Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Sheshbazzar · 03-26-2008, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lpetrich

mountainman, in case you don't get it, my point is that pre-Gutenberg book duplication is a whole lot of work, and that one needs to copy A WHOLE BOOK in order to insert stuff in it.

The so called Christian scriptures were written and passed around in CODEX form, that is in the form of "books", composed of individual pages that were bound together, unlike the earlier religious documents that were in the form of "scrolls".
Making any significant addition or revision in a scroll would require the rewrite of the entire scroll.
A Codex on the other hand, being made up of individual (and unnumbered) pages could very easily be altered by the simple addition, deletion or revising of one or more of its pages, there was no longer any need to rewrite entire texts, when one could just remove and replace the page(s) of text that the powers or the scribe thought needed "clarification", or "improvement" by additions or deletions.
I very much doubt that Christianity would have ever made any headway at all without the employment of the convenience which was provided by this innovation.

spin · 03-26-2008, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Making any significant addition or revision in a scroll would require the rewrite of the entire scroll.

With one exception: one could always sew a new section onto the start of a scroll (less conveniently the same is true of the ends of texts). This would suggest new materials being added at the front. That might explain how a newer creation story could appear before the older one in Genesis or how the prologue for Ben Sira got there.

spin

spin · 03-26-2008, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by angelo atheist

:wave: Bravo. I could not put it any better. :notworthy:

How self-denigrating.

spin

Toto · 03-26-2008, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Vivekananda dream

While travelling from England to India in January 1897, on board the ship Prinz-Regent Luitpold, the venerable sage Vivekananda told Nivedita about his dream of an old bearded man named Therapeutae, (Theraputra - son [putra] of an old monk [thera]) who had asked:

"Do ye come to effect our restoration? I am one of the ancient order of Therapeutae The truths preached by us have been given out by Christians as taught by Jesus; but for the matter of that, there was no personality by the name of Jesus ever born".

- Extracted from Vivekananda's autobiography.
Cited by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy; and Narasingha Prosad Sil

Taking your information from dreams, especially someone else's dreams reported by a third party? Please stop.

The quote is from Jesus and the Lost Goddess (or via: amazon.co.uk) and can be found all over the net where modern neo-gnostics post. Example: here

Quote:

It's a strange world. At the end of the nineteenth century the influential Hindu guru Vivekananda was sailing across the Mediterranean Sea on a return journey to England when he had a curious dream. A very old and venerable-looking sage appeared to him, saying:

'Do ye come to effect our restoration? I am one of the ancient order of Therapeutae. The truths preached by us have been given out by Christians as taught by Jesus, but for the matter of that, there was no personality by the name of Jesus ever born."

...

After years of painstaking research we concluded that the traditional history of Christianity was at best hopelessly inaccurate and at worst a pack of lies. The evidence demanded that we think the unthinkable. Christianity was not the cult of a first-centry Messiah, but a Jewish adaptation of the ancient Pagan Mystery religion. We could find no evidence that there had ever been an historical Jesus, because the gospel story was a Jewish reworking of ancient Pagan myths of a dying and resurrecting Son of God. We even ventured an informed guess as to who may have authored the original Jesus myth – a sect of mystical Jews called the Therapeutae.

Is it possible that Vivekananda reached the truth by intuitive means a century before us? Perhaps. The psychologist Carl Jung came to believe that the whole of human history could be reconstructed from the contents of one person's unconscious.

or here

Quote:

This extract from Vivekananda's autobiography was kindly sent to us by a reader of our previous book, The Jesus Mysteries, because it endorses the revolutionary view of the origins of Christianity that we presented there.

But at least go to the horse's mouth, so to speak. The original is here:Vivekananda: Experiences in the West

Quote:

On board the ship the Swami had a significant vision. One night, somewhere between Naples and Port Said, he saw in a vivid dream a venerable, bearded old man, like a rishi of India, who said: 'Observe carefully this place. You are now in the Island of Crete. This is the land where Christianity began. I am one of the Therapeutae who used to live here.' The apparition uttered another word, which the Swami could not remember. It might have been 'Essene,' a sect to which John the Baptist belonged.

