Lysanias

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Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene, according to Luke 3:1, in the time of John the Baptist. The only Lysanias mentioned in secular history as exercising authority in this district was executed in 36 BC by Mark Antony. This Lysanias was the son of Ptolemy, the ruler of an independent state, of which Abilene formed only a small portion. According to Josephus (Ant. xix.5, 1) the emperor Claudius in AD 42 confirmed Agrippa I in the possession of Abila of Lysanias already bestowed upon him by Caligula, elsewhere described as Abila, which had formed the tetrarchy of Lysanias. It is argued that this cannot refer to the Lysanias executed by Antony, since his paternal inheritance, even allowing for some curtailment by Pompey, must have been of far greater extent. It is therefore assumed by some authorities that the Lysanias in Luke (AD 28-29) is a younger Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene only, one of the districts into which the original kingdom was split up after the death of Lysanias I. This younger Lysanias may have been a son of the latter, and identical with, or the father of, the Claudian Lysanias. On the other hand, Josephus knows nothing of a younger Lysanias, and it is suggested by others that he really does refer to Lysanias I. The explanation given by M. Krenkel (Josephus und Lucas, Leipzig, 1894, p. 97) is that Josephus does not mean to imply that Abila was the only possession of Lysanias, and that he calls it the tetrarchy or kingdom of Lysanias because it was the last remnant of the domain of Lysanias which remained under direct Roman administration until the time of Agrippa. The expression was borrowed from Josephus by Luke, who wrongly imagined that Lysanias I had ruled almost up to the time of the bestowal of his tetrarchy upon Agrippa, and therefore to the days of John the Baptist. Two inscriptions are adduced as evidence for the existence of a younger Lysanias; Bockh, C.I.G. 4521 and 4523. The former is inconclusive, and in the latter the reading is entirely conjectural; the name might equally well be Lysimachus or Lysias.

Luke 3:1 ("Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar") states Tiberius was still alive. But Tiberius Caesar came to be remembered as a dark, reclusive, and sombre ruler (tristissimus hominum –‘the gloomiest of men’, by one account), who never really desired to be Emperor. After the death of Tiberius’ son Drusus in 23, the quality of his rule declined, and ended in a Terror. Tiberius exiled himself from Rome and left administration. Therefore Lysanias could have been made tetrarch of Abilene long before Caesar's death.

[edit] Archaeological evidence

An inscription [1][2] was found on a temple from the time of Tiberius (the Roman emperor from 14 - 37 AD), which named Lysanias as the Tetrach of Abila near Damascus, just as Luke has written.

The temple inscription reads:

Huper tes ton kurion Se[baston] soterias kai tou sum[pantos] auton oikou, Numphaios Ae[tou] Lusianiou tetrarchou apele[utheors] ten odon ktisas k.t.l

Translation:

"For the salvation of the August lords and of all their household, Nymphaeus, freedman of Eagle Lysanias tetrarch established this street and other things."

The reference to August lords is a joint title given only to the emperor Tiberius (son of Augustus) and his mother Livia (widow of Augustus). This reference establishes the date of the inscription to between A.D. 14 and 29. The year 14 was the year of Tiberius' accession and the year 29 was the year of Livia's death.

Therefore the 15th year of Tiberius is the year 29 A.D., and it lies within the reign of the August lords. This evidence supports Luke's reference that Lysanias was a tetrarch around the time of John the baptist (29 A.D.).