Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Affiliated w/ 'Jews' of their day, and asking for 'Jewish instruction' YES.

From the 'Land of Judah'? Doubtful. Or Horon worshippers were 'Judaean' which I also find dubious. It may be explained as a mixed community, including Judaeans otherwise. If some wives were sent to Egypt, etc.

Pentateuchal Yahwehism in the Land? Maybe, maybe not. The Semitic community at Elephantine are probably not "Judaeans" since they spoke Aramaic, venerated Aramean gods besides Yaho (polytheism!), and identified as Arameans (Syrians? Phoenicians?). They were affiliated w/ 'Jews' of their da...

Opinion ascribed to Eudoxus the Cnidian (c.350 BC) is not definitive here. The Herakles/Iolaos myth is terribly fragmentary, but suppression of homophile elements is no surprise. That's why the statuary is far more revealing, truth of local worship. 'Herakles' is invariably portrayed in mature, musc...

Giuseppe is not afraid of the boldest claims.
Framing speculative things as absolutes, endorsing opinion as "fact" is problematic.

So Jesus Christ would not have been "confused with" so much as assimilated to some of these gods, Dr Carrier would answer that it is not changing the names that you can change the facts. What does "Dr. Carrier" have to do with anything here? Gods are not associated with "fa...

'Confused With' is the wrong expression; Latin-speakers knew Aesculapius, Greek speakers as Asklepios, Late Phoenicians (c.150 BC) as Eshmun (I think this archaic name had largely disappeared by 100 BC). I'm focusing on who Eshmun became in the Levant, a few variant gods and key interpretations to c...

Unsurprisingly, this thread failed to meet expectations, but the back-n-forth was entertaining.

https://bigthink.com/the-past/synagogue-israel-roman-temple/ In Israel, archaeological sites are often defaced because they are of religious or cultural significance. In 2012, vandals covered a 4th century synagogue at Hammath Tiberias with graffiti reading, “To Shuka the cannibal,” in reference to ...