More Josephus stuff

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
Kris
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More Josephus stuff

Post by Kris »

While I was researching Josephus, the golden candlestick and the western light, I ended up on a weird Christian website that talked about the heifer giving birth to a lamb. They try to tie it to the 10th red heifer in the Talmud. I think this was just a regular cow because Josephus doesn't call it a red heifer . Is this more bunk?

This is the quote:

The evil times portends continued to demonstrate themselves to the leadership of the Jews. According to the Torah, the red heifer was to be used as a ‘purification offering’ for the congregation of Israel. There were nine red heifers that were sacrificed since the days of Aaron and Moses at Sinai up to the final destruction of the temple in 70 CE. According to the Talmud, the tenth heifer was to be sacrificed in preparation for the final temple at the time of the end in preparation for the coming of the Maschiach (Messiah). Feeling corruption all around, the priests and the temple leadership tried to force the hand of HaShem, the God of Abraham to save His temple and bring salvation to His people. Flavius Josephus recounts the scene of the high priest making a desperate attempt to prepare a red heifer to be slaughtered for the purification of the temple while the walls of the city were being surrounded by the forces of Vespasian.

Clay Earthen Vessel with all the Archeological Markings of being Used by Moses in the Wilderness Sanctuary with the Ashes of the Red Heifer – Photo by Robert Mock

Josephus – “At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple.
ficino
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Re: More Josephus stuff

Post by ficino »

Kris, can you link the website? If the website you quote is trying to pull the above description out of BJ 6.5.3 (6.292 for the cow part), yes, it is bunk. Josephus' description of the heifer passage says only this: καὶ κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ἑορτὴν βοῦς μὲν ἀχθεῖσα ὑπό του πρὸς τὴν θυσίαν ἔτεκεν ἄρνα ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ μέσῳ "And during the same festival a heifer, being led by the [priest] appointed for the sacrifice gave birth to a lamb in the middle of the temple." Whiston's translation inserts "high priest," which is not in Niese's Greek text. I don't know whether Whiston just inferred the identity of the priest or had a different Greek text. There is nothing about the color red nor about the "high priest making a desperate attempt to prepare a red heifer... " etc., as the website claims Josephus "recounts."
Kris
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Re: More Josephus stuff

Post by Kris »

I seem to have trouble when linking websites but the website is www.bibleresources.org. It appears to be a seventh day Adventist site and they have a section on the temple destruction. I found this website by entering " Josephus western light 40 years". It was on the second page of the sites that came up. They also make a claim that they might have an original bowl of Moses. I tried to look further into this and it looks like rabbi that used to be affiliated with the Adventists has now taken the bowl. He thinks he is Elijah. Really weird stuff!
Kris
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Re: More Josephus stuff

Post by Kris »

I think that was the wrong site. Try this one: http://www.biblesearchers.com/hebrewchu ... ve17.shtml
ficino
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Re: More Josephus stuff

Post by ficino »

I see it now. The website includes this, which you quoted above: "Flavius Josephus recounts the scene of the high priest making a desperate attempt to prepare a red heifer to be slaughtered for the purification of the temple while the walls of the city were being surrounded by the forces of Vespasian."

The words that I italicized are not in Josephus. The passage in Josephus also does not establish that the birth of the lamb from the cow occurred while Vespasian was surrounding Jerusalem. The passage does not locate this portent precisely in time.
Kris
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Re: More Josephus stuff

Post by Kris »

Did you see the link about the earthen ware pot that is supossed to have been Moses? Do you think this is bunk as well? They talk about testing. Some of the testers look like creationist scientists-- but not sure about all. Is this testing questionable?

http://www.biblesearchers.com/temples/s ... ifer.shtml
ficino
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Re: More Josephus stuff

Post by ficino »

I stopped reading at the point where it said that the pot's origin is unknown. You don't base archaeological conclusions on items of unknown provenance.
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Ged
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Re: More Josephus stuff

Post by Ged »

Kris wrote:... I ended up on a weird Christian website that talked about the heifer giving birth to a lamb ...
Just a brief note to remind readers here that most such websites are not considered orthodox by mainstream Christianity. From what Ive noticed, they stem from modern 'Hebraic Root' groups which, in turn, are 'Millerite' off-shoots from the mid nineteenth century.
The science of arranging time in periods and ascertaining the dates and historical order of past events.
semiopen
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Re: More Josephus stuff

Post by semiopen »

Kris wrote:Did you see the link about the earthen ware pot that is supossed to have been Moses? Do you think this is bunk as well? They talk about testing. Some of the testers look like creationist scientists-- but not sure about all. Is this testing questionable?

http://www.biblesearchers.com/temples/s ... ifer.shtml
This is really fascinating.

