dying and rising gods

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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MrMacSon
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Re: dying and rising gods

Post by MrMacSon »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 8:54 pm
^ A similar concept existed in Egypt. The dismembered parts of Osiris were scattered across the region1, with Isis erecting a memorial mound where she found them. These mounds were later cultivated into cities.

This may have some significance to the Pauline notion that the church represented the body of Christ2, or how Jesus likened the Temple and its destruction3 to his death.
1 The letters of Paul might be analogous to the [dismembered] parts of Osiris spread across the region/s.
  • as might the letters of Ignatius
2 or vice versa: how Christ represented or became the church (and his disciples could also represent parts of Osiris).

3 Jesus (or, more specifically, aspects of the narratives about him & what he is said to have said) reflects the Temple & its destruction (and possibly the destruction of and rewriting about other pre-70 Jewish groups such as the Sadducees)
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: dying and rising gods

Post by Joseph D. L. »

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:09 am 1 The letters of Paul might be analogous to the [dismembered] parts of Osiris spread across the region/s.
  • as might the letters of Ignatius
2 or vice versa: how Christ represented or became the church (and his disciples could also represent parts of Osiris).

3 Jesus (or, more specifically, aspects of the narratives about him & what he is said to have said) reflects the Temple & its destruction (and possibly the destruction of and rewriting about other pre-70 Jewish groups such as the Sadducees)
There may be something to that. There is a Gnostic idea presented in certain of the mysteries that the scattering of the god represented both the sowing of seeds and the spirit. So Proclus states that Osiris's dismemberment and scattered limbs represented the gnostic spirit being imparted to mankind. Similar to how Dionysus and Horus are torn asunder, with man being made from Dionysus's ashes. The wadjet, the eye of Re/Horus, was broken into seven pieces, and its restoration symbolized resurrection. It was then offered to the deceased king/queen in the form of beer, wine, bread and cakes to rejuvenate them. This also goes along with the so-called Canable text, in which the king actually eats the gods.

And so similar motifs exist for Jesus, in the Pistis Sofia, the spirit of Jesus is said to be broken and scattered across the earth. (There's another text similar to this, but its title escapes me right now). And then there is the Eucharist, in which the body of Christ is (symbolically) broken up and consumed to his followers, the Apostles.

The significance this has to Pauline Christology and his Epistles may indeed be more important then I realize.

Right now I'm thinking that Christ originally represented for Paul the Good News itself, the new Covenant, which was a written document, an edict, either versions of Marqah Memra, 2 Esdras, or the Epistle of Barnabas. The subsequent letters were written to promote and later defend, this original Message from the Apostle.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.

Interesting how the concept of the " field" is likewise reflected in2 Esdras:

Therefore I commanded thee to go into the field, where no foundation of any building was. For in the place wherein the Highest beginneth to shew his city, there can no man's building be able to stand.

The field is to be where the New Jerusalem is to be erected, with a communal Temple.

And Mark and Luke emphasis the rustic nature of Simon of Cyrene:

And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.*


And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus.

All of this is to say that the dispersal of the epistles may have been seeds to plant a new Jerusalem. Interesting how most of these letters are written for the Phrygians, and Montanus declared the New Jerusalem in Phrygia. Hmmmm...

*I am of the mind that Simon of Cyrene was in fact Lukuas Andreas, with his "sons" being Julian/John (Simon bar Kochba) and Pappus/James (R. Akiva).
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billd89
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Re: Haddad-Rimmon

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rakovsky wrote: Sun Apr 01, 2018 7:18 pmMy opinion is that according to a careful reading of Zechariah 12, it is said that people of Judah thrust God through or pierced Him, and there will be mourning comparable to that for the pagan dying and rising god Tammuz AKA Haddad Rimmon.

This was not a result that I expected, but is the result of academic research. Otherwise, what else does Haddad Rimmon refer to, but another regional name for the god Tammuz, who was known to be ritually mourned?

Ezekiel 8
14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.

Zechariah 12
י וְשָׁפַכְתִּי עַל-בֵּית דָּוִיד וְעַל יוֹשֵׁב יְרוּשָׁלִַם, רוּחַ חֵן וְתַחֲנוּנִים, וְהִבִּיטוּ אֵלַי, אֵת אֲשֶׁר-דָּקָרוּ; וְסָפְדוּ עָלָיו, כְּמִסְפֵּד עַל-הַיָּחִיד, וְהָמֵר עָלָיו, כְּהָמֵר עַל-הַבְּכוֹר.
10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto Me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.

יא בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא, יִגְדַּל הַמִּסְפֵּד בִּירוּשָׁלִַם, כְּמִסְפַּד הֲדַדְרִמּוֹן, בְּבִקְעַת מְגִדּוֹן.

11 In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
In the trading cities of coastal Lebanon (Phoenicia), Tammuz became 'Eshmun' (or maybe these are variation in the same approx. period) and -I think- Baal-Rimmon. Therefore, 'Rimmon' is not Zeus/Baal, but rather Baal's Son: the Young God. Nearby, the Young God of Kasios ("Horus of Kasios" c. 188 BC at Delos) was described (c.120 AD) as an 'Apollo-like god' (Apollon) in the Temple of Zeus Kasios ('The Father-God'), holding a pomegranate.

I believe this god (statue supposedly found off the coast of Gaza in 2013) is the same: it is NOT "Apollo."
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2014 ... llo-statue
https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/13/world/me ... index.html
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... lo_in_Gaza

It was briefly a popular-culture phenomenon:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... a-1164119/

This sounds most plausible to me also - the statue probably comes from Raphia:
Experts, including Alotol, have questioned Jawdat’s story, arguing that the colour and apparent excellent condition of the statue contradict the story that it was found in the sea. They speculate it was discovered inland, under the ground, and that the real story has been stifled either to avoid arguments of ownership or to avoid revealing that it was found while digging tunnels to nearby Egypt.
The right hand is outstretched, to hold a pomegranate:
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Ptolemy IV Philopator, c.215 BC
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