Philo's guide to decoding the Hebrew Bible

[john]

OK.

I've had it.

At exactly the same archaeological time (zone) in which you are

Going on endlessly about certain Middleastern Tribes,

And one man-god in particular

You also have the

Chinese,

The North Americans,

The Australians,

The Melanesians,

The Japanese,

The Ainu,

The Baja Californians,

The Chumash,

The Hopi,

The Apache,

The Comanche,

The Sioux,

The Blackfeet,

The Egyptians,

The Greeks,

The Macedonians,

The South Americans,

The Europeans,

The Indians,

The Tierra Del Fuegans,

The Scythians,

The Irish,

The Scottish,

The Russians,

The Afghanis,

The Siberians,

The Baltic Peoples,

The Nordic Peoples,

Even the bloody English,

Just to name a few.

Etcetera etcetera etcetera.

All were real, alive and active,

With their own particular world form and belief.

Now, unless you wish to posit

For once and for all,

Somehow,

That jesus - and therefore "God" -

Was the inflexible arbiter of all this,

Which I believe is a piece of crashing bullshit,

Then back the hell off

And get on with the

Beauty of the rest of the world,

Just as it happens, including today.

Which I believe was the entire

Worldview of the Shamanic.



hoka hey

john

[Minimalist]

Many of those other groups did not write down a lot about their belief systems.

This bunch that we are talking about eventually took their doctrine and used it to wipe out large parts of the world.

[Ishtar]

John, you're being ridiculous.

It's as if you've broken into a discussion about the relative merits of the 130 and 164 Tri-Deck Motoryachts, which we have not quite yet unravelled, to demand that we should also be bringing into it the relative merits of the 98 and 112 Pilothouse Motoryachts.

If you want to start a thread on 98 and 112 Pilothouse Motoryachts, you're welcome.

In the meantime, please don't interrupt us!

Right .. .now, where were we? Ah yes, now I much prefer the advanced hull design of the 164 by the renowned naval architect William Garden and think it represents an exceptional landmark achievement in large yacht design.

http://www.westportyachts.com/yachts/westport164/

[Ishtar]

And ... a further thought, more seriously.

Christianity was the religion that sounded the death knell for the gnostic and the shamanic.

It took it and hung, drew and quartered it on the cross of literalism, and then by denying the second initiation, tore the heart out of it.

Then it tried to sell it back to us as "God".

When the millions of followers of Christianity don't understand that, then none of us stand a chance of being able to

... get on with the

Beauty of the rest of the world,

Just as it happens, including today.

Which I believe was the entire

Worldview of the Shamanic.

Peace.

[seeker]

I think Christianity is just the pinnacle of the practice of using religion as a means of control

[Minimalist]

Islam shot by it like a rocket when it comes to control.

[seeker]

Islam shot by it like a rocket when it comes to control.

Islam is interesting though because instead of saying 'obey the king' its saying 'obey the priest'. Other than that they really represent the same techniques as far as control.

[Minimalist]

They are much more successful, though.

[Minimalist]

Taking up your wish to continue the other discussion here.

WE may not be able to trace the humble beginnings....although the Essenes seem a pretty fair starting point...but it does seem as if we can track the beginnings of the literalist movement which later became the orthodox church.

Doherty attributes it to "Mark" (whoever he was, his name was almost certainly not "Mark.") And c 70 AD seems a good time as the temple was still smoking....although not completely leveled as stated in the story, the Romans maintained one of the towers as a base for the Xth Legion which took up residence on the site.

By 107 AD we have the epistle of Ignatius of Antioch to the Trallians which states:

CHAPTER 9
9:1 Be ye deaf therefore, when any man speaketh to you
apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David,
who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and
drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was
truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven
and those on earth and those under the earth;
9:2 who moreover was truly raised from the dead, His
Father having raised Him, who in the like fashion will
so raise us also who believe on Him -- His Father, I
say, will raise us -- in Christ Jesus, apart from whom
we have not true life.

Interestingly, Ignatius' letter also contains this which indicates that someone was looking to assert a church hierarchy even as early as the second century.

CHAPTER 3
3:1 In like manner let all men respect the deacons as
Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as
being a type of the Father and the presbyters as the
council of God and as the college of Apostles.

Now, even more curiously, the city of Tralles was located in Southwestern Turkey, near Smyrna and Ephesos, and thus not all that far away from Bithynia where in a few short years Pliny the Younger would arrive and deal with early christians! Somehow, I can't shake the feeling that this is all interconnected.

[seeker]

They are much more successful, though.

They had the advantage of less factionalism. Christians have always been nearly as interested in killing off each other as they were in killing off everyone else.

[Minimalist]

I don't know about that. Islam is as sect-ridden as anything else but they do seem to stop killing each other long enough to kill infidels when the opportunity presents.

