Did Christianity Emerge From the Two Powers Tradition?

[Secret Alias]

The idea that we and the third century Church Fathers had the real LXX and Philo, a leader of the Alexandrian Jewish community did not have that text is so stupid and misguided it isn't even worth discussing (this in spite of the fact that the position has some following within Philonic scholarship). The further hypothesis that Philo might have simply used our LXX and then this was 'corrected' according to some variant text by a Jew in Antioch or Caesarea according to the Hebrew text is flatly contradicted by Philo's arguments regarding the two powers ('Lord' and 'God') and their relation to variant readings of these names (i.e. 'Lord God' in place of 'God' at Genesis 1.27 and other places in the text, 'God' in place of 'Lord God' throughout the latter portions of chapter 2 etc) with specific applications of these readings (i.e. where Philo says 'let us' indicates two gods and 'God' rather than 'Lord' being the corrector of passions) even when a hand appears to have corrected the reading to agree with the LXX. In other words, there appears to have been some amount of scribal correction but it does not agree with the theory that the fourth or sixth century scribe was Jewish. Indeed the correction of 'Jesus' to 'Joshua' for the son of Nun is hardly indicative of a Jewish hand especially when 'Jesus' appears as a nomen sacrum in Christian literature. I think this is another example where scholars haven't thought through the implications of their positions with respect to what Philo actually says about the divine names which is one of Philo's most important beliefs. Indeed any Jew would immediate recognize that when Philo says for instance 'let us' destroy the tower of Babel being indicative of 'two powers' is a heretical position within Judaism. How a fourth century Jewish editor would want to preserve this position when it is strictly forbidden in the Talmud is beyond any explanation.

[Secret Alias]

In case people haven't gone through the evidence I presented in book form it is worth noting that Clement of Alexandria preserves what is considered a 'purer' or 'pure' Philo text which has been clearly tampered by someone. Clement (along with Justin) shows contact with this 'ur-LXX' too.

[Secret Alias]

An email today from Professor Anselm Schubert from the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität who wrote a paper on Osiander and Kabbalah:

Dear Mr. Huller,

thank you very much for your kind enquiery. The inventing of the Pentagramm via the schin seems to go back to Pico indeed. Please cf. for that Chaim Wirszubski: Picos encounter with jewish mysticicsm, p. 165 and 218. At least that is, where Reuchlin (De verbo mirifico and De arte cabalistica) and via Reuchlin Osiander got it from. Hoewever, whereas Picos explanation is somewhat obscure, Reuchlin explicitly refers to Gen. 4,26 and translates: "He expected to be called upon with a schin in the middle" (cf. de arte cabalistica p. X recto). Of course there were precursors to mystic speculations on the name of Christ. Best I know is Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann: Geschichte der christlichen Kabbala, Vol.1, p. 14-18 and 38-48.

The explanation with 'Isch certainly belongs to Sefer Bahir (and hence is found in Postell), but I have not found it in Osiander.

Genesis 4:26 - Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD.

[billd89]

Annette Henrietta Margaretha Evans, "The development of Jewish ideas of angels : Egyptian and Hellenistic connections, ca. 600 BCE to ca. 200 CE" [2013], p.184:

Here “He who is above the Logos” is what Philo called Theos in De Opificio Mundi 134 and “the Father and Director” in Op. 135. The term Logos seems here to be the same figure as the Demiurgos described in Op.134, and the “Artificer” (τοῦ τεχνίτου) as described in De Specialibus Legibus 1.41.

See also Sami Yli-Karjanmaa's chapter, “Call him earth”: On Philo’s Allegorization of Adam in the Legum allegoriae: Link

[Secret Alias]

Interesting. So not kurios/Yahweh.

[rgprice]

Nice resurrection. The OP actually poses a very interesting question.

[rgprice]

So let's sort this all out. Castellio got the idea for Jesus = 'man-God' or 'man-Yahweh' from Andreas Osiander. Osiander was Johannes Reuchlin's student. Did Reuchlin come to the same conclusion about the name? Was Pico an independent attestation of the same idea or were they in conversation with one another?

It would appear then that Christians tried to reconcile an ordinary human name (Jesus) to the ineffable name of God YHWH long before Osiander. At some point they figured out that Jesus = Ish. But when exactly? And how?

Let me understand this. Are you saying that there are places in the Jewish scriptures that use the term "man-YHWH"? And that an interpretation of this is the reading "Jesus".

And that, indeed the name "Jesus" was never actually spelled out in the early Christians writing, but instead abbreviations were used that could be interpreted as "man-YHWH", and Christians interpreted them to mean the name "Jesus".

Is that what you were proposing?

[billd89]

De Opificio Mundi 134-5

Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτά φησιν ὅτι ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς {Theos='God'} τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν λαβὼν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς...

