Sleeper awake!

[rgprice]

Consider:

Artapanus from Eusebius:
And he being dismayed at what had happened bade Moses tell him the name of the God who sent him, scoffing at him: (25) but Moses bent down and whispered in his ear, and when the king heard it he fell speechless, but was held fast by Moses and came to life again. (26) And he wrote the name in a tablet and sealed it up; and one of the priests who made light of what was written in the tablet was seized with a convulsion and died.

4Q560:
... any evil madness or demon ... I adjure you, all who enter into the body; the male Wasting-demon and the female Wasting-demon ... adjure you by the name of the Lord, "He Who removes iniquity and transgression", O Fever-demon and Chills-demon and Chest-pain demon ... You are forebidden to disturb by night using dreams...

Jubilees 36:
7 And now I shall make you swear a great oath -for there is no oath which is greater than it by the name glorious and honoured and great and splendid and wonderful and mighty, which created the heavens and the earth and all things together- that ye will fear Him and worship Him.

Magic bowl: "the magician by Christ"

There are other magic bowls that also refer to Jesus.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20064328
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40753243

Acts 3:
16 And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

Acts 9:
34 “Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and roll up your mat.” Immediately Aeneas got up.

Acts 16:
18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

Acts 19:
13 Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.”

Gospel of Philip:
One single name is not uttered in the world, the name which the Father gave to the Son; it is the name above all things: the name of the Father. For the Son would not become Father unless he wore the name of the Father. Those who have this name know it, but they do not speak it. But those who do not have it do not know it.

Mark 1:
23 Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, 24 “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

Mark 3:
11 Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him.

Mark 9:
38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”

Mark 9:
20 So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.
...
25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”
26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.
28 After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”

Ephesians:
“Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

John 11:
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Morton Smith argues that Jesus was a magician, for which he puts forward some interesting material. However, it seems to me more that Jesus Christ was a name that was able to stand in place of the name that could not be said. The Gospel stories put Jesus himself in the position of healer, a sort of backstory to the use of the name. I'm not saying that is the reason the Gospels were written, but what Mark was doing was personifying Jesus. And who Jesus was, was a figure who was called upon, a mediator, for casting out demons. Perhaps the name "Jesus Christ" was used because it was so similar to the unspeakable name of God.

Philo:
displaying by his new name the distinctive qualities of his character; for the name Hosea is interpreted, "what sort of a person is this?" but Joshua (Jesus) means "the salvation of the Lord", being the name of the most excellent possible character.

[cora]

What an incredible load of bullshit !!!!! The first writer Paul was not living in the time the NT suggests. Paul started around 90 and was the one that started a religion. Before that there was no religion. This is a fact. Paul did not write Jesus Christ, he wrote Isu Chrestos. Jesus Christ is a forgery by the church of rome. Chrestos was the only word used in the NT until 450. The change to christos was made later (Idon't know when). Jesus was invented by Justin martyr. The gospels were written after that and were ready by 185. They are a complete fake. Irenaeus invented the names for them. Jesus does not come from Yeshua/Yoshua. Transliterate it and you will see. Now we know what we are talking about. I can prove everything.

The church tried to wipe out the gnostic religion in favour of Jahweh. The church was OT/Jahweh lovers, jews and others. I see you all have not got a clue. Gnosticism was a religion from 4th century BC Greece. Plato invented it. It has its own god. Nobody seems to have heard of it. Paul was a gnostic. Sleeper awake, is one of the central ideas of Gnosticism. Chrestos means saviour. Isu is the son of god.

The church stole the gnostic gods from Paul: god the father is the gnostic god (compare Jahweh, the Lord), Isu Chrestos is the son who was there from the beginning, the gnostic Logos, and the Holy Spirit is Sophia (wisdom) the daughter of the gnostic god. The whole Trinity is gnostic. Only Jesus did not exist.

Why don't you all study a little bit before you start blah blah ing?
greetings, cora."

[MrMacSon]

Jesus (Iesus) was likely a new Y’hoshua (Iesous) developed through new midrashim

[MrMacSon]

like more specifically an older liturgy that Paul adopted from his Jerusalem opponents, the same who could say "Jesus be damned", who believed in Christ but Jesus was just a man, anointed by God and channeller of the Christ spirit.

