Egerton's Palm Sunday

I'm still looking at Jacobovici-Wilson. One point, pp. 266f: what the Johannine Gospel implies as a Palm Sunday was not the first day of the Christian "Holy Week".

Palms and Hosannas, according to J-W, are for Sukkot, translated "Tabernacles". Nowadays it isn't just palms, but the Jews own no other holidays which use these. Speaking as one who has lived among palms, and had one as a weed outside his home: it is not easy to get those stiff sharp fronds off these trees. As J-W note.

Jesus (famously) was crucified during the Passover season, probably on Wednesday or Thursday. The Jewish Palm Day is associated with the Passover ... a few months afterward, mid-Exodus. Last year Tabernacles spanned 13-20 October.

J-W point out that the Synoptic Gospels have smoothed out Jesus' time in Jerusalem to a week. John, for its part, is more disjoint: Jesus enters among palms 12:12-13; but he is also in Jerusalem on earlier occasions.

The Egerton Papyrus preserved the leadup to "give to Caesar..." in a doublesided page whose other half involved the Jordan, between Jericho and Galilee. This saying is Jerushalmi in the Synoptics. I posed a theory 29 March 2002 - 1 Oct 2003 that Egerton, in nonpreserved parts of the MS, incorporated what John spreads out over 3:14+12:34. This predicts a crucifixion and, in John 12:34, is set in Jerusalem (the likeliest spot for a run-in with Rome proper). I think Egerton weighted its godspell of Jesus toward his time in Jerusalem.

Since all four preserved narrative Gospels include the Triumphal Sunday, it would be strange if Egerton - related to all of them - lacked it.

As for a motive: J-W note that John has a problem with "the Jews", and squeezing the events into one week raises up how fickle they are. Matthew and Luke depend on Mark; for Mark's motive, and for Matthew's, I defer to Evan Powell who pointed out that their desire is to excuse away Peter as fickle. [UPDATE 2/27: Matthew also has a problem with other Jews, which may explain why he has the crowd tossing underbrush at Jesus' way in.] Peter is just as fickle in John 1-20 (all Powell and Papyrus-5 allow to it), so that can apply there too.

That leaves a problem, for those hoping to vindicate J-W someday with a rediscovered text: if Egerton was as anti-Petrine as is John, we cannot count on Egerton (should that part of it be found) to deliver the appropriate span between Palm Sunday and Black Friday Thursday.

But J-W aren't hoping for that text, on account they think they already have enough in Aseneth.

What I'll also note is that the "Holy Week", by posing narrative problems for the Evangelists, looks to be papering over a real account of a real (failed) revolutionary. That hobbles the case for the Mythicists, if it needed hobbling.