Freethought & Rationalism Archive

gstafleu · 03-18-2007, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chili

Nazarite is a state of mind for which circumcision is symbolic except here we are circumsized by nature itself (it has nothing to do with a foreskin this time but with moral sensorship by nature via the gifts of the HS).

The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia comes to the rescue (this should make you ecstatically happy, I'd think): Nazarite (Hebrew, "consecrated to God"). The name given by the Hebrews to a person set apart and especially consecrated to the Lord.

As a result, the appellation "Jesus Christ the Nazarite" can be seen as a piling up of three titles: God's Saviour, anointed, consecrated to God.

Nazarites are not allowed to be in the vicinity of corpses, and I can't help but quote the following Monthy-Python-like bit of ritual:

Quote:

If through accident he [a nazarite] finds himself defiled by the presence of a corpse, he must shave "the head of his consecration" and repeat the operation on the seventh day. On the eighth day he must present himself at the sanctuary with two turtle doves or young pigeons, one of which was offered as a holocaust and the other for sin, and furthermore, in order to renew the lost consecration, it was necessary to present a yearling lamb for a sin offering.

What happened to the partridges in the pear tree?

The article is otherwise quite interesting. It looks as if nazarite didn't indicate any organization but was more a designation like "holy man."

Gerard Stafleu

jgibson000 · 03-18-2007, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Hi Gerald,

What do we have as the date for when the Augustus cult added a 'miraculous' conception ? Beyond the 2nd century Suetonius writing, referencing an earlier writing, do we have any other evidence of this aspect of the Augustus cult ?

Dio Cassius, History of Rome, 45 1.2-2.4. And Virgil anticipates it.

BTW, Suetonius doesn't just "reference" an earlier source. He identifies it. More importantly, he says he is recounting what he found there regarding the circumstances of Octavian's conception. That source is the [Theologumenaof Asclepias (Asclepiades) of Mendes, an historian grammarian who wrote n the time of Augustus.

So it is indeed an early "aspect" of the cult of Augustus and is definitely a pre-Matthean and pre-Lucan tradition.

JG

Chili · 03-18-2007, 09:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstafleu

As a result, the appellation "Jesus Christ the Nazarite" can be seen as a piling up of three titles: God's Saviour, anointed, consecrated to God.

The article is otherwise quite interesting. It looks as if nazarite didn't indicate any organization but was more a designation like "holy man."

Gerard Stafleu

Exactly and we call them Jesuits or followers of Jesus. The annointing into the priesthood is from God and by God to set them apart as holy men.

Ben C Smith · 03-18-2007, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

No, Ben I don't think you are crazy. I just think you (and not a few other scholars) are being pig-headed (I speak plainly) when you are trying to deny the link between the Christian virgin birth and pagan myth.

Well, I suppose I have to take the good with the bad. On the one hand, you lump me in with scholars. That sounds good. On the other hand, I am being pigheaded. That sounds bad.

But what on earth gives you the idea that I would deny a connection between the virgin birth and a pagan myth? I have nothing at stake in either affirming or denying such a connection. I just want to see the evidence, plain and simple. Late fragments dating to century V of obscure origin are not going to do it for me, at least not without some kind of concrete substantiation.

What pagan myth, specifically, or combination of myths do you find behind the virgin birth narratives as found in Matthew and Luke?

Quote:

An angel announcing to a barren woman she was going to conceive a holy man (or Isaiah predicting a golden age through a birth of a boy) is not a Holy Ghost impregnating a woman.

Neither is the holy spirit overshadowing a woman! Again, Matthew and Luke say little or nothing about how Mary would conceive. If divine impregnation is present in those texts, it is pretty subtle.

Quote:

That idea would be as offensive to a mainstream, Jewish traditionalist (in early rabbinical Judaism), as it later was to Mohammed and his followers.

Sure, and maybe that was why Matthew and Luke were so vague on the particulars. Maybe they would have found divine impregnation offensive. But, if they are both suppressing that element, it remains to be explained from which tale they are suppressing it. Where did the idea arise, in your judgment?

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To my mind it is one thing to claim that Jesus originated as a synthetic myth and another thing to admit that syncretic mythical elements are very much in evidence in the forming of religion that centered around him. I don't understand the fear of admitting the latter.

Nor do I.

Ben.

Ben C Smith · 03-18-2007, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstafleu

The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia comes to the rescue (this should make you ecstatically happy, I'd think): Nazarite (Hebrew, "consecrated to God"). The name given by the Hebrews to a person set apart and especially consecrated to the Lord.

The connections and disassociations between the OT concept of the Nazarite and the NT concept of the town of Nazareth are many and complex. Suffice it to say here that there is no original overlap of the concepts (that is, Nazareth was not named after the Nazarites or vice versa); Christians appear to have made the connection on their own.

Ben.

Steven Avery · 03-18-2007, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000

Dio Cassius, History of Rome, 45 1.2-2.4.

Dio Cassius is later than Suetonius.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...s_Dio/45*.html
Cassius Dio: Roman History

What he says looks like it might well be from the same source as Suetonius.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000

And Virgil anticipates it.

Is this his writing that anticipates ? And how and when and what and where does he anticipate ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000

That source is the [Theologumenaof Asclepias (Asclepiades) of Mendes, an historian grammarian who wrote n the time of Augustus.

And how do we know that Mendes was a contemporary of Augustus ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

gstafleu · 03-18-2007, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Neither is the holy spirit overshadowing a woman! Again, Matthew and Luke say little or nothing about how Mary would conceive. If divine impregnation is present in those texts, it is pretty subtle.