I think what you are saying here is something like the sacrificial lamb who took on the curses of the community? Is this what you are saying?

'The Crucifixion of the Paschal Lamb' by Joseph Tabory, in The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 86, No. 3/4 (Jan–Apr, 1996), pp.395-406; via JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/1454912

.
Justin's description [in Dial. 40] of the crucifixion of the paschal lamb by the Jews is intended to prove that the offering of the lamb was a perfect prefiguration of the crucifixion of Jesus. However, Justin could not have been an eyewitness to the Jerusalem sacrifice as he was born some 30 years after the destruction of the Temple. One might assume that Justin saw Jews preparing lambs for the Passover meal in the same manner that they were prepared in Jerusalem during the Temple period since there is evidence of Jews doing so in spite of the objection of the rabbis. However, this custom was apparently not practised in the area where Justin lived, as he points out to his opponent [Trypho] that the Jews no longer offer[ed] the paschal sacrifice. His description might have been a theoretical reconstruction based on his belief that the sacrifice of Jesus was prefigured by the offering of the paschal lamb.

Theological considerations might have led him to imagine that the paschal lamb had not only been offered in the traditional manner of sacrifices, but that it had actually being crucified. After all, Justin had accused the Jews of eliminating … passages from the Greek Bible which [had supposedly] prophesied the coming of Jesus [Dial. 73], although scholarly opinion maintains that these passages were added by Christian scholars and copyists. We might argue therefore that his description is not historically accurate.

On the other hand it has been assumed that Justin's description was based on the Samaritan practice of offering the paschal lamb, a ritual which Justin might have witnessed personally during his childhood in Shechem. However there are certain discrepancies between the Samaritan custom, as described by modern observers, and Justin's portrayal. The contentions of this paper are that the Samaritan custom has indeed changed since Justin's time; that Justin accurately portrayed the contemporary Samaritan ritual; and that this ritual was similar to the paschal sacrifice in Jerusalem. To prove these points this paper…compare[d] Justin's account with modern accounts of the Samaritan ritual and with a reconstruction of the ancient Jewish practise based on rabbinic sources.
.

[MrMacSon]

Justin Martyr's First Apology 60

And 'the physiological discussion' concerning the Son of God in the Timoeus of Plato, where he says, "He placed him crosswise in the universe",1 he 'borrowed' in like manner 'from Moses'; for in 'the writings of Moses' it is related how at that time, when the Israelites went out of Egypt and were in the wilderness, they fell in with poisonous beasts, both vipers and asps, and every kind of serpent, which slew the people; and that Moses, by the inspiration and influence of God, took brass, and made it into the figure of a cross,2a and set it in the holy tabernacle, and said to the people, "If ye look to this figure, and believe, ye shall be saved thereby".2

And when this was done, it is recorded that the serpents died,2b and it is handed down that the people thus escaped death.

Which things Plato reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise,3 he said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe.
.

1. cf. Plato's Republic, bk II, 361-2:

“ those who commend injustice above justice...will say is this: that such being his disposition the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after all manner of suffering, he will be crucified, and so will 'learn his lesson' that not to be but 'to seem just' is what 'we ought to desire' ... ”

2. Justin is invoking an account about Moses from Numbers 21; but he misrepresents Numbers 21, using it to write new midrashim.

2.a. Moses didn't take brass and ''make it into the figure of a cross'; he is said to have taken brass and made a serpent, and put it on a signal-staff, a pole (see Numbers 21:8 below).

2.b. Numbers doesn't record that 'the serpents died': it says, "whenever a serpent bit a man, and he looked on the brazen [ie. the brass] serpent, he lived." (see Numbers 21:9 below)

3. Justin Martyr’s criticism of Plato, saying Plato was "not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross," is also wrong.

Numbers 21:8-9:

8 And Moses prayed to the Lord for the people; and the Lord said to Moses, 'Make thee a serpent, and put it on a signal-staff ; and it shall come to pass that whenever a serpent shall bite a man, every one so bitten that looks upon it shall live.'

