If the Old Testament contained a chapter that told you the story of the wilderness journey wasn’t literal, would you believe it? Would you even notice?
I would argue that it all depends; if you were a staunch literalists, you would probably breeze by the verses without a second thought. That’s normal.
Even if you were undecided about the Bible’s literal-historical value, you still might pass them up as inconsequential without a careful reading of the language and context. Let’s review one of the most important texts in the Old Testament to understand how easy it is to miss what the Biblical authors thought so obvious.
Psalm 78 Speaks: The Law is a Parable
Psalms 78 has been attributed to a man named Asaph. Asaph is believed by many scholars to have been a musician in the court of King David from the tribe of Levi. He begins this lengthy Psalm by telling us to listen carefully to what he has to say, which he considers vitally important. Namely, the history of Israel from the Exodus in Egypt to King David’s time. He begins:
“Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ear to the words of my mouth.”
By law, he means instruction, or teaching. He is about to summarize Israel’s sin and disobedience in time’s past. But in the next verse, he reminds them Israel’s past is a parable:
“I will open my mouth in a parable…”
Hmm. What does he mean here? Is he saying that he will use a parable to extrapolate a moral lesson from the literal history of Israel, or is he saying that the Torah itself is the parable from which we can extrapolate the lesson? This should be the central question for everyone who wishes to understand their Bible. And it’s so vital.
If his aim was to unravel a parable from real history, he never accomplishes his goal. He simply gives us a synopsis of what’s already written down in the Torah. Isn’t that odd? Go and read the entirety of Psalm 78 and see what I mean. Asaph wants to teach us a great lesson, but he doesn’t. He just reminds of us of Israel’s disobedience…over…and over…and over again. So is he going to give us a parable with hidden meaning, or is he just reminding of us of what happened so that the next generation can remember?
Scholars and commentaries seem to gloss over this question we must be confronted with.
But Asaph isn’t finished. I believe the fact that he is conveying the idea that the Torah ITSELF IS the parable, with its concealed wisdom, is confirmed in the next verse:
“…I will utter dark sayings of old.”
Ah…by summarizing Israel’s past he means it is all a “dark saying of old.”
What are “dark sayings of old?”
Dark sayings were called “dark” because they concealed hidden meaning. If there is an obvious hidden meaning being concealed, wouldn’t you like to know it? And can you glean the true spiritual wisdom from a simple literal reading?
I really don’t think so.
Dark sayings of old were never to be taken literally, because the deeper spiritual lessons contained within these sayings were purposely obscured. This is by definition what a parable does as well. A parable is a fictional story meant to teach us a moral lesson. Like Easop’s Fables. But dark sayings of old go a bit further because they concealed the spiritual lesson which only the wise (those able to spiritually interpret its meaning) were meant to understand. A dark saying uses important symbols that stand for something else. The very idea conveyed by dark sayings of old is that of a huge, spiritual riddle.
The idea that a riddle is being put forth in the history of the Torah in Psalm 78 is also confirmed by the author of Matthew who stated that Jesus spoke in parables so that the he fulfilled Psalm 78! Did you get that? Matthew says Jesus spoke in parables because of Psalm 78!
So it’s okay to understand that Jesus spoke in riddles which we know not to take literally, but the inspiration from this came from an Old Testament verse that spoke with literal history!? Hmm…
There is no confusion about the parables of Jesus; we know he means fictional stories, because he tells the disciples that while he can speak plainly to them, he must speak in riddles to the multitude, because in hearing they hear not, and in seeing they see not. Jesus went so far as to say he was uttering “secrets kept hidden since the foundation of the world.” If Jesus is fulfilling this prophecy, and he is using fictional stories, how much more so was the original intent of the writer of Psalm 78 recounting Israel’s history as a giant parable told through the Torah?
Why did both writers of Psalm 78 and Matthew do this? To purposely conceal wisdom that the multitudes had no business understanding because they weren’t ready. Why weren’t they ready? Simply because the spiritual lessons contained in the allegory and symbolism require one to search deeper than any religion. They must search deep within the self. The writer of Psalm 78 is doing exactly this, and the author of Matthew is simply following his lead where Jesus is concerned.
The fact that the author of Psalm 78 never elucidates on these dark sayings of old truly mean when speaking about Israel’s past indicates that the stories from the Torah are THEMSELVES the dark sayings of old. Put another way, since the author of Psalm 78 never explains the moral lesson, we should assume the lesson is buried beneath the literal account. In other words, they conceal a wisdom that only the wise (the spiritually mature) can interpret.
In the traditional interpretation of Psalm 78, the same simple theme is regurgitated over and over. The author would not preface this with it being a parable and dark saying of old unless he meant you had to look deeper to get to a truth. Ancient scriptures were never written in plain, literal language.
When read literally and historically, we can see that God delivered Israel from bondage, but they become disobedient and hard-headed in the wilderness over and over again. The cycle ever repeats itself. Sometimes God shows his wrath, and other times his mercy. We here these stories and receive simplistic sermons about right and wrong, and how if we disobey God we will end up judged by him. But if we just have faith and obey, we will be saved. Seriously? The Israelites never seem to learn anything, even in the face of tremendous miracles, but neither do we by hearing the same old stories and themes being preached over and over. God is good, God is great. Disobey and you will be judged. I think God is much more complicated and glorious than that! He understands the depth and variety that the conscious experience of life brings to us. All its octaves. All its tremendously powerful emotions that have to be processed based on an ego that by its very nature is deceitful. And through it all, God teaches us the biggest lessons through the failures. That is the concealed message of Psalm 78. And it isn’t just for the future generation as commentaries on Psalm 78 tell us, it is every generation, even the one that was supposed to have fallen.
Proverbs 25:2: Does God Purposely Hide the Truth?
It is usually the mindset of the literalists that the Bible means what it says. He or she believes that God gave us the Old Testament in order to teach us directly about his ways through his people Israel through literal history. But is this really the case? Does the Bible usually mean what it says? The author of proverbs tells us differently.
What is part of God’s glory? It is that he remains hidden and obscure to those who do not seek deep within themselves.
“It is the Glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings” (Proverbs 25:2).
Think about what the author is telling us. He believes that part of God’s glory is in the act of hiding the truth. Don’t you find it odd that Jesus said he could speak plainly to his disciples, telling them the mystery of the kingdom without parables, and yet they remained just as confused as the multitude! Even Peter, the supposed leader of the group had to be rebuked as Satan. If Jesus truly spoke to them plainly during an earthly ministry, they still didn’t get it! And it seems most of them never did. Not only was Peter corrected by Jesus after Jesus spoke plainly to them, but even by Paul during his later ministry! Peter never got it because symbolically he represents the natural man, which cannot have the eyes or ears to see and hear the truth.
So we can see…
God dwells in the dark secret places because that is where the true light is. Not a literal light, but the light of consciousness at its most mysterious place. And this is why the Book of Revelation tells us that the New Jerusalem won’t need the sun or moon, or any physical light. God himself is that light. And he’s within you.
