Loaves and Fishes

[neilgodfrey]

I was not talking about the social contract when mentioning parallels. I should have separated the paragraphs. I simply used social contract to mean a requirement for rule by consent, as seen in Biblical ideas such as covenant and discussed in Plato’s Republic. Amos and the other prophets are full of ideas about social consent, with their critique of the broad negative consequences of injustice. Similarly, the Sermon on the Mount raises the problem of consent and of absence of a proper social contract, for example with the statement by Christ that people are blessed when they are persecuted for his sake. To imply that there was no consent in politics before the Scientific Enlightenment, which seems to be the gist of the attack on this point, appears odd to say the least.

I would be very surprised if you found a single text, a single scholarly work on imperial/monarchical government structures of the ancient Near East at all, that were based on any notion of "social contract". It's simply not the way ancients understood imperial power. The God of the OT is very much a despot like any other worldly king, commanding "love and obedience" from his subordinates, offering them protection in return like any Godfather. This is all pretty standard stuff. Noncontroversial. The Roman system and the New Testament views of authority are no different. They are products of their time. They can be nothing else. They model their kingdom of God on what they took for granted among kingdoms of their own day. Monarchs presented themselves as saviours who debased the unjust and proud and exalted the lowly -- that was all standard propaganda of those eras.

The parallels I am claiming as regards the loaves and fishes miracle are between what the writers observed and what they said. What is so difficult to see in that? They observed the sky, with longstanding connections to astronomical traditions of veneration of the sky in Babylon and Egypt, and used these observations to construct the theory of Jesus Christ as Alpha and Omega, Avatar of the Age of Pisces. There is no “mania”, to use your delightful term redolent of accusations of insanity, in this scientific hypothesis. Nor is there any pareidolia, the imagination of non-existent connections. The connections are all already there implicit in the cosmology of the Gospels. The loaves and fishes actually formed the new visible axis of the seasons, in a way that ancients had seen and measured for a long time before the Gospels were written. This observation can be understood as informing the miracle story against an accurate theory of time.

Geeze I get tired of your constant accusations of persecuting you or accusing of things I never do. Where does this "accusation of insanity" come from? I have made very clear exactly where the term parallelomania comes from. I have never interpreted it in terms of "insanity" when scholars have used it as a criticism or warning. This is as poor as you once suggesting I'm calling you a sodomite. Get real and get off the victimhood thing.

Of course your argument is parallelomania according to Sandmel's defintion. You do not follow the controls built in to the "hypothetico-deductive" model you say you use. You skip a key step. You never replied when I pointed that out to you before more than once. You do not use the controls or methods Sandmel says protect an argument from parallelomania. You begin with your assumptions and read them into the data and then call them conclusions.

I have used this thread to comment on the verses in the Gospel of Mark that discuss the loaves and fishes miracle. Neil Godfrey has responded with vague accusations of methodological error, while never engaging on detail to explore how the method I am suggesting could be valid.

I have made very specific points about your methodological errors. I have reached the stage where I don't bother to repeat it all in detail because you have always ignored my point. You do not engage in the sort of close verbal and structural analyses required to avoid the trap of parallelomania and you do not follow the step of testing (to see if you can disprove) your hypotheses. You fall into the fallacy of piling up proof after proof after proof for a hypothesis as if oblivious to the nature of scientific method. But I think sometimes you reject the true scientific method because you sometimes imply Popperism means relativism?? I stand to be corrected.

Most analysis of the Bible assumes the existence of a Historical Jesus, and I have argued that this assumption lacks evidence, and that the data can be explained better against an imaginary cosmic Jesus. I have not said that Midrashic analysis is false, but rather that it can readily be accommodated within the broader context of a cosmology. And as you agreed, if I recall correctly, Midrashic analysis mainly concerns the sourcing of language, and has little to say about intent and purpose. It seems to me that your implied rules of method largely exclude discussion of why the writers used the images they did.