9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a signal-staff : and it came to pass that whenever a serpent bit a man, and he looked on the brazen serpent, he lived.

[eta] This -

... Plato, where he says, "He placed him crosswise in the universe," he 'borrowed' in like manner 'from Moses'; for in 'the writings of Moses' it is related ...

- is nonsense, of course. Even if "writings of Moses" was not meant to mean writings by Moses, but about Moses, Justin Martyr is rewriting history: he's laying down a new 'history'.

[cora]

I can be brief: Justin is a fanatic. As you can see he is inventing the so-called second coming. That comes from him. Justin came from Samaria. They say he was a greek because of his last name. I don't believe that, I think he was a Samaritan as he says himself, meaning that he was of the Samaritan religion. This is the same as the Judean religion of course, but only the first 5 books. So he is a Jahweh worshipper himself before he became a chrestian, so he thinks Isu is the son of Jahweh instead of of the gnostic god, god the father. A big mistake, but ideal for Irenaeus, who is going to tell the same. Justin did not realize what it was about. Furthermore he thought that it was real, having heard the original story in Samaria. Again wrong, but again ideal for Irenaeus (the NT writer).

You really must be an OT Jew or Samaritan to say that Plato is just someone who misunderstood Moses. Plato lived 400 BC and Moses lived 1300 BC, if he lived at all. The OT jews said that Moses learned philosophy to the greeks. Total bullshit. Furthermore it was only in the 3rd century that ANYBODY heard about jews through the Septuagint. Before that nobody had ever heard of jews. They translated their own book and spread it. So Plato had never heard of jews.

That easter lamb may come from the gospel of John, which was circulating by that time.

The word cross, crucifixion, and crucify are from the 5th century. This was done by the church. Every time "crucifixion" is used before that, is false.
The word was "stauros", meaning stake. So there was no cross.

Yoshua becomes in greek Iosua. So Yeshua becomes Iesua. Iesous does not come from there, Justin invented it.

greetings, Cora.

[Ben C. Smith]

[cora]

Iesous is greek for Yeshu, and is a normal name, and has nothing to do with Christianity. Just people called that way. In the bible it comes from the Septuagint, the (bad) greek translation, which was simply forged. People get crazy when they see the name Jesus in Judea. They are disturbed because it is a normal name, as is mostly recognized. I did not say that Justin invented the name Iesous AS SUCH, he wanted to change Isu into Iesous in the gospel. He invented the Jesus of Christianity. I thought that would be obvious. I have no idea what you want, besides proving to me that the name Jesus existed before. Of course it did!! Who says it didn't?? I really don't think that there was only one Jesus in the world. THE NAME BEFORE WAS ISU, that is the point. To be found under Marcion and Paul. Any problem with that?

I thought this thread was about Paul? Where would he have gotten this "sleeper, awake", we cannot find it. So I explained that it is gnostic. Awakening is one of the central principles of Gnosticism. So now you know it. Why don't you think about that?
Cora.

[Ben C. Smith]

Deuteronomy 31.2-3: 2 And he said to them, “I am a hundred and twenty years old today; I am no longer able to come and go, and Yahweh has said to me, ‘You shall not cross this Jordan.’ 3 It is Yahweh your God who will cross ahead of you; He will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. It is Joshua/Jesus [יְהוֹשֻׁעַ = Yehoshua, Ἰησοῦς] who will cross ahead of you, just as Yahweh has spoken.”

Papyrus Fouad 266, column 65, fragment 96 (Deuteronomy 31.2-3):

XX 2 [καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς ἑκατὸν καὶ εἴκοσι]
XX [ἐτῶν ἐγώ εἰμι σήμερον οὐ δυνήσομαι ἔτι]
XX [εἰσπορεύεσθαι καὶ ἐκπορεύεσθαι יהוה δὲ]
08 [εἶπεν πρό]ς μ[ε οὐ διαβήσῃ τὸν Ιορδά-]
09 [νην τοῦτ]ον. 3 יהוה [ὁ θεός σου ὁ πορευ-]
10 [όμενος π]ρὸ προσώπ[ου σου αὐτὸς ἐξο-]
11 [λεθρεύσε]ι τὰ ἔθνη τ[αῦτα ἀπὸ προσώπου]
12 [σου κ]αὶ κατακλη[ρονομήσεις αὐτούς]
13 [καὶ Ἰ]ησοῦς ὁ πορε[υόμενος πρὸ προσώ-]
XX που σου καθὰ ἐλάλησεν יהוה.

