Adam's tree

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
Ethan
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Re: Adam's tree

Post by Ethan »

In Ancient coins from Judea, the Seven Branched Menorah is a tree.

Grape bunch on a Tendril

Menorah was originally a tree.
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72 Grapes - Bar Kokhba Revolt. Silver Zuz (3.36 g), 132-135 CE.
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https://vivliothikiagiasmatos.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/joseph-yahuda-hebrew-is-greek.pdf
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Adam's tree

Post by Joseph D. L. »

The tree of life in Egypt:



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Osiris dead within the tree:

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The tree as connected to Osiris in Egypt:

https://books.google.com/books?id=jDKTA ... od&f=false

Egyptians adoring the sacred sun tree:

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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Adam's tree

Post by Joseph D. L. »

Attis in a tree, flanked by Mithras and Helios:

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semiopen
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Re: Adam's tree

Post by semiopen »

So nice to see such lovely pictures here.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Adam's tree

Post by Joseph D. L. »

The mural of Attis in a tree is from a fourth century Mithraeum.

What I have postulated is that this shows a sequential depiction of the birth, death, and apotheosis of Mithras (Mithras, Attis and Helios had formed a somewhat trinitarian relationship).

Compare Mithras to how Adam is regarded in the Gospel of Philip:

Adam came into being from two virgins, from the Spirit and from the virgin earth. Christ therefore, was born from a virgin to rectify the Fall which occurred in the beginning.

Adam here, just as in the Naassene tradition, comes forth from the earth in much the same way Mithras does. Indeed, the name/word 'adam' is rooted in the Hebrew for 'red' and can mean he of the red earth.

In the Pauline system developed in 1 Cor 15, Adam and Christ are depicted as complementary opposites; Adam comes from the dust, Christ from heavenly stuff; Adam dies, while Christ lives; Adam was a living being, while Christ is a life giving Spirit.

This contrast and dichotomy is played out between Genesis, chapters 1 and 2:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

...

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Paul emphatically links Christ to the man created in Genesis chapter 1, Adam Kadmon, to Christ, the "image of the invisible God", and the man in chapter 2 to Adam, the man from dust. What's more, the original Hebrew intrinsically separates the two creator powers in Genesis: Elohim in chapter 1; YHWH in chapter 2.

While an argument for the authentic Jewishness of Marcion can be made here, getting back on track, we can see the very concept implemented in the above mural. Mithras and Helios play the roles of the two Adams, one of earth, the other of heaven. Attis is the intermediary point between the two, dying on a tree to obtain this divine state.

But this is why Christ had to die on a tree/cross, so as to fully restore the earthan Adam to the heavenly realm of Elohim.

Semiopen may not what to accept it, but the Torah and Deuterocanonical texts of Judaism are replete with pagan imagery and Gnostic mysticism.
semiopen
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Re: Adam's tree

Post by semiopen »

I really didn't want to get into a personal slugfest with you, but I regard your posts as borderline anti-semitic. Perhaps I overreacted, but I think you deserve to be criticized.

Despite a relatively long history of commenting, you start a thread in the Jewish forum - seems to me to be for the first time, but whatever.

In your early posts here, you refer to a degenerate Medieval form of Gnosticism (the tree of life being Adam's dick) and ask about it's Jewish origins. Maybe that was an innocent question based on limited knowledge of the subject matter, but I doubt it. An innocent question would more likely be to discuss Jewish origins of Gnosticism without the context of such an obscure and potentially insulting deviation.

Gnosticism was in all probability originally a Jewish concept, however the early church often called gnostics Jewish as an insult and as a means to label gnostics as heretics. Your game seems similar.

In addition your posts totally ignore any Jewish writings. The Naassenes and Ophites were Christian sects. It's difficult to understand your comment about Marcion being Jewish, that's ludicrous.

Wonder what your buddy Yoshke would think of your performance here.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Adam's tree

Post by Joseph D. L. »

You are a reactionary who accuses me of antisemitism, while you are anti-Christian, and you boarder on being anti-goyim.

You have no moral high ground to stand upon.

The Naassenes and Ophites were JEWS who syncretized with the Sabazios and Attis cults in Phrygia.

Marcion was himself likely a participant of these cults, and Stephan Huller and Markus Vintzent have both made reasonable cases for Marcion being Jewish.

But I have no interest or desire to communicate with you any further. You are done.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Adam's tree

Post by Joseph D. L. »

cont'd

The Naassenes, as per Hippolytus, make it abundantly clear that Attis is both the earthan Adam and the celestial Adam:

These (Naasseni), then, according to the system advanced by them, magnify, (as the originating cause) of all things else, a man and a son of man. And this man is a hermaphrodite, and is denominated among them Adam; and hymns many and various are made to him.