This is a waste of time. I have pointed out repeatedly that certain methods of analysis of the NT are valid and whether or not scholars believe on other grounds that there was an HJ is irrelevant to those methods. But you ignore that point -- just keep repeating your mantra. As for intent and purpose, I don't there is much that can be and that is clearly said about that as a result of literary analysis. You simply reject it. Most books on midrashic and similar types of literary-critical analysis make the immediate purposes or intentions pretty clear. And they are grounded in evidence based on close and detailed studies of literary structures and concepts and semantics.

You have done nothing to advance either the Caesar Theory, or the Historical Jesus theory, or the traditional theory that the miracles show God can break the laws of physics. You have done nothing to explain why a Midrashic analysis is incompatible with my close textual analysis of the cosmic intent in the loaves and fishes story. So your assertion that I refuse to consider alternatives is a clanging gong, noisy but empty. You have not proposed any alternatives.

Well I don't advance any of those theories so you'll have to excuse me for not doing anything to support them. What's your point?

And right you are. I cannot demonstrate that a midrashic analysis is incompatible with your analysis (though it is far from a "textual analysis" if by textual analysis we mean anything approaching the detail used by comparative literary critics) -- and that's because I can't demonstrate it is incompatible with the Jesus is Caesar theory, either.

And that's the point.

There is no criterion to decide between one hypothesis based on an extravagance of a grab-bag of parallels and another. I demonstrated how your method can apply astrotheology to Casey's book. That demonstrates the invalidity of the method, surely.

[Robert Tulip]

I cannot demonstrate that a midrashic analysis is ... incompatible with the Jesus is Caesar theory.

That is a piece of rhetorical exuberance, to put it kindly, that shows why your contributions in this thread are largely useless except as false statements that deserve correction. I suppose it is unsurprising, since you dismiss http://vridar.org/2013/10/12/so-this-wa ... will-week/ the widespread derision of Atwill as mere personal abuse and careerism on the part of those who are dismayed at how factually wrong he is.

The idea that the Gospels were written by or for the Flavians is incompatible with the scholarly understanding of how the authors used the Old Testament. That is simply not the case for anything I have written. The only good thing I can see in the Caesar Christ theory is its recognition that traditional interpretation is superficial and conceals a deeper meaning. But Atwill gets the content of that deeper meaning entirely wrong.

Robert Price's review of Caesar's Messiah by Joseph Atwill demonstrates Atwill’s glaring incompatibility with evidence. Price calls Atwill’s interpretations perverse and gratuitous. Only Atwill’s utterly selective reading can construct the semi-plausible theory of what Price summarises as “a Flavian Pentateuch, read intertextually, to disclose a series of cruel jokes and parodies. “

No such incompatibility with evidence has been advanced regarding my claim that the Gospels arose from a Gnostic cosmology. So the comparison Neil makes between astrotheology and the Flavian hoax conspiracy is utterly vacuous. Atwill has proved unable to explain core ethical and intentional content in the Gospels. I am very happy to explore the entire New Testament against an allegorical cosmic interpretation, in order to show how the explanation of Gnosticism as the origin of Orthodoxy provides a compelling and comprehensive heuristic.

Here are some interesting comments from Price’s review of Atwill: “Only the most obtuse reader, the most tin-eared, can possibly fail to appreciate the sublime quality of so much of the New Testament (agree or disagree with it), which is necessary to do if one is to dismiss the whole thing as an elaborate joke on the reader. Rather, the joke is on Atwill, whose great learning has apparently driven him mad. Just think of someone advancing the same theory about, say, the Buddhist scriptures. The worst of them are far too tedious and turgid to have been composed to fill out a hoax (who would have gone to the trouble?), while the more readable and winsome (like the Dhammapada) are filled with a wisdom beyond the reach of a worldly-minded scoffer. As to Jesus’ teachings, Atwill declares that “those who see spiritual meaning in his words are being played for a fool” (p. 234). Such a statement is only a damning self-condemnation, revealing the author’s own absolute inability to appreciate what he is reading. This is why one must not throw one’s pearls before swine.”