The history of the Exodus to the Promised Land is the journey of exploring the inner self, inner consciousness. The lessons to be extrapolated from it have to be based on this foundation. The foundation of parable and dark sayings of old, which require the interpretation of allegory and symbolism to reveal its hidden insight.
Blessings!
A customer of mine recently did a very spiteful thing because she couldn’t have what she demanded. It was payback for standing up for myself and saying “No” to her manipulation. I knew she would pitch a fit when I said no, but being true to myself was the most important thing. Her response really put me in a financial bind, but I trust in God, so I refuse to fear what man can do to me.
I was praying over the situation and was led to Isaiah 45. Verse 3 jumped out at me. The chapter is addressed to Cyrus, God’s anointed shepherd, whom God has “taken by the right hand.”
I will give you the treasures of darkness
And hidden wealth of secret places,
So that you may know that it is I,
The Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.
Treasures of darkness? Secret places? Hmmm. Isn’t that where we pray? In our closed closet in secret? The time when we quiet our minds for personal revelation? It seems God gives these treasures only to those whom God has taken in hand.
It’s amazing that once I realized the Bible wasn’t literal and started looking for the deeper meaning, God has been showing me a totally different Bible. And a totally different God. I am now in two-way communication with this higher intelligence.
And at verse 7, my Father reminded me of what I constantly teach others and remind myself:
[I am the Lord]
The One forming light and creating darkness,
Causing well-being and creating calamity;
I am the Lord who does all these.
Why should I fear what this woman does to me when it is the Lord within her doing it? She may have meant it for harm, but God meant it for good!
Joanne…
Thanks for sharing. Great comment.
Beautiful Joanne. Thank you! And thank you Joshua for another great article. I love this blog so much and I feel God in every piece you write – blessings to you.
Gabriella
Thank you for sharing, so powerful
Thanks for commenting, Sarah.
we grow and learn from our suffering….it teaches better than any other verbal teachings can give….
If you are offended by the response, try to figure out why it offends you, this will help to reveal the teaching you are going through.
May peace and love find you always
Bobby
I don’t remember Christ talking about political borders of ‘the land’. He talked about the Kingdom of Heaven.
JS…
Absolutely. The kingdom that is within. And…my kingdom is not of this world, as he told Pilate.
Hi Josh, Thanks for your work!
This always ‘jumps out at me’
Duet 30- Moses final address. Yeah, we all know/note Moshe was instructed to create a Levite class. OK. Fair enough. But that doesn’t necessarily follow they should be exclusive gatekeepers. We have the power to seek and find for ourselves…and are admonished, goaded into doing so. ( raising my eyebrows and shrugging as per custom 😉
Duet 30 ( Starting at verse 11 )
11 For this commandment which I command you this day is not too difficult for you, nor is it far off.
12 It is not [a secret laid up] in heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it to us, that we may hear and do it?
13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear and do it?
14 But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your mind and in your heart, so that you can do it.
And the beauty of these verses from Deuteronomy is opened in Romans 10 and as Josh has indicated in his title, …Rom 10:5 For Moses describeth the RIGHTOUSNESS WHICH IS OF THE LAW, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
Rom 10:6 But the RIGHTOUSNESS WHICH OF FAITH speaketh on this wise…. then goes on to reveal that as in verse 14 of Deuteronomy that it is within every man in the heart. Romans 10:18 reveals that everyone in the earth has heard. Not every one is listening to the voice yet, but they have heard but eventually every one will hear, Heb 8:11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
Louie and Coy…
Thanks for the great mini discussion here. Those verse from Duet. do show us that there is esoteric wisdom in the law, especially when we internalize to understand the human psyche.
Interesting. When I was a teenager, also an adult what frustrated me about the Bible, both old and new, that everything was in riddles. The message was not straight forward. As started doing the mystical journey, and noticed that different interpretations to the same story, I started to realise the Bible can not be taken literally. Everybody has their mystical journeys and the stories are interpreted individually as to their spiritual awareness. I am learning to respect other people journeys and do not argue with others about interpretations. No one on this earth plane knows God’s truth. The only truth is Unconditional Love. When we focus on Unconditional Love then we connect to the hidden truth.
Good point, Maria. Truth is relevant until we find out the truth within. And it doesn’t do any good to argue. If two people are at two different points of spiritual walk in their life, often one cannot hear nor understand the other.
I really appreciate this blog, I have started re reading my Bible, Old Testament, and was wondering what to focus on. I going to focus on the non obvious messages, and ask for assistance to really dig more deeply to what is being said.
Sure Maria. Feel free to post comments in this section and many times you’ll get some great answers from the different people commenting here! I will respond as well when I can.
This blog is really helpful. I do a bible study with a group each week, unfortunately most of the others in the group are literalist. Sometimes I am able to trow in a “spiritual” interpretation of a passage and It is really noticable how this really opens up the discussion to new learning. I usually look at the passage we are working on before hand and can sometimes see something of the spiritual message but often not. I wonder if anyone knows of something like a bible commentary but one with spiritual bent. Or books that would might help me get a better handle on this.
Rod there are two books that will help you with the symbols the scriptures use to represent spiritual truths:
Gaskell – Dictionary of All Scriptures & Myths
Unity School of Christianity – Metaphysical Bible Dictionary
Blessings to you in your spiritual journey!
Rod,
https://www.amazon.com/New-Man-Interpretation-Parables-Miracles/dp/0140034129
Guys, to my knowledge Jewish custom has three types of scriptures namely “The Book of Concealed Mystery”, “The Greater Holy Assembly”, and “The Lesser Holy Assembly”. And we have only last one in Christian Bible so that causes confusion when we read them because we do not know the first two books which are shared only with Levi’s or selective prophets in ancient Judaism. And this is the reason the priests in Jesus time were did not much considered about the miracles Jesus did and they planned to kill him as they do for a normal person. Many People like Issac Newton, Thomas A. Edison learned also the first two books which led them stand out of the crowd in their field of expertise.
If you are interested in knowing the other book to understand our Old testament try reading Gnostic Teachings. But only try them if you are clear what you are doing. it will be a different experience until the Spirit of God guides you, else it will be like a plot against your faith.
I myself a believer of Jesus Christ as my Saviour and still I am by His grace even after reading a lot on Gnostic Teachings.
Shiyam…
An interesting piece of knowledge I was not aware of. Thanks for sharing. I will have to look more into the three different scripture types.
Thanks, compare gnostic teachings and kabalah (jewish mystical studies = the book of concealed mystery) which Jesus shared in common man’s language which enraged the priests to crucify Jesus. Because in those days it was completely restricted to share such knowledge to common people in public. Reading them you will get just a spark that the parables and the book of revelation are not the books to be taken in literal sense as most of believers do now which in return causes fear than love towards God the Father
Shiyam…
I have studied Gnostic works and the Kabbalah, although I will admit the Kabbalah is very detailed with language that would require a personal tutor to truly understand its depth, but I understand the big picture, and the ideas and spiritual teachings are in line with many Gnostic works because they are both sharing the same truth about the inner man and the God within. Once they are grasped, the New Testament is easily understood. In fact, one cannot understand the New Testament without first understanding something about numerology and Gnostic works.
