diana

Hi, Magdlyn.

We "met" in another thread that touched on this topic. If i may...

I'm still reading TJM at the moment, and have TLG in the wings. In light of this fact, as well as my relative lack of education in this particular area, I'll tell you what about Freke and Gandy's book(s) make me uncomfortable (at least) with all their conclusions.

I just finished reading a rather fascinating tome I checked out of the university library called Bible Myths and their Parallels in Ancient Religions. It was sizeable, with copious footnotes, and quite an accessible read--probably because the writer admitted up front that he wasn't a scholar and had collected this information for his personal use over a period of time and was amazed to learn there were, at the time the book was written, no books that had compiled it. The book was originally published in 1889.

He listed a huge number of references (I didn't count, but over 200, easily), almost all of which were secondary sources. Freke and Gandy's books, which I began reading as soon as I finished the other book, reference many of the same secondary sources. Supposedly, those referenced works are the voice of scholars, but they are still secondary, nonetheless. This makes me uncomfortable. I want primary sources. I want a more valid argument for "this is what happened" than "a learned man said it happened," because that puts me on no better footing in that area than the religious.

Also, I've noted at least one spot (in the beginning of TLG, iirc) where the bible verse quoted by Freke and Gandy didn't say exactly what they quoted. Now, they use their own translation, granted. For instance, I have no beef with them saying "gnosis" instead of "knowledge" or "sophia" instead of "wisdom." But in this one instance (that I know of), they made a tiny, almost imperceptible change...but the end meaning wasn't the same.

Here it is, actually. He's arguing that Paul didn't seem to believe in a HJ (p. 20-21):

This caught my eye, because I thought, if the bible really says that, wouldn't it be obvious to anyone who read it that Paul didn't believe in a HJ? So I looked it up.

Hebrews 8:4 is the reference: "Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law."

That doesn't say what Freke and Gandy made it say. They tweaked it to fit their thesis.

Now if they tell me it's raining outside, I'll go check for myself.

I still think their thesis is interesting and fills a lot of gaps, if true, as well as making sense of many of the nonsensical passages in the bible. But I don't trust them as scholars, because tweaking a passage--any passage--is dishonest, but to tweak one that can be looked up without effort in any home in the world that's likely to snag the attention of your audience in the way it did mine is just stupid.

d

Magdlyn

Diana, thanks for responding.

How is that verse "tweaked," besides leaving out the word "now" and changing the tense from "were" to "had been?" I don't remember grammar well enough to categorize the tenses. Is it the tense that bothers you? How many translations did you look at?

Isn't the point of it, the use of the word "if" rather than "when" anyway?

Not being a historian, I can't comment intelligently on the use of secondary sources rather than primary. Would primary be authors from say, 300 BCE thru 300 CE quoted themselves (or a piece of relevant artwork?), and secondary be more modern authors/historians commenting upon the old guys?

When the website I linked to shows quotes from old Greek or Xtian guys:

ie: "When we say that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter." [Justin Martyr, First Apology, 21, 2nd century CE]

or shows wall art from the Egyptian Hall of Two Truths of Osiris judging the dead, is that primary enough?

Maybe if you get a chance, you could cite an example or two of secondary v primary.

diana

Hiya.

They want you to focus on the "if" instead of the "when," but the alteration of the verse as you outlined changes the meaning considerably. There's a huge difference between "Now if Jesus were on earth" and "If Jesus had been on earth." The first speaks of a hypothetical situation concerning the here and now to the writer. (Even if there was an intended comma after the "now," the meaning would be the same.) The second is a very straightforward remark that Paul believed Jesus to not have come in the flesh, period. There's a huge difference.

I haven't checked many translations on this, but I'm quite confident I'll find they all agree with the ideas presented in the verse as I quoted it, and here's why: were Paul to even have been thought to say, "Had Jesus been on earth, he would have....anything," there would have been an ongoing heated argument between the gnostic believers and the literalists to this day. I would not be unaware of any such argument, or even any such legitimate translation of the passage. The fact that I've never heard such an interpretation is enough evidence for me that Gandy and Freke got a bit too big for the britches on that one.

Yes. Primary sources are those things produced during the period. Secondary sources were written by others since saying "so-and-so said this."

