Posts by Leolaia

Although there are no existing ancient Bible (Greek Scripture) manuscripts that contain the full name Jehovah, there are five reasons why we (and certain other Bible scholars and translators) believe that it existed in the original text. They are:

Those great Bible scholars in Brooklyn.

The Name is found in many of the Hebrew Scripture texts that are quoted by Jesus and his disciples (but it isn?t found in the existing Greek texts now).

And how are they sure it was in Greek texts then?

Jesus mentioned God?s having a Name in ?The Lord?s Prayer,? and at John 5:43, 10:25, 12:13, 17:26, and in numerous other places.

That's not evidence of anything. Sure, Jews know that God has a name. But that doesn't mean it is gets written or spoken. Ever heard of Hashem? Same thing with kurios.

36

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

by Leolaia in

twice (john 4:29, 39), the samaritan woman is said to have reported to her townspeople that a man had told her ?everything?

one may surmise that those whom she told knew rather well precisely what the things were that she had done, for they followed her urging to see this remarkably perceptive stranger.

precisely what did jesus tell her that so moved her and others, and how did he go about it?

Navigator....Do you have a citation for Lamsa for the BYOB custom? According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (dated as it is): "There is a disappointing uncertainty as to the exact ceremonies or proceedings connected with marriage in Bible times. We have to paint our picture from passing allusions or descriptions, and from what we know of Jewish and Arabic customs." This source says that the house of the bridegroom was generally the location of the bridal chamber and marriage supper, and the Babylonian Talmud describes preparations for the feast taking at least three days in advance of the wedding (Ketubot 2a; 7b; 8a). Whether or not John and the Semeia Gospel knew actual Judean custom, it is implied in John 2:10 that it was the bridegroom's responsibility to "keep" (cf. teterekas) and then "set forth" (cf. tithesin) the wine to the guests. Since the "servants" (diakonois) and the "master of the feast" (arkhitriklinos) were the ones actually serving the wine and the "master of the feast" (that is, one intimately involved with planning and executing the feast) was the one complimenting the bridegroom for his wine, this would indicate that the wine that had already been served was provided by the bridegroom. Maybe the bridegroom had organized it in advance to have his male guests to bring along wine, but still he was the one the arkhitriklinos got the wine from. And that brings us to Mary: If it was the bridegroom who had to make sure wine was provided, why was Mary not going to the bridegroom to report the problem instead of going to Jesus? And what business was it of Mary's?

As for Jesus being the bridegroom, John 3:28-29 makes it quite clear that at an allegorical level, Jesus is to be understood as the bridegroom. John 2:4 links Jesus' provision of the wine at Cana with the Passion (cf. 18:11), probably via the Eucharist (6:54-55). The symbolism seems to be pretty clear: (1) Jesus came down from heaven (his Father's house) to the earth which is where the bride-to-be lives (3:31; 6:51; 14:2). In Jewish betrothal custom, the man must go to the bride's house to propose; (2) John the Baptist is "the bridegroom's friend" and he introduces the bride-to-be (the disciples) to Jesus (3:28-29); (3) Jesus offers his bride a covenant replacing the old Law and living water to drink (4:14; 7:37-39; 13:34; 14:15; 14:2; 15:14-17). Jesus drinks of his cup of wine when he dies (cf. 18:11; 19:29-30) and the bride drinks when Jesus is glorified in the resurrection (7:39). This directly parallels the kiddushin custom: the groom-to-be presents his bride with a ketubah (marriage contract) and a cup of wine (over which are said the benedictions). Note that both are symbolized in the Cana story: the old Law represented by the jars of ablution water is replaced by superior wine that Jesus freely dispenses. The synoptics present Jesus as literally giving the cup of wine at the Last Supper while John has this occurring (i.e. dispensing the "living water") after the resurrection (20:22-23). Paul separately developed the notion of Jesus purchasing his Church (like a mohar or dowry) through his death, so that those comprising his bride must remain like virgins free from fornication (1 Corinthians 6:18-20; 2 Corinthians 11:2); (4) Jesus then returns to his Father and "prepares a place" for his disciples in his "Father's house," when that is done, he "will come again, and receive [his disciples] to myself" (John 14:2-3). This exactly parallels marriage custom, where the groom leaves his bride for a period of weeks or months and works on preparing the bridal chamber and a place for her move into. Then he returns to her house and takes her home for the wedding ceremony. The Cana story is then an allegory of how Jesus would provide abundant living water (i.e. eternal life) for those joining him in the marriage feast (cf. 145 gallons in John 2:6 -- more than enough for everyone!). Revelation 19:7-9 depicts the wedding and marriage feast in heaven between the Lamb and his bride. Although the Cana story prefigures Jesus' provision of living water for the eternity of his beloved disciples in his Father's house (cf. Revelation 21:6), Jesus' response in John 2:4 -- referring to the hour has "not yet come" -- points also to his role as the bridegroom offering wine to the bride at the betrothal, in advance of the wedding itself.

