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Banned
Join Date: May 2009
Location: midwest
Posts: 1,087
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Philo's eye witness account of Jesus and his followers
reading Frank Zindler
http://thejesusmysteriesforum.blogspot.com/
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Surely, if Jesus of Nazareth had been real, Philo of Alexandria [20 BCE–50 CE] would have known about him and his disciples. Philo was a major developer of the Logostheory of Platonism, Stoicism, and Christianity. He had intimate ties to the goings on inJerusalem, as his nephew Marcus Julius Alexander was the husband of the HerodianPrincess Berenice who is mentioned in the twenty-fifth chapter of Acts. His other nephewTiberius Julius Alexander became procurator of Judea [ca. 46-48] under Claudius. Unlesswhat Jesus and the Apostles were doing had no religious significance, Philo should havenoticed them. Historicists must try to find an answer to this problem that is morecompelling than the answers one might get from a Josh McDowell or a Lee Strobel.
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Let's quickly review inductive reasoning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning
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Definition
The philosophical definition of inductive reasoning is much more nuanced than simple progression from particular/individual instances to broader generalizations. Rather, the premises of an inductive logical argument indicate some degree of support (inductive probability) for the conclusion but do not entail it; that is, they suggest truth but do not ensure it. In this manner, there is the possibility of moving from generalizations to individual instances. Inductive reasoning consists of inferring general principles or rules from specific facts. A well-known laboratory example of inductive reasoning works like a guessing game. The participants are shown cards that contain figures differing in several ways, such as shape, number, and color. On each trial, they are given two cards and asked to choose the one that represents a particular concept. After they choose a card, the researcher says "right" or "wrong."[1]
Though many dictionaries define inductive reasoning as reasoning that derives general principles from specific observations, this usage is outdated.[2]
Examples
This is an example of deductive reasoning:
90% of humans are right-handed.
Joe is a human.
Therefore, the probability that Joe is right-handed is 90%. (See section on Statistical syllogism.)
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and occam's razor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
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Occam's razor (also written as Ockham's razor, Latin lex parsimoniae) is the law of parsimony, economy or succinctness. It is a principle urging one to select from among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions.
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brief bio of Philo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo
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Philo (20 B.C.–50 A.D.), known also as Philo of Alexandria (Greek: Φίλων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς), Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria.
Knowledge of Hebrew
Philo read the Jewish Scriptures chiefly in the Septuagint Greek translation. His knowledge of Hebrew has been a matter of scholarly dispute, with most scholars arguing that he did not read the language. One piece of evidence that supports that hypothesis is Philo's creative (often fanciful) use of etymologies. His knowledge of Jewish law and Midrash was nonexistent, but did not contribute significantly to later rabbinic tradition.
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This is Philo's contemporary eyewitness account of Jesus and his followers "healers"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeut%C3%A6
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The Therapeutae were a Jewish sect in which flourished in Alexandria and other parts of the Diaspora of Hellenistic Judaism in the final years of the Second Temple period. The primary source is the account De vita contemplativa ("The Contemplative Life") by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE - 50 CE) who appears to have been personally acquainted with them. The pseudepigraphic Testament of Job is also thought to be a Therapeutae text.[1][2]
Philo records that they were "philosophers" (cf. I.2) that lived on a low hill by the Lake Mareotis close to Alexandria in circumstances resembling lavrite life (cf. III.22), and were "the best" of a kind given to "perfect goodness" that "exists in many places in the inhabited world" (cf. III.21). Philo was unsure of the origin of the name and derives the name Therapeutae/Therapeutides from Greek θεραπεύω in the sense of "cure" or "worship" (cf. I.2).
The term Therapeutae (plural) is Latin, from Philo's Greek plural Therapeutai (Θεραπευταί). The Greek feminine plural Therapeutrides (Θεραπευτρίδες) is sometimes encountered for their female members.
Philo's account
Philo described the Therapeutae in the beginning of the 1st century CE in De vita contemplativa ("On the contemplative life"), written ca. 10 CE. By that time, the origins of the Therapeutae were already lost in the past, and Philo was even unsure about the etymology of their name, which he explained as meaning either physicians of souls or servants of God. The opening phrases of his essay establish that it followed one that has been lost, on the active life. Philo was employing the familiar polarity in Hellenic philosophy between the active and the contemplative life, exemplifying the active life by the Essenes, another severely ascetic sect, and the contemplative life by the desert-dwelling Therapeutae.
Jewish monastic orders
According to Philo, the Therapeutae were widely distributed in the Ancient world, among the Greeks and beyond in the non-Greek world of the "Barbarians", with one of their major gathering points being in Alexandria, in the area of the Lake Mareotis:
"Now this class of persons may be met with in many places, for it was fitting that both Greece and the country of the barbarians should partake of whatever is perfectly good; and there is the greatest number of such men in Egypt, in every one of the districts, or nomes, as they are called, and especially around Alexandria; and from all quarters those who are the best of these therapeutae proceed on their pilgrimage to some most suitable place as if it were their country, which is beyond the Maereotic lake."
—Philo, Ascetics III[3]
They lived chastely with utter simplicity; they "first of all laid down temperance as a sort of foundation for the soul to rest upon, proceed to build up other virtues on this foundation" (Philo). They were dedicated to the contemplative life, and their activities for six days of the week consisted of ascetic practices, fasting, solitary prayers and the study of the scriptures in their isolated cells, each with its separate holy sanctuary, and enclosed courtyard:
"the entire interval from dawn to evening is given up by them to spiritual exercises. For they read the holy scriptures and draw out in thought and allegory their ancestral philosophy, since they regard the literal meanings as symbols of an inner and hidden nature revealing itself in covert ideas."
—Philo, para. 28
In addition to the Pentateuch, the Prophets and Psalms they possessed arcane writings of their own tradition, including formulae for numerological and allegorical interpretations.
They renounced property and followed severe discipline:
"These men abandon their property without being influenced by any predominant attraction, and flee without even turning their heads back again."
—Philo para. 18
They "professed an art of healing superior to that practiced in the cities" Philo notes, and the reader must be reminded of the reputation as a healer Saint Anthony possessed among his 4th-century contemporaries, who flocked out from Alexandria to reach him.
On the seventh day the Therapeutae met in a meeting house, the men on one side of an open partition, the women modestly on the other, to hear discourses. Once in seven weeks they meet for a night-long vigil after a banquet where they served one another, for "they are not waited on by slaves, because they deem any possession of servants whatever to be contrary to nature. For she has begotten all men alike free" (Philo, para.70) and sing antiphonal hymns until dawn.
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08-02-2012, 03:03 PM