...

For (the Naassene) says, there is the hermaphrodite man. According to this account of theirs, the intercourse of woman with man is demonstrated, in conformity with such teaching, to be an exceedingly wicked and filthy (practice). For, says (the Naassene), Attis has been emasculated, that is, he has passed over from the earthly parts of the nether world to the everlasting substance above, where, he says, there is neither female or male, but a new creature, a new man, which is hermaphrodite. As to where, however, they use the expression above, I shall show when I come to the proper place (for treating this subject).

Which conforms to Genesis 1:27:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Despite using the plural אֹתָֽם, (them, אָדָ֛ם, adam, man, is singular and dominant, invoking a single being/archetype with two complementary forms, male and female (Adam and Eve are not so named until chapter two, which I would argue is a different creation tradition). Thus the image of a hermaphrodite is clearly presented in Genesis chapter 1. This is confirmed to be Jewish traditions in the Talmud and Midrash. So the Naassenes were undeniably and predominantly Jewish in their system.
iskander
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Re: Adam's tree

Post by iskander »

semiopen wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 5:52 pm I haven't lookied at your links carefully, but I don't see clear dates for when the phrase ‎עֵץ־חַיִּ֣ים gets extra biblical significance.

Probably it's important to look at the orthodox liturgy. When the Torah scroll is returned to the ark after a reading, the following phrase is recited (among others) -

עֵץ־חַיִּ֣ים הִ֭יא לַמַּחֲזִיקִ֣ים בָּ֑הּ וְֽתֹמְכֶ֥יהָ מְאֻשָּֽׁר׃
(Prov. 3:18 WTT)

She is a tree of life to those who grasp her, And whoever holds on to her is happy.
(Prov. 3:18 TNK)
I would have guessed that was part of the liturgy for a long time, but according to the wiki, not so much.

"She" is wisdom. There's no question that the first person who equated this with the Torah deserved that year's Nobel Prize for Rabbinic insight.

There is an article on academia.edu by Dr. Ingrid Faro discussing the phrase in the OT. She notes -
Rabbinic tradition has long recognized abidance in the Torah as the restorative promise of the tree of life (Schorsch, ÒTrees for Life,Ó 243Ð44; Schneersohn,The Tree of Life). Proverbs 3:18 provides support for this interpretation by portraying the Torah as embodying wisdom. This correspondence is reaffirmed by the quotation of Prov 3:18 after a public reading of the Torah. Likewise, the seven-branched, tree-shaped menorah is symbolic of the Torah as the tree of life, as well as the light-giving presence of God. In rabbinic expression, heresy and disobedience of the Torah are likened to the destruction of trees (Schorsch, ÒTrees for Life,Ó 244; Beale,
Revelation, 235). This sense of the sacredness of creation is meant to be a reflection of faith in the Creator: The way a person lives, in reverent honor of God and His creation, is to be a continual affirmation of life, with God as the ultimate source of all life.
I didn't notice any clarification for what "long" means, nor did I see any talmudic references.
Thank you semiopen, your reply is very helpful.
I found this in Berakhot 32b
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treeof life 1.PNG (85.75 KiB) Viewed 16644 times
semiopen
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Re: Adam's tree

Post by semiopen »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Sat Jun 23, 2018 12:22 pm
The Naassenes and Ophites were JEWS who syncretized with the Sabazios and Attis cults in Phrygia.

Marcion was himself likely a participant of these cults, and Stephan Huller and Markus Vintzent have both made reasonable cases for Marcion being Jewish.
Wish I could exchange my asshole magnet for a chick magnet.

I checked Vintzent's blog - http://markusvinzent.blogspot.com/search/label/Marcion and didn't notice a discussion about Marcion being Jewish. Same with Huller's - http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/search?q=marcion. Not that it matters if they did, what kind of fool would accept your statement without more details?