Looking at how similar criticism would be readily answered by an astral reading, we see that placing the Bible texts within the scientific context of ancient cosmology actually deepens their sublime quality and spiritual meaning, as a way to engage in dialogue with theology. This failure of engagement is a theme that Price identifies as a key deficiency in Atwill. But Atwill is playing to an ignorant atheist audience who can accept a simplistic reason to dismiss Christianity. My goal, in contrast, is to show how Christianity can be reformed and redeemed through the logical scientific analysis of its origins.

[neilgodfrey]

I cannot demonstrate that a midrashic analysis is ... incompatible with the Jesus is Caesar theory.

That is a piece of rhetorical exuberance, to put it kindly, that shows why your contributions in this thread are largely useless except as false statements that deserve correction. I suppose it is unsurprising, since you dismiss http://vridar.org/2013/10/12/so-this-wa ... will-week/ the widespread derision of Atwill as mere personal abuse and careerism on the part of those who are dismayed at how factually wrong he is.

Robert, I hear it takes fewer muscles to be nice than to always respond with such bad temper. Do try it. It might even make you pleasant company.

I did not think my statement would be contested. It's a matter of simple logic. The Caesar theory have pointed to "compatibilities" (I interpret these as "parallels") and I cannot deny those. What I can't do is demonstrate that real conceptual parallels are not real conceptual parallels. What I can do is dispute the interpretation or explanation of those parallels. I've made that point over and over. I don't think you've ever grasped it.

The idea that the Gospels were written by or for the Flavians is incompatible with the scholarly understanding of how the authors used the Old Testament. That is simply not the case for anything I have written. The only good thing I can see in the Caesar Christ theory is its recognition that traditional interpretation is superficial and conceals a deeper meaning. But Atwill gets the content of that deeper meaning entirely wrong.

This is all your opinion -- except for the bit about "scholarly understanding of how the authors used the OT. But scholars don't agree with your explanations either.

Robert Price's review of Caesar's Messiah by Joseph Atwill demonstrates Atwill’s glaring incompatibility with evidence. Price calls Atwill’s interpretations perverse and gratuitous. Only Atwill’s utterly selective reading can construct the semi-plausible theory of what Price summarises as “a Flavian Pentateuch, read intertextually, to disclose a series of cruel jokes and parodies. “

I didn't know we were talking about Atwill. I thought the comparison in this thread was with Carotta's "structural" and other parallels as presented here.

No such incompatibility with evidence has been advanced regarding my claim that the Gospels arose from a Gnostic cosmology. So the comparison Neil makes between astrotheology and the Flavian hoax conspiracy is utterly vacuous. Atwill has proved unable to explain core ethical and intentional content in the Gospels. I am very happy to explore the entire New Testament against an allegorical cosmic interpretation, in order to show how the explanation of Gnosticism as the origin of Orthodoxy provides a compelling and comprehensive heuristic.

Does Carotta speak of a Flavian hoax? I was only addressing what I have read in this thread. I assumed you were following it.

No, I can't give you "incompatiblities" once you've spotted something you interpret as compatible. That's taken for granted. It's the interpretation and significance of what you see as the parallels or compatibilities that I am trying to address. I have made that point so many times, Robert. You simply ignore it.

Here are some interesting comments from Price’s review of Atwill: “Only the most obtuse reader, the most tin-eared, can possibly fail to appreciate the sublime quality of so much of the New Testament (agree or disagree with it), which is necessary to do if one is to dismiss the whole thing as an elaborate joke on the reader. Rather, the joke is on Atwill, whose great learning has apparently driven him mad. Just think of someone advancing the same theory about, say, the Buddhist scriptures. The worst of them are far too tedious and turgid to have been composed to fill out a hoax (who would have gone to the trouble?), while the more readable and winsome (like the Dhammapada) are filled with a wisdom beyond the reach of a worldly-minded scoffer. As to Jesus’ teachings, Atwill declares that “those who see spiritual meaning in his words are being played for a fool” (p. 234). Such a statement is only a damning self-condemnation, revealing the author’s own absolute inability to appreciate what he is reading. This is why one must not throw one’s pearls before swine.”

