Magdlyn

I appreciate your post, gurugeorge, and I agree.

Clouseau

The reason for that has been given.

Not a chance. Use quotes. And quoting Wiki is of little avail, unless the topic is the Bessemer converter or the gestation period of gerbils.

Solo

I think there is little more to that than that, Amaleq. Here is Strong's reading of the verb (#2007):

1) in the active voice

a) to put or lay upon

b) to add to

2) in the middle voice

a) to have put on, bid to be laid on

b) to lay or throw one's self upon

c) to attack one, to make an assault on one


Jiri

gurugeorge

Thanks. There are tons of alternative possibilities that "fit the facts" in one way or another, but I think my rough outline does justice to the evidence with the least stretching - and also (and I think this is important too), with the most charitable interpretation of the motivations and characters of the "players" involved. (e.g. Paul was a genuine mystic, a religious genius; the proto-orthodoxy tried to unite a disparate movement that would have fizzled out, and were themselves very clever and highly spiritual people with the best intentions, despite their "white lies"; etc., etc.) That doesn't make it true, but it makes it a feasible candidate.

Of course what counts as a "stretch" is going to look different to different people, and I'm sure some people will think I'm taking more liberties than Plastic Man

Solo

I don't think you are getting what I am saying: the manic "attack" is a profoundly ambivalent experience. It normally does not impair the person's intellect but leaves a profound "trace" (I am talking about a profile where the first acute, protracted, episode happens in midlife). It will "change" you. The context of name changing in the early Xty, I believe, relates to this, irrespective whether it happened in other contexts, or in other forms of self-dedication.

The healing acts by Jesus were an allegorical rendering of a belief that the "resurrectional" experience was positive (even if it had a huge downside) and gave one profound insights into oneself and the world. Paul believed that absolutely !

Jiri

Amaleq13

I doubt it but that isn't actually relevant since it doesn't make much sense to suggest that a crowd would be less excited by an actual healing than just the appearance of healing.

No, manic behavior is associated with a belief that magical healing is taking place regardless of whether that healing is an illusion.

There is no good reason to think otherwise.

True but we aren't just talking about "healing". We are talking about magical healing.

Yet, somehow, crowds of people knew to look for him to perform miraculous healings.

Clouseau

On the contrary, if there was actual healing there would be no need to whip up crowds.

We are discussing supernatural healing, and there is nothing necessarily manic about that.

Of course they did- who would not, if there was a sick member of the family? There is no manic behaviour noted in the gospels, or reported elsewhere.

In mature countries, American religion is regarded as delinquent, juvenile and laughable, and of no serious significance, and its origins have been well observed, so it is inappropriate, to say the least, to suppose that any other peoples have been so backward.

Magdlyn

Paul meaning Simon Magus?

You say magician, but do you mean Zoroastrian magus? What is the connection between Samaritan religion and Zoroastrianism? I know Zoroastrianism influenced "Judaism" and "Christianity." One wonders how it influenced the other major religion in that area... was it to a greater extent? Magi visit toddler Jesus. They were the "good" magi. But Simon Magus was a "baddie."

Just random thoughts...

Amaleq13

Yes, the act itself would be sufficient to generate the necessary emotional energy and prior knowledge of the act would be sufficient for future crowds to be whipped up in anticipation.

Clouseau

I suppose that the act of healing would drive certain people insane, as it would show them that the powers of darkness were not so powerful.