 - Phasaelus [in prison], perceiving that...to die thusly by the means of his enemy, this he thought a most pitiable and dishonourable thing, and therefore since he had not his hands at liberty, for the bonds he was in preventing him from killing himself thereby, he dashed his head against a great stone, and thereby took away his own life....hearing, before he was quite dead that his brother Herod had escaped the enemy, under went his death cheerfully.
18.� THE BIBLE, ZECHARIAH 6:11� - Put the crown on the head of the high priest.
�19.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XIV, 16:2� [HEROD'S SIEGE OF JERUSALEM] - Now the Jews that were enclosed within the walls of the city fought against Herod with great zeal, for the whole nation was gathered together....When Herod understood this, he brought his engines to bear and shook the walls of the city, and tried all manner of ways to get in.
�20.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XIV, 16:2 - So they were murdered continually in the narrow streets and in the houses by crowds, and as they were flying to the Temple for shelter, and there was no pity taken of either infants or the aged, nor did they spare so much as the weaker sex....
�21.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XIV, 16:2 - The first wall was taken in 40 days and the second in 15 more when some of the cloisters that were about the Temple were burnt....When the outer court of the Temple and the lower city were taken, the Jews fled into the inner court of the Temple, and into the upper city....
22.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:25a - At this time a man named Simeon was living in Jerusalem.� Simeon was a good man.� He loved God and was waiting for God to save the people of Israel.
23.� Josephus said in ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK. XV, 1:2 that Hyrcanus was their last high priest and king.� It was his grandson, Miriamn's brother, who Herod appointed high priest.
24.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XV, 3:3-4 - Aristobulus, who was now in the seventeenth year of his age...high priesthood....a warm zeal and affection towards him appeared among the people, and the memory of the actions of his grandfather....Upon all this, Herod resolved...in the midst of a hot day...swimming...the young man at the instigation of Herod, went into the water among them, while such of Herod's acquaintance as he had appointed to do it...plunged him under water...as if it had been done in sport only; nor did they desist till he was entirely suffocated.� And thus was Aristobulus murdered....Herod endeavored that none should believe that the child's death was caused by any design of his....and as for his funeral, that he took care should be very magnificent.
25.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XV, 9:3 - ....Jesus the son of Phabet of the high priesthood.... Not too long ago, King Herod had his wife, Mariamne, executed for allegedly threatening his kingdom.�
26. FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XV, 7:4, 7 - ...passed the sentence of death upon her...laid in prison in one of the fortresses...and thus was Mariamne led to execution....But when she was once dead, the king's affections for her were kindled in a more outrageous manner than before....for he would frequently call for her...so far conquered by his passion, that he would order his servants to call for Mariamne, as if she were still alive.
�27.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:25b-26 - God's Spirit came to him and told him that he would not die until he had seen Christ the Lord.
�28.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XV, 9:3 - There was one Simon...had a daughter, who was esteemed the most beautiful woman of that time...Herod was much affected with what was said of her...to take the damsel to wife.� And while Simon was of a dignity too inferior to be allied to him...the high priesthood, and conferred that dignity on Simon, and so joined an affinity with him by marrying his daughter.
�29.� Based on the estimate that Mary was about 15 years old when she married Joseph, a common marrying age in earlier centuries.
�30. FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XV, 11:1,3 - And now Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign...undertook a very great work, that is, to build of himself the temple of God, and make it larger in compass, and to raise it to a most magnificent altitude, as esteeming it to be the most glorious of all his actions...for an everlasting memorial of him....visible to those that dwelt in the country for a great many furlongs.
31.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 1:5, 13 - When Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest by the name of Zechariah....the angel told him, "Don't be afraid, Zechariah....wife Elizabeth will have a son, and you must name him John."
32.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:36b-37a - She was very old.� In her youth she had been married for seven years, but her husband died.� And now she was eighty-four years old.
33.� THE BIBLE, LEVITICUS 12:6-8 -� When the mother has completed her time of cleansing, she must come to the front of the sacred tent and bring to the priest a year-old lamb....After the preist offers the sacrifices to me, the mother will become completely clean from her loss of blood, whether her child is a boy or a girl.� If she cannot afford a lamb, she can offer two doves or two pigeons.
�34.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:21-24 -� Eight days later Jesus' parents did for him what the Law of Moses commands.� And they named him Jesus, just as the angel had told Mary when he promised she would have a baby.� The time came for Mary and Joseph to do what the Law of Moses says a mother is supposed to do after her baby is born.� They took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem and presented him to the Lord, just as the Law of the Lord says, "Each first-born baby boy belongs to the Lord."� The Law of the Lord also says that parents have to offer a sacrifice, giving at least a pair of doves or two young pigeons.� so that is what Mary and Joseph did.
35.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:27-28 - When Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple to do what the Law of Moses says should be done for a new baby, the Spirit told Simeon to go into the temple.� Simeon took the baby Jesus in his arms and praised God.
�36.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:29-32 - "Lord, I am your servant, and now I can die in peace, because you have kept your promise to me.� With my own eyes I have seen what you have done to save your people, and foreign nations will also see this.� Your mighty power is a light for all nations, and it will bring honor to your people Israel."
�37.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:33 - Jesus' parents were surprised at what Simeon had said.�
�38.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:34 - Then he blessed them and told Mary, "This child of yours will cause many people in Israel to fall and others to stand.� The child will be like a warning sign.� Many people will reject him."
�39.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:38a - At that time Anna came in and praised God.
�40.� THE BIBLE, LUKE 2:38b - She spoke about the child Jesus to everyone who hoped for Jerusalem to be set free.
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