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Old 02-11-2013, 09:43 PM   #891
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In antiquity, Philo's Therapeutae were considered Christians of the Jesus cult by Church writers. See "Church History and "De Viris Illustribus".
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Who gives a fuck what old christians thought? Do you like the company or something?
Your response is extremely disturbing.
Only because context seems to mean nothing to you. Because of this you tend to over-generalize and go off in wild tangents. Case in point:

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Originally Posted by aa5874 View Post
It shows that you care nothing about history. You care nothing about evidence. You are not credible.

You care about the old Christian called PAUL!!!

What Christians writers of antiquity thought of Philo's Therapeutae is very significant.

I am dealing with History from antiquity. I am dealing with the evidence--not your absurdities.
You kid yourself. But instead of dealing with history you cannot distinguish between history and hagiography.

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"Jerome's De Viris Illustribus"
Quote:
Philo the Jew, an Alexandrian of the priestly class, is placed by us among the ecclesiastical writers on the ground that, writing a book concerning the first church of Mark the evangelist at Alexandria, he writes to our praise, declaring not only that they were there, but also that they were in many provinces and calling their habitations monasteries.

From this it appears that the church of those that believed in Christ at first, was such as now the monks desire to imitate, that is, such that nothing is the peculiar property of any one of them, none of them rich, none poor, that patrimonies are divided among the needy, that they have leisure for prayer and psalms, for doctrine also and ascetic practice, that they were in fact as Luke declares believers were at first at Jerusalem....
In antiquity it was claimed that Philo's Therapeutae were Christians of the Jesus cult.
Jerome, writing well over 300 years after Philo, is not a witness to anything but Philo's report. How about dealing with the evidence--not your absurdities?

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There is NO writer of antiquity that identified the Therapeutae as Jews by name, sect or living in Judea.
But using the same literal misguidedness that is endemic of your folly, Philo doesn't declare that the therapeutae had two legs either. Both facts are obvious, but you are incapable of dealing with either. So you can start your performance of outrage now.
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Old 02-11-2013, 09:49 PM   #892
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Reminded me of Acts 8:27- where the Ethiopian eunuch is found reading from the Book of Isaiah and Philip converts and baptizes him.
Was he Jewish before? don't know, but the tale does say that he 'had come to Jerusalem for to worship'.
_But then Scripture relates many cases where non-Jewish Gentiles come to worship YHWH, most famously the Queen of Sheba.

What was he after Philip baptized him? Couldn't have been a 'Christian' as according to Acts 11:26 the name 'Christian' hadn't even been invented yet.

With the production of the LXX c.300 BCE there is little doubt that a lot of educated non-Jewish people had opportunity to read and to reflect on the content of The Scriptures. That they read and had knowledge, and perhaps even believed these texts (at least the Greek version) did not entail that they were Jewish.
The Hellenized desert hermits of Alexandria could have easily been reading and acting out on LXX texts without ever having became Jews.
The very birth of the Christian Jesus is from Isaiah 7.14. The very acts of the Christian Jesus are found in Hebrew Scripture. The very teachings of the Christian Church of the Uncircumcised is from Hebrew Scripture.

Hebrew Scripture is BOLTED to the NT Canon.

The very Christian Religion of the Church of Rome shows without any reasonable doubt that Non Jews did study Hebrew Scripture and even invented a God called Jesus which the Jews REJECTED.

The Bible of the Jesus cult itself destroys all argument that the Therapeutae were Jews because they studied Hebrew Scripture.

The Bible of the Jesus cult contains 39 books from the Hebrew Bible.
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Old 02-11-2013, 10:04 PM   #893
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And these Scripture reading, Scripture believing, Scripture preaching, Scripture toting, and yet Sabbath observing gentiles were not Jews or 'Jewish'.


I'm not stating that the Theraputae of Alexandria were not Jews. (after all I have already 'given' them to stephan) but if one wants to call them 'Jewish' they were practicing some mighty strange reclusive hermetic 'cult' form of Judaism, -with many SUNDAY ritual observance being introduced, (with that 50th day always falling on SUNDAY) -like being half-way into what eventually became the weirdness of Alexandrian Coptic Christian monasticism.
Likely they even referred to themselves by the popular Hellenic term 'chrestians' .
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Old 02-11-2013, 10:05 PM   #894
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Originally Posted by spin
Only because context seems to mean nothing to you. Because of this you tend to over-generalize and go off in wild tangents....
Wild tangents?? You go on the Wildest tangents.

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Who gives a fuck what old christians thought?....
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Originally Posted by aa5874 View Post
It shows that you care nothing about history. You care nothing about evidence. You are not credible.

