mountainman

That is not my point here the OP seeks the origin of the majesty that was historically allocated to any of the hundreds and thousands of possible historical Jesus.

Is there anyone here for example who thinks the majesty of the historical jesus was NOT ultimately derived from the Roman Emperor Constantine?




In discussing new ideas it often pays to be cautious.

You can only take some people to some destinations using little steps.





This is not a fair summary of my theory at all.

mountainman

It represents textual evidence that Arius of Alexandria also called Jesus a figment. The majesty of state may not have appreciated this at the time.


We are discussing the majesty of jesus and the majesty of Constantine and how the latter was transferred to the former. Eusebius Pamphilus and Arius of Alexandria by all reports were separate eyewitnesses to the official transfer (which may have commenced at Nicaea c.325 CE).

mountainman

Thanks Robert Tulip.





So are there any people out there who think that the majesty of the Jesus figure was not ultimately derived from the emperor Constantine and his government? In other words, Jesus did not get his majesty from any cosmic monotheistic pie-in-the-sky god. The majesty of Jesus was a result of imperial sponsorship by Bullneck.

mountainman

Eusebius seems to think that the majesty is derived from the books of holy scripture ....

But perhaps this correspondence is a result of the translation option?.

sotto voce

Which it had appreciated a century earlier, and later. That shrewd heretic Tertullian had pointed out that the blood of the martyrs was seed of the gospel, which made even the majestic braincells of Roman emperors talk to each other. "Mmmm," mused Bullhead, eyebrows strangely furrowed. "Maybe chopping people up, and getting legless, are not the only things in the world. Mmmm."

And so, the enforced 'intellectualisation' of probably the densest brains on the planet. Blood was forced into cerebral capillaries that had not seen traffic in many years. The imperial crown was finally scratched, and things were never quite the same again.

:devil1: Heh, heh. Bob Hope, you have a successor.

Scholars take note of two points; two important points. One is that Jesus came first. An inconvenient fact, perhaps, but there it is. The other is that the majesty of Jesus was not enormously popular. Not even with some of his own folks! As Jesus himself said,

'"The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law."' Mk 8:31 NIV

'When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples!"

"I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."'

Lk 19:37-40 NIV

And was he right? Chrisawmighty, he was right:

'"Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked. "We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered.' Jn 19:15 NIV

'The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews', but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."' Jn 19:21 NIV

John noted, 'He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. So we can see that respectable, upright Jews, whose love of Romans was not quite the stuff of romantic legend, preferred even that appalling mega-cur Caesar to their own, long predicted monarch. They found Jesus a disappointment, a bit of an anti-climax, shall we say. So no wonder that those infamous organisers of orgies in the recognised capital of decadence found the rule of Jesus just a trifle incommodious. But of course, canny Tertullian was proved right, and the Mighty Empire eventually had to grovel. Jesus just had too much street cred. Jesus ruled.

Or rather, the empire had to appear to grovel. Because, as we know, the old brainwashing of the plebeians carried on, as it had from the foundation of Rome, and as it had from the foundation of every 'civilisation' known to archaeologists. It was plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, already. Sacrifices were made in temples by cipher priests, just as they always had been, and as they are today in a papist temple near you.

Yes, the 'majesty' of Jesus was transferred to a ridiculous succession of ridiculous 'Vicars of Christ', imperial puppets, whose current status and residence was granted by Benito Mussolini, a dictator who proudly modelled his regime on that of Bullhead. Rather appropriately, one might observe.

So ruling Pharisees, Roman patricians, aristocratic Greeks and no doubt many others, whose interests were carnal only, who found the gospel 'foolish', all had an interest in claiming the majesty of Jesus as their own, in order to fool the poor into doing what the real Jesus did not want them to do. So they created a figment, to fool. And some still people want to be fooled, do they not.

So, Bible; or Renaissance.

Robert Tulip

Mountainman, you got me thinking about this ‘source of majesty’ question. A king gets his majesty from being anointed at his coronation. So the title of Christ (the anointed), with its apparent origins in the Egyptian anointing (karast) of the mummy of the king, indicates that the title of Christ is majestic in its origin, just through its royal linkage to the anointing concept.

Christ is majestic by definition, as our imagined saviour, the meeting point of heaven and earth. The Gospel sources the majesty of Christ to the anointing at the baptism by John especially with the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove. So the story of Jesus is of a majestic character providing hope through the proclamation of the church.

My view is that Constantine endorsed Christ because Christ was already majestic, so the Emperor was giving political legitimacy to a cultural reality. The fervour of Christian belief seems to be what inspired Constantine to accept Jesus as a more meaningful imperial deity than Sol Invictus, so that the Empire could retain the mandate of heaven, as the Chinese put it. The Empire had already lost moral legitimacy, seen in the subversive view that Christ was Lord. Kyrie Eleison is a subversive statement because it says the Emperor is not Lord, against all previous convention. Majesty is a quality of lordship, so the majesty of Christ was conferred by the view of faith that Christ is Lord.

Looking at the Bible, we find Rev 19:16 ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’ as a statement of majesty. Similarly, the oft-mistranslated King of Ages at Rev 15, and the line from doubting Thomas at John 20:28 My Lord and My God.

