Sheshbazzar

Even if the five Books were created c. 450 BCE the materials they were constructed from have been demonstrated to have been drawn from the mythologies and the symbolisms of much more ancient cultures.

It is not like the story of Moses putting the snake on the pole account is any actual history where we can do some math and calculate that Moses actually did this in such and such year.
The narrative is a pure religious fabrication based upon materials borrowed from old cultural folk tales, and perhaps writings adopted from multiple earlier cultures.
As such there is no way of dating Moses lifting up a serpent in the wilderness. Because in reality it never happened.
It is a fictional narrative, and when it was first written down has no bearing at all upon determining when the serpent on a pole symbology was first adopted and incorporated by the Hebrews into their origins mythology.
Writing about Moses and the Levites when the Torah was written was about like writing a narrative story about King Arthur and the Round Table would be today, legendary folk material cobbled together into a narrative form. Not history.

stephan huller

That is not what you were suggesting originally. You were identifying the Therapeutae as this 'group.' All I have to say is:

:rolling:

Individual Jews certainly could have become apostates. But the idea that Philo would have associated with a community of apostates is absurd and there are clear signs that this community was related to that of Qumran (their strange calendar for one which always 'resets' on a Jubilee). This strongly indicates that they were 'Jewish' (whatever that means). You've got to stop with these crazy acid trips. There is nothing in the material to support your flights of fancy.

For the Therapeutae? Really? What evidence is there to the contrary other than your desire to find something to support your hobby horse.

Please don't start a fight you can't finish. This is a silly argument which you will flat on your face. Don't attempt gospel interpretation. If Jesus is God how does the gospel support the idea that Christians attended pagan rites or abandoned their god? There is the apocryphal statement of Hadrian but he is saying this as a slight against the Christians. Please the read the context of the statement in its entirety.

What do you know about midrash? Please continue with this absurdity.

Robert Tulip

And here Stephan places a word in quotes that I never even used. Or maybe 'group' indicates his disdain for what he called the "defiled" and "monstrous." I can see that Stephan's capacity to distort means any useful discussion is likely to be a challenge. I can understand why FRDB indulges some of your longer term members in their more creative language. I hope not all would agree that discussion of whether the Therapeutae were Hellenised and had an interest in the religion of Egypt is evidence of my use of LSD. That sort of froth appears designed to get attention. Perhaps Stephan does not like people talking about who the Therapeutae were?You might care to read something about ancient Alexandria. It was a melting pot. Philo says the Therapeutae, (and note the Greek name there) were contemplatives, who "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." But Stephan says they were Jewish exclusives, despite this interest in allegory and symbol. The oracle Herr Dr Huller insists that the Therapeutae of Alexandria maintained an exclusive Torah purity. Really?Again, the great Herr Dr Dr is putting words into my mouth that I did not use. My point was that Christianity explicitly criticised the religion of Moses. Perhaps Herr Dr has not heard of the Sermon on the Mount? By Jesus Christ? Matthew 5? "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil"

Text from Philo's On The Contemplative Life is at http://www-relg-studies.scu.edu/facs...herapeutae.htm

The eminent Dr Huller would have us believe, unless I misread him, that the Therapeuts were exclusivist Jews. And yet Philo calls them "The best people from all parts". He says they use "the other [books] by means of which religion and sound knowledge grow together into one perfect whole," a description that does not read as exclusive. He says their "Elders are, in their regard, those who from their earliest age have passed their youth and maturity in the contemplative branch of philosophy, which truly is the noblest and most divine." That does not read as Jewish exclusivism.

Further, it appears the Therapeuts had a highly esoteric approach: Philo says "[Their] exposition of sacred scripture proceeds by unfolding the meaning hidden in allegories. For the entire law is regarded by these persons as resembling an animal; and for its body it has the literal precepts, but for its soul the unseen reason (nous) hidden away in the words. And in and through this reason the rational and self-conscious soul begins to contemplate in a special manner its own proper intuitions. For by means of the names, as it were by means of a gazing crystal, it discerns the surpassing beauties of the notions conveyed in them. Thus, on the one hand, it unfolds and unveils the symbols, and on the other brings forward the meanings into the light and exhibits them naked to those who by a little exercise of memory are able to behold things not clear by means of things that are."

I do wish there were some rare souls today capable of taking such a passage seriously. What it shows is that the entire concept of apostasy that Stephan Huller has introduced to this discussion is irrelevant for this sort of unfolding of allegory. Indeed, by allegory, it appears that Moses is a myth. Efforts to present the therapeuts as exclusivist bigots reflect a very limited and false understanding.

Next, Philo explains that the therapeuts have a ritual like "a Bacchic festival in which they had drunk deep of the Divine love." Oh, but Stephan tells us this is the same Philo who was so opposed to apostasy! Clearly, Philo's mention of Bacchus, the Greco-Roman Dionysian God of ecstasy, steps somewhat outside the strict tradition of Moses.

Philo concludes by explaining the sun worship of the therapeuts: "drunk until dawn with this godly drunkenness, neither heavy of head nor with winking eyes, but more wide awake than when they came into the banquet, they stand up, and turn both their eyes and their whole bodies towards the East. And, so soon as they spy the sun rising, they stretch out aloft their hands to heaven and fall to praying for a fair day, and for truth, and for clear judgment to see with.”

This image is like those from ancient Egyptian prayer books, with the devout holding up their hands to Ra the Sun God. Best to skip over such passages if they offend your sense of Jewish exclusivism.

mountainman

I have cited evidence above to which you have failed to respond that there existed in Alexandria, Rome and elsewhere a very numerous class of people who attended to the Healing god Asclepius and assisted in his temples and who knew themselves as the "therapeutae of Asclepius". These therapeutae were not Jewish. They were about as pagan as you get.

stephan huller

But you have ======= limitations that don't allow you to see that what you describe as 'evidence' is really mere coincidence. You don't even have the basic ability to understand that the wordt therapeutae doesn't come from a root which means 'healing' per se but merely 'attending.' It's impossible to get through to you so I don't see the point at being aggravated. I think if your purpose here is to drive people nuts by saying the same thing a hundred different ways you are back with a vengeance.

stephan huller

I think another possibility for the name 'therapeutae' is that it translates into Greek the plural form of the Hebrew שִׁמְעָא (albeit with two mems) which means 'attendant' or 'disciple' (from shema 'to hear, listen, attend' etc). Could the therapeutae at once have been 'Simoniani'? It's linguistically possible. I've been looking at this shit forever and I never saw that before. Thanks Robert, mountainman et al.

Robert Tulip

But Asclepius was the god of medicine and healing in ancient Greek religion. Are you now questioning a link between the therapeuts and Asclepius?

A good discussion of therapeuts is at this thread on Therapeuts and Ancient Usages of the Greek Word Therapeuo.

stephan huller

so what? its principal meaning is "attendant" or "attendants" of the gods or god. the term is used with all the gods not just Asclepius

mountainman

Thanks Robert.

From that page:

And a little further on .....

mountainman

No one is arguing otherwise. The therapeutae of Asclepius, as has been stated many times earlier, were far more numerous than any other "attendants of the [pagan] gods". The reason that this was the case is because the temples of Asclepius were most ancient, extremely large and had networks of smaller temples and shrines extending everywhere within the empire and even outside of it.

You are not reading what I have written.

You are creating a strawman and knocking it down.

Again and again I must remind you to address the evidence itself.