36

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

by Leolaia in

twice (john 4:29, 39), the samaritan woman is said to have reported to her townspeople that a man had told her ?everything?

one may surmise that those whom she told knew rather well precisely what the things were that she had done, for they followed her urging to see this remarkably perceptive stranger.

precisely what did jesus tell her that so moved her and others, and how did he go about it?

Leolaia

PP....The evidence re the Epiphany feast nicely complements the internal evidence that the Cana story borrows from Dionysian legends, particularly in how John construes Jesus' miracle as a revealing of Jesus' coming glory (John 2:11-12; "He let his glory be seen"), and also the provenance of the publication of John in Asia Minor. I too see John as directly countering Thomasian docetism, but the main problem is that the Gospel of Thomas does not claim that Jesus lacked a fleshly body -- instead it indicates that Jesus was a spirit being who inhabited a fleshly body (29:1). Of course, such a situation was not unique to Jesus, as Thomas teaches that all people are the same way (cf. 22:4; 24:2-3; 87:1; 112:1; 114:2). It is thus unclear whether Thomas viewed Jesus' incarnation as at birth (as it is for everyone else in the human condition) or at his baptism when the divine spirit entered the fleshly body (cf. Ebionite adoptionism). The Thomas episode in John 20 suggests that Thomasian Christians believed that the spirit being left Jesus' body at death and when he appeared to his disciples afterward he did not have a physical body anymore. This would be more overtly docetic than the Gospel of Peter which has Jesus leaving his body behind on the cross (5:19), going off to "preach to those who sleep" (10:41), and returning to reinhabit the body in the tomb and emerging from the sepulchre with two angels (10:39-40).

That's interesting about Mamortha....however, Josephus (Bel. Jud., 4.8.1) spelled it as Mabortha (and this reflects the actual Aramaic Mabarakta "blessed town"), so I'm not sure if Mamortha was the form known to the author of John; it was Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia 5:69) who spelled it as Mamortha: " Intus autem Samariae oppida Neapolis, quod antea Mamortha dicebatur." But I just found something totally astounding. As you know, Justin Martyr was himself a native of Neopolis (mod. Nablus) and that makes his report locating early proto-gnosticism in Gitton, a town a short distance from Neapolis (mod. Kiryet Jit), somewhat credible. Justin mentions Simon and Meander as the two Samaritan leaders at the forefront of the "heresy", and regarding Simon of Gitton Justin says:

"And almost all the Samaritans, and a few even of other nations, worship him, and acknowledge him as the first god; and a woman, Helena, who went about with him at that time, and had formerly been a prostitute, they say is the first idea generated by him." (Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 1:26)

Now all of this is getting to be too much of a coincidence! Here Simon is paired with a woman, as Jesus was paired in gnostic tradition with Mary Magdalene, both going about together in a ministry like Jesus and Mary, and extrabiblical tradition designated Mary as a former prostitute; moreover, John presents Jesus as claiming himself to be God, he declares himself as the Christ in almost the SAME TOWN Simon hailed from, the townspeople all believe in him and become his followers, and the woman who led in the conversion was herself a woman of ill repute (John 4:1-42). Might John be drawing on the local Simon legend, perhaps to refute the claim that Simon was the one who converted the town of Sychar (Shechem) to a new faith? I think so because Luke also draws on the same tradition in Acts 8:9-10 and says that "a man called Simon had already practised magic arts in the town and astounded the Samaritan people; he had given it out that he was someone momentous, and everyone believed what he said, eminent citizens and ordinary people alike declared, 'He is the divine Power that is called Megelleh.' " Compare that with John 4:39-42: "Many Samaritans of that town believed in him ... [saying], 'We have heard him ourselves and we know that he really is the Savior of the world.' " So Luke apparently solves the issue by turning Simon into a convert of Philip while John solves it by essentially implying that Simon is nothing more than a distorted memory of the real Christ who preached in Samaria.