That's nice. What does it have to do with anything I have raised?

Looking at how similar criticism would be readily answered by an astral reading, we see that placing the Bible texts within the scientific context of ancient cosmology actually deepens their sublime quality and spiritual meaning, as a way to engage in dialogue with theology. This failure of engagement is a theme that Price identifies as a key deficiency in Atwill. But Atwill is playing to an ignorant atheist audience who can accept a simplistic reason to dismiss Christianity. My goal, in contrast, is to show how Christianity can be reformed and redeemed through the logical scientific analysis of its origins.

Again, you have completely sidestepped my criticisms. You completely sidestep the criticisms I have made of your logic. Again and again and again.

I wonder if you could even outline what my criticisms actually are and identify why you think I don't agree with your perspective. I would be interested to know if you could do this so as to assure me that you are understanding anything I am arguing here.

[neilgodfrey]

Let me try to get my point across with a mini-illustration:

Crowds sit down in companies on green grass to be fed in the wilderness.

That can be compared with constellations and stars and things; it can also be compared with OT passages about Israelites in the Exodus narrative and Psalms.

How do I decide which is the more likely to have been in the author's mind?

Let's keep it simple. How would you justify one interpretation over the other? I would look at the larger contextual structure of the original passage; I would then see if it could be identified with the same structures in literature known to be known to the author; I would see if it could be matched in specific words and meanings with those same literatures; I would see if it was compatible with the larger message of the entire book and and with what we know of similar books from that cultural subset. All of these comparisons are with tangible, real sources that we have before us and can test. This is the beginning of what I would do. What would you do?

[pakeha]

Hi, Robert.
I've read through the thread and was struck by one thing, for the moment.

...In considering the astral symbolism of the loaves and fishes , the blood moon total eclipse on Tuesday night will be in the exact same area in the sky, at the foot of the woman, as the Passover Blood Moon seen in Jerusalem on 23 March 4 BC, and the Blood Moon seen by Hipparchus on 21 March 134 BC. So the Sun-Moon syzygy this week is on the loaves-fishes axis. Its occurrence next to Spica in Virgo, as a visible sign of when the moon is exactly opposite the sun, illustrates how far the equinoxes have precessed since the time of Hipparchus and Christ.

This lunar eclipse provides a helpful way to interpret Galatians 4:4 and Revelation 12:1. The crowds in Jerusalem for Passover could see that the moon was not where tradition since Moses said it should be, in Libra, but in Virgo, at the foot of the woman. ...

You do realise this blood moon won't be visible from Jerusalem, don't you?
"Europe, Africa, and central Asia, meanwhile, will miss the entire eclipse because it will be daytime in those regions at the time of the event."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ing-guide/

And another question: what is the Mithraic Sphinx? Is the one mentioned by Raffaele Pettazzoni in her "Essays on the History of Religion"?

[Thor]

You do realise this blood moon won't be visible from Jerusalem, don't you?
"Europe, Africa, and central Asia, meanwhile, will miss the entire eclipse because it will be daytime in those regions at the time of the event."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ing-guide/

And another question: what is the Mithraic Sphinx? Is the one mentioned by Raffaele Pettazzoni in her "Essays on the History of Religion"?

The article you refer to talks about a lunar eclipse in our present time, and visibility relates obviously accordingly. Basic astronomical knowledge will possibly help with comprehending present observations as irrelevant. According to Kepler's equations mentioned event was visible from Jerusalem at April 3, 33 AD, to give one example.

I am not saying I support Roberts interpretation. But even if I find his interpretation weak, I see no reason to reject facts being source to Roberts interpretation. One can disagree with interpretation about events like winter solstice, but not disagree with the real astronomical event. Such would be either ignorant or dishonest.

[Robert Tulip]

Hi, Robert.
I've read through the thread and was struck by one thing, for the moment.

