Timeline for Is this apparent story about how Julius Caesar selected soldiers true?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
23 events
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| Dec 14, 2023 at 19:37 | comment | added | LarsH | For example, Jesus' feeding of the 4,000 in Matthew 15 resembles the feeding of the 5,000 in Matthew 14. Some scholars assume that one story is a copy of the other. But it's more plausible that they were just two similar events. Jesus even compared the two events in Matthew 16:9-10 as if they were two separate occurrences. | |
| Dec 14, 2023 at 19:32 | comment | added | LarsH | The story about Caesar certainly does resemble the passage from Judges about Gideon. The latter may be the source of the former, but not necessarily. Sometimes stories (and events) resemble each other for other reasons. (And even if the Gideon story is the source of the Caesar story, calling it a "direct copy" is a bit of an overstatement, given the difference in details.) I only bring this up because some popular historians are too quick to jump to the conclusion that one narrative is a copy of another, when there are other plausible explanations for the resemblance. | |
| Dec 14, 2023 at 10:35 | comment | added | Jed Schaaf | @Henry The 300 who were kept were the ones who brought the water to their mouth with their hands. The ones who knelt down to put their face in the water to drink (and were sent away) were the other ~10,000. But I also highly doubt that kneeling/bowing/prostrating in a random place would be at all related to idolatry, mostly because that's not indicated as the reason for rejecting that majority, and it would have been specifically called out if it were, since Israel's troubles with idolatry is a huge point of the book of Judges. | |
| Dec 14, 2023 at 2:47 | comment | added | Henry | @JoshuaVoskamp - apparently the 300 "lapped" the water, which might be difficult standing or crouching | |
| Dec 13, 2023 at 1:59 | history | edited | Jos | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 13, 2023 at 1:47 | history | edited | Jos | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 13, 2023 at 0:51 | history | edited | Jos | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 12, 2023 at 22:14 | comment | added | SJuan76 | Also, given the numbers of men that Caesar did mobilize, I do not think he could afford to be picky. Certainly he prefered well trained veterans, but he had to gather whatever he could. To the point that he got in trouble when several legions, who had been serving under him longer than they should have been mobilized, did mutiny and reject further orders. | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 16:04 | comment | added | Joshua Voskamp | Related to the Biblical story (and I'd have to find my source -- Ray Vanderlaan, I think?) I've heard it explained that this is similar to e.g. Elijah's complaint that very few Israelites remained who were not idol-worshippers; kneeling was the practiced pose for idol-worship, and so those 300 who refused to kneel to drink were 'the only faithful' | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 15:59 | comment | added | ojchase | @njuffa The way I always read it, it had very little to do with any attributes of the soldiers themselves and everything to do with God wanting a very small group of people to demonstrate His power (and His alone) through | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 9:33 | comment | added | Thomas Nicholson | @Jos wonderful, thank you for this information! The story, which comes from casual conversation in a documentary, just seems to be apocryphal but at least exists in some form, which is mildly interesting. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 9:31 | vote | accept | Thomas Nicholson | ||
| Dec 12, 2023 at 8:57 | comment | added | Peter - Reinstate Monica | @njuffa The more things change, the more the ones that don't stand out... | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 7:18 | comment | added | Roger V. | @Jos the story is from the old testament, so it is independent from Christianity... of course, one could equally say that in every synagogue they have their own interpretation of Tanakh :) | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 6:26 | comment | added | Jos | @njuffa thanks for explaining. Interpretation is the reason why there are +30.000 varieties of Christianity. :-) | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 3:26 | comment | added | njuffa | @Jos I was not referring to the Romans in my comment, but to the Bible passage referenced in the answer (+1). In other words: my comment was meant to augment, not contradict. And the test as described in the Bible makes perfect sense: those that crouch, upper body upright, one hand on their weapon, the other hand used to scoop water, are immediately ready to fight in case of an ambush. | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 3:04 | comment | added | Pieter Geerkens | It's strange how memory works. I've the clearest memory of this being a three-fold test, with first the fearful, secondly those who knelt to lap lie a dog, and thirdly those who failed to keep their free hand on their sword hilt, being sent home, before Gideon had only 300 men. And then recalling, as a young adult, thinking: "Yes! The psychopaths! That's exactly the 300 you want for a suicide mission." But there' no version of the Bible I can find with any such third test. | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 2:38 | comment | added | Jos | @njuffa That's your interpretation, but that is not how Romans selected soldiers. Feel free to add something to back up your interpretation. | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 1:16 | history | edited | Jos | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 12, 2023 at 0:47 | comment | added | njuffa | The way I read this, this story is not about rushing to the river, or the drinking of water per se, but about maintaining a higher level of situational awareness while drinking water: (1) The ones that kneel down to drink are considered unfit to be soldiers; (2) The ones that use their hands to scoop up water are considered fit to be soldiers. | |
| Dec 12, 2023 at 0:42 | history | edited | Jos | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 12, 2023 at 0:37 | history | edited | Jos | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 12, 2023 at 0:32 | history | answered | Jos | CC BY-SA 4.0 |