Perhaps this link is the most interesting finding of the stupid Josephus questions series.

The star of the link is Heidi Crawford.
This vessel was sold to a young American female missionary, Heidi Crawford who was visiting the land of Bahraini along the trail of the ancient frankincense traders that carried the precious resin from the gum groves of Omar to the markets of Egypt, Jerusalem and ancient Babylon.
It was seventeen years ago, in 1987 when a young woman, Heidi Crawford, was commissioned by the conservative Christian fellowship called the Evangelical Alliance Mission to be a missionary to the Arabs in Alain, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
As described by Dr. Crawford, it was December, 1987, somewhere along the trail, they entered the Omani Oasis village in a region looking similar to Afghanistan today. Within the village was a small shop, described as ‘rank and quite unpleasant’ yet at the same time intriguing. Within the shop she was introduced to a “turbaned Omanian trader” and felt “led” to a certain earthen bowl with fascinating paintings in groups of seven rays of sunshine surrounding the bowl. She wanted to purchase it for a souvenir. Though she felt the price was high, after extensive bartering she purchased it for the equivalence of 40 American dollars.

Later would she realize that the price would be the same as the ancient “30 pieces of silver”
OMG, not only did she pick up a doctorate of something but she was able to calculate how many 1987 dollars a piece of silver was worth 3500 years ago.
Eight years later, Heidi was commissioned to be a lay-missionary to Israel by the Global Partnership of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists under the banner of the “Tentmakers to the World”. Her commissioning church was the Denver South Seventh-day Adventist Church. She was first sent to Israel between July 1995 and January 1996. Then on several month long visitations over the next two years she traversed to the Holy Land until January 1998.
This is absolutely amazing. The contact given is for Rabbi Ben-Hayil Yellen.

Meet the Yellens - https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/ ... m-mahdi-/9 Heidi has become Rebbitzin Dr. Heidi Crawford-Yellen.

Actually the amazement comes from Rabbi Ben-Hayi's previous gig.

The Federation of Jewish Adventist Society (from Biblesearchers - top of linked page)

Jewish group sued over 'Adventist' name http://endrtimes.blogspot.com/2009/02/j ... -name.html
The Maryland-based leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church alleges trademark infringement and unfair competition in the suit, filed in San Diego federal court.

It argues that use of the word "Adventist" by any other group creates confusion.

But the Federation's leader, Rabbi Ben-Hayil Yellen, said the suit violates his religious rights.

The Jewish group has hired an attorney, but he said they don't have the money to fight a suit he called "unjust."

At his rural North County home on Wednesday, Yellen said that the Hebrew meaning of the word "Adventist" is central to his group's spiritual beliefs.

Yellen and his wife, Heidi, said that the word, when spoken with a different pronunciation, "AD-vent-ist," is an old Hebrew term referring to an earthen pot.

The Christian group's name is often pronounced "ad-VENT-ist."
This from 2009.

The author of the biblesearch thing is a guy named Robert D. Mock M.D. Who seems to be an actual medical doctor who does stupid bible related shit as a hobby (something like me except I'm not a doctor). What is amusing is that he evidently took the Adventist in the name and assumed it was Seventh Day Adventist. Thus we get the Rebbitzin Heidi accepting grants from Seventh Day Adventists. Clearly the Yellens had no chance of defending themselves in the lawsuit.

Note - I also got some Seventh Day Adventist hits for Heidi Crawford so who knows.

Anyway, who really is Rebbitzin Yellen-Crawford?