Again, thank you for the additional information.
Josh, I think George is referring to the Kaballah. See https://www.amazon.com/Kabbalah-Unveiled-Concealed-Assembly-Forgotten/dp/160506744X
Hi Josh,
When you start explaining about the meaning of the word Tora, you write that this word means instruction. And you are absolutely right. However, there is tora as a general word – and that is meant in this case – and there is The Torah which contains all sorts of texts. Part of it can certainly be interpreted as parables (as well in my opinion, as there is a historic context to all this) but another part of it is definitely only Instruction with a capital I. It has been the instruction for the daily life of the Jews and the Halacha is partly based on this. So what I mean to say is that you cannot simply say that each time the word tora is used it should be interpreted to mean parable.
I believe that Asaph’s intention is not so much to unravel a parable from real history but to tell the story of Israel’s past in such a way that the message of this history becomes clear the people. I believe history, any history, does have a message to teach us if we are willing to listen. But the way it is told is all important in this respect: you can make it obvious or totally muddled, important for us here and now or a boring list of facts. You can tell it in a way that makes ‘us’ right and ‘them’ wrong, or you can tell it in a way that shows how it might have been possible to get together in order to prevent the catastrophes that did happen, and so on … that is the choice we have in this world of duality. What will we choose?
Telling history in the form of a powerful parable that will teach us to turn to love, to understanding of the other party’s feelings and reasons for doing things, is certainly a very helpful act. Trying to prove that something is ONLY symbolical, or ONLY literal for that matter, is not. In my view, that is but that is nothing new of course. Both ways of interpretation have their own value and do not necessarily have to teach the same lesson. But the one is not always necessarily better than the other. They might be meant for different phases in our spiritual education. Which would explain why some sayings were purposefully obscured. And why Jesus spoke in parables.
I love it when you explain the deeper meaning of things but not so much when you do that by comparing them to other things by making those inferior.
You know I agree with you mostly in how you see things but I do not want other people, who see things in a different way, to get the feeling that what they believe is inferior. It is just another phase of development and should not be judged in any way whatsoever.
That is one of the things I learned through all this: do not judge. And that is mighty difficult when you watch the news these days. I certainly have a long way to go before I reach that goal.
Hi Anny…
Thanks for the detailed comment.
Yes, the meaning for the word Torah here is definitely not referring to the first five books per se, but that what is contained in it is the instruction. This is clear from the context in Psalm 78.
I do, however, believe Asaph’s intention is to continue in the tradition of the many Jewish sages who understood the first five books contain a spiritual revelation that is beyond literal history. You’re right, one view is not necessarily more important than the other except to the perspective of the person reading it. Someone on a certain walk will gain more value out of seeing it as literal history and the lesson one can glean from it, while another can get a greater spiritual lesson by understanding that it’s not all literal…if they can interpret the symbolism properly, which takes patience, time, and a lot of contemplation. A person has to be ready to take that journey when he or she comes to the point of questioning his or her position and purpose for being here. No one should ever be criticized for believing one way or another, because in many instances, the word is a living thing that is always relevant to the person’s walk.
But there is enormous value when a person is ready to step into the deeper mysteries of it’s interpretation. Because without a doubt, the deeper significance of myth is very real, and the seeker finds it when he or she begins the journey with an open, curious, questioning mind that does not accept everything that he or she has been taught. Someone who is offended at the prospect that scripture isn’t literal may gain no value from symbolic interpretation because the ego will shut down any attempt to do so. Nothing wrong with that. What is wrong from both sides is when one tries to force their beliefs about scripture on another. Most people who come here do so because they are researching Biblical topics and trying to gain an understanding other than what they have been taught. And they can get a glimpse here of what that is. They’re ready. This does not make them better or more intelligent or more right. It only means they are ready for a deeper meaning that cannot be gleaned from the literal interpretation.
I do know we mostly have the same beliefs. And please know you are always welcome to voice how you feel here, even if it were to totally contradict what was said. I always appreciate and welcome your comments.
Many blessings.
Check this out; bible says, “Jesus taught only in parables”, Jesus is God, the Bible is Gods word… the Bible is Jesus/Gods parables…
Hi Josh,
You know that in principle I mostly agree with you. It is just in our way of doing things that we differ.
You brougth up something interesting:
“Someone who is offended at the prospect that scripture isn’t literal may gain no value from symbolic interpretation because the ego will shut down any attempt to do so. Nothing wrong with that.”
You can look at this from different viewpoints. You call it offended, I call it hurt.
I see it as hurt because I mean people who genuinely believe something that you deny and they feel inferior somehow because of that because they have no answer. They are in no way ready for your point of view yet. The willingness to look at the possibility that things might be different from the way they have always seen them has not come onto their horizon yet. It is these people I am referring to. They feel like the base of their whole existence is being knocked away from under their feet. One of my closest friends belongs to this category and even if I mention what I believe in the most careful terms she does not want to have anything to do with me.
When you mean people who are offended by what you write, I think you refer to a different kind of people. They do not feel threatened because in their view you cannot possibly be right. But they are angry and lash out. And indeed it is the ego that prevents them from looking at what you write with an open mind.
However, when you bring the ego into this, can you honestly say that your (or my) ego are never involved when we write what we write? Or deny having a feeling of superiority sometimes? I cannot, even though I mostly catch myself at it immediately.
That is mainly why I prefer to writing what I believe without denying anybody else’s beliefs. When they are ready, they will come round to having other views, which might be totally different from ours. And until then we had better all attend to our own issues which in my case gives me plenty to do!
I do not mean to say that you do any of these things I mentioned above but just want to make clear to everyone where I am coming from.
Anny, i love this.
in my opinion the Bible and other Holy Texts are there for guidance. Our understanding (Dimitri would say innerstanding) can handle only so much. Each of us is building its own bridge (stairway) between Heaven and Earth (some call it Hell), using the materials own can see fit. Some materials look maybe a bit odd and we wonder about that. During our sleep we send out messengers to help us understand some new material. Next morning comes with new learning material (if we accept what is coming, the wondering chlild within). So, in my opinion, what we want to unrerstand we learn by experiencing it. So that will be different for each individual. IMO.
