Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
John2
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Re: Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Post by John2 »

Ethan wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2019 2:16 pm Between Judaea and Syria is Mount Carmel; this is the name both of the mountain and the Deity. They have no image of the god nor any temple; the tradition of antiquity recognises only an altar and its sacred association. (Tacitus 2.78)

This fits the God of the Torah, a jealous God, It was peculiar of him that, whereas other gods were installed in temples of stone, he dwelt in a mobile.

That (in its context) sounds like a pagan altar and priesthood to me and it was where Vespasian offered a sacrifice after his conquest of Judea.


https://books.google.com/books?id=BIljD ... n.&f=false

Herodotus 1.131
As to the customs of the Persians, I know them to be these. It is not their custom to make and set up statues and temples and altars, but those who do such things they think foolish.

This citation appears to contradict your first citation, since the former says, "the tradition of antiquity recognises only an altar and its sacred association," and it refers to Persians and not Jews.
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Re: Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Post by Ethan »

Tacitus mentions one deity, that is the definition of monotheism thus no Paganism and he also states the tradition goes back to antiquity and is the very mountain associated with Elijah.

Carmel, and the forest, belonged to the Jews. (Strabo 16.2)

Josephus Appian 2.112
A city named Dora in Phoenicia, near Mount Carmel.
Φοινίκης παρά τό Καρμήλιον όρος Δώρα πόλις
https://vivliothikiagiasmatos.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/joseph-yahuda-hebrew-is-greek.pdf
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Re: Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Post by Ethan »

The spelling is consistent with Josephus, Septuagint, Tacitus and Strabo. Κάρμηλος, perhaps κάρᾳ 'the head or top of anything, as of a mountain' and μῆλον 'apple or any tree fruit or sheep' that is consistent with the Biblical description.

1 Samuel 25:2
He was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
בגזז את־צאנו בכרמל : ἐν ποκαζειν τά κτήνη ἐν τῷ Καρμήλῳ

2 Chronicles 26:10
vine dressers in the mountains, and in Carmel: for he loved husbandry
כרמים בהרים ובכרמל : οἱ κρεμαστῆρες ἐν τῇ ὀρεινῇ καὶ ἐν τῷ Καρμήλῳ (φιλογέωργος)

Song of Solomon 7:5
Thine head upon thee is like Carmel
ראשך עליך ככרמל : κᾶρα σου ἐπὶ σὲ ὡς Κάρμηλος

Christian have unfortunately overrun and destroyed whatever was at Mount Carmel, also the pedophilia Catholic religious order was founded on Mount Carmel in the 12th century and they dedicated a female goddess called Mary to it,

The original deity was probably Ἑρμᾶς Εργάτας (Hermes).
Last edited by Ethan on Thu Oct 10, 2019 5:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Post by John2 »

Ethan wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2019 3:50 pm Tacitus mentions one deity, that is the definition of monotheism thus no Paganism and he also states the tradition goes back to antiquity and is the very mountain associated with Elijah.

Carmel, and the forest, belonged to the Jews. (Strabo 16.2)

Josephus Appian 2.112
A city named Dora in Phoenicia, near Mount Carmel.
Φοινίκης παρά τό Καρμήλιον όρος Δώρα πόλις

There were pagan monotheists.

While paganism generally implies polytheism, the primary distinction between classical pagans and Christians was not one of monotheism versus polytheism. Not all pagans were strictly polytheist. Throughout history, many of them believed in a supreme deity ...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism

And to say that "Carmel and the forest belonged to the Jews" is not the same as saying that Mount Carmel was sacred only to Jews or to Jews who worshipped God.


1 Kings 18:19-21:

"Now summon all Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel, along with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table." So Ahab summoned all the Israelites and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him. But if Baal is God, follow him."



