Shocking Discovery at Ancient Temple in Israel

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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arnoldo
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Shocking Discovery at Ancient Temple in Israel

Post by arnoldo »

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billd89
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Re: Shocking Discovery ...

Post by billd89 »

This 'news' was reported almost 18 months ago, and we have several threads going in this direction now, here,here and here, lol.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... h-religion
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/world/te ... index.html

YES it was a 'major discovery' and YES better late than never, but what 'bothers' me about this and the recent scholarship - how many other examples of such evidence were either destroyed or hidden by archaeologists and researchers in prior decades?

There appears to have been a repudiation - among the dominant Jewish group(s) - of cannabis incense sometime after 600 BC and prior to 272 BC. Jeremiah 6:20 conflates the Unacceptable Sacrifice (of Cannabis) with Sin. Philo Judaeus omits mentioning the constituents of the Temple Ointment - and his discussion of the constituents of the Temple incense is evasive. Something was amiss, there. I wonder if theologically-oriented archaeologists have long been prejudiced against confronting the truth: that at least some folk Jews considered cannabis 'holy.' And this repudiated devotion to the Feminine Principle, 'Wisdom' (with a psychoactive plant, a known entheogen!) was targeted and crushed by a reactionary anti-drug jeremiad.

I am somewhat reluctant to quote kook-y websites, but sometimes a truth is expressed succinctly from the odd quarter. This is the correct interpretation and really should push scholars to investigate further:

the incense that reaches God from an unclean heart is unacceptable to Him. This was the exact situation we see in Jeremiah 6:20, when the children of Israel burnt cannabis unto God. God rejected their incense because it was coming from wrong hearts and was a choking stench in His nostrils. At that point in time, the children of Israel had deviated from the worship of God to the worship of the Queen of Heaven. (Jeremiah 44:11-30).

Altars of Arad, c.715 BC, reconstructed:
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Bruce.dee
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Re: Shocking Discovery at Ancient Temple in Israel

Post by Bruce.dee »

As far as I can glean from sources, ‘Jewish’ identity and Judaism are manifestations that took place after Christ, the Israelites having been divided and never reunite.
StephenGoranson
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Re: Shocking Discovery at Ancient Temple in Israel

Post by StephenGoranson »

Not sure what sources you mean, Bruce, but the terms and the archaeology (e.g. synagogues) and Jerusalem being in Judaea may present a different evolution of terms.
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billd89
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Re: 'Sensory Archaeology' & Cleopatra's Perfume

Post by billd89 »

https://www.popsci.com/science/anthropo ... nt-scents/

https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/04/the-a ... s-perfume/

Spices were imported from all over the world to Mendes, Littman said, including from India, Arabia and Africa, making Mendes a major center of the perfume trade from about 300 B.C. to about 800 A.D.

During the third century B.C., the ancient city of Thmouis produced a perfume, which was named after the main city and called the Mendesian perfume. That’s the one Littman considers to be the “Chanel No. 5” of late antiquity – Cleopatra’s perfume.

Although no one can prove with absolute certainty which perfumes Cleopatra used, Littman said, “We have an account from the biographer, Plutarch, written about 100 years later, that says Cleopatra doused her sails in scents and incense when she first went to meet Marc Antony, so that when she sailed up the river to meet him, one could smell her fragrance along the river.”

I read that and understand why the 'Tent of Meeting' was doused w/ the Biblical Incense formula (ointment).

"The Mendesian perfume opened up a world of scent composing that hadn’t been there before,” Coughlin said. “The classical recipe for the Mendesain stays pretty much intact. It’s actually remarkable. From all the evidence that we have, we know that the recipe doesn’t change from the moment it appears in the Greek or Latin sources for 800 years. It’s just like a brand name. You know, like, Chanel No. 5 doesn’t change. It just stays the same.”

Yet unlike Chanel No. 5, which is available to anyone who can afford it, Coughlin said his research suggests that the Egyptian Pharaohs had a monopoly on the production, and possibly the sale of the Mendesian perfume. Meaning that if you wanted Mendesian, you had to buy it from the state.

yakovzutolmai
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Re: Shocking Discovery ...

Post by yakovzutolmai »

billd89 wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 10:09 am
the incense that reaches God from an unclean heart is unacceptable to Him. This was the exact situation we see in Jeremiah 6:20, when the children of Israel burnt cannabis unto God. God rejected their incense because it was coming from wrong hearts and was a choking stench in His nostrils. At that point in time, the children of Israel had deviated from the worship of God to the worship of the Queen of Heaven. (Jeremiah 44:11-30).

Well, to the non-enjoyers, skunk smell is very offensive.

Also, the ancients are not an authority on correct practice. Maybe if you're arguing with apologists, but that's a narrow consideration.

All I know is that nothing anyone has said while high has ever struck me as representative of "Wisdom", though lord knows THEY believe they have learned something very profound even once they sober up. You walk them through their magnificent "wisdom" and you almost always talk them out of it. Otherwise, they'll believe it for the rest of their life as some profound revelation.

I'm kind of on board with Jeremiah here, lol.

No, not anti-herb, but I challenge you to seriously try and reckon with the wisdom of the stoned while sober, and then try and work with them on it while they're sober. Very disillusioning.

