Carrier proposes the NT Jesus based on Philo's Jesus angel

[Secret Alias]

Great. That's all I have been asking for.

[MrMacSon]

.
Carrier writes on page 203 of On the Historicity of Jesus [OHJ]:

• "... Nearly the whole sentence in Zechariah, in the Greek translation quoted by Philo, reads (bolding in the original):
  
  • 'You shall make crowns, and set them upon the head of Jesus the son of 'Jehovah the Righteous', the high priest, and say to him, 'Thus says the almighty Lord, "Behold, the man whose name is Rising (anatole)" and he shall rise up [anatelei] from his place below and shall build the house of the Lord, and receive power, and sit and rule upon his throne'" (Zech. 6.11-13).'

I find I cannot readily explain this translation of what Carrier purports to be the Greek text, a translation which includes nothing about a priest being at the right hand of this man Rising. I have checked several standard texts of the LXX online (Swete, for example); I have checked the Bibleworks LXX; I have checked Codex Sinaiticus; so far all of them have something along the lines of "and the priest shall be at his right hand" (και εϲτε ο ϊερευϲ εκ δεξιω αυτου in Sinaiticus), clearly distinguishing the priest from Rising. Is it possible Carrier got his underlying Greek text from Aquila or Symmachus instead (I have done no checking of such alternate Greek translations)? Did he simply crib some translation of the Hebrew text and pass it off, wittingly or not, as a translation of the Greek? I am not merely imagining that he presents this translation as a translation of the Greek, am I?

Ben.

I have wondered this, too.

Carrier does not seem to reference and explain this very well.

Carrier distinguishes between a priest and a high priest ie. I think he is saying 'Rising' is a high priest' (not a priest).

[Ben C. Smith]

.
Carrier writes on page 203 of On the Historicity of Jesus [OHJ]:

• "... Nearly the whole sentence in Zechariah, in the Greek translation quoted by Philo, reads (bolding in the original):
  
  • 'You shall make crowns, and set them upon the head of Jesus the son of 'Jehovah the Righteous', the high priest, and say to him, 'Thus says the almighty Lord, "Behold, the man whose name is Rising (anatole)" and he shall rise up [anatelei] from his place below and shall build the house of the Lord, and receive power, and sit and rule upon his throne'" (Zech. 6.11-13).'

I find I cannot readily explain this translation of what Carrier purports to be the Greek text, a translation which includes nothing about a priest being at the right hand of this man Rising. I have checked several standard texts of the LXX online (Swete, for example); I have checked the Bibleworks LXX; I have checked Codex Sinaiticus; so far all of them have something along the lines of "and the priest shall be at his right hand" (και εϲτε ο ϊερευϲ εκ δεξιω αυτου in Sinaiticus), clearly distinguishing the priest from Rising. Is it possible Carrier got his underlying Greek text from Aquila or Symmachus instead (I have done no checking of such alternate Greek translations)? Did he simply crib some translation of the Hebrew text and pass it off, wittingly or not, as a translation of the Greek? I am not merely imagining that he presents this translation as a translation of the Greek, am I?

Ben.

I have wondered this, too.

Carrier does not seem to reference and explain this very well.

Carrier distinguishes between a priest and a high priest ie. I think he is saying 'Rising' is a high priest' (not a priest).

That has since become clear; it is not at all clear, I do not think, from his book, On the Historicity of Jesus, which is where Carrier gives the translation. Carrier is now in the position of reading the LXX in a way which depicts a high priest being crowned and enthroned with a (literally "the") priest at his right hand. He may or may not be able to make that sound plausible; I honestly could not care less. What does interest me is that Carrier feels no need to defend this two-priest reading in his book. Why? Because the translation he gives does not have a priest at "his" right hand. I offer it again:

You shall make crowns, and set them upon the head of Jesus the son of Jehovah the Righteous, the high priest, and say to him, 'Thus says the almighty Lord, "'Behold, the man whose name is Rising [anatole]" and he shall rise up [anatelei] from his place below and shall build the house of the Lord, and receive power, and sit and rule upon his throne' (Zech. 6.1 1-13).

What this translation, which Carrier offers as of the Greek, lacks is anything corresponding to καὶ ἔσται ὁ ἱερεὺς ἐκ δεξιῶν (and the priest shall be at his right hand). Without that clause, Carrier has no need to tell the reader what he thinks is going on with a high priest being crowned (with plural crowns, incidentally) and having a(nother) priest at his right hand. I am not sure whence Carrier got his purported translation of the Greek, but the omission saved him a step or two of explanation in his book.

