The Ethiopian Bible

[shaberon]

Posted by Irminsül (here)
Hello shaberon! I've been reading your posts and the level of depth of the research you carry out is noticeable. Which is excellent and I congratulate you for that

It seems that you have a lot of knowledge when it comes to Christianity, the study of the Bible and related subjects. So I wanted to ask you the following questions:

This is good, it reflects how a "forum" ought to work. Like a debate, questions followed by questions, milling it down so we understand each other better.

We are bound to disagree on a few minor points -- the issue is, can we have "minor disagreements" and still function harmoniously on the planet? I would say "yes" -- there is a lot of value in that.

If it goes too far, there are red lines -- if this is your serious belief, then we are only going to fight.

Now, something has recently come to my attention. As I have said, I am a "friendly visitor" to Orthodoxy. I specifically lack exactly what is required to participate in the faith, which is directed at Theological Jesus. There is more to it. I had thought that End Times Resurrection was a type of extremist fascination with the Book of Revelations, and I never thought about it. But I am reminded it is part of the Nicene Creed, and it is just that since the scientific revolution in the 1700s that it receded from every church's focus. I don't remember hearing it at any of the Orthodox services, and it is correct that although Revelations is in the canon, it has never been used as a reading by Orthodoxy.

I don't have a problem with it. If that's what someone chooses to believe, at least it is relatively harmless, and because I know most of the rest of what they are about, the conclusion is I would at least like to maintain a friendly relation.

Artificially restoring the Jews to the Temple, etc., as in Zionism is absolutely not part of Orthodoxy (it's not even Catholic).

On the other hand, the analysis I have seen virtually obliterates the New Testament. Nevertheless, I am willing to speculate there was a historical Jesus, I probably would have tried to be his friend too, which makes me particularly interested in Apostles and what actually happened to the recordings of it. This will be rather harsh, however, it need not diminish anyone's view of Jesus personally, I have nothing that suggests he was not at least a spiritual healer.


To unlace it I'm going to move up your last question:

In order to have a more complete vision, the ideal would be to read the Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Alexandrinus? Or is there one of those three manuscripts that stands out above the others in terms of the quality of its content?

Yes, exactly.

That is the key to the whole thing.

Codex Sinaiticus (ca.325-350) was written using the vocabulary of Paul.

The slightly later Codex Alexandria is composed in the Orthodox language.

Here, we get the opportunity to dissect Wikipedia and see how mind blanking works. They post the basically correct information -- these texts lack most names because they are written in a code called Nomina Sacra but what is wrong with this picture:


ΙΣ (Ιησους / Jesus) ΧΣ (χριστος / Christ)


It's in Orthodox language.

That's an interpretation, it's not what the CS says.

The Pauline spelling is that of the Marcionites, who started the first known "church" as its own stone building and it is inscribed there from ca. 220.

In no case do they ever spell out IS. Marcion *does* have the name Jesus Barabbas, so, he was capable of using such a name where appropriate.

Moreover, Pauline XS is "Chrestos".

He's speaking the language of Serapis, a vernacular that would have been known to the military and to slaves. It would have worked everywhere in Egypt.

Now, compare the locations -- Sinai is the desert, the source of Hesychasm, whereas post-350 Alexandria is a coalescence of heretic hunters. You can look at the CS manuscript and see where someone scratched out the "e" out of "Chrestos" in order to write "Christos".

In perspective, Serapis is Ptolemaic, so a discussion on "Chrestos" would have been relevant everywhere it expanded in the Greek-speaking world. That suggests a motive for forcing it "out of print".

Additionally, the expression "of Nazareth" is misleading because it is "the Nasorean", Mandaic for "priest" because he was initiated by John the Baptist, a Mandaean Nasar. Later the "St. Thomas Christians" retain the name "Nasrani".

Can it be known if there is anything in the Nag Hammadi texts that reflect the original and authentic teachings of Jesus of Nazareth? Or are they (as many say) a distorted and modified version of his teachings?

The first reaction from textual analysis would mean that such a thing as a Sayings Gospel is simpler, more original or authentic, than a Biographical Gospel.

Because everyone knows the Synoptics veer off and conflict each other's biographies, let's hold off on that aspect.

I'm willing to ask Orthodoxy, what are some of those teachings, and see what doesn't emerge from the common ground of Twenty Parallels to Theravada Buddhist texts.

Anyone is welcome to guess and then check the link afterwards.

We're looking at someone with about a three-year career, which is enough time to say an awful lot of things, when the value of writing would already be obvious.

Of course, if he had a lot to say, I'm sure it would be imparted gradually. I have a lot of experience training or raising human beings in various ways, and three years is just a green season if they are getting into something significant.


I think this is a very good question, and, I find myself on the "asking" side. I would say it might be a beneficial activity, to compare and contrast what the actual "teachings" are (if any) in these various texts. One of them is the Gospel of Thomas, which is spurious in the sense it is probably not by Apostle Thomas, but someone else with the same name. As we found in this thread, Apostle Thomas probably *did* go to Ethiopia, *and* they lost memory of it until Orthodoxy was introduced to them.

Thomas is very interesting, but the more pressing question is probably about whether the Mark that went to Alexandria is of the same nature as the "newfangled" Codex scribed there. It is probably impossible to derive any information about Thomasene churches before they were inculcated into Orthodoxy. They are Nicene but not Chalcedonic like western churches.


One of the likely "closest" people to Jesus was James the Just, and, it is now generally held that the "Essene" texts found at Qumran were actually the Library of Jersualem. The problem for Orthodoxy as the religion of Jersualem was that the temple was shut down, and James was martyred quite early, ca. 44, and no Christians re-establish an assembly there until about 135. That may, indeed, have something to do with why there is a certain hole in things, and these questions of reliability.

The complication with this Nicene Resurrection belief is that, in perspective, that actually *was* the main gate through which heretics were expelled. Anything that spoke of an "aerial body" automatically got you kicked out. And, if John, presumably the oldest surviving disciple, is found to have followers that went to both camps, then, maybe we ought to stop stressing it so hard, that is, in terms of censorship and even executions that reduced the knowledge base to the Orthodox view. I would say some very wrong things were done. To their credit, Byzantine philosophy eventually wiped out the extremist policy, and in return for that, I will at least say that some of the Orthodox views on the deity and Communion are valid. I think they have something, but because I deny their theological requirements, I obviously have the heretical view on "aerial body".


Do I know if Thomas or Pistis Sophia represent his actual words, no. I don't know if I can prove anything like that. I do, however, think the Qumran Melchizedek text is telling. If Paul was Serapis, Jesus was Melchizedek. The mission would have been to replace the Levites. That is what remains by extracting Orthodox scripture from the parts considered to be redactions or interpolations. Even in the most boiling acid bath conjured straight from hell, I still wind up with Melchizedek and the first "teaching" of Jesus quoting Babylonian Trito-Isaiah on Aphesis which is Debt Cancellation. He's speaking using educated Babylonian Jewish Greek to remind these people about a word that is actually in Leviticus, but, we do not have a record of it actually being practiced in Judea.

Let's say, if I were Greek or Jewish in that area, that probably would convert me.

Melchizedek becomes King by offering a Jubilee.

That's what I've found, by grinding it down, unintentionally, it just makes this spear point under intense scrutiny. If it was mainly about those two kinds of things coming together, I would be more interested. The problem is, this quoting Isaiah thing actually *is* a fundamental doctrine of every church, *and* they lose the meaning of "Aphesis" as just being "liberation from sin". But the context of "sin" in that language means exactly some type of blow or collision, a situation with liability, and the specific meaning here is Debt which is the duty of kingship.

Then it would universally match other languages. It is a non-western, very opposite definition of "king".

If I were not Greek or Jewish in that area, then I would probably commonly know about, if not experience, such an occasion.

Can it be identified throughout the New Testament, which books have been the least modified?

Probably.

If Jesus was similar to the above, it would not really threaten the Roman Empire, but it would be of great concern to the local authorities. He would have become a King, colloquially a Messiah. The difficulty with words about him "returning" in some mystical future manner, would have generally been understood as "during my lifetime", and that was not found soon or shortly thereafter, which mandated a special strategy to be able to convert Jews. Obviously, this runs in a different direction than the problem of converting Greek pagans, who probably spoke Paul's language.

In the NT itself, because the Gospel of John is so different from the Synoptics, you get the hard question of whether it is the most authentic because from the closest, oldest, and wisest person, or is it a late comeback that is the most wildly imaginative because it is trying to employ a complex rollout strategy?

If half of his disciples become Gnostics, or, the majority of local "Christian Gnostics" are Johannines, we're back to a gray area on that.