Both the Therapeutae and the Essenes had practised renunciation and cherished a liberal religious outlook. According to some scholars, the word Therapeutae may be derived from the Buddhist word Sthaviraputtra or theraputta, meaning the sons or disciples of the Theras, or Elders, the superiors among the Buddhist monks. The word Essene may have some relation with Isiyana, meaning the Path of the Lord, a well-known sect of Buddhist monks. It is now admitted that the Buddhists at an early time had monasteries in Asia Minor, Egypt, and generally along the eastern part of the Mediterranean.

The old man in the dream concluded his statement by saying: 'The truths and ideas preached by us were presented as the teachings of Jesus. But Jesus the person was never born. Various proofs attesting this fact will be brought to light when this place is dug up.' At that moment — it was midnight — the Swami awoke and asked a sailor where the ship was; he was told that it was fifty miles off Crete.

The Swami was startled at this singular coincidence. The idea flashed in his mind that the Acts of the Apostles might have been an older record than the Gospels, and that Buddhist thought, coming through the Therapeutae and the Essenes, might have helped in the formulation of Christianity. The person of Christ might be a later addition. He knew that Alexandria had been a meeting-place of Indian and Egyptian thought. Later, when the old sites in Crete were excavated, evidence was found connecting early Christianity with foreign sources.

But Swami Vivekananda never refused to accept the historical Christ. Like Krishna, Christ, too, has been revealed in the spiritual experiences of many saints. That, for Vivekananda, conferred upon him a reality which was more real than historical realities. While travelling in Switzerland, the Swami one day plucked some wild flowers and asked Mrs. Sevier to offer them at the feet of the Virgin in a little chapel in the mountains, with the remark, 'She too is the Mother.' One of his disciples, another day, gave him a picture of the Sistine Madonna to bless. But he refused in all humility, and piously touching the feet of the child said, 'I would have washed his feet, not with my tears, but with my heart's blood.' It may be remembered that the monastic Order of Ramakrishna was started on Christmas Eve.

I think that we are all still waiting for that archeological evidence from Crete showing that the historical Jesus never existed. What on earth is he writing about?

Jeffrey Gibson · 03-26-2008, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Quote:

Originally Posted by lpetrich

mountainman, in case you don't get it, my point is that pre-Gutenberg book duplication is a whole lot of work, and that one needs to copy A WHOLE BOOK in order to insert stuff in it.

The so called Christian scriptures were written and passed around in CODEX form, that is in the form of "books", composed of individual pages that were bound together, unlike the earlier religious documents that were in the form of "scrolls".

And your evidence for this claim is what exactly?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson · 03-26-2008, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Vivekananda dream

While travelling from England to India in January 1897, on board the ship Prinz-Regent Luitpold, the venerable sage Vivekananda told Nivedita about his dream of an old bearded man named Therapeutae, (Theraputra - son [putra] of an old monk [thera]) who had asked:

"Do ye come to effect our restoration? I am one of the ancient order of Therapeutae The truths preached by us have been given out by Christians as taught by Jesus; but for the matter of that, there was no personality by the name of Jesus ever born".

- Extracted from Vivekananda's autobiography.
Cited by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy; and Narasingha Prosad Sil

Taking your information from dreams, especially someone else's dreams reported by a third party? Please stop.

Stop indeed!

If we needed any more evidence that Pete has no ability whatsoever to discern good sources/arguments from bad, and that his criterion for determining "good sources" is that they say what he wants to hear, this surely is it.

Good Grief!!!

Jeffrey

Ben C Smith · 03-26-2008, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Taking your information from dreams, especially someone else's dreams reported by a third party? Please stop.

Stop indeed!

If we needed any more evidence that Pete has no ability whatsoever to discern good sources/arguments from bad, and that his criterion for determining "good sources" is that they say what he wants to hear, this surely is it.

Good Grief!!!

Jeffrey

Is this the second time in as many days you and Toto have agreed on something??

Ben.

Jeffrey Gibson · 03-26-2008, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Stop indeed!

If we needed any more evidence that Pete has no ability whatsoever to discern good sources/arguments from bad, and that his criterion for determining "good sources" is that they say what he wants to hear, this surely is it.

Good Grief!!!

Jeffrey

Is this the second time in as many days you and Toto have agreed on something??

Ben.

Can you believe it??!!