Great job, Joshua. You have demonstrated clearly from a single verse and support from the surrounding psalm, that the Torah “can” be a parable in the sense of a more modern interpretation of the word parable as a fictitious story with a moral. I use the word “can” because, to keep you on your toes (oops, just realized you injured your foot recently, so Ii mean this idiom to be metaphorical), I invite you to address a refutation of your conclusion from the following link which claims the Hebrew word which the King James mistranslated as “parable” actually means “comparison”, a more general term, not necessarily fictitious, so it can also be a non-fictional story that has a moral in “comparison” to our current lives, and “dark sayings of old” meaning a difficult to understand account because it comes from a much earlier unfamiliar culture or the moral requires some interpretation or deep thinking. In no way am I disputing that bible may be allegory and finding the hidden meanings is edifying to people seeking that path, especially when the literal meaning does not agree with one’s view. But there is also the possibility of non-fiction. These stories were passed along first by mouth to mouth and then became part of the narrative for directing and inspiring the Jewish community, and eventually written down. The Book of Daniel says it was written in ancient script which was ignored for generation after generation of backsliding leaders before the Babylonian exile, which he interpreted after the exile to predict the rebuilding of Solomon’s temple, an event which still needs historically validity. Only Davids palace has been found to date, not Solomon’s temple (which may be under the ruins of the third temple which is off limits to archaeologists). Daniel could have made it all up and started Jewish history after the exile by writing the original Torah with Ezra to create a legacy to hold the Jews together. The important word is “could”. There is still a lot of gray area between fictitious and non-fiction. How would you answer the refutation in the link? (On your toes of course, if possible).
The link is https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/psalm-78
Robert, I will definitely do that after Thanksgiving. Traveling today, looking forward to reviewing your link.
Waiting
Robert,
I have finally had the time to read through the link and article you sent. The author is using the interpretation of Kinder. His argument is that this Psalm was written to teacher a new generation the past errors of an older one, so that they can know the ways of God.
I believe he is correct. But I do not believe that Kinder understands that “dark sayings” refer to that aspect of life where consciousness has not understood the true light of the self. Jesus and the prophets spoke in parables to conceal the truth from some. Why? Why tell the riddle at all if not trying to illuminate?
It wasn’t to hide the truth, but to put it in there for people who were ready to see it, to understand a deeper level of truth and reality. Why is the fact that Israel was disobedient considered a dark saying in the first place? Just because it’s negative? Not at all. That’s not the purpose of a riddle, dark saying, or parable, correct? The fact that the author places the entire context of the Psalm into a riddle means there is a deeper understanding the reader needs to come to appreciate. Not just that disobedience incurs God’s wrath. That is obvious, and requires no dark saying or parable. The author of the Psalms is revealing an inner truth.
The story of the exodus out of Egypt is the story of spirit overcoming matter/the physical. Egypt represents the physical or ‘lower nature’ and the Israelites represent spirit or our ‘higher nature’. The Israelites were “Slaves in Egypt”. This means the spirit/higher self is a slave to the physical/lower self. The Israelites eventually free themselves from Egypt, meaning spirit has triumphed over matter. If we let our lower materialistic side take over our spiritual side we are ‘slaves in Egypt’ or slaves to the flesh. All of the Myths in all of the religions are telling this same story. That story being the struggle between spirit and matter and how our spiritual side needs to triumph over our materialistic side.
Nitghtshadetwine, interesting name. Your statements make a lot of sense if we assume the myths of all religions were attempts to hide a deeper truth that only some are ready for. But that is an assumption made upon looking backwards and deciding to rationalize from incomplete information of the past that one wants to believe about it now . It could also be a convenient false assumption, to see what you want to see. To prove your assumption you would need the confession of one of the ancient authors that they wrote on a double level. To my knowledge there is no such confession.
Hi Robert,
It’s true we don’t know for sure if the creators of these myths meant them to be taken allegorically or literally. We do have writings though by ancient philosophers such as the Platonists that talk about how religious myths are allegories. I find it a lot more likely that these myths were meant to be taken allegorically rather than literally. Once you notice the reoccurring story/theme being told in these myths they start making so much more sense. I personally don’t think it’s a coincidence that there’s so many similarities between the different myths. It’s the same story being told by different cultures.
Nightshadetwine and Robert…
The comparative mythologies with all the similarities alone enough are all we need. The many religious commentaries and scholastic studies on the subject that muddy the waters and try to make a difference between them are so biased. There are no differences except in language and cultural barriers. However, the underlying message is the same. We are spirit living out physical / illusory realities. And the way back is always the same route, the same difficulty.
The Greeks of course were one of the strongest Gnostic cultures prior to the rise of the Greek orthodox church. I believe their thinking compared to intelligent versions of ours was primitive in many respects and so Plato and the Platonists are not the ultimate source of wisdom, merely an echo of acceptable intelligent thinking of their time. But besides my opinion, we have a long history of clashes between the Hellenizing influence of Greek culture and orthodox Hebrew culture. In fact, that is what the soon coming Jewish holiday of Hanukkah (Festival of Lights) is about. Jesus’ statement to the Jews and ultimately to the world was the silver bullet that put an end both errant Greek Gnostic and Jewish Pharisaic culture. He said “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12).
The Platonists never advocated the way meant following an anointed figure with such qualifications as The Son of God. Its not enough to see similarities between religious cultures. It is in the differences where the real hidden secret lies.
The Platonists didn’t believe in a literal ‘son of god’ but other ancient Greeks did. They had saviors that were just like Jesus. They had what were called ‘mystery religions/cults’. The mystery cult was usually based around a savior god(sometimes goddess) that would save it’s followers from punishment in the afterlife. The miraculous birth of the savior/hero/son of god, a mortal woman being impregnated by a god, the hero/savior/son of god having his life threatened before he is born or when he is very young, the savior having to flee the place he was born to avoid being killed, a prophecy or oracle announcing his birth, raising people from the dead, helping humanity, going through trials and suffering, overcoming death and ascending to heaven, offering salvation to their followers etc. You find these motifs in all the myths about saviors.
Jewish and Christian religion was influenced by other religions. There’s really not much that is unique to either religion.
What’s also interesting is in the book of Revelation Jesus returning on a white horse is a retold version of Zues on Pegasus.
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true”
The white horse comes from the constellation Pegasus first cataloged by Ptolemy in the 2nd century. I’m pretty sure Revelation was written after it was cataloged.
This also represents the coming of higher consciousness, as when the New Jerusalem from “above” comes down and no light, from the sun or moon is needed. Simply the light of consciousness.
The similarities like this aren’t always as easy to see, as their are some differences, but the overall idea behind it is the same.
Wikipedia does a slightly more comprehensive and objective job of summarizing all the points that have been brought up in the comments section of this blog about the “Christ Myth”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory
Two major criticisms mentioned therein include:
1. This comment from highly recognized biblical scholar, professor and skeptic Bart Ehrman, “Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine.”
2. The majority of participants in the Jesus Project, which sought to examine the historicity versus mythical origin of Jesus, rejected the conclusions of the mythacists.
The mythacists have gained a lot of popular traction through use of the internet and the willingness of members of the public who harbor doubts about religion to embrace a new and appealing theory that justifies their doubts. Thus, mythacist literature is very marketable today.
Because of the scant evidence for the historical Jesus, it is logical to offer up alternative explanations. I respect that. But again, slurring things over can result in tremendous error. There are at least two very solid pieces of evidence for the historical Jesus. That’s where the importance of details comes into play. Besides that, there is a process beyond normal human thinking that is involved with acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah, a process that involves faith. I don’t mean feigned allegiance. I mean the mystical drawing of souls that supersedes human thought. That kind of faith does not depend on ordinary evidence. It is a hidden thing that touches the spirit, not the brain. The bible is very clear about the need for this kind of faith. People would not have faith if they jumped on the Jesus bandwagon based on ordinary evidence.