Irenaeus has more to say about Simon and his wife Helena. He says that Simon taught that Helena was his "first thought," i.e. Logos or Wisdom personified, and she created the angels and archangels for him but they became jealous of her and persecuted her, finally shutting her up "in a human body, and for ages passed in succession from one female body to another, as from vessel to vessel. She was, for example, in that Helen on whose account the Trojan war was undertaken; for whose sake also Stesichorus was struck blind, because he had cursed her in his verses, but afterwards, repenting and writing what are called palinodes, in which he sang her praise, he was restored to sight. Thus she, passing from body to body, and suffering insults in every one of them, at last became a common prostitute; and she it was that was meant by the lost sheep" (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.23.2). Simon met Helena in Tyre on a journey outside Samaria, and having recognized who she really was and realized her true history, he took her with him and "was in the habit of carrying her about with him, declaring that this woman ... was the mother of all." Now let's stop for a moment to witness the amazing parallels between this story and (1) the Johannine story of the Woman at the Well, and (2) the tradition about Jesus and Mary Magdalene. There is nothing about meeting Helena at a well; that trope was something evidently recruited by John from the OT. But like Jesus, Simon meets the woman on a trip outside his homeland, and the woman was of ill repute, "living with a man who is not [her] husband" (John 4:18). And like Jesus, Simon came to have "divine knowledge" of this woman's past history. Jesus tells her that he has already had five husbands (v. 18), and as already discussed in this thread, commentators have long noted that it is hard to believe that this woman had already been widowed or divorced five times in her adult life and is in her sixth relationship. But maybe we have here an echo of the Simon legend, that the woman he marries had already lived a sucession of past lives. And extrabiblical tradition portrayed Mary Magdalene as Jesus' companion, as someone involved in his ministry, and (for some) a former prostitute that Jesus had freed. And most remarkable is Simon's declaration that Helena was the "mother of all". How reminiscent that is to the view of Hippolytus and Cyril of Alexandria of Mary Magdalene being the "New Eve"! Now when we look at Irenaeus' description of Simon's theology, it is a dead ringer for pre-Johannine proto-gnosticism:

This man, then, was glorified by many as if he were a god; and he taught that it was himself who appeared among the Jews as the Son, but descended in Samaria as the Father while he came to other nations in the character of the Holy Spirit. He represented himself, in a word, as being the loftiest of all powers, that is, the Being who is the Father over all, and he allowed himself to be called by whatsoever title men were pleased to address him.... For since the angels ruled the world ill because each one of them coveted the principal power for himself, he had come to amend matters, and had descended, transfigured and assimilated to powers and principalities and angels, so that he might appear among men to be a man, while yet he was not a man; and that thus he was thought to have suffered in Judaea, when he had not suffered. Moreover, the prophets uttered their predictions under the inspiration of those angels who formed the world; for which reason those who place their trust in him and Helena no longer regarded them, but, as being free, live as they please; for men are saved through his grace, and not on account of their own righteous actions. For such deeds are not righteous in the nature of things, but by mere accident, just as those angels who made the world, have thought fit to constitute them, seeking, by means of such precepts, to bring men into bondage. On this account, he pledged himself that the world should be dissolved, and that those who are his should be freed from the rule of them who made the world.... they have a name derived from Simon, the author of these most impious doctrines, being called Simonians; and from them "knowledge, falsely so called," (i.e. Gnosticism) received its beginning, as one may learn even from their own assertions." (Irenaeus, Adverses Haereses 1.23.1-4)