You care about the old Christian called PAUL!!!

What Christians writers of antiquity thought of Philo's Therapeutae is very significant.

I am dealing with History from antiquity. I am dealing with the evidence--not your absurdities.
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Originally Posted by spin
You kid yourself. But instead of dealing with history you cannot distinguish between history and hagiography.
History and hagiography?? You know the difference??

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Who gives a fuck what old christians thought?....
Please, you are NOT credible.
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Old 02-11-2013, 10:23 PM   #895
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I did not repeat or quote any rabbinical view.

These are the Laws that stood in the Torah of that time as well as before;
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Originally Posted by spin
True but you don't know what has been added and removed from the text you now have. This plea is just the same as the christian plea of "our book says it covers our ass". Philo is giving you a variety of pre-christian Judaism. Appealing to Deut. like this doesn't make that Judaism any less Judaism. And I don't see the relevance of Ex here.
Before I begin in a long and involved search and survey of the most ancient texts, Do you really wish to claim that neither Exodus 12:42 or Deuteronomy 4:2 existed in either The Torah nor the LXX before the 1st century CE. spin?
Your question doesn't follow from what I said.
Then, without insult, what is it that does follow from what you said?
The implication regarding adding or removing cannot be tested because you don't know the history of the texts since they included the adding and removing clause. It doesn't protect the text from change so you don't know whether things have been added or removed, so ultimately the injunction has no content because you only have the final version.
Then, with that kind of 'reasoning' it would not matter even if I were to produce a dozen texts, all authenticated and dated to before the 1st century CE. and all containing these verses,...
We are dealing with a text that shows signs of not having been stable. If you want to treat it as if it were, you live with the consequences.

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...because you can then resort to a claim that your Theraputae did not employ these particular texts containing these 'added' verses.
They are not my therapeutae, bro.

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Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar View Post
Really, it is not even worth engaginging in any further discussion of the matter with any 'scholar' displaying this kind of character.
You make me lose respect for you.
Here, you've been shitting all over the forum and you wanna talk about losing respect for someone else? Try earning some first.

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Originally Posted by spin
Do you accept Hanukkah or is that adding?
Every Jewish person has access to the texts that tell the story of Hanukkah, it is up to them individually whether they choose to observe it or not, and if they do, how they choose to observe it.
There is clear understanding by knowledge the story of the cleansing of the Temple, that it is not found within the Law of Moses, and that this once yearly observance is not a part of that Law.

Which makes it a thing of quite different nature than men decreeing that there is to be a all-night Festival held every 50 days, founding it directly upon the the Laws regarding the sanctity and observance of The Sabbath, and by so doing adding an additional seven 'sabbaths' into every year, onto The Law, which were NOT commanded within that Law.
But Hanukkah is "hinky" according to your logic... because it is not covered by the torah and therefore additive to the cultic calendar.

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With this entire Theraputae cults religious life revolving around the the timing and the repeated observance of this 50th day Festival, it is highly doubtful that observance of it was (or would be) regarded as optional within the cult.
You are relying on the limited, or perhaps selectively controlled, knowledge provided by Philo. He may not have known or seen reason to go into details of the festivals, but they are clearly delimited in the Temple Scroll. It is not something invented in Egypt, so the therapeutae are inheritors. Shavuot ("pentacost" to the new boys) itself indicates surviving pentacontad reckoning. In the Temple Scroll New Wine is seven weeks later. New Oil is seven weeks later again. From the DSS it is not the repetition of the same festival, but that there was a series fifty days apart.

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The evidence is that this was a strange local 'hermit cult' practice that the rest of mainstream Judaism never bought into.
"Local", my eye.

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Which is fully understandable in any normal -working- Jewish society, as there are plenty of real Sabbaths, Festivals, and Fasts that are already enjoined by The Law of Moses, without needing to add on the complication seven more 'sabbaths' and all-night observances (to be held on the First Day of the Week at that)

_ Imagine, Jews taking up the keeping of seven -24 hour observance- SUNDAYS a year as being their 'sabbaths'. May Hell freeze over first.

No big deal for these six-day a week hermits to add every seventh SUNDAY to their days off. (Were there ever any where they were on?)
These 'Theraputae' could simply drag their emancipated carcasses back into their desert shanty 'monasteries' come morning,
While you are crapping on, you should realize that your use of "monasteries" is merely poor translation and you are implicitly importing the christian notion. Read more carefully and you'd know that it plainly doesn't carry the same meaning.

