Ben C Smith

On one of the pages on his website Doherty offers the following paragraph (look for it under number 11; I have added bracketed letters so as to make it easier to keep track of the claims):

Moreover, [A] Paul's "born of woman" is not only something that was said of certain mythical savior gods, like Dionysos, it is a detail he could well have based not on history, but on his source for all that he says about the Son: the scriptures. The famous passage in [B] Isaiah 7:14, "A young woman is with child, and she will bear a son and call him Immanuel," was taken by Jew and early Christian alike to refer to the Messiah. Once again, a scriptural passage that could not be ignored was applied by early Christians to their heavenly Christ, in the sense of counterpart characteristics which he possessed in the higher world. [C] National gods were often regarded as having the same lineage as the nation itself, which is one interpretation that could be given to Christ as "born" (or 'coming into being') under the Law.

It is not my intention to get into a fullblown debate over any one of these claims. I have been doing some background research on matters parallel to the discussion above, and just need to find the relevant texts.

What I would like to know, then, is the evidentiary basis for these three claims:

A. Certain savior gods, such as Dionysus, were said to have been born of a woman. (I know of one example from the Bacchae of Euripides, lines 987-990, in which Dionysus is said not to have been produced from the blood of women, but would like to see the texts that say he was.)

B. At least some Jews took Isaiah 7.14 to refer to the messiah. Is this from one of the Targums, perhaps? The Mishnah? The Talmud? And how early is this messianic identification with the child from Isaiah?

C. National gods were often regarded as having the same lineage as the nation. Let me be specific here. To find a god that was regarded as the father of the race or of certain individuals within it (such as Hercules of Alexander or Apollos of Augustus) is not exactly on point. What I am seeking is a parallel to the notion that a god figure (such as Jesus) was the child of a certain people or tribe (such as the tribe of Judah or the line of David).

It would also be helpful if I could see an example of this kind of national god (descendant of a people, not merely an ancestor) who was simultaneously not regarded to have lived on earth in that capacity. (IOW, the claim about Jesus, as I understand it, is that there were Christians, such as Paul, who could say he was descended from David, yet those same Christians did not think of him as having ever lived on earth as a descendant of David.)

Any help anyone can render in this matter would be greatly appreciated. I will probably be unavailable for the next few days, but will certainly check back in as soon as is feasible.

Thanks.

Ben.

Chris Weimer

Off the top of my head, Ovid names Dionysus (Bcchus Liber) as the son of Semele...but is Dionysus a savior god? How so?

jgibson000

He is the son of Semele. That is to say, she was pregnant with him. But he was not born from her or "of" her. The sources for the story of Dionysus tell us that he actually comes to term in, and is born out of, Zeus' thigh.

To my knowledge there is no primary text from antiquity (even in the paraphrasers like Apollodorus) that knows of, or describes, Dionysus as having been "born of a woman", let alone one that in content and intent has the same meaning as the Galatians text to which the "birth" of Dionysus is an alleged parallel (for the literary as well as the visual material on the birth of Dionysus, see Gantz).

If Earl, or anyone, knows of one, I'd very much like to see it.

Jeffrey

Roger Pearse

Presumably the investigation must be:

1. What is the Greek phrase? (I presume that we mean precisely 'born of a woman', rather than 'born and a woman was involved at some point or other').

2. Is it in the TLG, and if so in what context?

It is a pity that Mr. Doherty hasn't done this sort of thing himself; or if he has, that he hasn't documented it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Solo

I too would be grateful for any evidence that Jews other than Christian Jews were identifying Isaiah 7:14 prophecy with the Messiah. This appears to be Matthean baby Jesus ad-libbing which had no currency in messianic traditions.
The standard messianic reference in Isaiah recognized universally in Judaism is Is 11:1-2. Many Jewish scholars believe that the Jewish description of Christians (or more generally messianists relying on Isaiah's prophecy) as "notzrim" derives from the word "branch" (netzer) that Isaiah used in 11:1. Some claim that Mt's 2:23 mention of "Natzeret" (Nazareth) is an deliberate occultic pun on the "branch and root" of Jesus as Messiah.

