Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Laziness

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Post Reply
Stephan Huller
Posts: 3009
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Lazi

Post by Stephan Huller »

Another source:
The Rabbinic exegetes also sensed the conflict between Exod. 19: 20 and 20: 22 and attempted to reconcile them in various ways. Thus, for example, in the Mekilta of Rabbi Ishmael: 'One passage says: "That I have talked with you from heaven" and another passage says: "And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai." The matter is decided by the third passage: “Out of heaven He made thee to hear His voice, that He might instruct thee; and upon the earth he made thee to see his fire (Ishu) great." (Deut 4:26) These are the words of R. Ishmael. R. Akiba says: "Scripture teaches us that the Holy One, blessed be He, lowered the upper heavens of heaven down to the top of the mountain and thus actually still spoke to them from the heavens."
The point of course is that the Mekilta is clearly slanted toward the compromise position of Akiba which is by its very nature monarchian and thus is virtually identical with the interpretation of Irenaeus - namely that one power is present in both heaven and earth. But the facts are (and I am sure the Sadducees would have noted this) the analysis curtails Deuteronomy 4:36 for it reads:
'Out of heaven He made thee to hear His voice, that He might instruct thee: and upon the earth he made thee to see His great fire and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire.'
In other words the juxtaposition isn't between a voice in heaven and a 'presence' in the fire but voices coming from two different places clearly denoting two separate powers - one in heaven and the other on earth. This seems also to have been emphasized in Marcionite variants in the gospel where 'the Father' is 'Lord of heaven' rather than 'Lord of heaven and earth.'
User avatar
spin
Posts: 2146
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:44 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Lazi

Post by spin »

It's so al dente, Stephan, it's pasta cruda.
Dysexlia lures • ⅔ of what we see is behind our eyes
Stephan Huller
Posts: 3009
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Lazi

Post by Stephan Huller »

Better than your shitty old noodles :scratch:
Stephan Huller
Posts: 3009
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Lazi

Post by Stephan Huller »

Getting back to Judaism as the original source for the Christian myth, as I mentioned in the commentary earlier the Mekhilta pretends it has two 'solutions' to the depiction of two powers - the first allegedly from Ishmael, the second from Akiva. However these 'solutions' are pathetic attempts to gloss over the original interpretation - viz. Ishu on earth, God in heaven. That this tradition also survived down through the ages is plain from many early commentators including:

"From the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; on earth He let you see His great fire" (Deut 4:36) His Glory was in heaven, but His fire (Ishu) and His power were on earth. — Rashi

"The Lord said to Moses: Thus shall you say to the Israelites" — in the holy tongue [Hebrew]. "Thus" — concerning the following matters; "thus" — in the following order; "thus" — in the following verses; "thus" — in the following chapters. [In other words] "just as the Lord commanded [him]" (Exodus 40:16) neither more nor less. "You yourselves saw" — You did not hear it second hand or read it in books — "that I spoke to you from the very heavens." We have here two verses that seem to contradict one another. One says, "The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai" (Exod. 19:20), and the other says, "You yourselves saw that I spoke to you from the very heavens." How can it say "[The Lord] came down" when it also says "I spoke to you from the very heavens." How can it say "[The Lord] came down" when it also says "I spoke to you from the very heavens"? The difficulty is resolved by the verse, "From the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; on earth He let you see His great fire" (Deut. 4:36). This teaches us that the Omnipresent, blessed be He, inclined the highest heaven down to the top of the mountain and spoke to them from that heaven, which rested on the top of the mountain. Thus scripture says, "He bent the sky and came down, thick cloud beneath His feet" (Ps. 18:10). Mekhilta de Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai

"The Lord said to Moses: Thus shall you say" — "in the holy tongue [and] just as I dictate to you" — so the Mekhilta teaches us. It would seem that the blessed Lord insisted on the use of certain words and no others, for these words had a special significance and could yield multiple interpretations. For example, the words "With Me (iti) . . . you shall not make [any gods of silver] (Exod 20:20) re interpreted by our Rabbis, may their memory be a blessing, as "You shall not make Me (oti) [into gods of silver]"; and had a different word been used, one that [did not yield these two readings* but] could only mean "with," there would be no room for the other interpretation. And there are many other examples.