There's a fuzzy line when it comes to quoting a primary source within a secondary source, however, when the primary isn't available, such as with Celsus' writings. Or the bible, for that matter.

I'd consider that a primary source for the argument that people soon after the supposed crucifixion of Jesus believed the same basic things about their gods, and evidently had for some time. Else, why would Martyr even use this as an argument? He has nothing to gain from such a parallel, that I can see (and much to lose...but he found a way to use the argument in his favor, to argue that his beliefs weren't any sillier than his contemporaries').

It's a primary source, yes--provided its antiquity checks out. However--for me, anyhow--there's always a question about what any given "art" truly depicts, where it was found, who drew it, and what the circumstances were. So this is a primary source, but what does it tell us? And how do we know?

Well, after reading (most of) TJM (so far), I already have Plato's The Republic on my reading list. It was written long before Jesus was an itch in his daddy's pants, and I want to see for myself what sorts of ideas are presented in it. It's a primary source, and presumably gives us info about gnosticism.

Secondary is someone saying this is what that cave drawing means, which is why I wonder what I'm looking at when I'm presented a pic of Mithras or Bacchus (presumably). They say, "X was a symbol of Bacchus" or "Y was a part of the Mithrian mysteries." But how do they know that? Taking their word for it is us taking second source material, be they scholars or not.

See the problem?

d

Magdlyn

Diana, thanks for explaining it so clearly.

You are correct about the "were"/"had been" controversy. I looked up a few English translations on BlueLetter and they all say "were." I do not know what the Greek is, however.

RSV

Hbr 8:1 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,
Hbr 8:2 a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord.
Hbr 8:3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.
Hbr 8:4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.

First of all, Paul did not write Hebrews anyway, right? heh

2nd of all, I would have to reread the context, but this part of the chapter is saying Christ has his place in the true tent, not on earth. So, in a way, it agrees with the gnostic POV anyway, "had been" or "were" aside.

Here, from the next chapter:

Hbr 9:11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation)
Hbr 9:12 he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
Hbr 9:13 For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh,
Hbr 9:14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

This seems to be an unearthly sacrifice, to me. But I digress.

Next point, primary and secondary sources

you said:

Yes. this is where I, the reader, would find a big book on Greek gods, or Egyptian mythology, or whatever, and look for that symbol used over and over again in the same context. The ankh, the sheaf of wheat, the pomegranate, the lamb or whatever it might be. Not hard to do.

diana

You can look it up at blueletterbible.org (just find the verse in question and click the "C" for Concordance and Hebrew/Greek lexicon...excellent tool, you might want to bookmark it). There is a possible translation of the word as "had been," but the proper translation, afaik, depends upon context (just as the proper translation of any given English word). Knowing the possible definitions of the Greek word doesn't help anyone who doesn't speak Greek, though, as there may be textual clues that tell us which translation is the proper one.

What we need here is someone who can read Greek (fluently, I would hope) who can state whether either translation is possible (but it isn't used because it would tell us something literalist Christians would fight) or if only one translation is gramatically reasonable. I'd be intrigued to know if both are grammatically reasonable, of course, as that would relieve my doubts concerning the scholarship of Freke and Gandy (unless I find something else, of course).

I'm aware of a couple of specific instances in the OT where a Hebrew word was "conveniently" mistranslated so as to intentionally support the party line although the original text itself did not (such as the "soul" thing).

Was that one of the forgeries? I don't remember. Besides, that's something I intend to read much more in depth on (and have the reading stack to prove it). But of course, we argue from the assumptions the Christians make about their own religion. If they're willing to chuck certain works as apocryphal, the rules change accordingly. My personal rules are this: "So you believe this is inspired? OK. Let's look at it and see what it says...."

Well...kinda. The Gnostic POV is that Jesus never actually existed as an earthly being. Both literalists and Gnostics believe he exists now in another realm, though. So this verse doesn't disprove the literalist interpretation at all, which defeats the purpose of Freke and Gandy producing it.

Perhaps. But the literalist could easily interpret this to mean Jesus appeared on earth and did something spiritual and mystical-sounding, then was literally crucified. I agree it works better with the Gnostic interpretation, but it works easily enough with the literal one that it can't be used to prove the Gnosticism of "Paul."