Jiri

Ecrasez L'infame

http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4A.html

See, no such thing as a single version of events in Greek myth...

jgibson000

Please note that DS does not say that Dionysus was born to Semele. Nor does he contradict the older versions of the story of the origin of the god that note that Dionysus was born from Zeus' thigh (cf. Homeric Hymn 1 that specifically says that Zeus "gave birth" to Dionysus; see too the Red Figure lekythos by the Alkimachos painter that shows Dionysus coming from Zeus's thigh, and the decsiption of the god's birth in Herodotus 2.146.2 and Euripides Bakchai 89-98; cf. Pindar fr. 85a SM) -- since according to DS, who knows and presupposes these accounts, Zeus' Mt. Nysa "handing over" of the child "to the care of Hermes" (cp. Homeric Hymn 26) takes place after Dionysus has come to term inside Zeus

Never said there was. But please note not only that there is a consistency regarding the birth of the Zeus/Semele Dionysus between the primary accounts and artistic representations of his "birth" and the later ones in Ps. Apollodorus and Ovid that bespeaks a fixed tradition that the god was not born of a woman, but that that this allegedly earlier Dionysus, while born of a female, is not born of a human mother.

And where in any version of the Dionysus story is Dionysus presented as a "saviour" god?

JG

Chris Weimer

I'm more than willing to allow Dionysus to have been "born" of Semele since and only since he would have if Hera had not tricked him. Besides, Dionysus is still called Semele's offspring in Ovid as well (Metamorphoses III.520).

However, he still isn't a savior god.

Ecrasez L'infame

Yes, he clearly does. Born prematurely, but still born to her. What else could "brought forth" mean? Whether Dionysus is subsequently "born" a second time from Zeus's thigh - well, isn't that an assumption you're reading into the text? DS doesn't say any of that... he just says S delivered the baby prematurely and promptly died. Then Z IMMEDIATELY hands the baby over to H. Of course DS knew the thigh story, and so would've the contemporary reader; but he's telling a different story here. Anyhow, it doesn't really matter. The point is that Dionysus was born of woman (or goddess) at all, even if it was the first of two births.

Need careful wording here. The SOURCES are older - the Homeric Hymn beats Euhemerus, who DS was working from, by 300 years - but who's to say which story is older? But I admit DS doesn't contradict the thigh story, except by omission.

The thigh version is the more common story, but "consistency" is putting it too strongly. I understand (but haven't checked - it's a nice day) that Plutarch tells a different version again in Python iii, and that the Orphics had Dionysus born of Lethe.

Thanks

Robert

jgibson000

Quite a bit.

Here's the text of 4.2.3:

τὴν ηραν συμπεριφοραῖs. τὸν μὲν οὖν δία παραγενόμενον θεοπρεπῶs μετὰ βροντῶν καὶ ἀστραπῶν ἐπιφανῶs ποιεῖσθαι τὴν συνουσίαν· τὴν δὲ σεμέλην
ἔγκυον οὖσαν καὶ τὸ μέγεθοs τῆs περιστάσεωs οὐκ ἐνέγκασαν τὸ μὲν βρέφοs ἐκτρῶσαι, ὑπὸ δὲ τοῦ πυρὸs αὐτὴν τελευτῆσαι. ἔπειτα τὸ παιδίον ἀναλαβόντα τὸν δία παραδοῦναι τῶ ερμὴ, καὶ προςτάξαι τοῦτο μὲν ἀποκομίσαι πρὸj τὸ ἄντρον τὸ ἐν τῶ νύσὴ, κείμενον μεταξὺ φοινίκηs καὶ νείλου, ταῖs δὲ νύμφαιj παραδοῦναι τρέφειν καὶ μετὰ πολλῆs σπουδῆj ἐπιμέλειαν αὐτοῦ ποιεῖσθαι τὴν ἀρίστην.

I'd be grateful if you could show me where the terminology for "born" is used.

If so (and I don't have time to check right now either), it's one more strike against the claim that Dionysus was "born of a woman" since Lethe is a goddess.

Jeffrey