evidence of a PRE-CHRISTIAN Joshua cult in Paul

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: evidence of a PRE-CHRISTIAN Joshua cult in Paul

Post by Giuseppe »

Dr. Detering was correct about the Therapeutes (lit. "curatores") being adorers of the pre-Christian Joshua:
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2020 1:36 pm Any quest to identify the "name above all names" ought to consider the contribution of the classicist John Moles.

The pdf link is at https://research.ncl.ac.uk/histos/docum ... r11782.pdf (On Histos: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/histos/Histo ... s2011.html)

I discussed his article in two blog posts:

Gospel Puns on the Name Above All Names

Creativity with the Name of Jesus the Healer in the Gospel of Mark

Hint: the name is Jason/Jesus
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: evidence of a PRE-CHRISTIAN Joshua cult in Paul

Post by Giuseppe »

Already John Allegro had fixed it:

The use of the name Jesus (Greek iesus) as an invocation for healing was appropriate enough. Its Hebrew original, yehöshiia’, Joshua,
comes from Sumerian *JA_U_ShIJ_A (ShuSh), “semen, which saves, restores, heals”. Hellenized Jews used for “Joshua” the Greek name Iason, Jason, very properly, since iasón, “healer”, and the deponent verb iaomai, “heal”, come from the same Sumerian source. In the New Testament taunt, “Physician, heal thyself” (Luke 4:23), we probably have a direct allusion to this meaning, as we certainly have in Jesus’ title “Saviour”, Greek sötër, the first element of which reflects the same Sumerian word ShU, “save”, and so is rightly used in
Greek for saving from disease, harm, peril, etc., and is a common epithet of Zeus and kings.

(The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, p. 35, 1970, my bold)
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: evidence of a PRE-CHRISTIAN Joshua cult in Paul

Post by Giuseppe »

The Rod of Asclepius is evidence that the snake was a famous symbol of healing:
Image

If Jesus was the Healer (Jason), then he was the Serpent par excellence.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Stuart
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Re: evidence of a PRE-CHRISTIAN Joshua cult in Paul

Post by Stuart »

GakuseiDon wrote: Wed Apr 01, 2020 9:51 pm You are wonderful at finding extraordinary significance in a single word, and that in a language which is not your mother tongue. It is brilliance bordering on paranoia, or vice versa. My compliments! :notworthy: :notworthy:
I wish we could rate comments. I'd give this a +2 :thumbup:
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Secret Alias
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Re: evidence of a PRE-CHRISTIAN Joshua cult in Paul

Post by Secret Alias »

Be honest, at least some of us have seen the situation in Italy and said to ourselves, 'well one positive is that I wouldn't have to hear from an obscure mythicist whom no one cared about until he took over this forum.'
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Stuart
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Re: evidence of a PRE-CHRISTIAN Joshua cult in Paul

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Apr 02, 2020 10:54 am Be honest, at least some of us have seen the situation in Italy and said to ourselves, 'well one positive is that I wouldn't have to hear from an obscure mythicist whom no one cared about until he took over this forum.'
Says the pot to the kettle
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Giuseppe
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Re: evidence of a PRE-CHRISTIAN Joshua cult in Paul

Post by Giuseppe »

GakuseiDon wrote: Wed Apr 01, 2020 9:51 pm You are wonderful at finding extraordinary significance in a single word, and that in a language which is not your mother tongue. It is brilliance bordering on paranoia, or vice versa. My compliments! :notworthy: :notworthy:
Unfortunately, I can't give the same thing about you, given your notorious inability (in all worthy of a fool Christian apologist) to realize the pure and simple meaning of Celsus's words. :whistling:
Last edited by Giuseppe on Thu Apr 02, 2020 9:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: evidence of a PRE-CHRISTIAN Joshua cult in Paul

Post by Giuseppe »

Stuart wrote: Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:31 am
Secret Alias wrote: Thu Apr 02, 2020 10:54 am Be honest, at least some of us have seen the situation in Italy and said to ourselves, 'well one positive is that I wouldn't have to hear from an obscure mythicist whom no one cared about until he took over this forum.'
Says the pot to the kettle
differently from the kettle, the pot in question is a modern judaizer of old de-ethnicizers.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: evidence of a PRE-CHRISTIAN Joshua cult in Paul

Post by Giuseppe »

Someone said that there is no better witness of the spirit of the times than the forger, since the forger invents what is necessary but missing in the real History. This holds true especially for the judaizing forgers.

If, as reaction against the increasing "anti-Christs", the Judaizers insisted to point out that Jesus was the Christ, and, as Christ, he had to be lived "in the last times", then why did they place the Christ just sub Pontio Pilato ?

After all, Josephus secures us that, according an "obscure oracle", the Christ was expected especially during the war of 66-70 CE. Why then didn't they place the invented Christ about that period?

The answer to that question is an indirect strong confirmation of my reconstruction above.
  • The Judaizers placed the Christ under Pilate because Pilate was contemporary of Paul, and Paul (with his sect of provenance: the Pillars) was the first to preach that the pre-christian Joshua had to be identified with the Christ (and with the crucified Christ). The introduction of Pilate is therefore an implicit confession, by the same Judaizers, that before Paul (and the Pillars), there was no Christian who identified Joshua with the Christ.
As corollary, another question has to be raised: why didn't the Judaizers interpolate a historical Jesus in the same genuine Paul's epistles? After all, if they introduced Pilate in the story only because Pilate was contemporary of Paul, then they could do even better their work of historical revisionism by making directly Paul a clear "historicist" ante litteram, and not merely only a his contemporary named Pilate.
  • Partially they did so: "brother of Lord", "Brothers of Lors, "Born by woman, born under the Law", are recognizable anti-marcionite interpolations.
But a more true answer is relatively easy: a Paul made "historicist" (i.e. a Paul supporting his own claims on a historical Jesus diffusely interpolated in the his epistles), could run the risk of being manipolated by the same Christian rivals who had already the logo "Paul" in their hands. The conflict between Paul and the Pillars, though embarrassing, had to be preserved as evidence of the fact that the first was without a historical Jesus, differently from the second, who arrived before him. Hence, the "miracle" happened that the division between Paul and the Pillars, historically focused on mere Torah questions, was preserved in the our epistles to make it a fictitious but extremely useful division along the line: knowledge of a historical Jesus versus ignorance about a historical Jesus.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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