Aside from the Gospels, yes, because the conglomerate is framed around Pseudo-Paul.

That's going to delete a few Epistles and render Acts full of errors, if not an outright forgery.

The complications of Roman supremacy are fairly damaging to Peter, who among other things was probably a cover-up by way of demonizing Simon Magus.

Everything lines up worse for them, and, as we see, Rome did not ameliorate its violent ways any time soon, causing effectively a Dark Age in Europe.

Are there apocryphal gospels that are of more "value" than the canonical ones in terms of being more likely to have been written by people who lived with Jesus and knew him directly?

I'm not sure there is such a thing.

We had a family Bible from around the 1880s which was rather interesting, because it was gigantic, fairly good quality, and included a few Apocrypha.

It is a "genre", in the sense that these are not banned "heretical" books, but are "obscure, of dubious origin". By comparison, *all* primeval codices contained apocraphya, *and* they were accepted as valid by several prominent proto-Orthodox Fathers even in Alexandria.

The most interesting starting point that I know on them, would be The Book of Enoch.

I'm not aware if they include any gospels.

In other words, nothing non-canonical offers up much "biographical" information on Jesus, it is all mostly Sayings, or a type of meditation or communion in gnosticism.


Now, let's say Melchizedek is a regency similar to Serapis; independence, like a Peace Treaty with Egypt.

What was the Alexandria of Mark's time?

Well, it is recorded by Philo probably during the lifetime of Jesus as a "Mecca" for the Therapeutae.

Scholars have generally contended this was a minor "Essene sect" or something, however he is saying these people come from everywhere in the Greek and the barbarian worlds. At one point they are also understood as "Christians", and then in the 400s almost generically as "monks" of any religion. It has a root meaning of "devotee, servant (of a deity)", and, because a primary trait of these meditators was "healing", that comes to overtake the meaning as it sounds to us today.

That's like a cutoff, they are not heard from again.




In the scripture, we find the Greek suddenly uses "daimon" in the sense where only "kakodaimon" would be appropriate.

The Greek knowledge base, and, particularly, healing oracles, relied on a strand of medical daimons. Moreover, several other kinds are "obscure or of dubious origin" in the very values that comprise the NT.


The reason for taking the Nicene Creed is faith, which is Pistis, a Daimon.

Used in the classical sense, it has the meaning of "convinced, persuaded", which leads to "trust". At the moment, I am unable to muster this for the requisite Nicene Creed, but the basics of healing monks running around Melchizedek's kingdom has a certain resonance.


If I look at why Jesus utters Trito-Isaiah, it is because he says the Spirit is with him; and we find in other areas, he says that when he is gone the Spirit will be with "us", or, i. e., the receivers of the apostolic succession.

If I endure medieval censorship, looking for the Spirit in further exegesis, I will find it reduced to a technical term, a dead letter without any life. It is supposed to have to do with "truth, wisdom". Of course, I would be interested in spiritual experiences of wisdom, but that's not being environmentally reflected to me.

Now if I go to places where the Greek maybe makes sense, one of the most complete Gnostic texts is Pistis Sophia. What is this. Well, it is a kind of meditation and spiritual path, with Sophia, the Holy Spirit, a female.

When I personally see that, I react out of further interest, since it begins to resemble my own system.

For me, most of what I see in forbidden gnostic texts is more interesting, whereas whether it is more authentic is irrelevant.

A more detailed review to rank "authenticity" of various Gospels based from their own internal evidence is not something I have attempted, but it may well be worth doing, I don't see why not.

[shaberon]

That is good it appears there is some interest in the fact it is the Book of Enoch that is complete in Ethiopia.


Here's the intrigue.

According to the Mandeans, Enoch was operating through John the Baptist. The baptism he was transmitting was Aramaic -- Iranian. However this is not transmitted by the church. Therefor they assert the church has killed the ritual. Due to this, there are some later polemics that rather bluntly reject Jesus. However they have nothing that describes any active or current dispute with him personally in his career.

On the other hand, Enoch is not an "author" but rather a junior non-Jewish literary tradition from ca, 200 B. C. E, which probably *is* relevant to the Essenes, and has several parts not liked by rabbis such as:


...the absence of references to terms of the Mosaic covenant (such as the observance of Shabbat or the rite of circumcision), as found in the Torah


which is para-Mandaic. They are slightly similar although still for the most part, Enoch is closer to Judaism or employing a great deal of its milieu. Nevertheless, it is enhancing with something that is otherwise slack in any scriptures.

Part of that is in the lines of Persian Dualism which is being developed in an excessive way, in my view, I do not really hold these same fixations on Big Evil, as it were. However, the text does present some universal ideals, such as a Tree of Life and a realm of Seven Heavens.


On this if we just run through it with the corresponding doctrines of our system:


In the first heaven, Enoch observes the celestial bodies, gaining insights into the precise order and movements of the universe.


[a near-copy of earth presided by beings similar to Watchers]


The second heaven introduces Enoch to angels who oversee the elements and natural forces of the Earth. Here, he acquires knowledge about the winds and atmospheric phenomena.


[Indra heaven or realm of worldly deities, the final sphere having anything to do with material existence]




Moving to the third heaven, Enoch encounters the heavenly storehouses of blessings and curses. He witnesses the recording of human deeds and their corresponding consequences.

[Beauty]


The fourth heaven unveils the realm of stars and celestial luminaries. Enoch learns about the intricate motions and purposes of the stars and planets.


[Yama heaven or moral judgment of the dead]



In the fifth heaven, Enoch comes into contact with powerful angels responsible for the souls of both the righteous and the wicked. He gains insights into the judgment and fate of these souls.


[All Wishes Granted by Thought]


The sixth heaven is home to angels who maintain the cosmic order. Here, Enoch beholds the divine throne and the glorious beings who encircle it.

[All Wishes Granted by Others]



The seventh heaven represents the culmination of Enoch's journey. It is the dwelling place of God Himself, where Enoch stands in the immediate presence of divine majesty. In this celestial realm, Enoch receives profound revelations about the nature of God, divine secrets, and the ultimate destiny of humanity.

[Wishlessness or Pure Land; stability and perfection; throne of the deity; secret of formlessness]



Enoch is, at least, somewhat similar.

In Mandeanism, he is taken as a re-incarnating divine light of salvation. That is to say, a profound emphasis in their practice. This Book of Enoch was far more common, with unusual quotes of it stemming as far out as to Sir Walter Raleigh. To make a few recognizable spiritual ideas available to Jewish people, it is perhaps necessary to retain a large amount of the corresponding lore, and you get a kind of "Mandeanism lite".

The value of it, is that it at least describes a spiritual experience that a person could have. Some strands of Gnosticism have no goal other than to Behold the Throne. Isn't that bringing in the Spirit where otherwise it is barely discussed at all? This is not even a scripture with any Orthodox doctrine to consider violating, it's an art work, and so if I selectively follow the philosophy of the author(s) who portrayed the heavenly aspect, have I broken any of my vows?

If you isolate this, it's not Christian, it isn't Jewish, and it's not Mandean. It's a suggestion about Enoch and a reality of other-worldliness.

If that makes a Mandean specialty palatable to Jews and Christians, so be it.

If they are correct that he is the enlightening impulse, and, they don't accept converts, what, then, would one do?

So you see, my fair response to most religions is that I actually believe that they may have "a" way to Heaven, where each becomes at fault for claiming "the" way to Heaven. Because it seems to me there is actually more value in *parts* of Enoch than are found in the majority of any of the scriptures that I am aware of.

If you look into why it seems to be important in Ethiopia, and, put that in an arc from Alexandria, it may make sense. Not just the Bible but Ethiopian Jews as well.

It means Enoch is nearly identical in function to who: Hermes -- Thoth.


For me to be able to effectively interface with any Canaanite traditions, Enoch is vital.

Last time I checked, there is nothing that prevents me from viewing him as a Wisdom Being who attempts these spiritual bursts among humanity if I want to do that. It doesn't mean I have to believe everything that is in a multi-generational accreted compendium.

And, you know what, it works with something else that is non-denominational, or, more important if we take it to have become misunderstood.

That is to say, King Solomon was pre-Judaic and associated with Melchizedek. To explain Masonry somewhat, it has to do with a meditation described as Building the Temple of Solomon. It is made of one's moral and spiritual qualities. You are combining that with the idea of justice and so forth, it is after all named "Salem" for "Place of Peace", and, we know that shortly after Solomon, this has not been true on earth. I could be an atheist, and if I just started looking at this objectively and the ordeal of how it has to be really true in all of us before it is on "earth", you could totally ignore the spiritual aspect and yet still derive benefit.