In common with John (and the gnosticism that lay behind John), we find that according to Irenaeus: (1) both Simon and Jesus claimed to have come down from heaven (cf. John 3:13; 6:42, 51, 58), (2) both claimed to be the Son to the Jews (cf. John 3:16-17, 35), (3) both spoke at length about the Son and Father, (3) both are described in quasi-docetic terms, (4) both are said "to have suffered in Judea," (5) both were anticipated by the prophets (cf. John 1:23, 45; 5:46; 12:37-40), and most interestingly (6) both claimed to save men through grace and not on account of works (cf. John 3:16-17). The biggest difference with John is the modalism between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (though John 1:1 could be construed as quasi-modalist). Ignatius of Antioch, who appears to have drawn on similar Johannine traditions, was a clear modalist. There are points of contact also with Paul's proto-gnosticism, cf. the references to the world controlled by "powers and principalities and angels" (cf. Romans 8:38; Colossians 1:16; 2:15; Ephesians 6:12), and the phrase "Father over all" which resembles "God over all" being applied to Christ in Romans 9:5. The Simon tradition is certainly connected with the Jesus tradition and reflects the kind of proto-gnosticism in Paul and John. And the Woman at the Well scene, being set in the very neighborhood Simon was said to hail from, and constructed as a sort of courtship scene lifted directly from OT courtship scenes, involving a woman of ill-repute the Savior meets in a foreign land, seems to form part of this Samaritan proto-gnostic tradition.

6

Israel children of Hittites?

by peacefulpete in

does ezekiel understand israel to be a people foreign to caanan?

or does he not see them as indigenous and related to the other nations.

ezk 16:3 and say, thus saith the lord god unto jerusalem; thy birth and thy nativity [is] of the land of caanan; thy father [was] an amorite, and thy mother an hittite.

Leolaia

The Yahwist epic is older than Ezekiel, but bear in mind that often later texts can preserve more primitive traditions. However, I think we need to be a little careful with Ezekiel 16:3. We read in v. 2 that the entity being addressed is Jerusalem, not Israel or the nation as a whole. The Deuteronomic History indeed places Jerusalem in Canaanite hands even long after the nation of Israel had come into existence (cf. 2 Samuel 5:6-16). Similarly, the "Salem" of Genesis 14:18 (identified in Psalm 110:4 as Jerusalem) was depicted as already in existence in Abraham's day. I also looked up the Ezekiel text in Normann Gottwald's book on the native origins of Israel in Canaan and he does not interpret it as relevant in the same way. Note that Ezekiel also compares Jerusalem with Sodom (a city) and Samaria (a city, which later became the name of the Northern Kingdom):

"Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. Your elder sister is Samaria, who lives on your left with her daughters. Your younger sister is Sodom, who lives in your right with her daughters. You have not failed to copy their behavior; throughout your career you have shown yourself more corrupt than they were." (Ezekiel 16:45-47)

So perhaps Ezekiel loosely means the country as the extension of the city. Still, we need to recognize the polemical nature of this text: does Ezekiel mean that Judah descended from the Hittites and Amorites merely because "they have copied their behavior"? Ezekiel says "like mother, like daughter" (v. 44). The other very strange thing in this text is the description of Samaria as the "elder daughter" and Sodom as the "younger daughter". Genesis posits the existence of Sodom in the patriarchical era and destroyed in the days of Abraham, while the Deuteronomic History posits the creation of the Northern Kingdom after the rupture following Solomon's death and Samaria per se originated during the reign of Omri in the 9th century BC (1 Kings 16:24). This would suggest that Ezekiel either ascribed greater antiquity to Samaria than generally believed, or regarded the destruction of Sodom as occurring far more recently than Genesis would suggest (unless his use of the terms "elder" and "younger" could be explained in some other way).

Ezekiel was also knowledgeable of the Abraham patriarchical tradition because he also wrote: "Son of man, the people living in those ruins in the land of Israel are saying, 'Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as our possession' " (Ezekiel 33:24). Compare also this reference to the external origin of Israel:

"On the day I chose Israel, I swore with uplifted hand to the descendants of the house of Jacob and revealed myself to them in Egypt.... When I gather the people of Israel from the nations where they have been scattered, I will show myself holy among them in the sight of the nations. Then they will live in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob." (Ezekiel 20:5; 28:25)

BTW the Assyrians and Babylonians referred to Palestine as "Hatti" and the Akkadians before then used the word "MART.TU" or "Amurru" to refer to the Western regions. This would account for why "Hittite" and "Amorite" are the terms Ezekiel uses to refer to Judah's or Jerusalem's Canaanite forbearers.