In ancient Canaanite culture, high places were frequently considered to be sacred, and Mount Carmel appears to have been no exception; Thutmose III lists a holy headland among his Canaanite territories, and if this equates to Carmel, as Egyptologists such as Maspero believe, then it would indicate that the mountain headland was considered sacred from at least the 15th century BC. According to the Books of Kings, there was an altar to Yahweh on the mountain, which had fallen into ruin by the time of Ahab, but Elijah built a new one. Iamblichus describes Pythagoras visiting the mountain on account of its reputation for sacredness, stating that it was the most holy of all mountains, and access was forbidden to many, while Tacitus states that there was an oracle situated there, which Vespasian visited for a consultation; Tacitus states that there was an altar there, but without any image upon it, and without a temple around it.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Carmel
Pseudo-Scylax (fourth century BCE) calls Mount Carmel 'the mount and temple of Zeus,' thereby attesting to the presence of a pagan sanctuary.


https://books.google.com/books?id=YGZjD ... ns&f=false

Regarding Dora:

Dor is mentioned in the 3rd-century [CE] Mosaic of Rehob as being a place exempt from tithes, seeing that it was not settled by Jews returning from the Babylonian exile in the 4th century BCE.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dor
Last edited by John2 on Thu Oct 10, 2019 5:20 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Post by John2 »

And just so you know, this is all the time and energy I'm going to give you, Ethan. I find your way of thinking very peculiar and will leave you to it.
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Re: Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Post by Ethan »

You wrote 'Pagan Monotheist' that is an Oxymoron. Christians massacred millions of people they branded 'Pagan', they raped and mutilated the women and children that they branded, they burned all the books, destroyed all the native and original temples and traditions of Europe, they wiped out the entire Phoenician culture and they still, to this day, destroying everything associated with the original ancient cultures of the Levant.
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Re: Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Post by semiopen »

John2 wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2019 5:18 pm And just so you know, this is all the time and energy I'm going to give you, Ethan. I find your way of thinking very peculiar and will leave you to it.
Almost makes me want to read the posts. No doubt we are all a little peculiar here.

I'm not really a temple slut (so my knowledge is not all that detailed) and thought that by the time of Yoshke, sacrifice was mostly birds. By the time of the temple's destruction in 70 CE, one has to figure the practice was ending on its own. If birds were indeed the normal offering, that makes sense because of the technical difficulties of transporting the bigger animals. Certainly temple sacrifice is not an efficient method of food distribution.

Personally, I think J2 likes the good old temple stuff because it is a way of formenting discord between Jews and the indigenous inhabitants of you know where. This has to be a pretty harmless place to play that game as the denizens of this site are not particularly warlike, still it is a bit distasteful to be exposed to this hate based agenda clothed in the garb of piety and false sentimentality.

Apparently the Romans ended there own sacrificial programme at around the same time. Roman sacrifice – animals and incense – Roman religion - https://quatr.us/romans/roman-sacrifice ... sacrifice.
But by around the time of the Emperor Augustus, before 100 AD, animal sacrifice had begun to seem a little old-fashioned.
Regarding the rather silly Haredi Jewish position on the temple - Qorbanot: Sacrifices and Offerings - https://www.mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/qorbanot.htm
For the most part, the practice of sacrifice stopped in the year 70 C.E., when the Roman army destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, the place where sacrifices were offered. The practice was briefly resumed during the Jewish War of 132-135 C.E., but was ended permanently after that war was lost. There were also a few communities that continued sacrifices for a while after that time.
We stopped offering sacrifices because we do not have a proper place to offer them. The Torah specifically commands us not to offer sacrifices wherever we feel like it; we are only permitted to offer sacrifices in the place that God has chosen for that purpose (Deuteronomy 12,13-14). It would be a sin to offer sacrifices in any other place.
That technical argument ("We stopped offering sacrifices because we do not have a proper place to offer them.") Is just religious bullshit. The practice stopped because it was idiotic.
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Re: Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Post by John2 »

Personally, I think J2 likes the good old temple stuff because it is a way of formenting discord between Jews and the indigenous inhabitants of you know where

Not at all. In posts I've written here and in other threads I have said that by my reading of the OT I think a tabernacle could be rebuilt and set up anywhere in Israel, and I don't think there is any need to remove any existing structures on the Temple Mount.

