mountainman

The Logos was a personal force to the pagans.
What makes you think it was an "impersonal force"?

Bruno Bauer (1809-1882);
Critique of the Gospels and History of Their Origin,
noted that ....Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

Who is Lithargoel, the Pearl Man, the citizen of the city of nine gates, the healer and physician of the city of the pearl, and the knower of the path from habitation and endurance to the pearl of great price?

The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles
The Nag Hammadi Library
Translated by Douglas M. Parrott and R. McL.Wilson
Buried in an urn for over 1600 years, thus hardly interpolated.

The tract is the first bound with seven others. That is, the story of The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, is physically bound to the heaviest set of pagan material to be identified in all the NHC's, the following seven tracts:

The Thunder, Perfect Mind
Authoritative Teaching
The Concept of Our Great Power
Plato, Republic 588A-589B
The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth
The Prayer of Thanksgiving
Asclepius 21-29

Quite obviously the Logos is associated with the teachings of both Hermes and that of Asclepius as at the mid-fourth century, otherwise the NH codices would not have been purposefully preserved. Quite obviously the Logos was associated with non-christian practices, and why should it not?

Consequently GD, the priesthood of these "religions or cults or practices" were seen by the followers as the embodiment of the Logos. The practices of healing (fully evidenced with the cult of Ascelpius for example) would have only augmented this association. The Logos and the Physicians of both bodies and souls (which they claimed to be) were obviously naturally associated by the Hellenic/Egyptian culture --- Philo of Alexandria explicitly writes about all these things, and Philo did not utter one single syllable about the historicity of your man Jesus H.

The entire eastern empire was replete with a milieu of pagan priesthoods, cooperatively and collegiately co-existing with each other, and probably all competing to a certain degree to be acknowleged by their culture as the priesthood that was most faithfully preserving the pagan Logos. If the cult of christianity actually historically existed in this milieu, in a statistical and demographic sense, they would have been a small drop in a large pond of pagans, and totally unidentifiable.

We as "christian investigators" ask "Was anyone other than Jesus seen as the Logos", because we are making the assumption that christianity existed then, in the first place, and then secondly, that it was important then.

It was the pagan Logos that was preserved until the fourth century, at which time it was severly beaten into the ground by the emergent christian Logos. The same non christian Logos of Philo, persistent essentially undisturbed until the time of Constantine. I hope this clarifies some of the issues involved in the answering of your question.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

God Fearing Atheist

I just got Larson from the library. He writes (on page 186, not 184):

The note cites:

I assume he's relying on Darmesteter's 1882 translation.

Anyone know it in Avestan? Know anything about its date?

andrewcriddle

A modern scholarly translation renders this "....the much talented personification of the divine word" the critical word is tanumathram (slightly simplified by me I don't have access to as many characters as the book uses). mathra means the divine word or law, tanu is more difficult

According to the notes this could be rendered either as one in/with whom the divine word dwells or as one who embodies/incarnates the divine word.

IF the incarnational meaning is intended it would IIUC and IMHO correspond in the NT world more to incarnate Torah than incarnate Logos

(I'm just guessing as to the date of this Yasht but maybe 600 BCE or earlier.)

Andrew Criddle

Jeffrey Gibson

Post to ANE-2. Someone there will know.

Jeffrey

God Fearing Atheist

Interesting Andrew, thanks.

I'll poke around and see what other background I can find.

andrewcriddle

I should have given the reference but didn't have it at hand.

It is The Avestan Hymn to Mithra (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Ilya Gershevitch.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

According to Gershevitch in another work the date is 500-400 BCE but based on earlier material.

FWIW Wikidepia dates the main Yashts from 539-330 BCE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avesta

Andrew Criddle