17

Jannes and Jambres: Hyksos Pharaohs of the Fifteenth Dynasty?

by Leolaia in

in 2 timothy 3:8, we encounter an enigmatic verse: "men like this defy the truth just as jannes and jambres defied moses.

" these names do not occur in the ot but they are widely attested in post-exilic jewish tradition as the magicians who competed against moses in performing miraculous signs and wonders.

according to the book of jannes and jambres, the two magicians were summoned by pharaoh separately:.

Leolaia

funkyderek....Do you like irony? It was the explicit use of an apocryphal text in 2 Timothy that led some to dispute 2 Timothy as genuine scripture. Origen (early III cent.) wrote:

Paul's statement, "As Jannes and Mambres withstood Moses" is not found in the public scriptures, but in a secret book entitled the Book of Jannes and Mambres. For this reason some reject (repellere) this Epistle to Timothy, just as [they reject] the secret text itself." (Origen, in Matth. ser. 117)

Curious too how the Pastorals condemn "Jewish myths" (Titus 1:14), "myths and endless genealogies" (1 Timothy 1:4), and "old women's myths" (1 Timothy 4:7), yet 2 Timothy explicitly refers to a Jewish legend otherwise unknown in the OT.

16

"Son of God" -- some background

by Narkissos in

if we just forget about the capitals for one moment, the expression son of (a) god is almost as old as writing (> 5000 y.).

to understand it we have to get back, not only upstream of christianity, but also upstream of the constitution of monotheism in the last 6 centuries before the birth of christianity.

we can then discern at least three related meanings, which we will have to replace in their original context and in the context of their possible reception at the beginning of the christian era.

Leolaia

BTW I am really struck by the following verse you cited:

Dt 32:8 (corr.) When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of El (Yhwh, one of them, inherits Israel in v. 9).

Nowhere else in the Bible is polytheism and monolatry so clearly taught! It sure puts into light the conflict between Moab and Israel as a contest between Chemosh and Yahweh. Note also that according to Genesis 10, there were just 70 nations on the earth, and how many "sons of El" are there in Canaanite mythology? Seventy! Later Judaism revised this polytheistic doctrine so that each nation had their own guardian angel (cf. Daniel 10:13, 20, 21; 12:1; Sirach 17:17), and the Targum Ps.-Jonathan also states that "when he [i.e. God] divided alphabets and tongues to the sons of men [at the Tower of Babel], he cast lots with 70 angels, the princes of the nations, who established the borders of the peoples." Compare also the thought in Deuteronomy 4:19-20 and 29:25-27.

Leolaia

16

"Son of God" -- some background

by Narkissos in

if we just forget about the capitals for one moment, the expression son of (a) god is almost as old as writing (> 5000 y.).

to understand it we have to get back, not only upstream of christianity, but also upstream of the constitution of monotheism in the last 6 centuries before the birth of christianity.

we can then discern at least three related meanings, which we will have to replace in their original context and in the context of their possible reception at the beginning of the christian era.

Leolaia

Beautiful! That post is a keeper. Thank you for putting all the evidence together so clearly -- it shows how effortlessly the conception of Son of God shifted between kingly and divine roles between different Jewish and Gentile groups and how the entire network of meaning became eventually consolidated in the person of Jesus Christ.

24

Israel's Yahweh Revealed?

by Pleasuredome in

in a september 22nd, 2002 speech to visiting christian zionists, israeli prime minister ariel sharon asserted, "this land is ours... god gave us the title deeds..." however, recent scholarly research, including discoveries by an archaeological team from the university of tel aviv, not only deconstruct the biblical old testament and torah stories upon which this claim rests, but grant previously unthinkable credence to an ancient historian's claim that the israelites of exodus were actually the hyksos, and therefore of asiatic origin.

to trace the foundations of this ongoing biblical bonfire, we must go back to 1999. .

all hell broke loose in israel in november of that year when prof. ze'ev herzog of tel aviv university announced: "the israelites were never in egypt, did not wander the desert, did not conquer the land, and did not pass it on to the twelve tribes".