"That I spoke to you from the very heavens" — One verse says, " from the very heavens," while another says, "The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai" (Exod. 19:20). To resolve the difficulty, a third verse is brought: "From the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; on earth He let you see His great fire; [and from amidst that fire you heard His words]" (Deut. 4:36). But does this really resolve the difficulty? One could raise the same question concerning this third verse, which seems internally contradictory. First it says, "From the heavens He let you hear [His voice]," and then it says, "From amidst that fire you heard His words," [the fire] that had appeared on earth! Thus the difficulty remains. - Rabbi Moshe Lejara, Lekah Tov

The point of course is that the Mekhilta were echoing and manipulating things said by the two powers tradition. The proper interpretation - the plain meaning of the text - is that there was a power like Jesus and a power like his Father in heaven.
Stephan Huller
Posts: 3009
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Lazi

Post by Stephan Huller »

For the lazy fucks at the forum who have no desire to read some of the sources or any of the context I am referencing in this thread you can just sit looking at a screen while an evangelical speaker gives you some context here http://www.twopowersinheaven.com/2power ... layer.html
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Lazi

Post by neilgodfrey »

Irregular verb: "you are lazy; I am busy".

The video misleadingly suggests its message is endorsed by Segal. It's not. Segal identified the two powers controversy discussed among the rabbis with the Christianity of the second century Church Fathers -- as distinct from first century Christianity. Segal did admit to some strands of first century Christianity being related to the two-powers idea but that's all.

There are other works I am sure people are more familiar with making your point: Margaret Barker for one.

Lots of studies in Judaism address this sort of thing, the origins of merkabah mysticism, Jewish gnosticism, and I've addressed it in some detail elsewhere -- tracing its evolution from Ezekiel onwards.

But the two powers tradition is related to these earlier ideas but is not always identical to it.
vridar.org Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Stephan Huller
Posts: 3009
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Lazi

Post by Stephan Huller »

I am desperately trying to get one person to seriously consider that the most likely 'mythical' possibility to explain Jesus as a god is that he was the angel in the fire (אִשּׁ֣וֹ = Ishu). I am quite confident that Apelles speaks of 'the fiery angel' or Justin Martyr identifies Jesus as being in the fire at Sinai or in the wilderness we are referencing the same tradition. The fact that the other video was developed by white evangelicals doesn't concern me. If at least one person takes this seriously I will be quite happy. Now to continue our examination of אִשּׁ֣וֹ as a divine hypostasis like Jesus we turn to the anonymous text entitled Pesaq ha-Yira'ah veha-Emunah, “A Decision Concerning the Fear of God and Faith,” which is one of the earliest exoteric medieval statements in which the concept of the multilayered divine world is used for instruction. It was probably written in the 11th - 13th century. Note how close the figure of Ishu resembles Jesus, even as let as Irenaeus's explanation of the fourfold nature of the gospel:
But all the written (= biblical) metaphors like 'Let us make a man' etc., as I interpreted it. refer to his Greatness which is his Kingdom which is in the East, and also the measurement of the height of Rabbi Ishmael refers to that Greatness and Kingdom of His. And it is called the Special Cherub, which is emanated from His great fire, which is a fire which consumes fire. You know that, for He touched them with His little finger and the angels that were created of the fire were burned up when they said, “What is man that thou art mindful of him”; so there is a fire that consumes fire, that is Him and His holiness and His Glory. And from that great fire He emanated and created the Unique Cherub, and not from the same fire from which the angels and the Serafim and the celestial Beasts and the er'elim and the Cherubim and all the hosts of the supreme world were created. And also all the heavens and the heavens of heavens which are nine were created from that fire which He derived from the water, from the third part, as it said, 'and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure.'' And that Unique Cherub was created from His great fire which He emanated from His Holiness and not from the fire from which the celestial hosts were created, so that his station will not be comparable to theirs.