Solomon is reducible to mundane terms if need be, whereas Enoch has a primarily spiritual meaning.

It may be interesting that no rabbis accepted it as scripture, and then most of the early church fathers did not question it. After all, it is Messianic. I hope it makes sense those two actually work for anyone. As someone who is not in theological agreement with many standard doctrines produced out of scripture, I find it more accurate and more useful.

[Irminsül]

Excellent, shaberon! Thank you very much for such extensive answers. I don't know many of the things you talk about. So after I process and research the matter, I will continue to respond to you

[shaberon]

Here is one more caveat why I would say to take "demonology" such as in Enoch with a grain of salt.


I started noticing that "demons" in Christianity did not make sense in Greek.

The sense of Greek "daimon" being shifted to "Evil" is not original to the New Testament -- it comes from the "fallen angels" of Enoch and from the Septuagint, perhaps around 300 B. C. E.. What this means is that it is a Jewish adaptation.

Why, in their minds, they did this, is not as important as simply knowing it is a change that stuck.

I, personally, would not take everything that is Enoch literally, but, the simple fact that it includes a personal experience of the divine environment is extraordinary.

[Michel Leclerc]

Posted by shaberon (here)

Posted by ExomatrixTV (here)
"As Ethiopian and also as a deacon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, I would like to inform you that our bible has 81 books not 88. And Christianity came to our society not in the 4th century but around 34 A.D when the eunuch of candace of the Ethiopians came back to Ethiopia. Acts chapter 8"

Here is where we are at loggerheads.

I would not call that remotely reliable.

Why not? Because Acts of the Apostles is a complete forgery.

Suspending disbelief for a moment, you couldn't import "Christianity" in year 34 because it had not been invented.

Acts did that, by distorting Paul.


So, ok. In Ethiopia, they have a text that *may* be from around the year 400, although that is the extreme end of the range of possibilities.


What is going on that makes it?

Well, we don't think there are any kind of written records until at least the 100s. Not of the scripture, but there is Nag Hammadi. Modern thinking suggests this was a library from Jerusalem which was hidden when the Romans got destructive.



By most accounts, Mark is considered the first Apostle. The Coptic Church of Alexandria, and some Rosicrucians, attribute their origin to Apostle Mark the Lion. This part is probably physically accurate:


...being the founder of the see of Alexandria in the first century...

This is the lore:

His house was the first Christian church, where they ate the Passover, hid after the death of the Lord Christ, and in its upper room the Holy Spirit came upon them.

Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas in their missionary journeys, preaching the gospel in Antioch, Seleucia, Cyprus, Salamis, and Perga Pamphylia, where he left them and returned to Jerusalem. After the apostolic council in Jerusalem, he went with Barnabas to Cyprus.

After the departure of Barnabas, St. Mark went to Afrikia, Berka, and the five Western cities. He preached the gospel in these parts, and on his account many believed. From there, he went to Alexandria in 61 A.D.

In the story, it is important that Mark is with Paul.

If we turn for outside corroboration, of anything, we could say that Mark made an establishment in Alexandria around 61, and that Thomas did so in India by 52.

They couldn't have had Bibles.

It gets a little weird. I just know this is a tradition in Orthodoxy:


Apostle Thomas founded Christian churches in Palestine, Mesopotamia, Parthia, Ethiopia and India.


According to Tewahedo:


Some of the apostolic missions of St Thomas that recorded in the Ethiopic Synaxarium are summarized as follows: St. Thomas went to his apostolic diocese, India and Kantara...


It's silent about him appearing in their country. The Assyrian Church remembers Thomas perfectly well.


Hrm. So we notice in the irregularities of the canonical books:


Matthew specifically identifies John the Baptist as Elijah's spiritual successor, the gospels of Mark and Luke are silent on the matter. The Gospel of John states that John the Baptist denied that he was Elijah.


In Matthew 17:11–13, Jesus speaking calls him Elijah; in John, John's own words deny he is anything special.


John the Baptist was Mandean. It seems likely to me there was a historical Jesus in the Order of Melchizedek of Psalm 110. He began by pointing to the section on Deror in Isaiah, from the later, redacted part. It is only found in Exile texts because it is cognate to Babylonian Andararum.


But that is not what our attention is drawn to by these contradictory scriptures. From the view that they are Piso satire:


The gospels of 'Mark' and 'Matthew' are not written in the first person, i.e., spoken by the author, anywhere in the text. Instead, both narratives are told in the third person. That is why scholars doubt and have concluded that the author is not relating personal experiences.



So for example if we agree there was a person, Mark, that says nothing about a gospel attributed to this person.



The oldest layers of Nag Hammadi are Sayings Gospels, which are entirely different from the biographical narratives. Not thought to be by the Apostle, the Gospel of Thomas has no narrative; it is almost completely sayings:

Several authors argue that when the logia in Thomas do have parallels in the synoptics, the version in Thomas often seems closer to the source.

In saying 13, Peter and Matthew are depicted as unable to understand the true significance or identity of Jesus.

According to Meyer, Thomas's saying 17 – "I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard and no hand has touched, and what has not come into the human heart" – is strikingly similar to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9, which was itself an allusion to Isaiah 64:4.


It was condemned by Cyril; scholars speculate that the works were buried in response to a letter from Bishop Athanasius declaring a strict canon of Christian scripture.

So, there is an intra-textual argument about what constitutes "authentic Paul", while there is in fact a pile of external evidence as well. This falls in the view called:


Marcionite Priority



That is to say, "Marcion's Gospel" is thought likely to be "original" or quite close.


Now, if you leave off from Acts and use a few other dates determined about Paul, the most likely explanation is that he left Jerusalem about six months before Jesus started preaching.

Paul never met Jesus.

Likewise, Marcion never met Paul. However, their message is pretty emphatically identical. Marcion was excommunicated by the church of Rome around 144:


Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ, who was distinct from the "vengeful" God (Demiurge) who had created the world. He considered himself a follower of Paul the Apostle, whom he believed to have been the only true apostle of Jesus Christ

The example of what he was working with may be called Apostolicon:


Galatians, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Romans, FirstThessalonians, SecondThessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, Philippians, and Laodiceans (fragment)



Or:

The apostle Paul never met Jesus in life...


...the stories (with the exception of 8 letters written by Paul) were not written by the people to whom they are attributed (they’re forgeries), and c) the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John) weren’t written by anyone who had first-hand knowledge of Jesus (hear-say, if not outright made up), as the first book was written between 30 and 35 years after Jesus was supposed to have died.



Seven letters (with consensus dates)

considered genuine by most scholars:

First Thessalonians (c. 50 AD)
Galatians (c. 53)
First Corinthians (c. 53–54)
Philippians (c. 55)
Philemon (c. 55)
Second Corinthians (c. 55–56)
Romans (c. 57)

The letters on which scholars are about evenly divided:

Colossians
Second Thessalonians

The letters thought to be pseudepigraphic by about 80% of scholars:

Ephesians
First Timothy
Second Timothy
Titus

Finally, Epistle to the Hebrews, though anonymous and not really in the form of a letter, has long been included among Paul's collected letters, but most scholars regard it as not written by Paul.

Going through the seven or eight more reliable articles, you don't get anyone who was a "converted Saul".

However there will be an intense problem with everything I am saying. That is the contents of these letters. They purport to show a date range of alleged primacy, but we hit this difficulty with Paul:


If Paul wasn’t writing in response to a historical Lord Jesus Christ, how are we to understand his constant references to this character? Or was he?



You can't look it up in the Bible. You can't use critical editions of the texts. You have to have original manuscripts.

It's quite similar to questions about Masoretic Hebrew, except it means Paul never heard of Jesus:

...fourth century textual families where some render XS as Christos and some as Chrestos. It is evident that those copyists were engaged in some type of guesswork.

Marcion’s manuscripts contained the Nomina Sacra abbreviations. And we can be equally certain that he didn’t understand all of them in the same way as later copyists.

Marcion filled in the missing letters in some of the abbreviated terms differently than did the later copyists.

All evidence points to the following differences:

Abbreviation....Traditional Spelling....Marcion’s Spelling

ΧΣ Χριστός (Christos/Christ).... χρηστός (Chrestos)
ΙΣ Ἰησοῦς (Iesous/Jesus).... ΙΣ (IS)


The earliest (Christian) inscription is from a Marcionite church building in Lebada, Syria near Damascus, ca 318, was dedicated to “IS Chrestos”.

Other early fathers also used Chrestos, and called his followers Chrestianoi, including Clement of Alexandria who wrote, in Book II of the Stromata, “All who believe in Chrestos both are, and are called, Chrestianoi, that is, good men.”

