Philo's guide to decoding the Hebrew Bible

Ishtar · Post by **Ishtar** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:05 pm

Then why don't you start a thread on it?

We are talking here about first and second century Christianity.

rich · Post by **rich** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:08 pm

Exactly - except I'm saying why would the gnostics use the name "Jesus". It doesn't add up.

seeker · Post by **seeker** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:13 pm

I'd say the OT demiurge is more like Ahriman in Zoroastrianismn. The whole idea is that for every good thing Ahura Mazda makes Ahriman makes an evil thing but in the end good must win because it has foresight. During the Greek period animosity towards the Persians led them to bury Persian influences which caused Judaism to downplay the similarity of Ahriman to Satan. In fact Satan is reduced to a few cameos and I understand he changed agents during that era.

By the way, have you considered that the author of the quote evaluating the words of Justin Martyr may simply not have wanted to (or been able to) acknowledge that Christianity was Gnostic?

rich · Post by **rich** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:21 pm

I believe in the OT it was referred to as "the Anger of the Lord" - and Satan also. And if I recall right it was the Anger of the Lord that led Moses to lead the people out of Egypt as well as gave hime the laws. - But - the inference is to a quality of Yahweh - which is the duality again.

seeker · Post by **seeker** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:22 pm

rich wrote:Ishtar wrote:

I also know enough about Yahweh to know where he comes from and how he got into the Hebrew Bible.

However, some do compare Yahweh to the demiurge - and so you're in good company.

So can we now get back to the early Christianity, which is what this thread is about?
But ish - that's the point - without knowing what the OT actually said before the Yahwists got into it - we can only draw a blank. We don't know that Yahweh was in the original - do we? And I can point to some inferences that do point to Yahweh as the demiurge - quite a few. And isn't that what gnosis was about - an evil creator god that wasn't the real god? And the serpent that gave man the "true" wisdom?

Wow, what a misconception. There was a group that saw Satan as the actual good guy with the bible as a propaganda pace made to mislead us into following the bad guy. I can't remember the name of that group off hand, I'll look it up. Anyway that is a complete mis-categorization of Gnosticism.

seeker · Post by **seeker** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:30 pm

rich wrote:I believe in the OT it was referred to as "the Anger of the Lord" - and Satan also. And if I recall right it was the Anger of the Lord that led Moses to lead the people out of Egypt as well as gave hime the laws. - But - the inference is to a quality of Yahweh - which is the duality again.

It actually evolves in the OT. Job presents Satan as 'the adversary', Isaiah presents 'Lucifer' as a fallen angel but that is debatable since Lucifer, like the serpent, may or may not have been Satan. The point is that the OT really doesn't present Satan because they couldn't deal with the problem of an all powerful God who couldn't overcome evil and didn't want to incorporate Zoroastrian solutions to the problem.

rich · Post by **rich** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:32 pm

Hmmm -

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-demiurge.html

demiurge
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | Date: 2008
demiurge [Gr.,=workman, craftsman], name given by Plato in a mythological passage in the Timaeus to the creator God. In Gnosticism the Demiurge, creator of the material world, was not God but the Archon, or chief of the lowest order of spirits or aeons. According to the Gnostics, the Demiurge was able to endow man only with psyche (sensuous soul)—the pneuma (rational soul) having been added by God. The Gnostics identified the Demiurge with the Jehovah of the Hebrews. In philosophy the term is used to denote a divinity who is the builder of the universe rather than its creator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism

Gnosticism (Greek: γνώσις gnōsis, knowledge) refers to a diverse, syncretistic religious movement consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect god, the demiurge, who is frequently identified with the Abrahamic God: called "Yahweh" or "Jahveh" for the true name of God is the ineffable Tetragrammaton.[1] The demiurge may be depicted as an embodiment of evil, or in other instances as merely imperfect and as benevolent as its inadequacy permits. This demiurge exists alongside another remote and unknowable supreme being that embodies good. In order to free oneself from the inferior material world, one needs gnosis, or esoteric spiritual knowledge available to all through direct experience or knowledge (gnosis) of God.[2][3] Jesus of Nazareth is identified by some Gnostic sects as an embodiment of the supreme being who became incarnate to bring gnosis to the earth. In others he was thought to be a gnosis teacher, and yet others, nothing more than a man.

Appears to me what the gnostics were saying - maybe I'm misinterpretiung the encyclopedias.

seeker · Post by **seeker** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:49 pm

First off the belief in the serpent as the actual good guy was a group called Ophites and they have a few sects, probably the Mandaeans are the best known

You may want to read that entry more carefully, you are misunderstanding the concept. The concept in Zoroasatrianism is that Ahura Mazda created a perfect but immaterial world which caused Ahriman to created the material world, an imperfect copy full of evil. The Gnostic idea of the demiurge is a refinement of that idea, that good is created by Ahura Mazda and evil my Ahriman. This was how Zoroastrians dealt with the notion of a good god creating evil.

When they applied this to the OT there were several interpretations ranging from that of the Ophites to the interpretation that the OT God was a lesser God and that there was an even greater God over him (sort of like Zurvanism, a later Zoroastrian sect).

rich · Post by **rich** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:01 pm

Ok - then show me how Yahweh did not show evil as well as good tendencies and how he does not relate to the demiurge.

seeker · Post by **seeker** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:05 pm

rich wrote:Ok - then show me how Yahweh did not show evil as well as good tendencies and how he does not relate to the demiurge.

Sorry, I was editing my post as you posted.

My point is that the God of the OT could arguably have occupoed either the good or evil position depending on whether you viewed his as righteous or not. That is why a Jewish Gnostic could see Yaweh as good while an Ophite with similar beliefs would argue God as demiurge.

seeker · Post by **seeker** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:10 pm

rich wrote:Exactly - except I'm saying why would the gnostics use the name "Jesus". It doesn't add up.

Jesus was a common Jewish name which means Yaweh saves, a perfect name for a savior. Worshipping Steve Christ just wouldn't be the same.

rich · Post by **rich** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:12 pm

Are you claiming that alll the Jewish mystics were gnostics then and that there wasn't another school of Jewish mysticism?

seeker · Post by **seeker** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:22 pm

rich wrote:Are you claiming that alll the Jewish mystics were gnostics then and that there wasn't another school of Jewish mysticism?

When did I say that? Are you claiming that some Jewish sects weren't Gnostic? That's going to be difficult when the underlying theology of both was Zoroastrianism.

Post by **Minimalist** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:26 pm

which means Yaweh saves, a perfect name for a savior.

Or a goalie.

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rich · Post by **rich** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:29 pm

I agree that the gnostic schools derived from Zoroastrianism, but without knowing what the original (if any) OT might have said there's no real way of knowing. And as far as I can see, the demiurge part "seems" to me anyways to be a major part of the gnostic teachings of a "higher" knowledge. I agree I could be wrong, but I just don't see where the gnostics at the time wouldn't have used the demiurge part and related it to Yahweh - that is why I don't see the gnostics at that time using "Jesus" as the savior.
Just my opinion tho.