Majesty/Majestic appears 77 times in the NIV, as a key attribute of God.

I confess though, I am tangentially reminded of Humpty Dumpty's definition of glory as 'a nice knock-down argument' in answer to the question 'who is to be master'. Who ever has majesty gets to define the meaning of words.

spin

Interesting philology, Robert Tulip. But working from the Hebrew verb M-Sh-X (משח), meaning "to smear with oil", one formed a participle M-Sh-Y-X (משיח) "mashiach", meaning "smeared with oil", ie "anointed". The process was transplanted into Greek, by those who translated the Hebrew texts, using the Greek verb, χριω, meaning "to smear with oil", and another participle was formed, χριστος, and that is how the word is generally used in the LXX, "anointed". First check out the verb, eg Exod 30:26, 30, "you shall anoint" (χρισεις). χριστος is formed within the context of Greek from the verb. χριστος, the participle, is easily seen, for example in Lev 4:5, 16 ("the anointed priest"). Attempting to overlook the derivation of the word will almost certainly lead you to error.

As to the Egyptian word ķrst (using ķ as a k with a dot under it), one needs to overlook old stuff like Massey and turn to modern Egyptologists. In an article L. M. J. Zonhoven, "The Inspection of a Tomb at Deir El-Medîna", The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 65 (1979), p.92 we find a term st-ķrs, translated "burial place" or "place of burial". Hans Goedicke, "Early References to Fatalistic Concepts in Egypt", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, p.189 gives st-ķrst as "place of burial". Not having a hieroglyphic dictionary to consult, I checked my Collier & Manley, "How to Read Hieroglyphics", U.Cal.Press. Its lexicon gives ķrs as "bury" and ķrst as "burial". Burial gives a very different idea from anointing. The Egyptian word for oil is mrht. So my challenge to you, Robert Tulip, is to find a recognized Egyptologist who today would translate ķrst with direct regard to anointing.

There is good linguistic evidence to see that the past participle χριστος is derived from the Greek verb, χριω, and no good reason to think otherwise.

This seems to be another case of you, Robert Tulip, spreading erroneous philology.

Chili

Bacon called this the 'idols of the cave' wherein for each the light of nature streams, but only to be distorted by one's education over time and disposition at the moment: "the spirit of the man is variable and full of perturbation, and is governed as it were by chance." New Organon 1, 54-56:


The above really is a specific under bacon's "Idols of the Theatre" of which he called Aristotle stage director because there is no such a thing as human redemption in their individuality. Period, he says, and not possible, but a team effort is required wherein the enemy that keeps us aloof must do the trick on us, as only human interest can obscure the light we see.

So it really is the pitfall of observational induction where annointing is done at burial, . . . and let the good times roll (which appears to be true for many if not most people today).

Edit to add here that Aristotle was 'stage director' and not Dean of the Academy, as he, too, looked but did not see, but is useful as an analytic tool in the same way, would Bacon say.

Robert Tulip

To say burial differs from anointing for the Egyptians is dubious. The mummy of the king was anointed with all manner of spices and oils to preserve it in burial, to make him the God Osiris. Jesus became Christ through his death (burial) and resurrection, as the seed must be buried to produce new life. Burial and anointing are closely linked.

In describing this link as "apparent" I accepted it is open to debate. But spin has not provided anything to change my view. The philology here comes from Champollion and Birch and is perfectly reasonable.

Such topics should be set against the political framework described by Martin Bernal in Black Athena, where he shows that Greek culture basically derives from Egypt, in conflict with dominant academic prejudice - including from modern Egyptology. So we should expect that central religious concepts - such as the term Christ meaning anointing - are likely to have pre-Greek origins.

spin

One can only expect this disregard for the most significant evidence I provided, ie the fact that χριστος is derived by ordinary grammatical means from the verb χριω, in direct analogy with the Hebrew derivation of the word "messiah". It is a grave blunder to ignore this evidence because you are swayed by appearances.

Providing the actual meaning of ķrst is only to show that one has to twist the significance of the Egyptian to get a false parallel with the Greek term. You know the process: forcing the facts to fit the presupposition.

What follows is stuff based on amateur use of outdated scholarship and the hope that Bernal's valid complaint about being too classically minded can hide the lack of substance for the argument.

No. Get it right. χριστος does not mean "anointing": it means "anointed", ie the past participle of χριω. Greek grammar explains its form. Consider the verb οριζω "to define, or limit" (source of "horizon") and its past participle is οριστος "delimited, defined", or the verb πριω "to saw" and its past participle, πριστος "sawn". Perhaps these derivations are influenced by Egyptian as well.

(And when people bandy the word "likely" about, it is usually to make one's personal opinion sound a little less unsupported.)

Bernal was in a position to talk about "academic prejudice", as he'd developed the expertise. If you wish to continue to support the presupposition that χριστος is derived from the Egyptian ķrst, you know it has nothing to do with the skill set needed to do so. Amateurs, like Massey, writing with insufficient knowledge of the languages involved, are not the people you should start with. You go to the scholarly status quo first and learn enough to discount them. Instead you've put the presupposition cart before you.