Ben.

[MrMacSon]

Carrier recently gave this here

6:11 kai lêpsê argurion kai chrusion kai poiêseis stephanous kai epithêseis epi tên kefalên iêsou tou iôsedek tou hiereôs tou megalou

6:11 "and take silver and pieces of gold and make crowns and lay [them] upon the head of Joshua [the son] of Jehozadak, the high priest"


6:12 kai ereis pros auton tade legei kurios pantokratôr idou anêr anatolê onoma autô kai hupokatôthen autou anatelei kai oikodomêsei ton oikon kuriou

6:12 "and say to him this, “The Lord Creator says, ‘Behold the man: the name for him [is] Anatole, and he will rise up [= Anatelei] from below and build the house of the Lord .."


6:13 kai autov lêmpsetai aretên kai kathietai kai katarxei epi tou thronou autou kai estai ho hiereus ek dexiôn autou kai boulê eirênikê estai ana meson amphoterôn

6:13 "...'and he will obtain excellence and sit down and rule upon his throne and there will be the priest on his right and peaceful counsel will be between them both'."

[Ben C. Smith]

Carrier recently gave this here

6:11 kai lêpsê argurion kai chrusion kai poiêseis stephanous kai epithêseis epi tên kefalên iêsou tou iôsedek tou hiereôs tou megalou

6:11 "and take silver and pieces of gold and make crowns and lay [them] upon the head of Joshua [the son] of Jehozadak, the high priest"


6:12 kai ereis pros auton tade legei kurios pantokratôr idou anêr anatolê onoma autô kai hupokatôthen autou anatelei kai oikodomêsei ton oikon kuriou

6:12 "and say to him this, “The Lord Creator says, ‘Behold the man: the name for him [is] Anatole, and he will rise up [= Anatelei] from below and build the house of the Lord .."


6:13 kai autov lêmpsetai aretên kai kathietai kai katarxei epi tou thronou autou kai estai ho hiereus ek dexiôn autou kai boulê eirênikê estai ana meson amphoterôn

6:13 "...'and he will obtain excellence and sit down and rule upon his throne and there will be the priest on his right and peaceful counsel will be between them both'."

Yes, I saw that, along with a couple of other relevant statements. Hence my statement: "That has since become clear."

Ben.

[MrMacSon]

ah, ok Ben. I agree that Carrier has been 'economical' with scholarly explanation.

[Peter Kirby]

If you don't like it don't engage.

Telling people either to 'like it' or not to 'engage' is ...

.. not the case. Sigh.

When pulling a Bill Clinton, it is customary to explain (at least) what you 'really meant.'

Offering a blanket denial while not doing so makes you look incredibly lazy or disingenuous (or both).

Sighing at someone for restating what you wrote is certainly both lazy and disingenuous.

I apologize in advance if I appear to be tedious here.

[MrMacSon]

In addition to Snaith noting -

The original text mentions one crown only, made of silver and gold, and this crown is to be set on the head of the high-priest, Joshua son of Jehozadak. .... LXX has two crowns and two thrones with the priest sitting on the throne 'on his right,' but the natural meaning of the Hebrew is that Joshua is the Branch and the crown is set on his head.

- as Ben C Smith pointed out, Snaith notes on the bottom of p 245 (scroll up from the linked page) that

When verse 13 says that 'the counsel of peace shall be between them both' who are 'the both'? ... The whole section is difficult and has evidently been interpreted later differently from what was originally intended ...

[cienfuegos]

ah, ok Ben. I agree that Carrier has been 'economical' with scholarly explanation.

MrMacSon: I have long since decided that nitpicking on this site is not worth the aggravation. Carrier was clear enough in OHJ and has made this point abundantly clear again in his reply to Giuseppe. "Secret Alias" hasn't offered anything against Carrier's argument other than his own opinion that the LXX doesn't say what Carrier says it does. Carrier himself points out that the whole thing is a minor point. This reminds me of the ridiculous misunderstanding that GDon and maryhelena perpetrated here concerning the definition of the term euhemerism. Unless SecretAlias is an expert in Greek and can demonstrate how the Joshua ben Johazadek in Zech is not the crowned high priest hailed as Anatole, then it makes sense as non-Greek experts to accept the expert translation.