...In considering the astral symbolism of the loaves and fishes , the blood moon total eclipse on Tuesday night will be in the exact same area in the sky, at the foot of the woman, as the Passover Blood Moon seen in Jerusalem on 23 March 4 BC, and the Blood Moon seen by Hipparchus on 21 March 134 BC. So the Sun-Moon syzygy this week is on the loaves-fishes axis. Its occurrence next to Spica in Virgo, as a visible sign of when the moon is exactly opposite the sun, illustrates how far the equinoxes have precessed since the time of Hipparchus and Christ.

This lunar eclipse provides a helpful way to interpret Galatians 4:4 and Revelation 12:1. The crowds in Jerusalem for Passover could see that the moon was not where tradition since Moses said it should be, in Libra, but in Virgo, at the foot of the woman. ...

You do realise this blood moon won't be visible from Jerusalem, don't you?

Yes, I meant what you quoted regarding my mention of the Jerusalem Passover eclipse in 4 BC in referring to Jerusalem. Some information is here and here.

what is the Mithraic Sphinx?

I used the term sphinx as a generic for the man-lion combo, but properly the sphinx is the other way round, with man's head and lion body. The God Aion is what I meant


Aion and the Sphinx are the equivalents of the loaves and fishes symbols for the Age of Aquarius-Leo.

[neilgodfrey]

That is a piece of rhetorical exuberance, to put it kindly, that shows why your contributions in this thread are largely useless except as false statements that deserve correction. I suppose it is unsurprising, since you dismiss http://vridar.org/2013/10/12/so-this-wa ... will-week/ the widespread derision of Atwill as mere personal abuse and careerism on the part of those who are dismayed at how factually wrong he is.

I overlooked this earlier, Robert. I wish to point out that you have unfortunately misread -- and badly -- my post (once again).

If you care to have another look at that post you will see that what I am abhorring is personal attack per se. I am not addressing Atwill's arguments. I consider Atwill's arguments to be logically fallacious for the same reasons yours are. I am deploring personal attack.

You seem to be objecting to my objection to personal attacks upon Atwill.

You seem to be suggesting that personal attack is permissible if it is combined with attacks on a person's arguments. You seem to be suggesting that you know Atwill's personal motives and that you are therefore entitled to insult him. I hope I have misread you.

If you recall, I have done exactly the same for D. M. Murdock. I have expressed outrage at the personal attacks to which she has been subjected -- despite my rejection of her arguments.

I would do the same for you, too, Robert.

[neilgodfrey]

I cannot demonstrate that a midrashic analysis is ... incompatible with the Jesus is Caesar theory.

That is a piece of rhetorical exuberance, to put it kindly, that shows why your contributions in this thread are largely useless except as false statements that deserve correction.

Here is what I believe to be the essence of valid and invalid parallels, Robert:

Detailed study is the criterion, and the detailed study ought to respect the context and not be limited to juxtaposing mere excerpts.

(p. 2, Sandmel)

Your interpretation of the loaves and fishes appears to be a classic instance of "juxtaposing mere excerpts" from astrotheological concepts and applying them wherever they fit to images in the narrative. Do you disagree?

If so, I believe that this is why I was able to apply the astrotheological interpretation to Casey's book. That demonstrated that it is possible to apply "mere excerpts" to almost any text one deems fit to make a case.

I do not believe, however, that I can apply key motifs and structural patterns in the narrative of Exodus/Moses and Psalm 23 to Casey's book or to very many other texts that an author did not consciously use these as a model for his work.

You have mentioned the Hypothetico-deductive method and linked, I think iirc, to the wikipedia article which lists its steps:

1. Use your experience: Consider the problem and try to make sense of it. Gather data and look for previous explanations. If this is a new problem to you, then move to step 2.

2. Form a conjecture (hypothesis): When nothing else is yet known, try to state an explanation, to someone else, or to your notebook.