I'm always amazed that Sunnis and Shiites can work themselves up into a psychotic rage...to the point of killing themselves...over something that happened in the 7th century. Of course, they couldn't do that if they didn't have their Imams egging them on.

[Ishtar]

Taking up your wish to continue the other discussion here.

WE may not be able to trace the humble beginnings....although the Essenes seem a pretty fair starting point...but it does seem as if we can track the beginnings of the literalist movement which later became the orthodox church.

Doherty attributes it to "Mark" (whoever he was, his name was almost certainly not "Mark.") And c 70 AD seems a good time as the temple was still smoking....although not completely leveled as stated in the story, the Romans maintained one of the towers as a base for the Xth Legion which took up residence on the site.

OK, I'll ask again: Why are you (and possibly Doherty) dating a piece of fiction to something that happened historically? Are you not still in the thrall of the Literalists by treating it literally? And even then, it doesn't really work because as you say, the temple was not levelled by then as stated in the story. So Mark could have been written at any time after the razing of the temple.

By 107 AD we have the epistle of Ignatius of Antioch to the Trallians which states:

CHAPTER 9
9:1 Be ye deaf therefore, when any man speaketh to you
apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David,
who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and
drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was
truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven
and those on earth and those under the earth;
9:2 who moreover was truly raised from the dead, His
Father having raised Him, who in the like fashion will
so raise us also who believe on Him -- His Father, I
say, will raise us -- in Christ Jesus, apart from whom
we have not true life.

Interestingly, Ignatius' letter also contains this which indicates that someone was looking to assert a church hierarchy even as early as the second century.

CHAPTER 3
3:1 In like manner let all men respect the deacons as
Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as
being a type of the Father and the presbyters as the
council of God and as the college of Apostles. [/quote

Now, even more curiously, the city of Tralles was located in Southwestern Turkey, near Smyrna and Ephesos, and thus not all that far away from Bithynia where in a few short years Pliny the Younger would arrive and deal with early christians! Somehow, I can't shake the feeling that this is all interconnected.

Well possibly. But most of Christianity in Asia was Gnostic.

As Paul is made to say in forged letters by the Literalists: "All Asia is against me." Gibbon wrote in the Decline and Fall that "the Gnostics covered Asia and Egypt, established themselves in Rome, and sometimes penetrated into the provinces in the West."

Also Smyrna is where Polycarp, about the same time as Ignatius, was railing against the Gnostics thus:

"The great majority of Christians embrace the idea of Jesus not living in the flesh."

You are dating Christianity to the first signs of the Literalist Church, but Literalism does not signify the beginning of Christianity. It's the beginning of Literalism or Jesusism, if you like - when they tried to pretend a mythological figure that developed out of Gnostic Christianity really actually lived. But they didn't invent Jesus.

As mentioned in the other post, Jesus is an anglicisation of the Greek Ίησους (Iēsous), itself a Hellenization of the Hebrew יהושע (Yehoshua) or Hebrew-Aramaic ישוע (Yeshua) - in other words Joshua, who Justin Martyr referred to as the Jesus of Exodus.

I'll also put the table again to show that they are the same story (not history, but story):



The Essenes and the Zadokites had an allegorical story about the Second Coming of Joshua/Jesus - they had already, allegorically, had the first coming. Many of the teachings of the Essenes as we know them from Pliny, Philo, Josephus and even Eusebius show us that the Literalists copied and pasted straight from the Essene's teachings into their gospels. Here's the tables again:







Much of the rest of the canonised writings came from the Theraputae, according to Philo via Eusebius:

They (the Therapeuts] possess short works by early writers, the founders of their sect, who left many specimens of the allegorical method, which they take as their models, following the system on which their predecessors worked.

So these writings of the allegorical method mean that they were Gnostic.

But then Esebius goes on to say:

It seems likely that Philo wrote this after listening to their exposition of the Holy Scriptures, and it is very probable that what he calls short works by their early writers were the gospels, the apostolic writings, and in all probability passages interpreting the old prophets, such as are contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews and several others of Paul’s epistles.

Of the Therapeutan Church, Eusebius says: “These statements of Philo seem to me to refer plainly and unquestionably to members of our Church.”

Concerning this, frankly uncharacteristic, admissions from Eusebius,
Taylor says:

...Eusebius has attested that the Therapeutan monks were Christians, many ages before the period assigned to the birth of Christ; and that the Diegesis and Gnomologue, from which the Evangelists compiled their gospels, were writings which for ages constituted the sacred scriptures of these Egyptian visionaries.”

It’s worth noting that Marcion was a Samaritan member of the Therapeutan brotherhood. And the Therapeutic network also included the Nazerenes – which is why Jesus is referred to as a Nazerene and not because he came from a place that did not yet exist.

Min, I don't know why you're not getting this. I don't think it could be any clearer.

[seeker]

Taking up your wish to continue the other discussion here.

