Marduk

On the History Channel last night they had a show called "In Search of Christmas" They said that the tomb of Pantera (the Roman soldier that legend has it raped Mary and was Jesus real dad) was found in Germany, his obit says he was a Bowman that once served in Palestine, this legend goes back to the second century, Origen mentions the story in a debate with someone whose name I forget. NT scholar Crossan dismissed the legend as early Christian name calling. FYI

Pantera

<a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen161.html" target="_blank">Contra Celsus</a> (Early 3rd Century)

Marduk

thanks, good site.

Kosh

What was your opinion of the rest of the show?
I thought they were doing their best to stay on
the fence. At times it felt like an overview of
the Gospel intros, at others they tried to be
very "gentle" with how alternative theories were
presented. If heard "Some [scholars/skeptics/people] believe however..."
one more time... :-)

I did appreciate the [obviously] Irish Catholic
priest who just flat out said "It's just fiction",
compared to that lady from Loyalla who just
danced around the difficult stuff (I guess that
should be expected).

Marduk

Kosh asked:
"What was your opinion of the rest of the show?"

only got to see the first 30 min. or so, I was surprised they brought up the Pantera issue at all, points for this, I have never seen that on TV before, having watched so many of these type shows on TV I'm getting used to the "some people think this is ALL fiction" disclaimer. It was much better than the 3 hour 'History of Christianity' they had on A & E, pure Church line.
What I saw was decent, The 2 hour 'Digging for the Truth' was also very good, minimalists vs. traditionalists, Finkelstein, Dever etc. Though I was disapointed in the minimalists, their case for some things was not as strong as I thought.
Finkelstein's claim that Solomon didn't build his three cities was based on only 2 mason marks in one city, prettty weak, as was the claim for Joshua not having destroyed Hathor (?)
The loyal opposition made a good point, only radical monotheists would have bothered to deface someone elses idols. Pagans were very tolerant of other peoples gods.
Not that any of this is relevant to the existance of the Hebrew God, just that (as I've always suspected) there is some real history in the Bible.

RyanS2

I'd go with Rabbi Lewis Browne in the assertion that many of the stories of the Bible were oral forms long before they were written down, (Hebraic language being somewhat difficult until the 8th century BCE, as a form of Canaanite logo-syllabic writing derived from North), so the stories were corrupted somewhat. Concerning the actual sources of the Old Testament, I'd say linguistically, etymologically, and historically, I'd connect them to concurrent stories surrounding the area of Canaan, with helpings of Ugaritic origins.

Mark S Smith in "The Early History of God", page 8 notes the Hebrew text as ‘el’elohim yhwh ‘el’elohim yhwh or God of gods is "yhwh" God of gods is "yhwh". Confusing as that sounds, it means that God was the head of a plurality. Smith argues for the development of the Hebrew concepts, from the Canaanite, perhaps from the period of Iron Age 1, as shown from the Ugaritic corpus, imposing themselves on the cult of Yahweh (Intr., p. xxvii). He argues that some practices, regarded as syncretic, belong to Israel’s ancient religious heritage (ibid., p. xxxi), perhaps also from the Canaanite linguistic base which is essentially the same language as Hebrew.

The "great Assembly of the Mighty" referred to in Psalm 82:1 appears at Ugarit in the form of "adatu 'Ili-ma" meaning "Council of El." The "stars of God" in Isaiah14:13 is found on an inscription from Pygi, 'kokabe El' meaning "the stars of El" and refers to the northern or circumpolar stars. There are a group of epithets of Yahweh that are most appropriate for the Canaanite El.

Recent expansion of knowledge on Canaanite and Amorite religion connects certain names with El. 'El-Olam' of Genesis 21:33 means "the God of eternity" or "ancient one." In Ugarit and the Punic world, El is the "old one" or "ancient one" par excellence: "he of the graybeard, he of eternal wisdom" (Cross p. 50). In Ugaritica V, melek olam "eternal king" is similar to the liturgical name 'malku abu shamina' "King, father of years." This is reminiscent of the Biblical 'el gibbor abi ad' "El the warrior, eternal Father", Isa 9:6 & 40:28, and of the "Ancient of Days", Dan 7:9. 'El-elyon "El, the highest one", Genesis 14:18, is found in the Sefire I inscription as a pair, 'el u elyn' "El and Elyon", who come after the tutelary gods immediately before the great natural pairs that summarize the old powers of the cosmos. This is obvious to scholars to not be a pair-but rather could be a double name of a single god as often is the case at Ugarit. "Elyon" could have been an early epithet of El splitting apart in a separate cult and hence taken as a separate deity (Cross p. 5 1). A more frequent epithet mentioned in the Bible yet more enigmatic, 'El-Shaday' "God Almighty", is the primary designation of the Patriarchal deity in the Priestly tradition. 'Shaday' could be the Hebrew shdy/shdh "field". According to Ugaritic evidence, 'tdy' meant "mountain" as distinguished 'shd, "field". The meaning of 'shaday' as "One of the Mountain" is only secondary from the word's early primitive meaning of 'tdu/tdy, which obviously means "breast": Heb. Shadayirn "breasts". This liturgical name is precisely paralleled by the epithet of El in a Hurrian hymn, 'El-paban-hi-wi-ni' "El, the one of the mountain" (Cross p.56).

