stephan huller

Like Robert Tulip. For some reason he is in love with the writings of this Acharya S. That's fine. We've all been in love and love makes us do strange things. But eventually a sobriety follows inebriation and when that time comes he might see that there is a reason why it is 'unhelpful' to walk over the evidence in order to make an overarching hypothesis 'truer' - to manipulate evidence to arrive at an achieved result. Maybe when another woman comes into his life who can overtake the effect of this exotic beauty he will be more willing to apply his sizable intellect to the task of making sense of history.

tanya

haha, so NOW, I am tampering with the evidence.

What a farce.



One cannot help noticing, though, that neither the great scholar nor his tonto addressed the questions raised.....Just more of the same, nasty, vindictive posts, one after another, ignoring the quotes, ignoring history, ignoring the "scholarly" presentations--just name calling.

Who benefits from his submissions to the forum? What can any other forum member point to, in his collection of twenty odd posts on this thread, and exclaim, voila: he has used his enormous (erudition) to teach us THIS: .......

?

stephan huller

But how do you get from 'Philo the Jew' making reference to a sect or a branch of the Jewish Essenes to a sect which isn't Jewish and even pagan? I don't know how to make that leap of logic. You can say, I don't think Eusebius is right about the Therapeutai being Christians. That's reasonable. You can argue that Philo might have been inaccurate in the information he provides about the Therapeutai. But how do we make the 'jump' to - the sect was pagan. I don't see how you can do this without tampering or introducing new evidence which has nothing to do with the sect described as living on the shores of that lake near Alexandria.

We have only one source for the Jewish Therapeutai. You can argue against the source and attempt to discredit Philo. You can also attack Eusebius's reinterpretation of Philo's original report. But there is nothing there to make the case for paganism.

If you attack Philo and say he's lying or misrepresenting the truth, nothing can be said for certain about the sect. You can't take a broken chair and just plop your ass on the seat. You're going to fall flat on your ass.

Toto

Psalm 72

Now, you can google the terms, and locate some Jewish shrines, or shrine like areas in Jewish homes.

You can find practically any cultural practice associated with Jews somewhere, except for worshiping pagan gods (and even then. . .)

So if these Jews in Egypt prayed twice a day and had shrines in their houses, but also studied Jewish scripture and were written up by a noted Jewish writer, what is the problem with calling them Jews, as long as they weren't actually worshiping Serapis or some other clearly pagan god?

I don't want to get into who is a Jew. I've had that discussion too often on the interwebs with people who could spend years arguing over whether "Jew" refers to a religion or a culture.

Listen, tanya/avi - I seem to have gotten on your bad side at some point. I am sorry for whatever it was. But there is no point in taking it out contesting points that are truly not in contention.

:wave:

aa5874

Again, Toto it is not stated anywhere at all in 'VC' that the Therapeutae were Jews.

Why don't you ever present the passage in 'VC' to support your claim??

It is the Essenes that were Jews or of Jewish origin.

If the Therapeutae were Jews or of Jewish origin Philo would have said just as he did when describing the Essenes.

Philo's Apology for the JewsIn antiquity, the Therapeutae were considered Christians of the Jesus cult based on "Church History".

No apologetic sources claimed the Therapeutae in 'VC' were Jews for hundreds of years.

tanya

How do you know they are Jews?

They are Therapeutae. That could mean people of any ethnicity, including Jews.

Philo does not describe them as Jews. That is the point.

Philo goes out of his way, to explain that these people DO NOT FOLLOW traditional Jewish texts, he describes them as reading the works of ancient men....

Is that how Philo refers to ancient Hebrew masterpieces, like, Genesis, or Exodus, or Deuteronomy?

Does Philo not know the names of the ancient Hebrew texts? Is he unable to identify the books being studied so diligently, by these Therapeutae, according to the name of the text of one of HIS OWN religion's books?

Of course not. He does not name them, because the titles are unfamiliar. He is not aware of these books of ancient learning. They are not texts written in Hebrew, else, he would identify them as such. Philo is not so shy that he is unable to identify particular authors, or particular works.....

Toto, how do you know, from reading Philo, or any other source, quoting Philo, whether they worshipped Egyptian gods, or not? Hippocrates evidently thought they DID worship Egyptian gods. What makes you think, from reading Philo, that the Therapeutae were Jews?

stephan huller

Am I overstating the simplicity of your collective position:

tanya

1. YES

2. See 1 above

3. Where is J-D when we need him?

4. "Eusebius....." doesn't enter the equation. Nobody is discussing him. The issue is Philo, not Eusebius. Are you really that stupid?

5. Therapeutae, to quote Philo, were folks especially skilled in the healing arts, not religion. Are you really that genuinely ignorant, part deux?

:huh:

stephan huller

Where does Philo actually say they healed people?

tanya

Pete, aa5874, Robert, and Clive all made the same point, in the first pages of this thread....
Thank you, very much, Robert. Nice job....