Zorastrian Burial reference in the NT (?)

[Ben C. Smith]

More warlike eagles:

Hosea 8.1: “Put the trumpet to your lips! Like an eagle [כַּנֶּשֶׁר, ὡς ἀετός] he comes against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.”

Habakkuk 1.8: “Their horses are swifter than leopards and keener than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping; their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle [כְּנֶשֶׁר, ὡς ἀετός] swooping down to devour.”

The natural history implied for this bird in the Hebrew scriptures has it both hunting and scavenging for its food.

[Secret Alias]

3. world to come (came to me)

[Ben C. Smith]

3. world to come (came to me)

Good call.

I would say the Messiah stands a better chance of being found in the Pentateuch than either the resurrection or the world to come.

[Secret Alias]

Agreed

[Ben C. Smith]

I think the Sadducees (the doubters) said three things not mentioned in the Torah 1. the messiah, 2. the resurrection and I forget the third.

3. world to come (came to me)

I would say the Messiah stands a better chance of being found in the Pentateuch than either the resurrection or the world to come.

I guess that would make me ⅔ of a doubter. Sounds about right.

[Stuart]

More warlike eagles:

Hosea 8.1: “Put the trumpet to your lips! Like an eagle [כַּנֶּשֶׁר, ὡς ἀετός] he comes against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.”

Habakkuk 1.8: “Their horses are swifter than leopards and keener than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping; their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle [כְּנֶשֶׁר, ὡς ἀετός] swooping down to devour.”

The natural history implied for this bird in the Hebrew scriptures has it both hunting and scavenging for its food.

The problem is you are assuming a purely Jewish context and a war context that is missing in the surrounding verses. You have to show me how the inner rooms and John in the desert represent scenes of War and not rival Christian sects.

[Giuseppe]

So Marcion derided John the Baptist and his connection with wilderness:

After John’s messengers left, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 25 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. 26 But what did you go out to see? A prophet?

(Luke 7:24-26)

The reference to "fine clothes" may be a reference to the particular garment given by Herod:

Finally, they dressed him up in a gorgeous cloak, and sent him back to Pilate.

Now, someone has argued that Herod dressing Jesus is allegory of the Apellean view of the Son assuming the various forms of the celestial levels he was descending through. The same view found in the Ascension of Isaiah.

Hence, applying also that specific allegory to John, the derision by Marcion against John the Baptist is along the following lines:

What did you go out into the wilderness to see?	Derision of the claim that the spiritual Christ descended on John in absence of witnesses, i.e. in the "wilderness", or the derision of the presumed Joshua's miracle made by John in the wilderness
A reed swayed by the wind?	derision of the claim that the man John was possessed by the spiritual Christ, the same who moved Jesus in the wilderness as a ball of football
A man dressed in fine clothes?	derision of the claim that the spiritual Christ assumed the form, and only the form, of John

[davidmartin]

During the excavations of Çatalhöyük, dated 10-12k BC and representing the transition from hunter/gatherer to cities, and at the temple they uncovered, were representations of vultures. Carvings of woman's breasts had vultures beaks instead of nipples.
The idea may have been that the vultures as they consume the flesh of the dead carry the life force with them (vultures traditionally were thought to nest in 'the heavens', building their nests in inaccessible high cliffs). So the life force that was taken up by this bird is symbolically re-introduced in breast feeding. It's a brutal image but a clear early symbology. Even early man had some concept of the continuance of life and if this isn't the basis of religion i don't know what is, because every religion is concerned in one way or another with the very same thing

[Ben C. Smith]

More warlike eagles:

Hosea 8.1: “Put the trumpet to your lips! Like an eagle [כַּנֶּשֶׁר, ὡς ἀετός] he comes against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.”

Habakkuk 1.8: “Their horses are swifter than leopards and keener than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping; their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle [כְּנֶשֶׁר, ὡς ἀετός] swooping down to devour.”

The natural history implied for this bird in the Hebrew scriptures has it both hunting and scavenging for its food.

The problem is you are assuming a purely Jewish context and a war context that is missing in the surrounding verses.

It is, as I pointed out, essentially a quote from Job. Job is a Jewish book in the Jewish scriptures, a set of books which the gospels quote or allude to dozens if not hundreds of times each, and this saying appears to be no exception:

Matthew 24.28: 28 Wherever the corpse is, there the eagles [οἱ ἀετοί] will gather.

Job 39.26-30:

26 “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars,
Stretching his wings toward the south?
27 Is it at your command that the eagle [נָשֶׁר, ἀετός] mounts up
And makes his nest on high?
28 On the cliff he dwells and lodges,
Upon the rocky crag, an inaccessible place.
29 From there he spies out food;
His eyes see it from afar.
30 His young ones also suck up blood;
And where the slain are, there is he.”

Quite to the contrary, it feels like you are assuming a context in Persian burial practices which the gospels never reference elsewhere to the absolute best of my knowledge.

You have to show me how the inner rooms and John in the desert represent scenes of War and not rival Christian sects.

The inner rooms and John in the desert are, as I described, part of a digression (one which Luke lacks, incidentally).

[Secret Alias]

I guess that would make me ⅔ of a doubter.

I like any exegesis that actually READS the source material. The Sadducees, the Samaritans, even the Karaites and r Ishmael. I don't know what to make of the Pharisees and rabbanites.