Suddenly we are looking at authentic Paul up through later Marcionite churches, who are talking about IS Chrestos.

That is exactly what we will see, on the *original* Codex Sinaiticus manuscript, which has been edited.

We can imagine around the 300s, some kind of enforcement was coming out, leading to the murder of Hypatia around 414, in Alexandria. Does that represent authentic Mark?

That is what made me curious about the Ethiopian Bible, except I am quite leery of the forces emanating from Cyril and Athanasius. It seems odd to quote Acts while being unaware of the mission of Thomas. I'm kind of thinking it is unable to fill these gaps.



In the early 100s, Hadrian wrote of Alexandria and the Serapis Christians. Serapis had been deliberately spread by Ptolemy Soter. I listed it that way because of the standard Biblical Greek:


sōtḗr (a masculine noun, derived from 4982 /sṓzō, "save") – properly, the Savior, Jesus Christ who saves believers from their sins


I'm not thinking the Ethiopian version can say much about the linguistics or history. It probably is a remarkable example of how long something can survive in favorable conditions. And, at least, it is out of the grip of Rome. Perhaps until they get attacked in the 20th century.

If we bend Hadrian's spelling, it is more likely "Chrestos" was a term from the Serapis cult, and that Paul, an Aramaic Jew, spoke this vernacular, like soldiers and slaves. It is possible Paul's name was magnified to blot out Apollonius of Tyana. It is practically certain it was to over-write him and make his life read differently.

If seen this way, Paul and Jesus are speaking against Yhwh, and so by accretion, a literary circle is drawn around them.

Oddly, it's not physically possible to show that Paul ever heard of Jesus. Usually all you will get is someone's interpretation saying this is so.

Great overview Shaberon.

Three questions/points:

(1) Greek sōtèr is indeed “saviour” (the verb "to save” IS even, Indo-Europeanly speaking, the Greek verb sōz-): which with added -tèr suffix expresses any "do-er", the last consonant of the radical, z (of sōz-) being lost before -tèr; the point I would like to add is that, whereas sōtèr and "sav-iour" are "do-er" verb-based nouns, there are of course also verbal present participles (in English ending with -ing): in Greek that is done by ending -ōn, genitive -ont-os, hence sōzōn, sōzont-os: you can immediately see that that is an exact cognate of the Persian shayoshyant-, these Greek and Persian present participles both meaning "the saving one";

(2) you are aware of the fact that Mani's father was said to be a Mandean?
(2 bis) with this man(d)- root in Mandean we are definitely exiting Semitic and into the Indo-European root stock (i.e. Persian); would this mixture of the two language families not point to late developments (for the Mandean religion that is), i.e. not later than the Baptist-- considering also that Mani's "gospel" was definitely syncretistic (and, hence, all this casting the darkest shadows on Augustine’s belief positions (gnostic puritanism mixed with old-testamentarian literalism);

(3) could you give some reference for that superb wood-panel depiction of Ezra of the third century Before the Common Era.. where does it come from, Alexandria? Thank you in advance..

p.s.: dumb me: I did not mean “not later than he Baptist”, but "not earlier than the Baptist” --- obviously. Ah, the difference between what it means and what one means!

[Michel Leclerc]

Posted by Jim_Duyer (here)

Posted by Ravenlocke (here)
“ Have you mastered Ge'ez by any chance?”

I don’t know anything about this language.

Well it seems complicated and I don't know it either.

It is Semitic, Jim, and hence not so distant from Aramaic which you know already.. the script may create a few obstacles..

[Michel Leclerc]

Posted by Irminsül (here)

(...)
[*]In order to have a more complete vision, the ideal would be to read the Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Alexandrinus? Or is there one of those three manuscripts that stands out above the others in terms of the quality of its content?[/LIST]

Irminsül, if I may intrude into your dialogue and drop here I guess useful advice for you and all interested members...

For thirty years now, when reading the Gospels, I have been using an edition which combines and compares the gospels, and is what is called a variorum edition clearly specifying the differences; it is in Greek and English and is called: Synopsis of the Four Gospels and published originally by the German Bible Society Stuttgart. It is not too expensive and definitely worth your money: this is its Amazon reference.

Of course – to become specific, you may need to master classical Greek to an extent.

Delving into the texts is very much worth your while. I remember having made a little discovery myself. In the Gethsemane story where it says that Jesus sweats blood, the Greek text refers to this as thromboi, which does not mean, as most translations offer, “blood drops” but (as the word’s relatedness to thrombosis betrays) “blood clots”, and more specifically even (being the first meaning of thromboi) “blood grains”. With bible scholars and philologists I defended then the idea that this encapsulates a reference to the Last Supper itself, where Jesus more or less replaces himself as sacrificial Lamb with his body as flesh and blood symbolised by bread and wine.. but, I must confess, such sophistication attributed to the pen of the gospel author was a little beyond the belief system of those "good Christian text analysers”.. “the gospel author could not have been anything but a simple god-fearing soul” etc. etc.

[Michel Leclerc]

Hello Shaberon, what do you mean by this, or do the Mandeans mean by:

The baptism he was transmitting was Aramaic -- Iranian.

Aramaic hence Iranian? A mixture if Aramaic and Iranian?
The words, language used? The tradition used? If Iranian then what form of “it” (what?) ?

[Ravenlocke]

Hi Michel,

Thank you for including that helpful information the Synopsis of the Four gospels and the Amazon reference.

Also thank you for “chiming in” on this thread, I was hoping you would comment. I am appreciating reading all the posts in this thread, so also thank you All commenters.

And lastly thank you for asking the above question to Shaberon,

“Hello Shaberon, what do you mean by this, or do the Mandeans mean by:

The baptism he was transmitting was Aramaic -- Iranian.

Aramaic hence Iranian? A mixture if Aramaic and Iranian?
The words, language used? The tradition used? If Iranian then what form of “it” (what?) ?”.



Michel,
I have a question for you,

Can you please clarify your point here for me,

“ Delving into the texts is very much worth your while. I remember having made a little discovery myself. In the Gethsemane story where it says that Jesus sweats blood, the Greek text refers to this as thromboi, which does not mean, as most translations offer, “blood drops” but (as the word’s relatedness to thrombosis betrays) “blood clots”, and more specifically even (being the first meaning of thromboi) “blood grains”. With bible scholars and philologists I defended then the idea that this encapsulates a reference to the Last Supper itself, where Jesus more or less replaces himself as sacrificial Lamb with his body as flesh and blood symbolised by bread and wine.. but, I must confess, such sophistication attributed to the pen of the gospel author was a little beyond the belief system of those "good Christian text analysers”.. “the gospel author could not have been anything but a simple god-fearing soul” etc. etc.”

I’m trying to understand what you are saying, I’m only familiar with the word “thrombosis” because of my grandfather, whose death was diagnosed as “thrombosis of the heart”, in the sixties.

So according to the above point, if I understand this, did Jesus have blood clots and you defended this idea as more accurate translation than “blood drops”?

[Michel Leclerc]

Dear Ravenlocke, if I am not clear to you, to whom would I be.

I suppose that everybody agrees that a correct translation of the Greek text is of the highest importance. After all it is the textual basis of a world religion.

Now, in this passage something strange happens. The word thromboi is used to describe the nature or aspect of the blood that Jesus sweats. And precisely to provide that so precious description (think of the expert opinions expressed by physicians stating that yes, it is possible for humans to sweat blood when in extreme anguish for instance), the author of the gospel does not use stagmata, which is the normal word, referring to the dripping of blood drops (or its variant stalagmata – think of the related word “stalactite") but thromboi, which means "grains”.

The Greek text which we all use says that Jesus sweats blood grains. Grains, clots, crumbs.

For me as a poet, doing such things – using the slightly "off" word to hint at a special, maybe half-concealed, meaning – is standard practice. Well then, what could that meaning be?

When I discovered this odd thromboi instead of normal stagmata, the “concealed meaning” immediately dawned on me. During the preceding Last Supper / Passover Meal, it was Jesus' plea or commandment for his disciples to eat bread and drink wine as symbols, or transsubstantiation products, for his flesh and blood as the sacrificial Passover Lamb. And that his transpiration produces “bloody grains” actually performs a kind of merger, fusion of the two components.

(Moreover in what is called in literature theory a "chiasm", the two components merged are not the two realities (flesh and blood), nor the two symbols (bread and wine) but a merger of reality A (blood) with symbol B (bread), yielding “blood grains”. The corresponding other combination, unexpressed, would be reality B (flesh) with symbol A (wine).. but is it really absent? is it not there in the text, in the idea of sweat, of perspiration itself..? Later on, on Jesus’ road to his death, Veronica wipes off the holy sweat on his face – ...because it is as wine to her?).