3. Deduce predictions from the hypothesis: if you assume 2 is true, what consequences follow?

4. Test (or Experiment): Look for evidence (observations) that conflict with these predictions in order to disprove 2. It is a logical error to seek 3 directly as proof of 2. This formal fallacy is called affirming the consequent.

Your hypothesis fails at points 3 and 4. It fails at point 3 because your prediction is so vague and general that it can apply to any hypothesis. Your prediction, as I recall (correct me if I have misremembered) is that you will find other passages that also match the astrotheological parallels. I think any hypothesis can say it will find more stuff and be able to interpret anything else in its own parameters. That is not a specific enough prediction to be useful.

Your hypothesis fails at point 4 because you do not look for evidence or observations that conflict with your predictions. You are falling into the fallacy of confirming the consequent. Yes?

I get the impression you are not interested in studying alternative arguments and are unaware of what alternatives exist -- apparently in many instances on the basis that you think they must be wrong because they assume the existence of a historical Jesus.

Thompson does not assume the existence of the historical Jesus and has alerted us to many examples of passages in ancient Near Eastern culture that demonstrate the Biblical (New Testament) motifs are derived from this-worldly political and ethical concepts (not astrotheology): http://vridar.org/2010/05/22/jesus-a-sa ... d-babylon/

Hector Avalos does not assume the historicity of Jesus and demonstrates that the New Testament and OT injunctions to love God (Jesus) and keep his commandments and submit humbly and the promise to inherit the earth are not to be read through apologist or modern concepts of those terms, but in their original contexts they expressed "sentiments parallel to what was expected of slaves and imperial subjects" -- the only difference is that Jesus has replaced Caesar and there is a new body loyal to him, now -- but the concepts of bondage, slavery, etc are the same -- (and the earth to be inherited in the beatitude is the land of Israel.)

Thompson and Avalos together point to evidence that the NT teachings had a somewhat different and less liberating context in their original reception and are not really applicable to theologies of personal liberation in modern senses of the word.

[pakeha]

Hi, Robert.
I've read through the thread and was struck by one thing, for the moment.

...In considering the astral symbolism of the loaves and fishes , the blood moon total eclipse on Tuesday night will be in the exact same area in the sky, at the foot of the woman, as the Passover Blood Moon seen in Jerusalem on 23 March 4 BC, and the Blood Moon seen by Hipparchus on 21 March 134 BC. So the Sun-Moon syzygy this week is on the loaves-fishes axis. Its occurrence next to Spica in Virgo, as a visible sign of when the moon is exactly opposite the sun, illustrates how far the equinoxes have precessed since the time of Hipparchus and Christ.

This lunar eclipse provides a helpful way to interpret Galatians 4:4 and Revelation 12:1. The crowds in Jerusalem for Passover could see that the moon was not where tradition since Moses said it should be, in Libra, but in Virgo, at the foot of the woman. ...

You do realise this blood moon won't be visible from Jerusalem, don't you?

Yes, I meant what you quoted regarding my mention of the Jerusalem Passover eclipse in 4 BC in referring to Jerusalem. Some information is here and here.

what is the Mithraic Sphinx?

I used the term sphinx as a generic for the man-lion combo, but properly the sphinx is the other way round, with man's head and lion body. The God Aion is what I meant


Aion and the Sphinx are the equivalents of the loaves and fishes symbols for the Age of Aquarius-Leo.

Thanks for the additional information, Robert!
I found more about Aion at wiki.
Apparently there are two versions of Aion, one Hellenistic and and the other Gnostic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aion_%28deity%29
"... Franz Cumont positioned Aion as Unlimited Time (sometimes represented as the Saeculum, Cronus, or Saturn) as the god who emerged from primordial Chaos, and who in turn generated Heaven and Earth. This deity is represented as the leontocephaline, the winged lion-headed male figure whose nude torso is entwined by a serpent. He typically holds a sceptre, keys, or a thunderbolt.[8] The figure of Time "played a considerable, though to us completely obscure, role" in Mithraic theology.[9]"

Off to read more about Franz Cumont.