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But normal -working- Jewish people, the farmers, the bakers, the carpenters, the herdsmen, and laborers needed to be about their productive professions, and obeying the injunction of The Law; "Six days you shall labor" (but I suppose that's just another one of the 'added' verses of the Bible in your view)
You have not got a single source for there "normal -working- Jewish people, the farmers, the bakers, the carpenters, the herdsmen, and laborers". It's just histrionic conjecture.

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Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar View Post
I'm not Jewish, so my entire 'observance' of Hanukkah usually consist of no more than observing that the dates for this Jewish Festival are noted on my common Gregorian Calendar.
Oh dear. I wasn't asking about the size of your underwear, but how you placed Hanukkah in relation to your perceived scheme of Judaism.

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Kind of amazing how willing you are to offhandedly discredit the provenance of long known and establish Scriptural verses from the Books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, while at the same time accepting every bit of the horse shit appearing in 'Philo's' De vita contemplativa as though they were the infallible words of your god.
:realitycheck:

You just want to go all anal-retentive christian to attack a Jewish group (idealized by Philo for rhetorical purposes), within a heterodox Judaism of the time, because they don't adhere to your rules of how Judaism should have been. You are having difficulties distinguishing horseshit.

:horsecrap:
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Old 02-11-2013, 10:24 PM   #896
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Only because context seems to mean nothing to you. Because of this you tend to over-generalize and go off in wild tangents....
Wild tangents?? You go on the Wildest tangents.

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Originally Posted by spin View Post
Who gives a fuck what old christians thought?....
Quote:
Originally Posted by aa5874 View Post
It shows that you care nothing about history. You care nothing about evidence. You are not credible.

You care about the old Christian called PAUL!!!

What Christians writers of antiquity thought of Philo's Therapeutae is very significant.

I am dealing with History from antiquity. I am dealing with the evidence--not your absurdities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spin
You kid yourself. But instead of dealing with history you cannot distinguish between history and hagiography.
History and hagiography?? You know the difference??

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Originally Posted by spin View Post
Who gives a fuck what old christians thought?....
Please, you are NOT credible.
And when all else fails, blather.
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Old 02-11-2013, 10:42 PM   #897
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You just want to go all anal-retentive christian to attack a Jewish group
Any reader familiar with the tenor of my posts and beliefs will know that this is statement is about the most ridiculous accusation that you could possibly come up with.
Hey Toto ya think I'm an 'anal retentive Christian' ?

But your post confirmed that it is pointless to engage with you in any serious discussion, as you simply scorn and discount any text that disagrees with your opinions.

I feel sorry for you, that you have degenerated into such a nasty, bitter, and sad shriveled up old woman.
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Old 02-11-2013, 10:53 PM   #898
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FFS Eusebius must have known about some of the pagan archaeology.

And perhaps you know what he knew.

Eusebius writes about Constantine's destruction of the Asclepian temple.


Robin Lane Fox describes it this way ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pagans and Christians, RL Fox


p.671: The list of pagan sites to have suffered under Constantine:

◦ Mambre: a site of great holiness in the Hebrew testament

◦ Jerusalem: shrine of Aphrodite, stood on the site of the crucifixion and sepulchre.

◦ Aphaca: an offensive Phoenician centre of sacred prostitution.

◦ Didyma: Christians seized a prophet of Apollo and had him tortured.

◦ Antioch: Christians seized a prophet of Apollo and had him tortured.

◦ Aigai, in Cilicia: christians raised the shrine of Asclepius.


• p.672: "In the early 340's, we find the first surviving Christian texts which asks for something more, the total intolerance of pagan worship." [FN:25] - Firmicus, De Errore 16.4


• FOX: "Why were these latter shrines singled out so promptly?

◦ (1) At Aigai, the pagan wise man Apollonius was believed
to have "turned the temple into an Academy":
this temple, or a nearby shrine, had been honoured
with a fine pagan inscription
in honour of "godlike" Apollonius,
perhaps as recently as the reign of Diocletian.


◦ (2) Porphyry had compiled books of Philosophy from Oracles
which publicised texts from Didyma.


◦ (3) At Antioch, prophets were duly tortured and obliged to confess "fraud".

These reprisals are the counterpart to two written works by Eusebius, his polemic against the books on Apollonius and his "Demonstrations of the Gospel," which disproved Apollo's oracles by quoting them against themselves.

We may infer that Eusebius knew about the existence of these temples.


We may also infer that he knew about the therapeutae serving in these temples.


Quote:
(There was of course some reason why you put these links in your post, but what it was seems not to have been made at all clear. Perhaps there is something in them on specific pages you can cite. Perhaps not.)