The Hebrew scriptures are not at all unique, as they are claimed to be, but are, more or less, copies of the Ugaritic religious scriptures found at Ras Shamra (1928). (Cross, "Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic").

Thus how much chronological data would depend upon how long they could remember these stories, (story-telling abilities at this time was excellent at this time, however), whether or not the story-teller would be inclined to change the story, (The Hyksos versus the Exodus), and whether or not there was a historical basis for the story in the first place. The earliest written record of Hebrew is the so-called Gezer Calendar, generally dated to the late 11th or early 10th century BC, though the familiar Hebrew alphabet was not invented until quite a bit later, around 8th century B.C.E. The Gezer calendar has four months from Canaanite names, while seven are from Babylonian.

Generally, I believe the minimalists when it comes to the larger stories, (the wandering about in Exodus, for instance. Sorry, but 3 million people wandering around in a desert for 80, (not forty, 40 years to get to Canaan, then another 40 years wandering around while everyone died off who disbelieved in the conquest of Canaan), would leave massive archeological data to support the idea. However, there are smaller stories which don't have any need for the Hebrews to lie about, and it's strange to think that the Hebrew stories would lie about everything.

offa

Offa;
RyanS2, I read your profile. You say you are an Atheist/Agnostic and Satanist. Please remove Atheist because it is irrefutable. You can be Agnostic all you want but an Atheist and a Satanist is an impossible mix.

Thanks,
Offa

Marduk

Offa'
"You say you are an Atheist/Agnostic and Satanist. Please remove Atheist because it is irrefutable. You can be Agnostic all you want but an Atheist and a Satanist is an impossible mix."

Not many Satanists actually worship the Christian antagonist 'The Devil' They are more often than not atheists poking fun at Christian ritual, eg. Alsteir Crowley, 'The Luciferians' etc. In the 17 & 1800's these groups would gather in clubs or 'Rakes' and party hearty.

RyanS2, I have the 'Hebrew Epic & Caananite Myth" book but haven't had time to read it yet. You're right about the larger issues like the Exodus though.
Tonight on the History Channel from 8-11 "Who Wrote the Bible"

[ January 01, 2002: Message edited by: marduck ]</p>

RyanS2

Please visit the following webpages:

<a href="http://www.martialartsreview.com/history.html" target="_blank">http://www.martialartsreview.com/history.html</a>

Then visit:

<a href="http://www.satan4u.8m.com/satanism.html" target="_blank">http://www.satan4u.8m.com/satanism.html</a>

Very enlightening to what the Satanist believes and thinks about metaphysical concepts, (God, the Devil, Demons, etc.)

"Not many Satanists actually worship the Christian antagonist 'The Devil' They are more often than not atheists poking fun at Christian ritual, eg. Alsteir Crowley, 'The Luciferians' etc. In the 17 & 1800's these groups would gather in clubs or 'Rakes' and party hearty."

Very astute observation. Nice to know that being a member of one of the most maligned religions in the World, (next to the Yezidi perhaps), has some people who know the truth about us. There are "Theistic" Satanists, but they resemble the "Blind Watchmaker" God, or the Kaballah God, (infinite and unknowable, and they don't actually worship whatever God this is. I'm an atheist because no, I don't believe in God, yes, I do say that there's a chance he could exist, (there could be a green bogey man eating my socks in the laundry too), so that makes me agnostic, and I like to perform human sacrifices, kidnap children, run across flames, resurrect dead beings, and give advice on Mrs. Cleo's hotline, (does sarcasm come out in print?), so that makes me a Satanist.

"RyanS2, I have the 'Hebrew Epic & Caananite Myth" book but haven't had time to read it yet. You're right about the larger issues like the Exodus though."

I think though that many of the finds are correct, particularly because of how close linguistically and culturally the Hebrews are to the indigenous people of that area. If you don't know Hebrew, the references to Hebrew language are going to get somewhat annoying, (like reading Jung's book referring to Latin and Greek phrases regularly), but otherwise an interesting look at the origins and development of Judaism. I'd also recommend Theodore Reik's "Pagan Rites in Judaism", but it's hard to get.

offa

Offa;
Let me reiterate. An atheist and a satanist is an impossible mix. Either you are an atheist or you are not an atheist. BTW, Atheist/Agnostic is an impossible mix ... can't be both.

thanks,
Offa