Levi Y. Rahmani, Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel, page 77, ossuary #9:

ישו
....
ישוע בר יחוסף

Yeshu.
....
Yeshua‘, son of Yehosef.

[billd89]

An interesting passage in Ephesians:

Ephesians 5:
12 “Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

This doesn't come from the Jewish scriptures. Any ideas? Looks like kabbalic necromancy.

...

The jewish groups that didn't see Jesus and Christ joined into Jesus Christ.

Right. At that stage of "Christianity" (Ephesians 5: c.52 AD), Jesus isn't yet - or rather, is just becoming - the "Christ" (c.100 AD). The Jesus Myth is attaching to something older, another synthesis popular among the Jewish-influenced 'Chrestiani'.

Although the actual texts probably date from the 2nd C AD, I am among those who believe the oldest works of the 'philosophical Hermetica' probably date to c.50 BC-50 AD. This soterological 'gnostic' concept must have appeared in a synthesis of Hellenistic Egyptian and Jewish ideas at least a generation or two before the historical Jesus presumably walked the earth, c.100 BC. So: fertile ground existed, BEFORE the Jesus fellow and his even later cult.

In a few centuries before Jesus, the 'Sleeper Awakening' was a known psycho-spiritual concept. Typically, it was a divine illumination which occurred in a temple setting, through incubation. The Edelsteins covered the Greek therapeutic phenomenon in masterly detail back in 1945. That was the largely forgotten half of their academic study; they also defined a modern cult for "spiritual awakening" which has proven enormously successful to this day, based on a hospital incubation process witnessed firsthand. The Judeo-Hermetica and Epistle to the Hebrews indicates an older synthesis was widespread in the First Century. After the first recorded pogrom and ghetto (c.38 AD), a large number of nominally-Jewish Alexandrians fled into the Serapis cult. But a Logos/Melchizedek synthesis may have begun more than three generations earlier, at the margins of Diaspora Judaism, among heretical/apostate or unorthodox Jews c.100-50 BC. Possibly, it's a folk expression of mystical Judaism originating from the nomes (as Philo said, DVC 3.21) of the Egyptian 'frontier' which spread to the cosmopolitan center and then around the Mediterranean littoral. But I suppose it's Alexandrian propaganda: a peculiar Jewish-Greek synthesis which began to flourish in the middle of the First Century AD.

A few examples:
CH 1.27:

"People, earthborn men, you who have surrendered yourselves to drunkenness and sleep and ignorance of god, make yourselves sober and end your drunken sickness, for you are bewitched in unreasoning sleep."

CH 1.30:

CH 1.30: Within myself I recorded the kindness of Poimandres, and I was deeply happy because I was filled with what I wished, for the sleep of my body became sobriety of soul, the closing of my eyes became true vision, my silence became pregnant with good, and the birthing of the word became a progeny of goods. This happened to me because I was receptive of mind - of Poimandres, that is, the word of sovereignty.

CH 9.2:

"{It seems to me that in dream-vision both these faculties have been eliminated, although, when sleepers wake, <understanding> and sensation <are always combined.>} At any rate, <sensation> is distributed to body and to soul, and, when both these parts of sensation are in harmony with one another, then there is an utterance of understanding, engendered by mind."

CH 10.5:

Those able to drink somewhat more deeply of the vision often fall asleep, moving out of the body toward a sight most fair, just as it happened to Ouranos and Kronos, our ancestors."
"Would that we, too, could see it, father."
"Indeed, my child, would that we could. But we are still too weak now for this sight; we are not yet strong enough to open our mind's eyes and look on the incorruptible, incomprehensible beauty of that good.

CH 16.8-10:

But, with the light held in confinement as it shines all around inside the hollow of water and earth and air, the sun enlivens and awakens, with becoming and change, the things that live in these regions of the cosmos. [9] It brings transmutation and transformation among them...