Now, going back to my "poetic" sleuth’s work, as I said: such text features are not "naive", they are intentional – and they betray sophistication and mastery of writing. (And because religious preachers oversimplify, this layer of meaning is never taught the faithful). So why is it there?

My interpretation is that it works as a sign of the depth of Jesus’ despair: he has just told his disciples what they are supposed to do (let us not forget: it is not only a reminder, it is the establishment of the central sacrament: the performing of the transformation of matter into divinity: the transsubstantition itself, a premonition also of what the Resurrection will do to Jesus’ corpse) and what happens: they fall asleep – so Jesus "somatises", psychoanalysts would say, – “they didn’t get it” – “Father, take away this cup (of wine-sweat?), I have failed to convince them” – and at the same time, the extremely well-crafted story says to us, the later readers, the disciples of his obtuse, sleepy disciples (they drank too much ordinary wine probably): the Transsubstantiation is and remains the Key message; Jesus is living/dying in real time the Transsubstantiation miracle.

No wonder He saves us.

[shaberon]

Posted by Michel Leclerc (here)
(2 bis) with this man(d)- root in Mandean we are definitely exiting Semitic and into the Indo-European root stock (i.e. Persian); would this mixture of the two language families not point to late developments (for the Mandean religion that is), i.e. not later than the Baptist-- considering also that Mani's "gospel" was definitely syncretistic (and, hence, all this casting the darkest shadows on Augustine’s belief positions (gnostic puritanism mixed with old-testamentarian literalism);

Yes! That is the whole point.

Mandeans are such a "meld" that some scholars believed they were simply Iranian/Mesopotamian and "imported" Semitic culture.

The layering of Avestan can very nearly be assigned dates, whereas that of the Mandeans can only be inferred from context.

For instance, in Old Avestan there is "mana" for "soul", a Sanskrit cognate. This also appears with the Mandeans, and is *replaced* by an Aramaic term in later works.

Mandean Baptism is "Aramaic" in the sense of using that language, and, of it physically being practiced in Canaan/Jordan River, according to them. Baptism of what? It's not the Holy Sprit. It is "Iranian" because it is of the following entity:


Sanskrit Vrtrahan --> Avestan Verethagna --> Persian Wahram --> Mandaic Bahram.


That suggests a "central figure" of Indo-Iranian myth.

Moreover, this was a syncretic cult from Sogdia to Commagene, until the "Big Religions" of the 300s. It lacks "Enoch".


Now, this has a parallel in the Ethiopian Bible, because Enoch is also layered with accretions.

Aramaic Enoch has a Book of Astrology that is reduced to a table in Ethiopia, which has the Book of Parables, which is not found at Qumran.

The Aramaic Astrology is The Year, the same principle of the Vedas, not the Babylonian Zodiac. This, in conjunction with the vision of Heaven, I would say is the "main teaching" detectable everywhere, hard to detail anywhere.

The Enochian Book of Giants is a slightly later work probably by different composers. And it has a very unusual feature:


Curse of Mt. Hermon


I used to think "Syria" was a Greek name, and never paid attention to it. I was wrong! Syria is the original Aramaic name of Mt. Hermon (siryon). The linked study proposes it as the residence of Ugaritic El, which would give the result El = Baal Syria, if shown in an older form than "Baal Hermon".

The area was taken over by King Joshua for about a hundred years -- along with Ahab, they are considered evil/corrupt/non-Jewish Israelites.

Instead, it was heavily Judaicized in the period from about 150 B. C. E. - 150 A. D., at which point the Romans built a pagan city. During this time, it is thought (but not certain) that Jesus experienced the Transfiguration here.

If the Enochian reference is slightly older, ca. 300 B. C. E., what are they talking about? The neighboring Bekaa Valley was the site of at least six Ptolemaic -- Seleucid battles, so, the border was moving back and forth. The mountain itself is not noted in these imperial struggles.

I haven't figured out how to "see through" this yet.

I can say the Mandeans have merged the Order of Melchizedek with perhaps the most important character of the Zoroastrians, and they reject everything Abrahamic. I don't think they would have been able to define themselves or have an identity before Josiah harassed "non-Jews" in the 600s B. C. E., which may be a dispute about Abraham and Moses before their installation in a written form of Genesis.

I don't know about the wood panel (stock image), we may be able to track it down.

Yes, savior or "soter" in relation to the Avestan term is important. Nothing in the original description is about End Times. The difference between Old Avestan and Sassanian Magism is almost night and day. Most previous scholarship has taken Zoroaster "whole hog", whereas most of those texts trail him by one to two thousand years.

[Michel Leclerc]

Posted by shaberon (here)

(...)

Yes, savior or "soter" in relation to the Avestan term is important. Nothing in the original description is about End Times. The difference between Old Avestan and Sassanian Magism is almost night and day. Most previous scholarship has taken Zoroaster "whole hog", whereas most of those texts trail him by one to two thousand years.

Yes. But let us not forget that into Sassanian times Zoroaster’s (or Zarathustra’s, the same person – (info for puzzled forum readers)) Gathas were (still) read, as the Vendidad was, and the Bundahishn.. Sassanian “Magism” was a kind of syncretism, that ultimately yielded the extraordinary Renaissance of thought and letters that the (islamicised) Persian world produced starting from the 900s.

On the other hand, let us not forget either that Sassanian Zoroastrism had in part re-invented itself after the persecutions their priesthood operated of Mani's religion (Manichaeism) in the 3rd century – but did not do so without absorbing some parts of it (among which a few Christian elements (e.g. "Christianised" (gnostic and non-gnostic) angelology) and (what is lesser known in the “West”) against Middle-Eastern (Syriac) Christianity. That had changed Magism to the point of making it receptive to the less abstruse, radical message of Islam: the Divine is absolute, and he is unique. It then took almost half a millennium to allow Persian multifaceted theology and angelology to overcome and transform that radicality and, joined at the hip to early muslim sufi asceticism, create the mature sufi masterworks of thought exemplified by Ibn ‘Arabî, Sohravardî, Rumi, Attar, Saadi, Hafez and finally Molla Sadrâ in the 16th century.

[Michel Leclerc]

Brief message to Ravenlocke, Shaberon, Irminsül and all other members reading this thread.

Elsewhere on the Forum I wrote how important it seemed to me to start and read the Gospels (that would be my preferred starting-point; except for literary reasons, the Old Testament does not fascinate me that much) in the Aramaic version considered by the Middle Eastern Christians as the original version, which was then translated into Greek (and later, from Greek into Latin). And now I realise that the same might be said of the Ge'ez versions of Ethiopian and Eritrean Christianity. Two Semitic languages.

And as you may see from what I said about the Synoptics in Greek (by the way, Irminsül, I forgot to mention that the Codices the variorum are taken from in that edition are referred), in order to acquire levels of understanding that could respond to our present human needs (instead of, to use the caricature, sticking to the rote-learning bluntness of literalist Bible-babblers and other Witnesses), it is necessary to study and understand the language used thoroughly and humbly.

Now there we have a vast program. Aramean, Ge’ez, Greek, Latin. And maybe also English (the King James Version), the earlier Luther German and the Staten-Bijbel Dutch etc. etc.

The Third Vatican Concile, hosted by Project Avalon.

[Michel Leclerc]

In this context, this is worth while your attention: Wikipedia on Hiob Ludolf.

[Michel Leclerc]

Shaberon – quoting you:

Mandeans are such a "meld" that some scholars believed they were simply Iranian/Mesopotamian and "imported" Semitic culture.

The layering of Avestan can very nearly be assigned dates, whereas that of the Mandeans can only be inferred from context.

For instance, in Old Avestan there is "mana" for "soul", a Sanskrit cognate. This also appears with the Mandeans, and is *replaced* by an Aramaic term in later works.

Mandean Baptism is "Aramaic" in the sense of using that language, and, of it physically being practiced in Canaan/Jordan River, according to them. (...)

if you allow me – I hereby lift a few paragraphs from my PM to you. I think it provides context, and may prompt you to formulate the arguments given by the defenders of the opposite hypothesis.

Quoting my PM:

In my library, what I have on the Mandeans (20th-century stuff) indeed considers them as an Iranian crowd heavily interested in the Semitic religion(s).