Yes, but how would you know what it symbolized, what ceremonies it was common in, etc? The only way we "know" what the ankh means (say) is that some scholars tell us it's so. But how do they know? I think with many of these things, it comes down to speculation, because there simply aren't any written texts to settle the matter.

My point is, it's wise to keep this in mind when debating the matter--that our position at some point is also based on speculation--and to not overstate.

d

MysteryProf

Actually, part of my problem with TJM was its depiction of Hermes Trismegistus, a combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. He's associated with a lot of Gnostic/magical/alchemical documents and ideas.

Although Trismegistus is properly defined in the back of TJM, throughout the book he is quoted as "the legendary Pagan sage" or as "the legendary Egyptian sage." Various quotes and teachings are attributed to him without explanation. I was not aware that a syncretic deity could have quotes attributed to him.

The biggest problem with this is that when I first read TJM a few years ago, I had no idea who/what Hermes Trismegistus was, and I didn't get a truthful impression from the book itself. It wasn't until I delved into Greco-Roman magic and alchemy that I really figured it out.

Also, in Freke and Gandy's The Hermetica, they cut and paste various bits of the Corpus Hermeticum and present it as some kind of unified, spiritual work. I think this is dishonest, especially as they don't provide adequate sourcing information (you have no idea where to find what, and as I haven't pored over the CH, I wouldn't know whether various phrases were real or fabricated).

While the back of the book lists the texts used for each section, you would still have to search out which fragments came from which text, creating some major logistical issues if you wanted to break down some of their fabricated chapters -- especially because the book's intro suggests that their own combos are a "lost spiritual classic." If you didn't know there was a Corpus Hermeticum, you wouldn't catch that this is a synthesis work at all. That, to me, is not real scholarship.

Magdlyn

Well, yes, there are texts. We are not talking about prehistoric cultures, but cultures with written languages, which we can understand.

diana

Perhaps I didn't say that right. If there are extant texts--and enough people seem to agree on the meanings of, say, the ankh, that there must be texts--or must have been at some point that we can, uh, point to.

What I'm wondering is why they aren't referenced. Are they hieroglyphics? Where's the book that is considered the "definitive" source, then?

All I've seen on most of these matters thus far are clearly secondary sources quoting clearly secondary sources themselves. With Plato's Republic, in which, according to Freke and Gandy, he discusses things about the Osiris-Dionysus cult (Pythagorean, was he?), we have a source that authorities aren't likely to deny. But with Mithras, we're on much shakier ground, so far as I can see.

Yes, we have pictures, in varying degrees of skill, drawn on pottery and walls and such. The problem with pictures, though, is that they are open to interpretation. I'm supposing there is a way to determine within reason when they were drawn, though--so that's something.

Am I making any sense yet? (Honest...I'm not trying to be antagonistic here....)

d

Magdlyn

Diana, I am having a hard time understanding you. I do not see why you have trouble interpreting symbols.

The ankh, the djed of Egypt, are actual symbols for words, with understood meanings of life and stability, respectively.

The pomegranate and grain are ancient and well understood symbols of fertility.

The vine, wine, the grape are used again and again as symbols of truth and tribal unity in countries where grape growing is a big cash crop.

Blue is a symbolic color of the sea and sky for obvious reasons.

The sun= life and fatherhood, power.

Etc.

I just take these and many others for granted b/c their use is so widespread.

Where is the disconnect?

Mathetes

I had the impression that this question was settled by Peter Kirby some time ago. Doherty tries to use this sentence to advance his Mythical Christ position, but I think that (in this case) he is wrong.

The Greek:

Conditional sentence, imperfect in the protasis, imperfect with ἂν in the apodosis. Classical present contrafactual condition, hypothetical condition that denies the result of the apodosis in the present. Approximate translation: "If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, as there are (others) that offer...". The only thing that this sentence denies is that Christ is on earth at the moment when the sentence was written.

I have read some speculation that defends that this sentence could instead be a past contrafactual condition (this would deny that Christ was ever on earth), because in some obscure cases these sentences may use imperfect-imperfect instead of aorist-aorist, which is the norm. This line of thought does not convince me, though.

Bottom line: I do not think this verse can be used to advance either the Mythic or the Historical Jesus position.