... γεγενῆσθαι γὰρ τὸ μὲν σῶμα χοῦν τοῦ τεχνίτου {Artificer} λαβόντος καὶ μορφὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ἐξ αὐτοῦ διαπλάσαντος, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν ἀπ’ οὐδενὸς γενητοῦ τὸ παράπαν, ἀλλ’ ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς {Father} καὶ ἡγεμόνος τῶν πάντων {Hegemon of All} · ὃ γὰρ ἐνεφύσησεν, οὐδὲν ἦν ἕτερον ἢ πνεῦμα θεῖον ἀπὸ τῆς μακαρίας καὶ εὐδαίμονος φύσεως ἐκείνης ἀποικίαν τὴν ἐνθάδε στειλάμενον ἐπ’ ὠφελείᾳ τοῦ γένους ἡμῶν, ἵν’ εἰ καὶ θνητόν ἐστι κατὰ τὴν ὁρατὴν μερίδα, κατὰ γοῦν τὴν ἀόρατον ἀθανατίζηται. διὸ καὶ κυρίως ἄν τις εἴποι τὸν ἄνθρωπον θνητῆς καὶ ἀθανάτου φύσεως εἶναι μεθόριον ἑκατέρας ὅσον ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστι μετέχοντα καὶ γεγενῆσθαι θνητὸν ὁμοῦ καὶ ἀθάνατον, θνητὸν μὲν κατὰ τὸ σῶμα, κατὰ δὲ τὴν διάνοιαν ἀθάνατον.

"God made man, having taken clay from the earth, and he breathed into his face the breath of life."...

... For the body of the born man took the body of the Artificer, molding the form of a Man out of soil; and the soul of the born man came from nothing born to the Universe but of the Father and Ruler of all things. For he breathed it into him. There is no other divine spirit from the colony of that long and blessed existence sent forth for the benefit of our race, though mortal in the visible part, yet immortal in the invisible part. For this especially, we call Man a boundary of mortal and immortal nature, partaking each as necessary, that he was begotten mortal and immortal simultaneously: mortal in body, yet immortal in mind.

... or see Runia's 1982 trans.

I have lots of question about this. In Genesis 2:7 (which Philo is obviously referencing), God is the Artificer = Demiurge. But Philo has the Artificer as another Power/God, below that 'god' who is Father and Hegemon. IF this is the Supreme God, He has two natures/facets: Father AND Ruler.
Meanwhile, however we admire his dirty-work, the Demiurge has been demoted to mere soil-pusher, shit-molder. God is Father (#1) and Hegemon (#2 or #3?), whereas the Artificer/Maker (#2 or #3?) is obviously sidelined.

I see 'Kyrios' as 'Lord' (Master), possibly 'Ruler' or 'Hegemon', but I'm not sure that deity aspect is absolutely identical to Father-God either.

Philo is inconsistent across all his works in these 'aspects of God', in various attempts to rationalize (what I think were) competing systems in different synagogues. I have pointed out 3 and 4-Power systems apparent in Philo, elsewhere. It's a hot mess!

[rgprice]

If I'm understanding this thread at all, which I might not be, then what Secret Alias is proposing is that the nomina sacra IS, may be obscuring an original reading "man-Yahweh", not Jesus. Is this essentially the proposal?

If this is the proposal, then is it not possible that it was Marcion or Gnostics who made the misinterpretation, leading to the reading Jesus in Paul's letters, which then resulted in the writing of Gospels derived from this reading of Paul's letters? This relates to the other thread I posted about the possibility that Paul's letters did not originally contain the name Jesus.

[Secret Alias]

My interest in Philo predated my interpretation of the nomen sacrum. Philo's understanding of the Pentateuch is the subject of much controversy but having read Philo many times (and I would argue 'recreationally' here meaning something 'deeper' than mere 'mining Philo for quotes' and making them fit pre-existent ideas about Judaism) let me tell you what I gain from the experience:

1. there are three divinities at least (a) kyrios (b) theos and then (c) despotes which correspond to (a) the god of 'bad men' = Jacob (b) the god of those who seek improvement/education = Abraham and then (c) those who have perfection already = Isaac.

in other words there is a primitive 'Trinity' in the writings of Philo that doesn't correspond to the Christian trinity.

2. the story of the Patriarchs is almost inevitably woven around the idea of improvement (even if that destroys the narrative about b because even Jacob 'improves'). This is epitomized by b because Abraham is the epitome of the proselyte who comes over from heathenism.

The story of Jacob is noteworthy. Philo understands the dream/incident at Peniel to represent a changing of allegiance for Jacob from kyrios (the god of bad men and Jacob starts life as a 'bad guy' according to Philo) to theos. The song he chants after seeing the god on the ladder is taken to mean that he no longer is 'with' kyrios but theos.

There's more but that's enough to digest for now.