I have to admit that this is seriously underpinned by:

(1) the fact that Mani, who was a Mandean in his youth, indeed created an Iranian type of Gnosticism bathing (Jewish) Christianity in its golden bath so to speak (and by doing that, repeated what Mandeism had done all along; (or so my sources – and I – would interpret the documents),

(2) the fact that (Semitic) Islam considered Zoroastrians as People of the Book,

(3) the fact that much later, in the 1200s, a third merger occurred when Yahya Sohravardi Maqtûl (the "killed" (maqtûl), martyred, Sohravardi (to distinguish him from another, older, Sohravardi)) created his ishrâqî esotericism, in which Zoroastrism and Islam (and even Yezidism (!)) were “metaphysically” merged, which, given the circumstances, implied that he was a secret "esoteric" (post-Mani) Zoroastrian who plunged Islam into his visions and revelations – which, then, had a major influence on Ismaili and Twelver Shia:

(4) or, almost blasphemously stated, the fact that there is such a thing as Twelver Shiism, or in other words Iranian Islam, is only possible because to the 3,000 - 2,500 years of Iranian spiritual self-awareness, only such re"Iranian"-ised Islam would be acceptable (which explains a lot of the present, doesn’t it?); this is fully borne out by the great achievements of Persian (spiritual) literature: to name just a few: Attar, Rumi/Mowlana, Saadi, Hafez, Jami... and of course Sufi philosophy: Ibn Sinâ (Avicenna)’s, Ibn ‘Arabi’s theology cannot be understood without the Persian gnostic horizon, and neither can of course the already mentioned Sohravardi, nor the fourth great mystical metaphysician of Islam: Mollâ Sadrâ – three Persians and one Andalusian (Ibn ‘Arabî)..

Remark: the Arab Ibn ‘Arabî wrote all his writings in Arabic, Ibn Sinâ and Mollâ Sadrâ being Persians/Iranians as well, and Sohravardi wrote the philosophical part in Arabic, the visionary part in Persian. Among the great Persian Sufi theologian poets, all of them wrote their epics and lyrical work in Persian, but some of them, and occasionally, theologian treatises in Arabic.

p.s.: I corrected in red a few counting mistakes..

[shaberon]

Posted by Michel Leclerc (here)
Elsewhere on the Forum I wrote how important it seemed to me to start and read the Gospels (that would be my preferred starting-point; except for literary reasons, the Old Testament does not fascinate me that much) in the Aramaic version considered by the Middle Eastern Christians as the original version

The normative view is that the Aramaic New Testament was translated from Koine Greek in the 400s. It kicked out Revelation.

By "Middle Eastern", do you mean Thomasene? Or is there a credible source for its primacy? An idea it was "spoken in Aramaic, written in Greek"?

The influence of Aramaic was such that:

It had a great missionary influence: the Armenian and Georgian versions, as well as the Arabic and the Persian, owe not a little to the Syriac. The Nestorian tablet of Chang'an shows the presence of the Syriac scriptures in China in the 8th century.

It entered Europe in 1555.


With the Gospels, particularly, there remains the question as to whether it should be about Chrestos, not as a spelling change, but as a different meaning.

Nag Hammadi contains gospels, but, it is almost entirely non-canonical, late, of a late period, and "mixed" by apparently containing both Orthodox-themed and Valentinian texts.

Comparatively, Qumran is a near-canonical Old Testament, by way of showing that the scripture was still in flux. It has Aramaic Enoch. And, in terms of importance, notice there is a sub-school associated with this fragment:

11Q13, also 11QMelch or the Melchizedek document, is a fragmentary manuscript among the Dead Sea Scrolls (from Cave 11) which mentions Melchizedek as leader of God's angels in a war in Heaven against the angels of darkness instead of the more familiar Archangel Michael. The text is an apocalyptic commentary on the Jubilee year of Leviticus 25.

In the fragmentary passage the term "Elohim" appears a dozen times, mainly referring to the God of Israel, but in commentary on "who says to Zion "Your Elohim reigns" (Isa. 52;7) 11Q13 states that Zion is the congregation of all the sons of righteousness, while Melchizedek is "Your Elohim" who will deliver the sons of righteousness from Belial.

This quote is aimed about ten verses prior to the first scriptural quote made by Jesus, which states the exact same thing, Jubilee. Lo and behold, it comes with a symbolic meaning of "Zion". That is injurious to those who believe in birthright, or, those who might fall from the condition. Does this information work its way in to the final copy? No, but it does reflect a certain point of view. One might not object to "nationalistic Yahweh" if it could be shown that nation was of righteousness. By definition, that would seem to mean not attacking the neighbors just because they are different. It is possible there was a Jewish minority that tried and failed to get the redaction of scripture to line up with this very potent fragment, or, that may have been directly involved with Jesus.






Yes, I personally am aware of the "Mandeans-in-place" concept, which in itself is far less important than the "Jews-in-place", which is a more robust argument since there was far more opportunity for the Egyptians, etc., to record something of it, and the scene is sanitized. In the case of the Mandeans, there are actually two or more Jewish persecutions of non-Jews, which at least superficially matches their story.


As an anecdote to the ailment of human memory, and, the willingness to "explain oneself", let's take the pitiful case of Armenia. Well, it already has pockets of Ice Age refugia. There is no doubt the people lived there, gave rise to agriculture and importantly the Grape, were the source of a wave that settled Aleppo around 7,000 B. C. E., and covered the Arabian Peninsula by around 4,000 B. C. E., represented by the South Arabian language which is extinct, but, influential to Ge'ez around 900 B. C. E., or the time of Solomon.

Like South Arabia, Armenia has a corresponding history of forming a "confederacy" around 900 B. C. E.. This is given in the Lake Van Cuneiform, which has an objective history running to about 600 B. C. E., that is corroborated by external data such as in Assyria.

When Zoroastrianism showed up, they could no longer read it and had no idea what it said.

So they copy/pasted some Zoroastrian history onto their local hero.

Then when Christianity came in during the 300s, they copy/pasted Genesis onto their local hero.

The only thing that can reliably be said about them is by the genetic and agricultural evidence, and that by the powers of modern translation, the cuneiform appears to be correct.

[shaberon]

Some of this stuff I know very well, and some of it is new discoveries...and here is something very simple that says much.


Part of the significance of Enoch is that in Judaism and Christianity, Afterlife is trivial. In Zoroastrianism, Mandeism, and Islam, it is massive. In Ethiopia, Enoch appears to be important to both Jews and Christians. I don't know what they say about it. One of the first people I met was Ethiopian, and I was too young to remember anything he said, but I remember being impressed I thought he was a good quality person, Mesfin. You can't forget that name. Otherwise, all I know is that Hailie Salassie is worth knowing about, plus their problem with Italy starting modern Fascism by unsuccessfully trying to plunder their oil.

I'm not sure that this is in the Bible, but, if one were to combine "Ethiopia" with any idea of "salvation", it would be reasonable. Aside from that, I think we can say it has always been independent, and sort of been able to selectively groom and invite in a way of its choosing. It's not Egyptian, and it's not South African.

Here is the Mandean view:

According to the Ginza Rabba (Al-Saadi translation), Enoch is a Mandaean prophet cognate with the soteriological figure Dinanukht.

According to others, we know it is a major Apocryphal tradition, represented in a tiny few areas of scripture:


Genesis, the Gospel of Luke, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in the Epistle of Jude, the last of which also quotes from it.


Those are all apologetic texts, not original hymns (which refer to Melchizedek). Again, I would strongly suggest you have to read it this way...Melchizedek is an authentic primordial figure, whereas Genesis/Exodus are not Judean, they were produced in the Captivity. That is why they are not historical documents, and cannot tell the truth about the timeline. Genesis and Hebrews are mostly ad hoc, whereas at least parts of Luke, and possibly Jude, may be authentic. If Genesis is not truly "ancient", there is no Enoch in the old books. There must have been a para-Mandean folklore tradition. The accumulated "Enoch" must be almost as big as the whole Bible! And so far, we find its ultimate origin is Aramaic, in terms of Astrology.

That represents around 300 B. C. E., and, we cannot establish that it was the same authors who demonized "daimon". It appears to exclude the Book of Parables. The Book of Giants seems to be around the middle.

Now, first of all, I am going to take John Dee, Golden Dawn, Anton LaVey, and everyone else who has dictated us a system of "Enochian Magic" and put them over there, and say, okay, guys, you go ahead and do that stuff and leave me alone. And quickly crib a few notes from a university in Bhopal:


Dinanukht (also spelled Dinanukt or Dananukt; from Persian 'the one who speaks in accordance with the religion')



What? If you are Zoroasatrian, or, like me, know something about it, he just spoke to us. How else would we receive a book entitled Denkard? Prefixes such as den- or dan- are from Avestan "daena", here followed by -ka, -kar, or -kara, which comes from "hand", in the context "maker or doer of", similar to a "creator", and so the Zoroastrian work is quite similarly titled to Mandean Enoch.