And regarding rebuilding a Temple on the Temple Mount, I subscribe to the idea championed by Tuvia Sagiv.


http://www.templemount.org/sagiv00.html


http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-ar ... -floor.htm
Last edited by John2 on Sat Oct 12, 2019 5:27 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Post by John2 »

Ben,

Regarding your OP, I agree that M. Eduyot 8:6 "sounds very hypothetical, and it does not demonstrate to my satisfaction that sacrifices were offered on the Temple Mount after the Temple had fallen to Titus," but it at least indicates that it was halachically permissible for Jews to offer sacrifices on the Temple Mount after 70 CE.

Magness also notes that:

Recent excavations at Shu'afat on Jerusalem's northern outskirts have brought to light a Jewish settlement that dates to the period between the two revolts (70 to 135), the first ever discovered within the city's vicinity ... The evidence of a relatively prosperous, Romanized lifestyle combined with Jewish purity observance suggests that this was a settlement of elite families including priests who remained as close as possible to Jerusalem after 70, perhaps awaiting the rebuilding of the Temple.


https://books.google.com/books?id=VecxA ... 35&f=false

Given M. Eduyot 8:6, perhaps there were priests maintaining their ritual purity who weren't only awaiting the rebuilding of the Temple but also offering sacrifices on its ruins in the meantime, but I suppose that's about all that can be said about the issue.

Regarding pseudo-Philo, the only thing that comes to mind is that the expression "even unto this day" is used fairly often in the OT and refers to the time a particular text was written. Could Pseudo-Philo simply be repeating what the OT says in his rewrite of it and not meaning it as a reference to his own time?
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Re: Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).

Post by Ben C. Smith »

John2 wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 3:44 pm Ben,

Regarding your OP, I agree that M. Eduyot 8:6 "sounds very hypothetical, and it does not demonstrate to my satisfaction that sacrifices were offered on the Temple Mount after the Temple had fallen to Titus," but it at least indicates that it was halachically permissible for Jews to offer sacrifices on the Temple Mount after 70 CE.
I agree it leaves the possibility open.
Regarding pseudo-Philo, the only thing that comes to mind is that the expression "even unto this day" is used fairly often in the OT and refers to the time a particular text was written. Could Pseudo-Philo simply be repeating what the OT says in his rewrite of it and not meaning it as a reference to his own time?
That is an interesting idea, but pseudo-Philo says that it was at Gilgal that Jesus/Joshua appointed the burnt offerings even "to this day," and I am not sure which OT instance of "to this day" this line might be rewriting. Joshua 5.9 talks about Gilgal still bearing that name "to this day," but that is a completely different thing.

Another interesting use of "unto this day" can be found elsewhere:

Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 26.15: 15 And so saying, he took the stones from the place where they were laid, and as he took them there was as it were the light of the sun poured out upon them, and the earth shone with their light. And Cenez put them in the ark of the covenant of the Lord with the tables as it was commanded him, and there they are unto this day [usque in hodiernum diem].

Taken at face value, this would suggest that the text was written before Babylon destroyed the First Temple! But M. R. James reminds us of the legend of the fate of the ark:

2 Maccabees 2.1-8: One finds in the records that Jeremiah the prophet ordered those who were being deported to take some of the fire, as has been told, 2 and that the prophet after giving them the law instructed those who were being deported not to forget the commandments of the Lord, nor to be led astray in their thoughts upon seeing the gold and silver statues and their adornment. 3 And with other similar words he exhorted them that the law should not depart from their hearts. 4 It was also in the writing that the prophet, having received an oracle, ordered that the tent and the ark should follow with him, and that he went out to the mountain where Moses had gone up and had seen the inheritance of God. 5 And Jeremiah came and found a cave, and he brought there the tent and the ark and the altar of incense, and he sealed up the entrance. 6 Some of those who followed him came up to mark the way, but could not find it. 7 When Jeremiah learned of it, he rebuked them and declared: “The place shall be unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows his mercy. 8 And then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will appear, as they were shown in the case of Moses, and as Solomon asked that the place should be specially consecrated.”

At any rate, it looks to me as if pseudo-Philo is writing his own "to this day" references and not copying them from scripture, at least not slavishly.
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