I’m actually not a mythicist. I believe the myths surrounding Jesus were influenced by the myths about other sons of god/saviors. I have primary and academic sources for all the things I listed about savior gods. I can share them with you or anyone else if interested.
YES, BY ALL MEANS SHARE THEM. i AM AWARE OF SOME. mY POSITION IS THAT ANY CONCLUSION THAT THE jESUS STORY IS FABRICAted from the HODGEpodge of savior/son myths ithat I acknowledge exist s not based on sound professional analysis. SO the direction I would go in would be to examine the authors and writings of your examples and try to determine the degree of credability versus well recognized authorities with proven credability,
So after researching and reading up on the different savior gods
I’m of the opinion that they are all telling the same basic story and have the same esoteric or allegorical meaning. Some people don’t see the similarities, which is fine, but I definitely do. I don’t need an academic to tell me whether something is similar to something else. I can look at the information myself and come to a conclusion.
That being said the following quotations are from scholarly/academic sources.
So lets start with the saviors Osiris and Horus. We’ll start with the death and resurrection of osiris:
“Isis, the sister and wife of Osiris, traverses Egypt in
search of the membra disiecta of her brother, reassembling them into the shape of a body. Together with her sister Nephthys she bewails the body in long songs of lamentation using the power of speech as a means of reanimation.
Isis and Nephthys were so successful in their reanimating recitations that Isis was able to receive a child from the reanimated body of Osiris. This is the first step toward resurrection. The appearance of Horus, the son and heir of Osiris, marks the second scene of the myth and initiates the second phase of resurrection.”
-From ‘Resurrection in Ancient Egypt’ by Jan Assmann
“The myth of Horus justifies the sacred kingship. Horus is Osiris reborn. And Osiris’s resurrection as Horus represents the possibility of any individual’s succeeding on the traditional heroic journey into the underworld”
-From “The Oxford Companion to World Mythology” by David Adams Leeming
“All this took form in Osiris: he was the mourned and resurrected god who experienced and overcame death.”
-From “The Search for God in Ancient Egypt”
By Jan Assmann
“The dead Osiris, however, was deified and a personal creed was attached to his life and death, which was very much like that of Christianity based on the suffering and death of Jesus.” -From ‘Ancient Egyptian Religion’ by Jaroslav Černý
The various actions of Horus for Osiris that in the Egyptian language are subsumed under the verb nedj (with a broad range of applications stretching from protection to revenge) culminate in a scene where Osiris is restored to life to such a degree as to be able to confront his murderer, Seth.
-jan assmann
Still, through his death and resurrection, Christ has paved the way to paradise or Elysium in a way not altogether dissimilar to that of Osiris, who also, through his victory over Seth, opened a realm beyond the realm of death. The decisive common denominator of Christianity and ancient Egyptian religion is the idea of redemption from death, that beyond the realm of death there is an Elysian realm of eternal life in the presence of the divine. Christianity shares this concept not only with Egyptian religion but also with many or most of the Greek or hellenized mystery cults, with some trends in Early Judaism, and later also with Islam, but it seems that Egypt is the likely original source of these ideas.
-From “Resurrection in Ancient Egypt” by Jan Assmann
“Osiris was believed to have been a prehistoric king murdered by his brother Seth and resurrected by his sister-wife Isis; he was also the Father of Horus.”
– From Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom
By Adela Oppenheim, Dorothea Arnold, Dieter Arnold, Kei Yamamoto
So we have the death and resurrection of Osiris and a miraculous birth of the savior Horus.
When Horus was born his life was threatened by Set who heard about him and wanted to kill him because Horus was a threat to him becoming pharoah. Isis had to flee and hide her baby. This is exactly like mary and joseph having to flee to Egypt to hide Jesus from king herod because Herod heard that a king of the Jews was going to be born.
From https://www.ancient.eu/Horus/ :
“Isis endured a difficult pregnancy with exceptionally long labor and gave birth to Horus alone in the swamps of the Delta. She hid herself and her son from Set and his demons in the thickets, only going out at night for food accompanied by a bodyguard of seven scorpions who were given her by the goddess Selket”.
Also, the Metternich Stela tells how Set sent out scorpions to kill Horus when he was a baby. Herod sent out people to kill Jesus when he was born. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metternich_Stela
Horus dies too and is resurrected:
“Horus, son of Isis and Osiris
Source: Diodorus Siculus 1.25.6-7
Fable: Following the Ptolemic manner of interpretio graeca, Diodorus offered a Hellenistic adaptation of the resurrection tale of the ancient Egyptian mythic king Horus. As with the analogous tale of the raising and immortalization of King Osiris passed down to us through Plutarch (Isis and
Osiris), Isis administered a magic drug that raised her dead son, King Horus, and bestowed upon him immortal deification.”
From “Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity”
By Richard C. Miller
“Isis also discovered the elixir of immortality, and when her
son Horus fell victim to the plots of the Titans and was found
dead beneath the waves, she not only raised him from
the dead and restored his soul, but also gave him eternal life”.-Diodorus Siculus
Now let’s go over the savior Hercules/Herakles. He was born to a mortal woman who was impregnated by a god. When the goddess Hera heard about his birth she sent out serpents to kill him. He was to be king and was a descendant of Perseus. This is all easy to verify so we can just use wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracles
Jesus was born to a mortal woman impregnated by god. Herod tried to have him killed. He was to be king of the Jews and was a Descendant of King David.
In Euripides’ “Alcestis” Hercules brings a person back from the dead like Jesus:
“Admetos:
May I touch her, may I speak to her as my living wife?
Herakles:
Speak to her; you have all you have desired.
Admetos:
Dearest [most philê] of women, do see I again your face,
your person? This exceeds all hope: I thought I would never see you again.
Herakles:
You have her; may no god be envious to you. 1135
Admetos:
O generous son of great Zeus! May you be
blessed [have a good daimôn] and may the father who sired you protect [sôzô] you! You alone restored her to me.
How did you bring her back to the light from the realms below?
Herakles:
I fought with the one who lords it over the shades. 1140
Admetos:
Where did you join this contest [agôn] with Death?
Herakles:
I lay in wait, and seized him at the tomb.”
So Herakles goes to a woman’s tomb and raises her from the dead just like Jesus went to Lazarus’ tomb and raised him from the dead.
Herakles dies and resurrects. Then he dies again on a pyre but when his friends put out the fire they can’t find any bones because he ascended to heaven. Somewhat similar to Jesus’ body missing from the tomb in Mark:
“Of the youth god Melqart we know that Eudoxus of Cnidos (ca. 355 B.C.) is quoted by Athenaeus (392d) as saying that the Phoenicians “sacrificed quails to Heracles, because Heracles, the son of Asteria and Zeus, went into Libya and was killed by Typhon.”…..According to Athennaeus, the episode of Heracles’ death did not end there, for Iolaus “brought a quail to him and having put it close to him, he smelt it and came to life again.” The quail sacrifice thus would commemorate the death and resurrection of Heracles. This event was probably celebrated in an annual festival at Tyre to which Josephus seems to refer in his Jewish Antiquities (8. 146).”