Moreover, the Mandeans have the Female Holy Spirit speak to him:


Ruha addresses a speech to Dinanukht, which is similar to "The Thunder, Perfect Mind"


Here is a partial quote:

Ziwa Shahrat Malwasha Nishimta Dinanukht Shishlam Ezlat škina Dmuta Mshunia Kushta Adam kasia Adam pagria



I believe "nisimta" is Aramaic for "mana" or "soul", and then we see the core doctrine QST or "kusut", followed by Secret or Hidden Adam. From another review:



Buckley (2010) suggests a connection between Dinanukht and Nbu.



That means Babylonian Nebu, or Hermes, which would stick us in a configuration of Enoch as *part* of the Parthian syncretic pantheon -- except it is never manifested in this complete form. Again, this is just recent academic perusal, which simply winds up repeating what we have said on an esoteric basis since always. The broad syncretic association is not new -- what is new is being able to find it in objective details, like statuary, and being able to trace almost its entire motion, where nothing Jewish or Hebrew is ever attached to it. As far as I can tell, it could only be done by a sympathetic view towards Enoch.




Now, if we take the rest of the article, it is good, and we'll still give them a free fill-in-the-blank:

However, the Mhatam Yuhana Ginza from Ahvaz, Iran, which Gelbert (2011) is based on, spells it as Dananukt.

In the Book of the Scholion (written c. 792), the Syriac Christian writer Theodore bar Konai briefly mentions Dinanukht, which he spells as Dynnws. 

"Also they speak concerning Dinanus (Dynnws), the scribe of religions, and Little Diṣā."

Story in the Ginza Rabba

Dinanukht, who is half-man (Classical Mandaic: spar, sfar), half-book, unsuccessfully tries to destroy Diṣai, another half-man, half-book, by burning and drowning (Classical Mandaic: țmaštḥ, lit. 'performed tamasha on him') when he is disturbed by his speech. However, Ewath (an epithet for Ruha) soon appears to repeat this speech, which is reminiscent of the Nag Hammadi Gnostic poem The Thunder, Perfect Mind. Torgny Säve-Söderbergh (1949) also noted similarities with Psalms of Thomas 14, in which Hylē provides an answer of co-existing opposites (e.g., "death and life").



Then Ewath, the holy spirit [Ruha ḏ-Qudsha], approached me in my Škīnā and said to me, (u-atat ʿuat ruha ḏ-qudša b-škinatai qaimalia u-amr alia)
"Why did you lie there, Dīnānūkht? (mahu škibit dananukt)
Why did you like the sleep? (mahu šinta hnatalak)
I am the Life that was from time immemorial, (ana hu hiia ḏ-hun mn l-aqadmia)
I am the Kušṭā that was before in the beginning. (ana hu kušṭa ḏ-hua mn qudam briša)
I am the radiance (ziwa), I am the light. (ana hu ziua, ana hu nhura)
I am the death, I am the Life. (ana hu muta, ana hu hiia)
I am the darkness, I am the light. (ana hu hšuka, ana hu nhura)
I am the error, I am the truth. (ana hu ṭʿia, ana hu šrara)
I am the destruction, I am the construction. (ana hu hbila, ana hu biniana)
I am the blow, I am the healing. (ana hu mhita, ana hu asuta)
I am the exalted man, who is older (ana hu gabra iatira ḏ-qašiš)
and was there earlier than the builder of heaven and earth. (mn qudam ḏ-bania ʿšumia u-arqa hua)
I have no comrade among kings, (habrai b-malkia laiit)
and there is no other crown in my kingdom. (u-laiit taga b-malkutai)
There is not a single person who could give me a notice (u-laiit kul ʿniš br anaša ḏ-paršigna naitilia)
in the misty clouds of darkness. (b-rpilia ḏ-hšuka)"

— Right Ginza, Book 6 (Wikisource; Mandaic transcription from Gelbert (2021): 352–353 )

Din Mlikh, an uthra, then leads Dinanukht past six different maṭartas (watch-houses) as he ascends to the World of Light:

the maṭarta of Nbaz-Haila
the maṭarta of Zan-Haza-Zban
the maṭarta of Ewath-Ruha (a compound name combining the epithet Ewath with its synonymous name Ruha)
the maṭarta of Himun
the maṭarta of Ptahil
the maṭarta of Abatur

Each time Dinanukht starts his ascension to one of the maṭartas, the text begins with the poetic refrain:

Winds, winds take Dīnānūkht away, (ziqia ziqia nasbilḥ l-dananukt)
storms, storms drive him away, (ʿudamia ʿudamia mdabrilḥ)
ladders, ladders carry him aloft (siblia siblia sablilḥ)
and make him rise on rungs. (u-ʿl dirgia masqilḥ)

— Right Ginza, Book 6 (Wikisource; Mandaic transcription from Gelbert (2021): 353 )

Dinanukht sees many wondrous things and then returns to earth, where his wife, Nuraita (also the name of Noah's wife in [Book 18]), thinks that he has become insane when Dinanukht tells her that he wants his books to be burned and drowned (see also divine madness). Dinanukht then proceeds to burn and drown the books himself. He continues to live on Tibil for 65 more years as he serves religious duties ordains priests. After Dinanukht's life on earth is over, he finally ascends to the World of Light.

On a theological basis, this is spoken above and beyond the Creator.

Now, take the above, and put together with what is thought to be the oldest Zoroastrian image, that I only found a few weeks ago:







What is peculiar is any reference to "book" is to a time when no corresponding writings have been found.

That image suggests there was a titanic Zend Avesta before any such thing is thought to have been manufactured.

The real significance is that it is the Yazata Sraosa.


Now from my end of things, I have already speculated that Sraosa is the closest thing to a prototype for our Buddhist deities.

In order to do Zoroastrianism, you have to take Sraosa as this type of tutelary deity, and it is primarily he who guides you along the Chinvad Bridge after death. As you can tell, the image above is not a picture, but a re-construction; however, in this area, we notice Sraosa is depicted this way (Chinvad Bridge mode) on some splendid Sogdian Ossuaries produced at least up until the 700s. This pantheon has been found in a limited area with only two sites inside northeastern modern Iran.

What is doubly curious is that a trove of Kushan coinage minted over the course of about two centuries, clearly depicts most of the Yazatas, around twenty or more entities relevant to the Avesta, except Sraosa is concealed in a spectacular manner. So far, I, at least, am not aware of the Mandeans invoking him by name, implying the above is probably intended as the corresponding role.


On the other side or direction opposite the Kushans, Enoch is Mandean doctrine, and permissible in all Abrahamic traditions. They can't tell you anything or teach in an "official" capacity, but as we see, it was a stronger candidate for canon than Revelation, and just didn't make it for some reason. The fact of it being best preserved in Ethiopia probably does represent a two-way contest in Egypt, which is probably why the Nag Hammadi texts were hidden. Qumran was "stored for safe keeping", whereas in Egypt, those were deliberately concealed.

It is different from the Veda or original Avestan, because both of those rejected writing. The significance of the book symbol is the concept that whatever may have been the "special knowledge of the sages" is trying to push its way into everyone's home. This is a tremendous shift from Old Kingdom Egypt, where Heaven was just for Pharaoh. It is self-explanatory in Sukla Yajur Veda. It is the purpose of Sraosa.

I certainly don't have any pre-determined answer here, and can only suggest to consider the pattern, since we are dealing with multiple languages and a widespread distribution in time and space. It can only explain itself on the level of meaning, obviously there is no rolodex on these discoveries.

If this was actually what John the Baptist was baptizing into, and, Jesus did it one time, it wouldn't matter much. If he had come from the Egyptian Therapeutae, it would, for instance, validate him to the Order of Melchizedek. The contention is that his followers disposed of the real baptism, which is weekly. If we were able to stop projecting westernized names on things, the Mandeans might prefer "Subba" or "Subbi", i. e. "baptizers". In their defense, I would allow the Orthodox following to explain "Eucharist" with wine, the Armenian gift, at least in terms of grape wine. Think of it as a reason to blend that with Ethiopian and Yemeni incense. That represents the sphere of influence that we are having a little difficulty dealing with.

