Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Giuseppe wrote:MY CASE PRO CARRIER'S CASE ABOUT JESUS IN PHILO:


In short:

my argument: that for the original author of Zech 6:12 Joshua son of Josedec was a mere symbol of the FUTURE messiah (a guy considered distinct from Joshua), just as for Philo (reading Zech 6:12) the guy named ANATOLE (i.e., a guy considered distinct from Joshua) is symbol of the archangelic Logos.

Use the pure logic, please:
if A is symbol of B,
and B is symbol of C,
then A becomes symbol of C.

A= Joshua

B = the future messiah

C = the archangelic Logos.

1) I am not confident that there is a transitive property for the relation "symbol of." There certainly doesn't have to be.

2) I am completely sure that there isn't any sound deduction here if you change the "scope" of the claims in the premises:

"for the original author of Zech 6:12 [] ... was a mere symbol of the FUTURE messiah"

"for Philo (reading Zech 6:12) [] ... is symbol of the archangelic Logos"

See what you did there?

3) I'm also just not sure about all the premises.

4) And I can't agree with your interpretation of the conclusion.

therefore improbable, that Nazarene means Nazirite or 'consecrated', since Jesus went to prostitutes, gluttons, drunkards, etc. Therefore Nazarene has to mean the other meaning: 'of davidic branch'.

This is the dangers of letting morons who have no Sprachgefühl at all 'decide' these issue in their own kangaroo court. There are many other possibilities for the terminology you haven't even considered. The most obvious is that the Mandaean priests were called Nasorenes and the Mandaeans have nothing to do with the idiotic possibilities you've outlined. Epiphanius likely knows of these sectarians (Panarion 29 1 1) again with no obvious connection to David. Stupid on top of stupid on top of stupid. Self-professed 'mythicists' should be banned from academia until they learn an ancient language. The root of the Mandaean terminology is 'to guard' i.e. the priests 'guarded' the secrets of their tradition - a point not even considered in your amateur study.

The Mandaean terminology is closely related or paralleled by the name the Samaritans give themselves - i.e. shomrim.

Giuseppe wrote:

Nazirite/Nazarite, which comes from nazir (which, in turn, comes from net.ser), [variably] means

• (i) under a vow; (ii) consecrated; (iii) vow of 'separation'; or (iv) crowned

• THE VOW OF THE NAZIRITE
  
  The law concerning the Nazarites.

Well: Matthew says that this presumed 'Nazirite' or 'consecrated' went to prostitutes, gluttons and drunkards. Not precisely what is expected by a 'Nazirite' ...

Well, RT France pointed out that Matthew has Nazorean - as Ναζωραῖος - and that is similar to what the Septuagint gave "Nazirite" as - i.e. ναζιραιον

• France, RT. The Gospel of Matthew, pp. 92-93.

How many times do I have to club you over the head before you realize you don't have the skills required to make the sweeping conclusions you arrive at? Of what value is an illiterate at deciding who is the best author in history? Or a blind person which is the best painting? You are completely useless at determining the veracity of any claim or belief related to early Christianity because you are an utter ignoramus.

As a rule of thumb, the more you know, the less certain you are about anything. But the one thing we can be especially dubious of is/are claims that an author (in this case Philo) means 'X' (in this case 'an angel named Jesus') without the author actually saying 'X' and with the textual evidence he used (the LXX) making that possibility impossible or extremely unlikely.

for the original author of Zech 6:12 Joshua son of Josedec was a mere symbol of the FUTURE messiah (a guy considered distinct from Joshua), just as for Philo (reading Zech 6:12) the guy named ANATOLE (i.e., a guy considered distinct from Joshua) is symbol of the archangelic Logos.

Where is the evidence for any of this other than you love of Richard Carrier? Show me evidence that Philo thought this way. Otherwise shut up.

Anyone can come up with a ridiculous interpretation of scripture. That's what apologists do. But we are supposed to be above that and look to what the ancient sources or the original language of a passage say. As you can't engage in the latter (by your own admission you are an ignoramus) where is the former? Where is an ancient source that read the text in the stupid way you are suggesting?

It is great to love Richard Carrier. But Carrier is not an expert on Philo. Experts on Philo agree with me:

The systematic way in which Philo identifies and correlates the logos with sophia, angel, and anthropos is evidence that this constitutes a basic principle in his allegorical

and again

In Philo the word of God, the Logos, is similarly treated as an angelic figure, 'eldest of the angels, as it were Archangel', and is also identified with the heavenly man of God's first creation (Gen. 1.27) and the Dayspring-man pointed out by Zechariah (6.12) (Conf. 41, 60-3, 146), thereby gaining messianic as well as angelic overtones.23

23 Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 94 on messianic associations of Zech. 6.12 and other LXX passages with anthropos see chapter 4, pp. 144-6, below.

This is the difference between a partisan scholar and a someone who actually knows something. Philo's system understands - as I understand and all Jews understand who have some antiquity to their beliefs and traditions - the existence of a primal IS - who is at once the Christian ΙΣ. It's just that people haven't figured out the last step (nomen sacrum = Hebrew IS). But the idea makes complete sense save for complete partisan imbeciles. It over-complicates their ambition to destroy Christianity.

The point is that Philo understands that Zechariah's 'man who is the anatole' = the primal man of Genesis 1:27. There is nothing here about Jesus the high priest. Only a moron would think that.