-From “The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East” By Javier Teixidor
“Now when Iolaüs had carried out these orders and had withdrawn to a distance to see what would take place,
Heracles, having abandoned hope for himself, ascended the pyre and asked each one who came up to him to put
torch to the pyre. And when no one had the courage to obey him Philoctetes alone was prevailed upon; and he,
having received in return for his compliance the gift of the bow and arrows of Heracles, lighted the pyre.
And immediately lightning also fell from the heavens and the pyre was wholly consumed. 5 After this, when the
companions of Iolaüs came to gather up the bones of Heracles and found not a single bone anywhere, they
assumed that, in accordance with the words of the oracle, he had passed from among men into the company of
the gods.” -DIODORUS SICULUS
LIBRARY OF HISTORY Book IV
I’ll make another post about Perseus and Dionysus and the Mystery religions at another time. This post is a bit long.
So after researching and reading up on the different savior gods
I’m of the opinion that they are all telling the same basic story and have the same esoteric or allegorical meaning. Some people don’t see the similarities, which is fine, but I definitely do. I don’t need an academic to tell me whether something is similar to something else. I can look at the information myself and come to a conclusion.
That being said the following quotations are from scholarly/academic sources.
So lets start with the saviors Osiris and Horus. We’ll start with the death and resurrection of osiris:
“Isis, the sister and wife of Osiris, traverses Egypt in
search of the membra disiecta of her brother, reassembling them into the shape of a body. Together with her sister Nephthys she bewails the body in long songs of lamentation using the power of speech as a means of reanimation.
Isis and Nephthys were so successful in their reanimating recitations that Isis was able to receive a child from the reanimated body of Osiris. This is the first step toward resurrection. The appearance of Horus, the son and heir of Osiris, marks the second scene of the myth and initiates the second phase of resurrection.”
-From ‘Resurrection in Ancient Egypt’ by Jan Assmann
“The myth of Horus justifies the sacred kingship. Horus is Osiris reborn. And Osiris’s resurrection as Horus represents the possibility of any individual’s succeeding on the traditional heroic journey into the underworld”
-From “The Oxford Companion to World Mythology” by David Adams Leeming
“All this took form in Osiris: he was the mourned and resurrected god who experienced and overcame death.”
-From “The Search for God in Ancient Egypt”
By Jan Assmann
“The dead Osiris, however, was deified and a personal creed was attached to his life and death, which was very much like that of Christianity based on the suffering and death of Jesus.” -From ‘Ancient Egyptian Religion’ by Jaroslav Černý
The various actions of Horus for Osiris that in the Egyptian language are subsumed under the verb nedj (with a broad range of applications stretching from protection to revenge) culminate in a scene where Osiris is restored to life to such a degree as to be able to confront his murderer, Seth.
-jan assmann
Still, through his death and resurrection, Christ has paved the way to paradise or Elysium in a way not altogether dissimilar to that of Osiris, who also, through his victory over Seth, opened a realm beyond the realm of death. The decisive common denominator of Christianity and ancient Egyptian religion is the idea of redemption from death, that beyond the realm of death there is an Elysian realm of eternal life in the presence of the divine. Christianity shares this concept not only with Egyptian religion but also with many or most of the Greek or hellenized mystery cults, with some trends in Early Judaism, and later also with Islam, but it seems that Egypt is the likely original source of these ideas.
-From “Resurrection in Ancient Egypt” by Jan Assmann
“Osiris was believed to have been a prehistoric king murdered by his brother Seth and resurrected by his sister-wife Isis; he was also the Father of Horus.”
– From Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom
By Adela Oppenheim, Dorothea Arnold, Dieter Arnold, Kei Yamamoto
So we have the death and resurrection of Osiris and a miraculous birth of the savior Horus.
When Horus was born his life was threatened by Set who heard about him and wanted to kill him because Horus was a threat to him becoming pharoah. Isis had to flee and hide her baby. This is exactly like mary and joseph having to flee to Egypt to hide Jesus from king herod because Herod heard that a king of the Jews was going to be born.
From https://www.ancient.eu/Horus/ :
“Isis endured a difficult pregnancy with exceptionally long labor and gave birth to Horus alone in the swamps of the Delta. She hid herself and her son from Set and his demons in the thickets, only going out at night for food accompanied by a bodyguard of seven scorpions who were given her by the goddess Selket”.
Also, the Metternich Stela tells how Set sent out scorpions to kill Horus when he was a baby. Herod sent out people to kill Jesus when he was born. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metternich_Stela
Horus dies too and is resurrected:
“Horus, son of Isis and Osiris
Source: Diodorus Siculus 1.25.6-7
Fable: Following the Ptolemic manner of interpretio graeca, Diodorus offered a Hellenistic adaptation of the resurrection tale of the ancient Egyptian mythic king Horus. As with the analogous tale of the raising and immortalization of King Osiris passed down to us through Plutarch (Isis and
Osiris), Isis administered a magic drug that raised her dead son, King Horus, and bestowed upon him immortal deification.”
From “Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity”
By Richard C. Miller
“Isis also discovered the elixir of immortality, and when her
son Horus fell victim to the plots of the Titans and was found
dead beneath the waves, she not only raised him from
the dead and restored his soul, but also gave him eternal life”.-Diodorus Siculus
Now let’s go over the savior Hercules/Herakles. He was born to a mortal woman who was impregnated by a god. When the goddess Hera heard about his birth she sent out serpents to kill him. He was to be king and was a descendant of Perseus. This is all easy to verify so we can just use wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracles
Jesus was born to a mortal woman impregnated by god. Herod tried to have him killed. He was to be king of the Jews and was a Descendant of King David.
In Euripides’ “Alcestis” Hercules brings a person back from the dead like Jesus:
“Admetos:
May I touch her, may I speak to her as my living wife?
Herakles:
Speak to her; you have all you have desired.
Admetos:
Dearest [most philê] of women, do see I again your face,
your person? This exceeds all hope: I thought I would never see you again.
Herakles:
You have her; may no god be envious to you. 1135
Admetos:
O generous son of great Zeus! May you be
blessed [have a good daimôn] and may the father who sired you protect [sôzô] you! You alone restored her to me.
How did you bring her back to the light from the realms below?
Herakles:
I fought with the one who lords it over the shades. 1140
Admetos:
Where did you join this contest [agôn] with Death?
Herakles:
I lay in wait, and seized him at the tomb.”
So Herakles goes to a woman’s tomb and raises her from the dead just like Jesus went to Lazarus’ tomb and raised him from the dead.