Broadly, I would suggest what we are seeing from the Old Testament is multiple schools of Babylonian Jews, which, mostly, were not "Judaic" as it eventually came to mean, after it was re-processed by Roman Jewry, who were mostly of a different alignment. There came to be an influential segment of pro-Roman Jews, concomitant with a different strategy in transmitting knowledge. Cyrus granted them a temple, which was not really all that special because Persian hospitality offered assistance to numerous and diverse cultures. Nobody was sticking their nose in their scribal habits or anything about it. The Mandeans were people who rejected the laws of Moses whenever it was served up to them.

According to them, John would have been effectively baptizing into Vrtrahan -- Verethagna -- Bahram, simultaneously with Enoch -- Dinanukht -- Sraosa and Melchizedek. Further along, he, personally, is of almost no importance, which is placed in the details being summarized. Instead, he is described as the tip of a branch from Harran. On the historical record, one finds that the old highway through Harran fell out of favor due to Bedouin banditry, and attention focused to the more northerly route through Adiabene. Mandeans can't fend off Bedouins. They would have gotten crowded out of the area. After the time of Jesus, they would have faced problems from the Romans and Judeans in Canaan, and then in Syria it would have been the Bedouins. Therefor, it is quite possible there was immigration of thousands in a horseshoe-shape rebounding off Harran and arcing through Persia -- even if "they" were already also there. It may represent more of a "withdrawal" than a transfer wholesale.


This deity being given the function of "The Scribe" is personal and inner, whereas the main thing we are trying to criticize and question is "scribalism" -- such as Levites or Brahmans -- that accomplish a bane with their editorial skills.

[Ravenlocke]

Text:
🇪🇹 Ethiopia Celebrates Orthodox Christmas in Lalibela

Ethiopia, one of the earliest nations to adopt Christianity, saw thousands of Ethiopian pilgrims and international visitors gathered in the historic town of Lalibela to celebrate Orthodox Christmas at its rock-cut churches.

Built in the 12th century during the reign of King Lalibela, these UNESCO World Heritage Sites are carved directly into solid rock and remain.

Orthodox Christmas, known as “Lidet,” is celebrated on January 7th with a three-day festival of religious ceremonies and family gatherings. This year, thousands of worshippers attended services at Lalibela.



https://x.com/ethiopia_a7227/status/1877066546213728485

[Ravenlocke]

Posted by Michel Leclerc (here)
Dear Ravenlocke, if I am not clear to you, to whom would I be.

I suppose that everybody agrees that a correct translation of the Greek text is of the highest importance. After all it is the textual basis of a world religion.

Now, in this passage something strange happens. The word thromboi is used to describe the nature or aspect of the blood that Jesus sweats. And precisely to provide that so precious description (think of the expert opinions expressed by physicians stating that yes, it is possible for humans to sweat blood when in extreme anguish for instance), the author of the gospel does not use stagmata, which is the normal word, referring to the dripping of blood drops (or its variant stalagmata – think of the related word “stalactite") but thromboi, which means "grains”.

The Greek text which we all use says that Jesus sweats blood grains. Grains, clots, crumbs.

For me as a poet, doing such things – using the slightly "off" word to hint at a special, maybe half-concealed, meaning – is standard practice. Well then, what could that meaning be?

When I discovered this odd thromboi instead of normal stagmata, the “concealed meaning” immediately dawned on me. During the preceding Last Supper / Passover Meal, it was Jesus' plea or commandment for his disciples to eat bread and drink wine as symbols, or transsubstantiation products, for his flesh and blood as the sacrificial Passover Lamb. And that his transpiration produces “bloody grains” actually performs a kind of merger, fusion of the two components.

(Moreover in what is called in literature theory a "chiasm", the two components merged are not the two realities (flesh and blood), nor the two symbols (bread and wine) but a merger of reality A (blood) with symbol B (bread), yielding “blood grains”. The corresponding other combination, unexpressed, would be reality B (flesh) with symbol A (wine).. but is it really absent? is it not there in the text, in the idea of sweat, of perspiration itself..? Later on, on Jesus’ road to his death, Veronica wipes off the holy sweat on his face – ...because it is as wine to her?).

Now, going back to my "poetic" sleuth’s work, as I said: such text features are not "naive", they are intentional – and they betray sophistication and mastery of writing. (And because religious preachers oversimplify, this layer of meaning is never taught the faithful). So why is it there?

My interpretation is that it works as a sign of the depth of Jesus’ despair: he has just told his disciples what they are supposed to do (let us not forget: it is not only a reminder, it is the establishment of the central sacrament: the performing of the transformation of matter into divinity: the transsubstantition itself, a premonition also of what the Resurrection will do to Jesus’ corpse) and what happens: they fall asleep – so Jesus "somatises", psychoanalysts would say, – “they didn’t get it” – “Father, take away this cup (of wine-sweat?), I have failed to convince them” – and at the same time, the extremely well-crafted story says to us, the later readers, the disciples of his obtuse, sleepy disciples (they drank too much ordinary wine probably): the Transsubstantiation is and remains the Key message; Jesus is living/dying in real time the Transsubstantiation miracle.

No wonder He saves us.

Sincerely thank you Michel for your informative, detailed explanation on this. It certainly gave me lots to reflect on about what Jesus said and the Transubstantiation miracle, based on your interpretation of the literature chiasmus.

I wouldn’t have been bored in catechism class if you had been my teacher

[Michel Leclerc]

Shaberon, a quick reaction to a few points of your latest post.

Dinanukht: the Dinnus version seems a simplification from the time the name was no longer understood. “spoke in accordance with", maybe. I will look at the etymological dictionary of Persian verb roots. The name seems to be a merger, rather of Din (Daena ,yes; the Persian Dharma – absorbed by Islamic Arabic: dīn, plural adyān, religion) and anukh, which looks like the very name Enoch. Then the question is: what does the name Enoch mean? If it is Semitic, then it has an uncanny similarity with the 1rst personal pronoun, anokhi, “I”, …which happens to be Hamitic as well (Egyptian). “The book of the prophet I/Me”... I am who am...

Another point. “Normative” opinion on the precedence of the Greek Gospel your write. That should not be normative for us, should it? Alas, historical criticism and palaeography, scientific though they are, are plagued by one important thing: “the absence of proof is not the proof of absence”. So very often, they use conjectures and probabilities. I will look again in the documentation I have about the Aramean claim. The main thrust of their argumentation is that manuscript copies normally evolve from less to more complex, quality of the copyist remaining the same. I.e.: imagine two copyists A and B, and their works show the same degree of writing quality, document support quality. However document written by B shows text XY, and document written by A shows text XYZ. Then it has to be assumed that the document written XYZ by A is more recent, and that it is if need be based on document XY by A. Most of the time one may find a web of such textual relationships, and ultimately only one order of the copies is the most probable. (A bit like solving Sudoku puzzles.) What I remember from my reading is that the very textual nature (presence of certain adverbs, adjectives, synonyms etc.) is simpler in the Aramaic versions than in the Greek version. Yet, there remains the possibility that once a Greek version existed that was even more simple than the Aramaic version; only we do not have it. The absence of such a version does not prove that there was not a "first" version that was Greek from the start. Actually the reconstruction of the relationship between the Synoptics more or less proves the existence of such a version, only we don't have it.The Aramean Christians (Assyrian Church etc.: the modern denominations) would then say: well this hypothetical first text on which the Synoptics are based, is the Aramaic version.

Now. This state of affairs might be similar for (certain parts of) the Ethiopian Bible. They also might be based on versions older than we possess, and careful examination might show that.

Although I do not share the fashionable "Vatican bashing” and criticism of the Roman Catholic version of Christianity (because I think that Filioque is a vastly significant improvement upon the Orthodox version, Islam etc. – from a theological point of view – it is clear that Rome (but also Constantinople!) has always had enormous interests vested in their primacy. Fighting such “imperialist Christianity” does not necessarily imply rejecting its theology. The sad thing is that it is the other way round. The "imperialists" have the better theology. Those with the more hazardous theology (Orthodox, Islam) are however a lot more sympathique.

p.s.: I corrected in red. Aramean (the nation, the culture maybe) should be clearly distinguished from Aramaic, the language.

(Reminder: Middle Aramaic is also called Syriac, in which a vast Christian religious literature was written, mainly during the second half of the first millennium. A great chunk of classical Greek philosophy and Christian theology, translated into Syriac, was, after, the Muslim conquest, translated from Syriac into Arabic and contributed essentially to the flowering of Muslim science and philosophy. In the European Middle Ages (beginning of the second millennium) it was then again translated from the Arabic of the Arabic kingdoms in North Western Africa and Spain into Latin. At the latest when Constantinople fell and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire in 1453, the Greek thinkers and writers that fled to Italy brought with them the original copies of Plato, Aristotle and other classical philosophers – which launched Humanism and the main phase of the Renaissance.)