Since this group has Daniel sluts, and Josephus sluts; certainly there has to be a contingent of Noah's Ark sluts.

http://www.noahsarksearch.com/CornukeBo ... eeting.jpg

http://noahsarksearch.com/iran.htm

The second link describes the picture
focused upon potential Iranian locations on January 10, 2005 with a number of Noah's Ark researchers attending including: Bottom Row Left to Right - Ed Holroyd, Ph.D., Rex Geissler, Heidi Crawford (Mount Ararat Explorer Harry M. "Bud" Crawford's daughter), Mary Irwin (NASA Astronaut & Mount Ararat Explorer Jim Irwin's wife), Jill Christensen (Jim Irwin's daughter)
I'm not sure if the two Heidi Crawford's are the same. But it's a strange coincidence; that picture was taken in 2005. Harry Crawford is the son of Elder Crawford who was a key figure in the famous 1970 Ararat Expedition.

These people seem extremely weird but not popular enough to warrant an in depth investigation.

Back to Biblesearchers -
Dr. Crawford is currently presenting her research on the earthen vessel for her doctoral thesis at the Yeshiva University in New York City. This thesis states that the Mount Jebel Lawz located in the ancient land of Midian in northwestern Saudi Arabia most closely matches the Torah text of the Biblical Exodus. During the forty years in the wilderness, the children of Israel could have wandered all over the entire breath and width of the wilderness of Arabia.
I really doubt this, I don't see anything online that suggests any connection of Heidi to Yeshiva University.
So began a two year investigation by Dr. Heidi Crawford, who was now a naturopathic physician in San Diego in southern California.
This might be sort of true.

The scientific shit in this article is highly dubious. I'm not sure what ficino's issue was but getting DNA off of something like this is preposterous. It's easy to look up the companies mentioned, I looked up Metallurgical Engineering Services and they to be sort of a legitimate firm but not one i'd be sending archaeological stuff to.

The Red Heifer came up now and then at FRDB and gentiles seem to be notoriously clueless about it. I quoted one young Xian lady who was close to orgasmic because it was a way to make soap (so many years before Procter and Gamble invented it).

OS. I looked up "tentmakers of the world" and Adventist and maybe she was a seventh day adventist missionary at one point. Makes it all the more ironic that she wound up marrying an adventist Rabbi who was forced to drop the adventist.
Kris
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Joined: Wed May 14, 2014 5:48 am

Re: More Josephus stuff

Post by Kris »

Wow-- Semiopen--- looks like you had a field day on this one. I did a little more research as well and I guess Rabbi Yellen thinks he may be Elijah because of this bowl. Originally it was the red heifer cleansing bowl but now may be the bowl that the manna was kept in. He alludes to sages stating that Elijah would use this bowl to confirm his identity.
The only thing I could find on the was stories about seven miracles that elijah (or the messiah-- it gets mixed up on a few websites). The Jewish encyclopedia has some information on this and mention a Jellinek as a source. I think this is an Adolf Jellenik who wrote in the 1800's I am taking a look at hiswork right now to see what sources he sites on this. The only other thing I could find was a book on the Jewish history that also talks about tge seven miracles but I think this writer may have used Jellinek. Lastly I found a few quotes on a (Pereq. R. Yoshiyahu, BhM 6:115; Mekh. diR. Yishm'el, p. 80). I a trying to figure out what these are.

Yellen and his wife Heidi (and I do think she is the same one who bought this damn bowl) are nutty. They have reinterpetred scripture because they don't think it was translated correctly in Greek so that opens up all kinds of things thst they say are his word. This is a related quote from someone who supports them:

Forgotten and misunderstood New Testament view:
The New Testament contains words of Messiah Yahshuah for the ‘hidden manna, of a white stone’ in which there is a name that no one knows except for he that receives it.’ (Revelation 2:17). The Jewish community expects this sign for the authentic Elijah. The original message ‘golden’ vessel of manna is a mis-translation for the original Hebrew states ‘white earthen stone dove vessel or tzinztnet.’ The term ‘golden’ is from its location indicating the golden gate’s vessel of manna.’ The name of the Messiah is identified upon the vessel as foretold by the ancient sages of Hebrews, ‘His name is Yah’ and ‘Yah-shuah’ or ‘Yah-sus’ indicates Yah of the East Gate Healing Ministry!

Weird!!! So semi open-- you don't buy the scientific studies??
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