Otherwise, sure, people deeply believe they have learned profound, divine wisdom during their DMT trip or whatever. Yeah, okay.
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Re: Shocking Discovery at Ancient Temple in Israel

Post by Ethan »

This explains the term "most high" in the Bible.
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ConfusedEnoch
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Re: Shocking Discovery ...

Post by ConfusedEnoch »

yakovzutolmai wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:52 pm
billd89 wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 10:09 am
the incense that reaches God from an unclean heart is unacceptable to Him. This was the exact situation we see in Jeremiah 6:20, when the children of Israel burnt cannabis unto God. God rejected their incense because it was coming from wrong hearts and was a choking stench in His nostrils. At that point in time, the children of Israel had deviated from the worship of God to the worship of the Queen of Heaven. (Jeremiah 44:11-30).

Well, to the non-enjoyers, skunk smell is very offensive.

Also, the ancients are not an authority on correct practice. Maybe if you're arguing with apologists, but that's a narrow consideration.

All I know is that nothing anyone has said while high has ever struck me as representative of "Wisdom", though lord knows THEY believe they have learned something very profound even once they sober up. You walk them through their magnificent "wisdom" and you almost always talk them out of it. Otherwise, they'll believe it for the rest of their life as some profound revelation.

I'm kind of on board with Jeremiah here, lol.

No, not anti-herb, but I challenge you to seriously try and reckon with the wisdom of the stoned while sober, and then try and work with them on it while they're sober. Very disillusioning.

Otherwise, sure, people deeply believe they have learned profound, divine wisdom during their DMT trip or whatever. Yeah, okay.
Experiences that deconstruct and restructure reality are always both over- and underrated by most people. Those who try it because they "try everything" swear that it is by far the most sacred (powerful) experience they've ever had and thus that there is a certain Wisdom contained within the substance itself, and those who don't because they "distrust everything" swear the entire experience is the equivalent of a delusion devoid of meaning and that its intrinsic value is thus null.

This should make you realize why these substances were present in the most ancient periods of human thought, when individual experience was tantamount to objective reality itself, when Science came in the form of psychedelic "We are all connected" New Age type of ideas, when cultures were structured almost entirely by their collective tribal rituals and the moral/ontological concepts that arise from such rituals...

On the other hand, it should make you realize why these substances were absent from the more modern branches of human history, when the individual's experience constitutes a grain of sand in the overly complicated ocean of dogmatic theology which emphasizes the importance of propositional truth over experiential, sensory perceptions; when Science came in the form of unending interpretations of the entire theoretical doctrine concerning God and God's external activity, based on the dogmas of the Church, when cultures were structured almost entirely by their individual ignorance and their dependence on moral/ontological concepts found in the Bible...
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ConfusedEnoch
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Re: Shocking Discovery ...

Post by ConfusedEnoch »

yakovzutolmai wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:52 pm
billd89 wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 10:09 am
the incense that reaches God from an unclean heart is unacceptable to Him. This was the exact situation we see in Jeremiah 6:20, when the children of Israel burnt cannabis unto God. God rejected their incense because it was coming from wrong hearts and was a choking stench in His nostrils. At that point in time, the children of Israel had deviated from the worship of God to the worship of the Queen of Heaven. (Jeremiah 44:11-30).

Well, to the non-enjoyers, skunk smell is very offensive.

Also, the ancients are not an authority on correct practice. Maybe if you're arguing with apologists, but that's a narrow consideration.

All I know is that nothing anyone has said while high has ever struck me as representative of "Wisdom", though lord knows THEY believe they have learned something very profound even once they sober up. You walk them through their magnificent "wisdom" and you almost always talk them out of it. Otherwise, they'll believe it for the rest of their life as some profound revelation.

I'm kind of on board with Jeremiah here, lol.

No, not anti-herb, but I challenge you to seriously try and reckon with the wisdom of the stoned while sober, and then try and work with them on it while they're sober. Very disillusioning.

Otherwise, sure, people deeply believe they have learned profound, divine wisdom during their DMT trip or whatever. Yeah, okay.
>Well, to the non-enjoyers, skunk smell is very offensive.

Every cannabis plant smells different. Cannabis in general has one of the highest (not sure if highest of all plants) concentrations of terpenes which are the compounds that give animals and plants smells, and those terpenes come in an infinitely large variety, each with its own distinctive smell; hence why some cannabis strains smell like pine, lemon, orange flowers or even blue cheese!

In fact, the "Skunk smell" you are referring to is likely Pinene, the Terpene responsible for the smell of pine trees...
yakovzutolmai
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Re: Shocking Discovery ...

Post by yakovzutolmai »

ConfusedEnoch wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 1:54 am
Experiences that deconstruct and restructure reality are always both over- and underrated by most people.
There's a huge trend right now called "Critical Social Theory" - "wokism". It's based entirely on a epistemological dialectic which treats metaphysics as irrelevant.

People will reject science with semantics. They will reject reason because of language.

The rationalists and idealists are not correct. They are very wrong about their worldview because they use inappropriate processes. Definition is derived from flux, and flux challenges definition. It's not a paradox, it just requires a decently empowered abstract mind.

I've dealt with users of many stripes. Their wisdom comes more form the subjective impressions of experiencing their process. There is little substance to their wisdom. To rationalists, this kind of impression might be useful, necessary. But a decently honest and intelligent abstract thinking would only be hindered by psychedelics.

It's very clear how they work, why they're harmful, and why they seem useful to narrow thinkers.
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