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Originally Posted by mountainman View Post
(1) Asclepius: Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies (or via: amazon.co.uk) - Emma J. Edelstein, Ludwig Edelstein, Gary B. Ferngren

(2) Asclepius: The God of Medicine - Gerald D. Hart


We know that Eusebius witnessed the destruction of major pagan temples (with their therapeutae).

Did Eusebius live inside a bubble unconnected with archaeology and politics?
These references were supplied to remind people that there hundreds of archaeological and numismatic references to Asclepius during the period in question. We may reasonable infer the therapeutae of Asclepius were ubiquitous in the empire, in Egypt, Greece and Rome and outside of it. These people were highly regarded.

See what happened to Oribasius


The above section by Fox was headed "Persecution of the Old Religions".

This sudden Christian persecution was not limited to torture, destruction and prohibition.

This sudden Christian persecution also attacked and controlled the perception of history.

We are now to learn that Plato got his wisdom by reading Moses.

And who are the therapeutae in antiquity?

A Jewish sect described in a Church preserved Philosopher's Utopian legend?



I am more likely to trust evidence not Church fucking preserved legends.



Julian's Letter 44

Quote:
Originally Posted by Emperor Julian

you are allowed to use a state carriage, and may Asclepius and all the gods escort you on your way and grant that we may see you again!
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Old 02-11-2013, 11:04 PM   #899
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While you are crapping on, you should realize that your use of "monasteries" is merely poor translation and you are implicitly importing the christian notion. Read more carefully and you'd know that it plainly doesn't carry the same meaning.
From memory;

'Monasteries' is the term that is used in our English translations of Philo's VC .
He describes them as bare plain small 'houses' occupied by a single Theraputae engaging in study and in religious rigmarole -in seclusion-
from dawn till dusk six days a week, not crossing the threshold, nor even so much as looking outside during the daylight hours.

Religious 'shrines' called the 'holy place' were located in every one of these minimal human shelters known as 'monasteries'.
No food or drink was to be brought into, or consumed while in these 'house'/'monasteries'.
Basically a description of 'Monks' cells'. These 'monasteries' were not public structures used for public religious gatherings.

The occupants were inclined to engage in extreme fasting, with an ideal of surviving an entire six days without taking either food or drink.
(likely there would have been the bare minimum of physical activity while so holed up so as to attain the longest possible fast)

Communal meals and community religious rituals were held in a seperate community gathering place called the Temple.
There were a lot of food phobias, with the Theraputae resricted to consuming little more than bread, hyssop, and water.

From Philo's descrption, I believe it was an insanely sick religious cult. (If he's was not just making this bullshit up)

I believe I have covered the basics of what Philo described as being 'monasteries'.

Any objections.
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Old 02-11-2013, 11:26 PM   #900
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therapeutae

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Originally Posted by Perseus

θερα^π-ευτής , οῦ, ὁ

A. one who serves the gods, worshipper, θ. Ἄρεως, θεῶν, Pl.Phdr.252c, Lg.740c; ὁσίων τε καὶ ἱερῶν ib.878a; “τοῦ καλοῦ” Ph.1.261; οἱ θ. worshippers of Sarapis or Isis, UPZ8.19 (ii B.C.), IG11(4).1226 (Delos, ii B.C.); title of play by Diphilus, ib.2.992ii9; name of certain ascetics, Ph.2.471; θ. ὁσιότητος, of the followers of Moses, ib.177.

2. one who serves a great man, courtier, “οἱ ἀμφὶ τὸν πάππον θ.” X.Cyr.1.3.7.

II. one who attends to anything, c. gen., “σώματος” Pl.Grg.517e; “τῶν περὶ τὸ σῶμα” Id.R. 369d.

2. medical attendant, τῶν καμνόντων ib.341c.

Word frequency information for therapeutae ... θεραπευτής

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perseus

Corpus Name

Aristides, Aelius, Orationes
Strabo, Geography
Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
Basil, Saint, Bishop of Caesarea, Epistulae
Plato, Laws
Aelian, De Natura Animalium
Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia ecclesiastica <<<<=========
Plato, Republic
Xenophon, Cyropaedia
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae, Books VII-IX
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae, Books I-III
Plato, Parmenides, Philebus, Symposium, Phaedrus
Plato, Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno
John, of Damascus (attributed author), Vita Barlaam et Joasaph
Aelian, Varia Historia
Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos
Greek Anthology, Volume II
Julian the Emperor, Epistulae
Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus
Plutarch, Maxime cum principbus philosopho esse diserendum
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