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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Thank you semiopen, your reply is very helpful.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)
I would have guessed that was part of the liturgy for a long time, but according to the wiki, not so much.She is a tree of life to those who grasp her, And whoever holds on to her is happy.
(Prov. 3:18 TNK)
"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 -
I didn't notice any clarification for what "long" means, nor did I see any talmudic references.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.
Wish I could exchange my asshole magnet for a chick magnet.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.
Regarding a Jewish connection -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.
Needless to say, your defense of the Naasseans is remarkably weak.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.
The seven theriomorphic archons is a really cool term. That reminded me of Abraham Abulafia: Meditations on the Divine NameCelsus (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.