In the judges story Manoette is infertile. The implication of the story is that either God cured her infertility (cf the haemorraging woman), or God knew something that Manoette didn't know (yet--that's not an unusual contention, I think, but the divine cure seems more likely to me).

Maria and Joseph on the other hand were engaged in a bit of private auto-soteriology: they were "saving" themselves, as we would say nowadays (cultural context is different, I know). Now according to Mat "she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit." The bold bit in my view suggests divine (HS) impregnation. In Luke we have "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." First a little nit: it is not the power of the HS that overshadows her, it is the power of the Most High. This is then followed by the statement that the kid will be called Son of God. The NIV translation makes a causal connection between the "overshadowing" and "son of god" via "so", the Greek seems to do that via "διο," which my Trenchard says means "therefore, for this reason." I really don't think that the implication of divine impregnation is all that subtle, in fact I'd say it is reasonably outspoken.

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith · 03-18-2007, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstafleu

In the judges story Manoette is infertile. The implication of the story is that either God cured her infertility (cf the haemorraging woman), or God knew something that Manoette didn't know (yet--that's not an unusual contention, I think, but the divine cure seems more likely to me).

I favor the miracle, too.

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Maria and Joseph on the other hand were engaged in a bit of private auto-soteriology: they were "saving" themselves, as we would say nowadays (cultural context is different, I know).

You lost me.

Quote:

Now according to Mat "she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit." The bold bit in my view suggests divine (HS) impregnation.

I am not so sure. Matthew uses the preposition ek pretty commonly of the female role in procreation. Consider Matthew 1.3, 5, 6, 16:

And Judah begat [egennhsen] Perez and Zerah from [ek] Tamar....

And Salmon begat [egennhsen] Boaz from [ek] Ruth....

And David begat [egennhsen] Solomon from [ek] the wife of Uriah....

And Jacob begat [egennhsen] Joseph the husband of Mary, from [ek] whom was born Jesus....

Compare Matthew 1.20:

...that which has been conceived [gennhqen] in her is from [ek] the Holy Spirit.

Had Matthew wished to make the explicit point that the holy spirit (neuter in Greek) was the father, he could have easily said that the holy spirit begat [egennhsen] Jesus. Instead, he has the main verb in the passive voice and the spirit following the preposition [ek], almost in a feminine way.

I am not ruling out that Matthew has some kind of divine impregnation in mind. I just think we ought to be careful how far we press the point.

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In Luke we have "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." First a little nit: it is not the power of the HS that overshadows her, it is the power of the Most High. This is then followed by the statement that the kid will be called Son of God. The NIV translation makes a causal connection between the "overshadowing" and "son of god" via "so", the Greek seems to do that via "διο," which my Trenchard says means "therefore, for this reason." I really don't think that the implication of divine impregnation is all that subtle, in fact I'd say it is reasonably outspoken.

I would say it is more likely Luke is being quite careful not to say something like: And the Lord God (or the holy spirit, or the power of the most high) will beget a child. That would have been clear. What we are given is shadowy (forgive the pun).

Again, I do not dispute the possibility that these authors were inspired by some sort of divine impregnation myth and then censored it for Jewish sensibilities. But which myth? Or is it just a general notion that was in the air?

Ben.

jgibson000 · 03-18-2007, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

And how do we know that Mendes was a contemporary of Augustus?

See Pauly Wissowa and the TLG Canon. See also Casaub. ad Suet. Vossius, Hist. Graec. p. 406, ed. Westermann. You might also look at the entry on him (under Hêraïskos) in the Suda.

JG

John Kesler · 03-18-2007, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Again, I do not dispute the possibility that these authors were inspired by some sort of divine impregnation myth and then censored it for Jewish sensibilities. But which myth? Or is it just a general notion that was in the air?

Why couldn't the miraculous births of OT notables, as elaborated by Philo, have been "in the air" for Mathew and/or Luke, too?

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XIII. (43) But we must begin our explanation of these mysteries in this way. A husband unites with his wife, and the male human being with the female human being in a union which tends to the generation of children, in strict accordance with and obedience to nature. But it is not lawful for virtues, which are the parents of many perfect things, to associate with a mortal husband. But they, without having received the power of generation from any other being, will never be able by themselves alone to conceive any thing. (44) Who, then, is it who sows good seed in them, except the Father of the universe, the uncreated God, he who is the parent of all things? This, therefore, is the being who sows, and presently he bestows his own offspring, which he himself did sow; for God creates nothing for himself, inasmuch as he is in need of nothing, but he creates every thing for him who is able to take it. (45) And I will bring forward as a competent witness in proof of what I have said, the most holy Moses.{14}{#ge 21:1.} For he introduces Sarah as conceiving a son when God beheld her by himself; but he represents her as bringing forth her son, not to him who beheld her then, but to him who was eager to attain to wisdom, and his name is called Abraham. (46) And he teaches the same lesson more plainly in the case of Leah, where he says that "God opened her Womb."{15}{#ge 29:13.} But to open the womb is the especial business of the husband. And she having conceived, brought forth, not to God, for he alone is sufficient and all-abundant for himself, but to him who underwent labour for the sake of that which is good, namely, for Jacob; so that in this instance virtue received the divine seed from the great Cause of all things, but brought forth her offspring to one of her lovers, who deserved to be preferred to all her other Suitors.{16}{#ge 25:21.}

(47) Again, when the all-wise Isaac addressed his supplications to God, Rebecca, who is perseverance, became pregnant by the agency of him who received the supplication; but Moses, who received Zipporah, {17}{#ex 2:21.} that is to say, winged and sublime virtue, without any supplication or entreaty on his part, found that she conceived by no mortal man.

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