For him [= the unique cherub] He created an image and a form and a human form, and eyes, and hands and from his hips upward (Ezek. 1:27), and on his forehead it is engraved Yah Akhatriel, and phylacteries on his head, and it is written who like your people Israel one nation on earth (2 Sam. 7:23), and he has the shiur komah of Rabbi Ishamel, and in his image man was created, and he sits on the throne of glory, and he is above all the proud ones, which are the four kings of earth, eagle, lion, bull and Man on the four sides of the throne, to indicate that he is the king above all the kings. And also the Cherubs below, over the ark. and the [in the Temple] and the shekhinah with them, for the unique cherub is above on the throne of glory, his greatness is not from him but from His holiness, which is in the west, and this is why there are cherubs below who serve His holiness.

The unique cherub, sitting on his throne of glory, has a pargod of colored hashmal, whose name is Ishael, and its [color] is like light blue, and this is the pargod which surrounds the throne of glory on three sides, except the west, were His holiness in the west shines over His greatness in the east over the throne of glory. This is [the meaning of] blessed is the glory of God, the glory of God is His holiness, from his place (Ezek. 3:12), he goes and shines over His greatness and His kingdom. And to this glory we say the blessing: Blessed is the glory of God from his place.

And that kingdom of His, which is His holiness, is called in the Sefer Yezira the world of the modi, and it is one of the four worlds which are ten sefirot: The world of the Modi, the world of Ravrevanut, the world of Mada and the world of the Nefesh. And the meaning of Modi is from the word praise, for God has created that Special Cherub as a fixed place enabling all the celestial princes to praise and worship their Creator.

His greatness is elevated over all the peoples and is uplifted. 'Uplifted' includes the letters of the word 'he is not' irxp - X1Mi, in order to say that His Holiness does not have any form or image. This is why the triple blessing is concluded by 'the holy God' and not 'the great God', as has been explained, because it is wrong to say a blessing or to intend, in every ritual of the Creator, only to His holiness which is without form or image. "For thou art a great and holy king," "great" is His greatness and His kingdom and it is the unique cherub, and "holy" is His holiness in the west, and this is our faith. This is [the meaning] of what we say [in prayer] "and the holy beasts will sing," etc., the face of every beast and ophan and cherub, to the cherub, that is, to the unique cherub that is the world of modi, “they turn their faces and bow.”
Which mythical conception better explains the Jesus of the gospel who comes down from heaven to a Jewish house of worship says he can spread fire on the earth and is identified in all early literary sources after the gospel as existing in a similar context (heavenly throne etc.)? This is the most likely cultural context for the development of the 'Christian myth.' Nothing else even comes close.
Stephan Huller
Posts: 3009
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Lazi

Post by Stephan Huller »

And notice the name of the being is transcribed as 'Ishael.' Looking at the Hebrew text I see it is אּישׁאֵל This literally translates to "man-God' or 'God man.' It confirms also that אִשּׁ֣וֹ is taken in the text to mean both 'fire' and 'man' and is the basis to my own understanding of 'Jesus' as originating from the concept of 'His Man.' The being here is the heavenly man of other (gnostic) systems.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Lazi

Post by neilgodfrey »

You are using a medieval text as evidence for Christian origins?

No wonder you find the rest of us frustrating.
vridar.org Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Stephan Huller
Posts: 3009
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: Is the Rejection of Jewish Origin for Xristianity = Lazi

Post by Stephan Huller »

No I find you frustrating because you pretend the reason you don't want to read Jewish sources has something to do with the lateness of the manuscripts.

Surely when my friend Benny Tsedaka the Samaritan comes to see me on November you wouldn't suggest that his Samaritan tradition is only as old as earliest surviving Samaritan manuscripts or that the ideas in the thirteenth century manuscripts of Josephus are only as old as the oldest manuscripts (there are people at the forum who do suggest that).

We have rabbinic traditions in the name of first and second century teachers which focus on the obvious 'challenge' to monotheism witnessed in Deuteronomy where it says God voice was heard in heaven (= implying the being making a sound was not on the earth) and another divine presence was seen and heard in the fire on the earth. The text I cited you was only a further development of ideas associated with the two powers tradition, Rashi and other earlier sources. The point was to draw attention to the idea that Ishu and Ish-el (i.e. the idea that a fire/man being conversed with Moses who wasn't God in heaven) spring up all the time in the course of Jewish history because the text of Deuteronomy suggests it.

Surely the text of Deuteronomy isn't too late for you to consider seriously as a source for 'Jesus the God.'
Post Reply