Jeffrey

mountainman · 03-26-2008, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Vivekananda dream

While travelling from England to India in January 1897, on board the ship Prinz-Regent Luitpold, the venerable sage Vivekananda told Nivedita about his dream of an old bearded man named Therapeutae, (Theraputra - son [putra] of an old monk [thera]) who had asked:

"Do ye come to effect our restoration? I am one of the ancient order of Therapeutae The truths preached by us have been given out by Christians as taught by Jesus; but for the matter of that, there was no personality by the name of Jesus ever born".

- Extracted from Vivekananda's autobiography.
Cited by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy; and Narasingha Prosad Sil

Taking your information from dreams, especially someone else's dreams reported by a third party? Please stop.

The quote is from Jesus and the Lost Goddess (or via: amazon.co.uk) and can be found all over the net where modern neo-gnostics post. Example: here

or here

But at least go to the horse's mouth, so to speak. The original is here:Vivekananda: Experiences in the West

Quote:

On board the ship the Swami had a significant vision. One night, somewhere between Naples and Port Said, he saw in a vivid dream a venerable, bearded old man, like a rishi of India, who said: 'Observe carefully this place. You are now in the Island of Crete. This is the land where Christianity began. I am one of the Therapeutae who used to live here.' The apparition uttered another word, which the Swami could not remember. It might have been 'Essene,' a sect to which John the Baptist belonged.

Both the Therapeutae and the Essenes had practised renunciation and cherished a liberal religious outlook. According to some scholars, the word Therapeutae may be derived from the Buddhist word Sthaviraputtra or theraputta, meaning the sons or disciples of the Theras, or Elders, the superiors among the Buddhist monks. The word Essene may have some relation with Isiyana, meaning the Path of the Lord, a well-known sect of Buddhist monks. It is now admitted that the Buddhists at an early time had monasteries in Asia Minor, Egypt, and generally along the eastern part of the Mediterranean.

The old man in the dream concluded his statement by saying: 'The truths and ideas preached by us were presented as the teachings of Jesus. But Jesus the person was never born. Various proofs attesting this fact will be brought to light when this place is dug up.' At that moment — it was midnight — the Swami awoke and asked a sailor where the ship was; he was told that it was fifty miles off Crete.

The Swami was startled at this singular coincidence. The idea flashed in his mind that the Acts of the Apostles might have been an older record than the Gospels, and that Buddhist thought, coming through the Therapeutae and the Essenes, might have helped in the formulation of Christianity. The person of Christ might be a later addition. He knew that Alexandria had been a meeting-place of Indian and Egyptian thought. Later, when the old sites in Crete were excavated, evidence was found connecting early Christianity with foreign sources.

But Swami Vivekananda never refused to accept the historical Christ. Like Krishna, Christ, too, has been revealed in the spiritual experiences of many saints. That, for Vivekananda, conferred upon him a reality which was more real than historical realities. While travelling in Switzerland, the Swami one day plucked some wild flowers and asked Mrs. Sevier to offer them at the feet of the Virgin in a little chapel in the mountains, with the remark, 'She too is the Mother.' One of his disciples, another day, gave him a picture of the Sistine Madonna to bless. But he refused in all humility, and piously touching the feet of the child said, 'I would have washed his feet, not with my tears, but with my heart's blood.' It may be remembered that the monastic Order of Ramakrishna was started on Christmas Eve.

I think that we are all still waiting for that archeological evidence from Crete showing that the historical Jesus never existed. What on earth is he writing about?

Thanks for all these aspects of the story Toto.

But What on earth is he writing about? Philo wrote about the Essenes as Jewish and the Therapeutae as in Egypt, Greece and "everywhere". From the little that I have seen, especially with the find of the DSS, people have assumed/expected an historical christian origins related to the Jewish essenes. People have essentially ignored discussion of these therapeutae in any discussions relating to the history of the NT literature and the origins of christianity --- in that the consensus has selected to follow "the essenes".

The Therapeutae of Antiquity have not been placed into the ancient historical perspective in terms of history, because it was such a class of people whom Constantine called "pagans", involved in temple services and traditions (since the temples, like the ones in Egypt, endured over the generations - until christianity appeared with Constantine).

Best wishes,

Pete Brown

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.