schilling.klaus

Philo may have honestly believed to be still in the Jewish framework,
but he wasn't anymore.
This is not by using Greek, but by thinking in Platonic manner.

The canonical gospels are thoroughly Roman, the Jewish background
is only a hallucination in order to make the Catholic Church appear
as the goal of the prophets of the Tanakh.

The OT was very suited for Roman purposes, as the prevailing
philosophy of the Romans was Stoic, the only hellenic philosophy
that became really popular there. Already Flavius Josephus knew
that the Pharisees were very close to Stoic philosophy.
Thus Roman intellectuals could easily adopt the Tanakh.
While Gnosis was world denying, Stoa and the OT were world
affirming. This led to the Roman Catholic church as a world-
affirming organisation using the Old Testament and its Creator god,
in antithesis to the pre-Catholic Gnostic Christians who
denied the world and denigrated the Creator.

Philo supported Stoa only to some extend, but was Platonising
through and through by seeing the material existence as inferior
to the spiritual one. His God was not proud of his material
creation, only of the ideas. This way Philo needs to be seen
as Antijewish, regardless of how much he feigns to be an
observant Jew.

Klaus Schilling

GakuseiDon

I'm afraid that I'm fairly certain that it is Malachi that she is talking about there. He is writing a review and posts elsewhere as "RationalRevolution" (hence her emphasis on the word "IRRATIONAL") Sadly, others like you and I only seem to make it to "depraved" and "demented".

andrewcriddle

The Tertullian passage is http://www.tertullian.org/fathers2/A...#P3125_1133921
Latin for bolded phrase is et imaginem resurrectionis inducit
What the image of a resurrection means is unclear, it might refer to some ritual of symbolic death and rebirth undergone by Mithraic initiates but Per Benkow (in Tertullian on Mithras pps 51-60 of Studies in Mithraism 1994 edited by Hinnells) suggests that Tertullian may have (mis)interpreted the idea of Mithras as born from the rock as a parody of Christ rising from the tomb.

Andrew Criddle

Malachi151

#1) This says nothing about the time of a principle celebration, which is the key to this claim.
#2) It doesn't say that Mithras is resurrected.
#3) Since Tertullian is writing in the 3rd century we actually don't know if these things were done prior to Christianity or not. It could be that these rites copy from Christianity and Tertullian himself is simply unaware of this.

Jeffrey Gibson

Oh I see. The definition of who is and who is not a Jew is determined by the fact that one "thinks in a Platonic manner" (whatever that means!!), not by orthopraxy of even by the fact that one uses Plato -- who one proclaims as having derived all of his ideas from Moses -- in order to demonstrate the truth of Judaism, let alone to expound its the beliefs and theological claims and show its superiority over the tenets of Greco Roman religions.

Read a lot of Philo, have you Klaus?

I thought you said that the Gospel's proclaim Jesus as a solar deity and took their cues for what they say from "non roman" heresies?

And what on earth does "thoroughly roman" mean?

Jeffrey

schilling.klaus

this is an Antimarcionite lie by Roman Catholic propagandists
and manipulators that holds no value.

Klaus Schilling

schilling.klaus

of course they do.
The Canonical Gospels are thoroughly Roman, whereas the original Gospel was Alexandrine. The Canonical gospels are late degenerations and corruptions of the fraudulent sort of pre-canonical heretical Gospels.

Klaus Schilling

No Robots

Hi Klaus:

Have you ever heard of Constantin Brunner? He was a German-Jewish writer of the early twentieth century who wrote a major treatise on the wholly Jewish nature of Christ and the New Testament. I have posted the part of the book that deals specifically with the various critical approaches denying this Jewish nature. Here is one rather pithy quotation:

Now, however, the more Christ stands recognized in general terms as a man, the more ill-starred the Jew Christ becomes. Christ a Jew?! In that case—given the undoubtedly true racial theory—how could the Jewish race be inferior? Then we, who have not produced such a genius, would be the inferior race! This is nonsense, since we are the highest race, as the scientific truth of the racial theory proves, and this in turn demonstrates the indubitable scientific integrity and truth of the theory itself. This Christ is ruining the whole racial theory! This realization makes utter desperadoes of some of them, with the result that they actually rediscover their pagan devotion and feel imbued with the spirit of Wotan, exalting the God Wotan against the God Christ, or even try to demonstrate the existence of Wotan the man!

However intemperate these remarks may seem, and one must remember the context in which they were written (Germany, 1921), they point an accusing finger with considerable justification at all these attempts to deny the wholly Jewish nature of Christ and the NT. I heartily recommend that you look at Brunner's book before you venture onto this ground.

Casper

Star of Bethlehem? Please read further though to prevent an unnecessary tangent on the discussion...

I think this is an implied but not sufficiently outlined part of the discussion.

How much of this is Pariedolia? People can see an image of the Virgin on a grilled cheese sandwhich. Others may see a likeness of Ol' Yeller, or a spaceship, or whatever. How does one separate into three categories:

Direct astrotheological references which appear to extend back to the earliest acceptable reconstructions,
vs
Direct Astrotheological references which are fairly verifiable as later (much later) interpolations, whatever the intent,
vs
Indirect Astrotheological references which exist in the mind of the reader, whether original (if that word can be used safely) and intended, interpolated and intended, or just plain up in the air?

As an anecdotal aside, before reading about it, I never saw the Samson story as having any relationship to the sun; Given my upbringing and personal circumstance, I always equated his hair with a metaphor for a crown, (cut the hair = remove the corwn or anointing), and very much a reinforcement of the idea that women are the devil, and hooking up with the wrong one can seriously impact your relationship with God in a negative way, your own intentions aside (hey, it was an evangelicle upbringing, what can I say?). Almost reminiscent of the take that Eve was bad, but it was Adam who allowed her indiscretion to take root and thus his fault for the millstones we wear. I mention this only as an example of how one can see parallels and metaphors which may be purely personal asessments, whether intended or not.

Jeffrey Gibson

And you know this for a fact how?

Jeffrey