Herakles dies and resurrects. Then he dies again on a pyre but when his friends put out the fire they can’t find any bones because he ascended to heaven. Somewhat similar to Jesus’ body missing from the tomb in Mark:
“Of the youth god Melqart we know that Eudoxus of Cnidos (ca. 355 B.C.) is quoted by Athenaeus (392d) as saying that the Phoenicians “sacrificed quails to Heracles, because Heracles, the son of Asteria and Zeus, went into Libya and was killed by Typhon.”…..According to Athennaeus, the episode of Heracles’ death did not end there, for Iolaus “brought a quail to him and having put it close to him, he smelt it and came to life again.” The quail sacrifice thus would commemorate the death and resurrection of Heracles. This event was probably celebrated in an annual festival at Tyre to which Josephus seems to refer in his Jewish Antiquities (8. 146).”
-From “The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East” By Javier Teixidor
“Now when Iolaüs had carried out these orders and had withdrawn to a distance to see what would take place,
Heracles, having abandoned hope for himself, ascended the pyre and asked each one who came up to him to put
torch to the pyre. And when no one had the courage to obey him Philoctetes alone was prevailed upon; and he,
having received in return for his compliance the gift of the bow and arrows of Heracles, lighted the pyre.
And immediately lightning also fell from the heavens and the pyre was wholly consumed. 5 After this, when the
companions of Iolaüs came to gather up the bones of Heracles and found not a single bone anywhere, they
assumed that, in accordance with the words of the oracle, he had passed from among men into the company of
the gods.” -DIODORUS SICULUS
LIBRARY OF HISTORY Book IV
I’ll make another post about Perseus and Dionysus and the Mystery religions at another time. This post is a bit long.
And ah! All of this centers around ancient Egypt, where there was an upper and lower land divided politically built and justified off of religious ideas. And both the Torah and ancient Egyptian religions are built off of so much of the same background? Higher and lower consciousness?
The problem is that people stuck too much in Academia get caught up in the details, which obscures the obvious. History proves that cultures, when going through major military, economic, and political upheavals take older myths and use them according to the major changes that occur so the masses can make sense out of the change according to the cultural developments. Christianity did just that. Sure, there are major differences. But…the overall similarities, or the big picture, is too big to ignore. As stated in the previous comment, it doesn’t take a PHD to at least question this possibility. Of course I understand the other side too. But if the shoe fits, wear it.
When one researches deeper with proper symbolic interpretation, the gap narrows and one sees that they are exactly the same story told over and over again. The symbols must be looked at, not the details. Academia has missed that! Sadly, Academia tosses symbolic and spiritual interpretation to the side and looks at the details too much and misses the main idea. It will always be this way, and literal interpretations of ancient myth will always justify wrong interpretations. And that’s a great loss to consciousness development.
Not so fast, brothers. It is not a matter or “academia”, but of how information is acquired, interpreted, peer-reviewed, and vetted by trusted sources. This is how scientific information is verified and it is very successful. It is also how anything is verified, really, from a rent application to the latest fusion reactor. When you veer from this process, which our crazy President has done, you circumvent the objective truth and contribute toward making our planet more uninhabitable. I will have more to say about this when I have reviewed the source material that has been provided. Thanks for doing that.
Had to go back a few loops in the comments otherwise there would be no room for anyone to reply. Granted Richard C Miller has credentials as an ivy league PHD student whose book is a result of his thesis that was carefully guided and reviewed by a mix of ivy league professors, His basic idea is not new, but some of the evidence he has presented in a thorough fashion and the shear extent of is new. It was published in 2014, 3 years ago. It was popular.
He did not publish anything significant before or after that. He is not in the same high category as other established professors such as Elaine Pagels. He documents similarities as others do, but lets take a look at them. Does “similarity” mean that the Jesus story has to also be myth?
1. Osirus/Horus. These are gods with humanistic qualities like the Greek gods. There is no absolute deity compared to Yahway, whose ways are so deep that they cannot be fathomed by humans. One God dies tragically and is never fully resurrected to his full original being, but his son Horus is born as a god (not a human or human-god combo), “representing” a resurrection of sorts of Osirus. It is done partly out of “revenge” for the injustice done to Osirus, revenge being the antithesis of Christian virtue. These are superhumans with flaws and vulnerabilities like humans (except vulnerabilities are no longer allowed as a word in the Center for Disease Control). They may as well be a team in a Marvel comic strip.
They are human traits projected onto superhumans. The Jewish concept is the reverse – God attributes projected into humans (He made them in His image, likeness, which becomes perfected in the life of a Christian believer).
There a many versions of the Osiris myth told by different Egyptian authors with major changes in themes and agents, that are totally inconsistent with each other. The Christ story does not vary and blends beautifully into the OT.
To be continued
Richard C. Miller is quoting ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus though. You don’t need to take Richard C. Miller’s word for it because he provides a primary source.
The Ancient Greeks and Egyptians actually had a god that was less human-like than Yahweh. Yahweh gets angry and jealous which is absurd(only if it’s taken literally), he’s supposedly the creator of the universe.
First ancient Geek:
“But mortals suppose that the gods are born (as they themselves are), and that they wear
man’s clothing and have human voice and body. But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to
paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and
give them bodies in form like their own—horses like horses, cattle like cattle.”
-Xenophanes (Fragments 5-6)
“God is one, supreme among gods and men, and not like mortals in body or in mind.The whole
[of god] sees, the whole perceives, the whole hears. But without effort he sets in motion
all things by mind and thought.” –Xenophanes (fragments 1-3)
“God, as the old tradition declares, holding in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is,
travels according to his nature in a straight line towards the accomplishment of his end. Justice always
accompanies him, and is the punisher of those who fall short of the divine law.”
Plato, Laws Book 4
“…all things come to be [or, happen] in accordance with this logos.
Human nature has no power of understanding; but the divine nature has it.
This ordered universe (cosmos),which is the same for all, was not created by any one of the gods or
of mankind, but it was ever and is and shall be ever-living Fire, kindled in
measure and quenched in measure.”
Heraclitus, 22 B 1, 78, 30 DK
“But the soul, the invisible part, which goes away to a place that is, like itself, glorious, pure,
and invisible -the true Hades or unseen world -into the presence of the good and wise God…then it
departs to that place which is, like itself, invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, where,
on its arrival, happiness awaits it, and release from uncertainty and folly, from fears
and uncontrolled desires, and all other human evils, and where as they say
of the initiates in the Mysteries, it really spends the rest of its time with God.”
Plato, Phaedo, 80d-81a.
In the ancient Greek Deverni Papyrus God is considered “One”. All the different gods are aspects of one god:
“It seems to me that the commentator wants to convince us that there is no question of unification at
all, because there are no two seperate entities, Zeus on the one hand, and Mind, that good mother on
the other. He wants to say rather that Zeus, the god, Mind, and Rhea, and many other names refer to one and
the same entity; there is no question of unification because there has never been two entities to start
with, only the different functions and the corresponding different names of the same entity.”
