Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 01-22-2013, 09:56 PM

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But you are the one bringing the new understanding. Everyone accepts the text as Jewish.

I am asking everyone for the evidence which substantiates this acceptance.

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As noted above, provide even a semblance of an argument. Something substantial. Not just the desperate daydreams of an aging surfer.

This is not the alt.surfing news feed.

Whether you acknowledge the fact or not I classify my research and investigation of the last many years as the responsible actions of an amateur historian who is interested in the questions surrounding the history of Christian origins - not just of the canonical books of the bible but also the mass of non canonical books often referred to as the gnostic gospels and acts etc.

You should be aware that surfers are noted for their questioning of the authority of the RECEIVED TRADITION.

I don't see it as wrong or illegal or inappropriate to question the RECEIVED TRADITION.

As Toto said in another recent thread ...

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Authorities have been known to be wrong. Those who challenge a consensus may have the burden to show that the authorities are wrong, but they are still entitled to make their case.

stephan huller · 01-22-2013, 09:58 PM

But you still haven't found anything which argues against a Jewish authorship of the text. As such the thread is debunked. There is nothing at all here. How can any reasonable person say the Therapeutai weren't Jewish. And if their Jewish we're still back to where we started.

mountainman · 01-22-2013, 10:02 PM

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Originally Posted by stephan huller

I found it - http://books.google.com/books?id=R0g...phy%22&f=false It's from a hundred years ago and the author doesn't say its a fake. He has just come to some observations about the text while not going so far as to deny Philonic authorship.

I suppose I should thank you for determining that the source of the WIKI claim is the The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Volume 10 by Isidore Singer and Cyrus Adler.

I understand that he has not taken his observations any further at that time a hundred years ago.

mountainman · 01-22-2013, 10:08 PM

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Originally Posted by stephan huller

But you still haven't found anything which argues against a Jewish authorship of the text. As such the thread is debunked. There is nothing at all here. How can any reasonable person say the Therapeutai weren't Jewish.

If we had the means to go back to the pagan empire of the first 3 or 4 centuries of the common era and did a survey by asking the men and women in the street, and the academic collegiate, and the pagan priests, and the Emperor himself and all his state deligates if they had ever heard of a group or a class of people referred to as the therapeutae, it is my opinion that the answer would be almost a unanimous YES.

But IMO they would be referring to the pagan therapeutae - the attendants to the pagan gods at the ubiquitous pagan temples which were fully functioning in that epoch.

Do you not understand this argument?

The pagan sources are shouting that the therapeutae were the large and highly respected class of people who "clocked on at the pagan temples". Any reasonable person THEN would IMO laugh at the idea that the therapeutae were a Jewish sect.

aa5874 · 01-22-2013, 11:28 PM

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Originally Posted by stephan huller

But you still haven't found anything which argues against a Jewish authorship of the text. As such the thread is debunked. There is nothing at all here. How can any reasonable person say the Therapeutai weren't Jewish. And if their Jewish we're still back to where we started.

Again, you are NOT familiar with the writings of Philo. You do NOT understand "On the Contemplative Life" does NOT even mention the words Jew or Jewish in respect of the Therapeutae.

It is the Essenes that were Jews or of Jewish origin--NOT the Therapeutae.

The Essenes were IDENTIFIED by Philo and Josephus as a sect of Jews and Pliny the Elder confirms that Essenes lived to the West of the Dead Sea.

On the contrary, there is absolutely NO claim by Philo, Josephus or Pliny that the Therapeutae were Jews and that they lived in Judea or were of any tribe of Jews.

stephan huller · 01-22-2013, 11:51 PM

so everyone somehow got the wrong idea about Philo being a Jew?

stephan huller · 01-23-2013, 12:00 AM

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If we had the means to go back [and ask people] if they had ever heard of a group or a class of people referred to as the therapeutae

But that's a misleading question as there were therapeutai of Ascelpius and therapeutai of Sarapis (two completely unrelated culti). There were Christians who claimed to be therapeuti as well as countless other culti.

You should have translated therapeutai into English and asked:

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If we had the means to go back [and ask people] if they had ever heard of worshipers

Sure. They would have said, yeah there are worshipers of Asclepius and Zeus and Sarapis, what's your point? And then if some of them had read Jewish and Christian texts in Greek they would have added, there are Jewish and Christian worshipers too.

stephan huller · 01-23-2013, 12:02 AM

On the therapeutai of Zeus from my friend Philip Harland of York University in Toronto (my alma mater):

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"Such was the case with the therapeutai of Zeus in Sardis, who in the mid-second century reengraved a Greek translation of an apparently ancient, Aramaic dialect ..."

http://books.google.com/books?id=vPd...20zeus&f=false

Ooh, 'therapeutai of Zeus.' Looks like trouble for Philo.

aa5874 · 01-23-2013, 12:07 AM

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Originally Posted by stephan huller

so everyone somehow got the wrong idea about Philo being a Jew?

Please, you got everything wrong in this excerpt of your own post. Examine your errors.

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Originally Posted by stephan huller

Philo almost never (never to my knowledge but I haven't looked) mentions the word Jew or Jewish. No one talks about another man's penis unless it is under very strange circumstances or it is that person's doctor. No one doubts that Philo was Jewish and he never brings up his own jolly roger.

stephan huller · 01-23-2013, 12:12 AM

And if - as you suggest - the Therapeutai of Lake Mareotis were part of an Asclepius cultus why aren't the other sacred names and functions mentioned:

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Apart from hiereis, neokoroi and therapeutai (“attendants”) or hieroi douloi (“sacred slaves”), there were other groups or individuals who contributed to the functioning of the daily life within Asclepius' sanctuaries. Speaking for his own time and for Pergamum, Aelius Aristides refers to ''those who had posts in the temple'' (Oration 48.47: taxeis echontes) as a group distinct from the servants. He himself mentions a ''doorkeeper'' (Oration 47. 32: thyroros). Members of a chorus (aoidoi) as well as ''guards'' (phrouroi) are attested at Epidaurus as recipients of parts of the sacrificial animals, and so is a group of hiaromnamones (''recorders''; LSCG 60 lines 29–34, ca. 400 BC). The latter appear again in a fragmentary cult regulation that may assign them judicial functions in the sanctuary (LSCG 24, second century BC, possibly a A ''bath attendant'' (balaneus) existed in the sanctuary of Asclepius on Aegina (IG iv2 1 no. 126, AD 160), and Aelian (Nature of Animals 9.33) refers to zakoroi, who instructed the patients during incubation. The parallel in the incubation scene of Aristophanes' Wealth is the propolos, possibly an official title. The pyrphoros (''fire-bearer'') in the Epidaurian miracle text presented above may also be descriptive rather than an official title ..."

http://books.google.com/books?id=yOQ...ion%22&f=false

None of these thing appear in Philo. This is so stupid. You've just noticed a shared name - 'worshipers' - and made a silly attempt and putting this together. What is described in the Contemplative Life is not a cult of Asclepius.

And remember, with Philo the Jewish sect to which he is making reference, the group as a whole are called the 'therapeutai.' With respect to Asclepius the therapeutai are one class of people within many. The whole assembly of Asclepius are not called 'therapeutai.'

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01-22-2013, 09:58 PM	#332
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	But you still haven't found anything which argues against a Jewish authorship of the text. As such the thread is debunked. There is nothing at all here. How can any reasonable person say the Therapeutai weren't Jewish. And if their Jewish we're still back to where we started.

01-22-2013, 11:51 PM	#336
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	so everyone somehow got the wrong idea about Philo being a Jew?

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