WE may not be able to trace the humble beginnings....although the Essenes seem a pretty fair starting point...but it does seem as if we can track the beginnings of the literalist movement which later became the orthodox church.

Doherty attributes it to "Mark" (whoever he was, his name was almost certainly not "Mark.") And c 70 AD seems a good time as the temple was still smoking....although not completely leveled as stated in the story, the Romans maintained one of the towers as a base for the Xth Legion which took up residence on the site.

By 107 AD we have the epistle of Ignatius of Antioch to the Trallians which states:

CHAPTER 9
9:1 Be ye deaf therefore, when any man speaketh to you
apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David,
who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and
drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was
truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven
and those on earth and those under the earth;
9:2 who moreover was truly raised from the dead, His
Father having raised Him, who in the like fashion will
so raise us also who believe on Him -- His Father, I
say, will raise us -- in Christ Jesus, apart from whom
we have not true life.

Interestingly, Ignatius' letter also contains this which indicates that someone was looking to assert a church hierarchy even as early as the second century.

CHAPTER 3
3:1 In like manner let all men respect the deacons as
Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as
being a type of the Father and the presbyters as the
council of God and as the college of Apostles.

Now, even more curiously, the city of Tralles was located in Southwestern Turkey, near Smyrna and Ephesos, and thus not all that far away from Bithynia where in a few short years Pliny the Younger would arrive and deal with early christians! Somehow, I can't shake the feeling that this is all interconnected.

I basically agree with Doherty, certainly somewhere from 70CE to maybe 120 or so CE for the beginnings of the literal story.

It is about time that Turkey comes up. Constantine basically ruled from Nicomedia and Byzantium (Constantinople and later Istanbul), both of which are in Turkey (Constantinople sort of straddles the border between Europe and Asia).

It seems to me we sort of have the same situation that occured with the Hasmonean era Jews, where the ruling class justified themselves by adopting the stance that only the literal Torah applied and the Oral Torah was unimportant. we could almost regard Gnosticism as Christianity's oral Torah.

[seeker]

I don't know about that. Islam is as sect-ridden as anything else but they do seem to stop killing each other long enough to kill infidels when the opportunity presents.

I'm always amazed that Sunnis and Shiites can work themselves up into a psychotic rage...to the point of killing themselves...over something that happened in the 7th century. Of course, they couldn't do that if they didn't have their Imams egging them on.

Yeah but you have nothing in Islam like the mass genocide of the Cathars. the Sunni - Shiite split was really more of a breakup over who should lead after the death of Muhammed.

I do agree though that the thought that they are still at odds after 13 centuries is a bit absurd. You'd think they'd take advantage of what would be a massive group counseling discount.

[seeker]

OK, I'll ask again: Why are you (and possibly Doherty) dating a piece of fiction to something that happened historically? Are you not still in the thrall of the Literalists by treating it literally? And even then, it doesn't really work because as you say, the temple was not levelled by then as stated in the story. So Mark could have been written at any time after the razing of the temple.

No one is treating the piece literally Ish. Merely using a reference in a literary piece to a historical event in order to establish an earliest written date does not constitute a literal reading of that literary work.

Well possibly. But most of Christianity in Asia was Gnostic.

As Paul is made to say in forged letters by the Literalists: "All Asia is against me." Gibbon wrote in the Decline and Fall that "the Gnostics covered Asia and Egypt, established themselves in Rome, and sometimes penetrated into the provinces in the West."

Also Smyrna is where Polycarp, about the same time as Ignatius, was railing against the Gnostics thus:

"The great majority of Christians embrace the idea of Jesus not living in the flesh."

You are dating Christianity to the first signs of the Literalist Church, but Literalism does not signify the beginning of Christianity. It's the beginning of Literalism or Jesusism, if you like - when they tried to pretend a mythological figure that developed out of Gnostic Christianity really actually lived. But they didn't invent Jesus.

As mentioned in the other post, Jesus is an anglicisation of the Greek Ίησους (Iēsous), itself a Hellenization of the Hebrew יהושע (Yehoshua) or Hebrew-Aramaic ישוע (Yeshua) - in other words Joshua, who Justin Martyr referred to as the Jesus of Exodus.

I'll also put the table again to show that they are the same story (not history, but story):

The Essenes and the Zadokites had an allegorical story about the Second Coming of Joshua/Jesus - they had already, allegorically, had the first coming. Many of the teachings of the Essenes as we know them from Pliny, Philo, Josephus and even Eusebius show us that the Literalists copied and pasted straight from the Essene's teachings into their gospels. Here's the tables again:

Much of the rest of the canonised writings came from the Theraputae, according to Philo via Eusebius:

...snip...

Relax Ish. Min isn't disputing you. At some point the conversion of Christianity from Gnostic to Literal occurred. Min is only suggesting that the literal roots may have been as early as the period after 70CE.