Leolaia

About asherah as a noun rather than denoting a distinct goddess, that is precisely the point Mark Baker makes in his analysis.

17

Jannes and Jambres: Hyksos Pharaohs of the Fifteenth Dynasty?

by Leolaia in

in 2 timothy 3:8, we encounter an enigmatic verse: "men like this defy the truth just as jannes and jambres defied moses.

" these names do not occur in the ot but they are widely attested in post-exilic jewish tradition as the magicians who competed against moses in performing miraculous signs and wonders.

according to the book of jannes and jambres, the two magicians were summoned by pharaoh separately:.

Leolaia

About a possible Hebrew derivation for the names Jannes and Jambres, there are postulated Hebrew models but they do not easily fit because the Hebrew forms are so variable. In the case of Jannes, the Greek forms include Iannes in 2 Timothy and Numenius and Ianne in Pliny the Elder. The Targum Yer. I. has ynys, which closely resembles the Greek forms and betrays its Hellenistic origin with -s ending. This strongly suggests that the name was borrowed directly from the Greek. Then there are forms that more closely resemble Hebrew words. The Babylonian Talmud attests ywchn' which strongly resembles ywchnh (Yochanah), except for the final 'aleph. The form in the Dead Sea Scrolls is ychnh (CD 5:17-19), which again resembles ywchnh except this time the /w/ is omitted. These forms appear to assimilate the name to the more familiar Yochanah but do it in different ways. If the name was originally Hebrew and originally Yochanah, why so many forms? On the other hand, the Qumran form with a little metathesis would be a dead ringer for Khyan (e.g. chynh "Chyanah"). As for Jambres/Mambres, the form Iambres is attested in Numenius, 2 Timothy, and the Book of Jannes and Jambres, while Mambres occurs in Quaest. Barth. (L) 2, 4:50 and numerous patristic sources. Rabbinical sources give the form as mmbr' and mmr' (Babylonian Talmud and haggadaic sources). Although mrd "rebel, oppose" and mrh "bitter, rebellious" certainly contributed to the haggadaic interpretation of Mambres, they were not the etymological source of mmbr' and mmr' since the last consonant is 'aleph, and not [h] or [d]; moreover they do not explain the doubled [m]. The situation is thus similar to the Jewish folk etymology for nmrd "Nimrod" which is actually not of Hebrew origin and such derivation fails to explain the initial consonant. The name (in both forms) however is identical to mmr' "Mamre" which is rendered as Mambre in the LXX (cf. Genesis 13:18). But this name is not Hebrew, of unknown origin, and occurs only as a toponym (cf. Genesis 13:18; 23:17, 19; 25:9; 49:30; 50:13), except in one instance as an Amorite name and in this instance a clear doublet of the Abraham toponym tradition (Genesis 14:13). Since the name is unknown as an Israelite or Jewish name, with no Hebrew etymon, its use in the Moses tradition is explainable as either (1) the direct recruitment of Mamre from the Abraham cycle into the Exodus traditions, or (2) an origin as a foreign word that was identified with "Mamre" because of phonetic resemblance. It is hard to imagine the circumstances that would have led to (1), since Mamre was a highly venerated holy site in Judea and the vague personification of Mamre as an Amorite warrior in Genesis 14:13 is entirely positive, casting him as a loyal partner of Abraham. However, if the name had a foreign origin but closely resembled Mamre, the pre-existing and more familiar name could have had an influence on the phonetic form. The throne name of Sheshi, m'ybr' "Maaybre", is one name that resembles mmbr'. If Mambres had an Egyptian Greek origin, and entered Hellenistic Jewish tradition under the influence of LXX Mambre, that would explain why we find both mmbr' and mmr' in Hebrew, with the former containing a vestige of the name's Greek origin.

For all I know, I could be wrong (enthusiastic amateur that I am), but all I was basically pointing out was the interesting coincidence of the Hyksos Sixteenth Dynasty, which Manetho and Josephus both connected with the Israelites (whether incorrectly or not), that two of the kings related by descent to a pharaoh named Jacob, bore names strikingly similar to Jannes and Mambres.