Sabazios
is the horseman and sky father god of the Phrygians and Thracians. In Indo-European languages, such as Phrygian, the -zios element in his name derives from dyeus, the common precursor of Latin deus ('god') and Greek Zeus. Though the Greeks interpreted Phrygian Sabazios[3] as both Zeus and Dionysus,[4] representations of him, even into Roman times, show him always on horseback, as a nomadic horseman god, wielding his characteristic staff of power.
Regarding a Jewish connection -
The first Jews who settled in Rome were expelled in 139 BCE, along with Chaldaean astrologers by Cornelius Hispalus under a law which proscribed the propagation of the "corrupting" cult of "Jupiter Sabazius," according to the epitome of a lost book of Valerius Maximus:

Gnaeus Cornelius Hispalus, praetor peregrinus in the year of the consulate of Marcus Popilius Laenas and Lucius Calpurnius, ordered the astrologers by an edict to leave Rome and Italy within ten days, since by a fallacious interpretation of the stars they perturbed fickle and silly minds, thereby making profit out of their lies. The same praetor compelled the Jews, who attempted to infect the Roman custom with the cult of Jupiter Sabazius, to return to their homes."[20]

By this it is conjectured that the Romans identified the Jewish YHVH Tzevaot ("sa-ba-oth," "of the Hosts") as Jove Sabazius.

This mistaken connection of Sabazios and Sabaos has often been repeated. In a similar vein, Plutarch maintained that the Jews worshipped Dionysus, and that the day of Sabbath was a festival of Sabazius.[21] Plutarch also discusses the identification of the Jewish God with the "Egyptian" Typhon, an identification which he later rejects, however. The monotheistic Hypsistarians worshipped the Most High under this name, which may have been a form of the Jewish God.
Needless to say, your defense of the Naasseans is remarkably weak.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/naassene.html earlychristianwritings seems to be related to the early writings forum.

It is difficult to read that and think that this sect was Jewish.

I read two short papers by Tuomas Rasimus of the University of Helsinki who specializes in Gnosticism. He does not mention Judaism in discussing either the Naasenes or Ophites.

He gives the following references for the Naasenes -

Lancellotti, M. (2000)
The Naassenes: a gnostic identity among Judaism, Christianity, Classical and ancient Near Eastern traditions
. Münster.Marcovich, M., ed. (1986)
Hippolytus: refutatioomnium haeresium
. Berlin.Rasimus, T. (2009)
Paradise reconsidered in gnostic mythmaking: rethinking Sethianism in light of the Ophite evidence
. Leiden.

For the Ophites he gives -

DeConick, A. D. (2013) “The road for the souls is through the planets: the mysteries of the Ophians mapped.” In A. D. DeConick, G. Shaw, and J. D.
Turner, eds., Practicing Gnosis: ritual, magic,
theurgy and liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and other ancient literature. Essays
in honor of Birger A. Pearson: 37–74. Leiden.
Rasimus, T. (2009) Paradise reconsidered in gnostic mythmaking: rethinking Sethianism in light of the Ophite evidence. Leiden.
Rasimus, T. (2013) “The Archangel Michael in Ophite creation mythology.” In L. Jenott and S. Kattan Gribetz, eds., Jewish and Christian
cosmogony in Late Antiquity: 107–25. Tübingen.
Schenke, H.-M. (1981) “The phenomenon and significance of gnostic Sethianism.” In B. Layton, ed., The rediscovery of gnosticism, vol. 2, Sethian
gnosticism: 588–616. Leiden.
Welburn, A. (1981) “Reconstructing the Ophite diagram.”Novum Testamentum23: 261–87. Leiden.

His paper on the Ophites was more interesting to me.
Celsus (see CELSUS, PHILOSOPHER) and ORIGEN (both in C. Cels. 6.22–38) knew and describeda diagram, a map of the universe with ritual
instructions that accompanied anointment, administered either at one’s initiation or deathbed. A central feature of the instruction was a
set of passwords one had to learn and deliver at heavenly gates guarded by seven theriomorphic archons called Yaldabaoth, Yao, Sabaoth,
Adonaios, Astaphaios, Eloaios, and Horaios.These are, in reality, the seven archangels led by Michael (= Yaldabaoth), who has here
become a demonized caricature of YAHWEH. In Ophite mythology, the animal shapes of the archons stand in stark contrast to the
anthropomorphism of the true, androgynous God, after whose image the demonic archons created Adam and Eve.
The seven theriomorphic archons is a really cool term. That reminded me of Abraham Abulafia: Meditations on the Divine Name

https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Abulafia ... dpSrc=srch

which describes a similar exercise - of course the seven theriomorphic archons have more kosher names.

I have a personal theory that the Baal_Shem_Tov used this for his famous ascent to heaven. The "passwords" are quite long and complicated and any kind of mistake is fatal.

I think that the idea is to go to sleep and approach the gates in a dream. It's difficult to imagine an adept obtaining this kind of control. In the Castaneda books, Don Juan suggests looking at the back of ones hands when dreaming. If one can do this and continue in a dream state, theoretically one could dream travel to the first gate, etc.

I wrote Dr. Rasimus a note on this, we'll see if he replies.
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