Carrier's translation appears to agree with this source:

http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-te ... =41&page=6:

And thou shalt take silver and gold, and make crowns, and thou shalt put [them] upon the head of Jesus the son of Josedec the high priest; 12 and thou shalt say to him, Thus saith the Lord Almighty; Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and he shall spring up from his stem, and build the house of the Lord. 13 And he shall receive power, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and there shall be a priest on his right hand, and a peaceable counsel shall be between [them] both.

Here there is a high priest and a priest. It is clear they are different (in this English translation). The man whose name is 'the Branch,' now more commonly referred to as Rises, is clearly Jesus. Carrier's point is that Philo has taken this entity, whose name is Jesus, and interpreted him as a heavenly entity and this event as occurring in heaven. It is, from there, an unlikely coincidence that the entity Philo refers to (but does not name) is Jesus, the same name given the real person from Nazareth who is hailed by later Christians as the logos.

EDIT:
Carrier's own response to the "two priests" nonsense is as succinct and accurate as needed here:
"Wow. That person doesn’t know the difference between a high priest and the priest who attends him?

That’s enough to tell you they don’t know what they are talking about."



I don't see the difficulty in this. Once again, the snarking is much ado about nothing.

Enough said here: Next point?

[Secret Alias]

"Secret Alias" hasn't offered anything against Carrier's argument other than his own opinion

I have asked for a bullet summary of the arguments in favor of Carrier's thesis and no one seems to be able to provide ANYTHING resembling a coherent argument. It is odd that so many mythicists 'know' that Carrier is 'right' about something that no other scholar has ever acknowledged who actually has expertise in the relevant things of study (i.e. Philo of Alexandria, Second temple Judaism etc) has ever acknowledged but these 'believers' can't jot down a summary of his main points.

Here's what your up against. I have corresponded with David Runia from time to time. If I sent this expert an innocent question like 'hey David what do you think about this American atheist activist scholar who says that Philo believed that Jesus was the name of the heavenly man/logos/anatole? He says that we can know that Philo believed in this 'Jesus angel' from the text of the LXX translation of Zechariah' - what do you think his response would be?

I can't believe that you people think that Richard Carrier should be preferred to ascertain what is and isn't possible with Philo of Alexandria as opposed to David Runia or many of the other scholars who have actually published papers on Philo of Alexandria and have devoted their life to the examination of his work. The twist of course is that you aren't arguing that 'the answer' is in Philo's writings at all but in the LXX of Zechariah - or at least that's what I understand you to be saying. That's why I want the bullet form explanation of the main points.

But surely you should be asking yourselves - why it is that I can't formulate a coherent response to the most basic question here - i.e. how does Carrier know what he knows? It really shouldn't take a couple of days to formulate this answer. Most scholarship builds upon what has been developed in a long chain of other scholars. I would have expected that Carrier or you could cite this or that previous study which came to similar conclusions as you have been convinced by. But clearly this is some 'massive breakthrough' in Philonic research that came to Carrier through a vision, revelation or a dream.

Fine. I will take that as a given. Carrier had an insight that no one before him who devoted their lives to studying Philo ever saw before. These sort of things happen from time to time. Well, all we are asking is for you that have been convinced by the truth of this revelation, vision or dream that came to this American activist scholar - that you spend the time to summarize its main points. I don't just do this for my own benefit or for the others in this thread who don't quite see the 'unspeakable things' that were revealed to Carrier in his ascent to the third heaven. It is also for your own edification as scholars, as members of this forum. Surely you should expect yourselves to be able to develop a rational 'point form' explanation of the great vision that Carrier received to help you in your ongoing proselytizing efforts.

It would seem however to me at least that you have not been convinced by rational argument as much as you have by the implications of what Carrier is suggesting. That is, if Jesus was really an angel known to Philo then we have uncovered a great truth - viz. that Jesus never existed - and that this truth in effect 'disproves' two thousand years of organized Christianity as some sort of fraud. Granted that this implication does follow from your premise. But surely you see that any rational person - one who isn't as swept away with the great implications of all of this if it were true - would first want to see the proof for the veracity of the original assertion - i.e. how do we know that Philo really did identify his heavenly man/Logos/anatole with the name 'Jesus'? All I am asking is for you to providee 4 or 5 bullet point sentences for what convinced you to accept Carrier's never before heard interpretation of Philo of Alexandria, the LXX of Zechariah or what ever else brought you to devote your life to the teachings of Richard Carrier.