-The Derveni Papyrus And Early Stoicism by Gabor Betegh
“More generally, a cosmological interpretation of divine names which understands all these names as descriptions
of the different cosmic functions of a unique cosmic god, is the natural outcome of the conjunction of two doctrinal
elements. First, a certain theology that works with one supreme cosmic divinity and, second, an effort not to lose the
theological relevance of the traditional divine names. The Derveni author and the Stoics share both of these views, yet
neither of these views in itself is specific to these authors.”
-The Derveni Papyrus And Early Stoicism by Gabor Betegh
“… existing things have been called each single name by reason of what dominates (them); all things were called Zeus according
to the same principle. For the air dominates all as far as it wishes. And when they say that the Moira spun they say
that the wisdom of Zeus ordains how the things that are and the things that come to be and the things that are going to be
must come to be and be and cease”
-From the Derveni papyrus
Now ancient Egyptian believes about God:
“This god transcended the world not only with respect to the mysterious hiddenness of his ‘ba-ness’,
in which no name could name him and no representation could depict him, but also with respect to
the human heart, which was filled with him. He was the hidden god who ‘came from afar’ yet was
always present to the individual in the omniscience and omnipotence of his all-encompassing
essence. He was not only the cosmos—in Egyptian, the totality of the ‘millions’, and also neheh and
djet, ‘plenitude of time’ and ‘unalterable duration’ into which he unfolded himself—but also
history.”
-The Search for God in Ancient Egypt by jan assmann
“None of the gods knows His true form,
His image is not unfolded in the papyrus rolls,
nothing certain is testified about Him.”
-Hymns to Amun, Papyrus Leiden I 350, chapter 200, lines 22- 24.
ca.1213 BCE (end of the reign of Ramesses II)
“The world emerges from a primeval darkness (keku semau) and a primeval flood (nun)…
In sum, the monotheism of the egyptians consists in the belief that in the beginning
the devine was one, and that in the cosmogony that was the work of the one, the one
became many.”
-Idea into image by Erik Hornung
“New Kingdom Hymns, such as those perserved in Papyrus Leiden I 350, explore the idea that all deities are aspects of the creator. They speculate on the miraculous
process by which the one creator, usually named autumn-ra, was able to divide himself into many.”
-Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of …
By Geraldine Pinch
“In the instruction for King Merikare, the author goes so far as to tell us that the creator god concieved the world for the sake of humankind:
‘Well, provided are men, the herd of the god. It is for them that he made the
sky and the earth. It is for them that he repulsed the greed of the water. It
is so that their nostrils might live that he made the breezes, for they are his
images, issued from his flesh. It is for them that he rises in the sky: it is to
nourish them that he made plants, herds, birds, and fish.'”
-Gods and Men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 CE
By Françoise Dunand, Christiane Zivie-Coche
The ancient Egyptian myths are much older than the Biblical myths. That’s why there’s more variation.
I’m driving Uber and waiting mg my turn in the holding area using voice transcription. The story of creation is mixed pickles in Egyptian theology. Rah is closest to Yahway but is a creature who creates form in chaos. He does not create the universe. It is clear that Yahway is the source of everything, creator of the universe. The difference between Rah and Yahway is like comparing a mechanic to an automobile factory. The entire Egyptian pantheon then originates from raw. There is no absolute creator or truth Only hodgepodge of stories that are not very consistent but reflect which pharaoh was in charge.
The battle between Moses and Pharosh pits Yahway against Rah in which everything that is sacred to Egyptian spiritual beliefs is rubbed in the face of Pharoach. Yahway is proven supreme.
The Bible stories have not changed because the Hebrews preserved the OT and then the church preserved the NT. Biblical narrative did not evolve. Even when Israel was scattered without access to homeland and Temple the Torah did not change.
Every other culture has changed. The Egyptian pantheon is only history now in a nation largely Islamic/Christian. Greeks are not Platonists, but Christian. These cultures that you purport to be similar to the biblical have expired as major entities, and will not be ressuredted. They lack perpetuity. The Hebrews have reclaimed their homeland and brought the unchanging biblical emphases back with them. All against natural odds and according to a biblical promise. No other culture has done this on such a massive scale. These are important differences that highlight the uniqueness of the Bible in real time.
The battle between Moses and Pharoach was not a pissing contest between two gods. It was a demonstration of the the God of creation being real and supreme over the Egyptian attempts to understand .Moses snake ate pharoaghs snakes. The Egyptian spirituality had some power but that would bow to the unique magnimity of Yahway.
The Hebrew nation also cast off Hellenization on Chanukah.
A lot of what you’re saying isn’t academic. There was no Abraham or Moses. These are mythological characters. There are contradictions within the bible. It’s not one whole book, it’s a collection of different stories written by different people who had different theological beliefs that changed over time. That’s why you find polytheism in the Hebrew bible. The Hebrew religion came out of earlier Canaanite and Babylonian religion. You can look into the works of Mark S. Smith and Israel Finkelstein starters.
Maybe we should just agree to respectfully disagree though. I guess we’re kind of off topic from the original blog post.
I wanted to check the credentials of your sources, but after assessing Miller I did not see any problem or anything to gain. There h ave been some total crackpots who publish pop stuff that is most deceiving. Not the problem here. So I went a different course by examining the biblical meaning of some items you claim are extremely similar to other culture myths. I was and am in the airport again waiting for my turn to do an uber driver run, so I did not include my sources. I just googled Pegasus and white horses to extract a generally accepted interpretation. Also I know the bible enough to know about Abraham and other figures. It’s all fairly mainline knowledge. What I suspect is that the authors of your sources and their sources did not truly understand or focus on the bible stories in their completeness and connected meaning to other bible stories. They just picked some myths that seemed similar in 2% of the various aspects of each bible story and deemed that a “striking similarity”. So I have shown some cases I could find that were not at all striking once you got into the details and purposes of the bible passages. Its the same idea of mistaking fools gold for gold because it is gold colored, or meeting a person who is the same height, weight, and hairstyle as your spouse and mistaking them for your spouse.
Whether Jesus existed as the Gospel writers described is just as difficult to prove as disprove. Generally I find that people who have in depth independent revelation supporting their belief in the bible Jesus do not originally have such a struggle about Jesus being real as much as feeling that the church is out of whack. Somewhere along the line some of them will just give up and conclude that Jesus is not real because look at all the hypocritical church members who claim to follow him. Lines become blurred. but when ii comes down to it, it is not Jesus who is leading the hypocrits.
The real issue is not Jesus, it is the messed up church which does not understand its leader in the way he needs to be understood. When the church is messed up, some members go looking for a better god or god concept.
If we start with the existing state of Israel in modern times (There is an Israel) we can historically trace the history of the Jews accurately at least to the capture of the Northern Kingdom and then the Southern Kingdom. And we have Isaiah and Jeremiah warning Israel even before that. Their are even coins with the name David on them. These people existed. There is less evidence going back earlier than that. There is a black Jewish tribe that may be the one Moses interacted with that Aaron complained about. There is the Aaronic prayer still recited today and records of the customs of the priests. DNA evidence shows people connected genetically to the ancient Levites snf Cohens (priessts). So there is some evidence pointing to the existence of Moses. A little indirect, but still there.
The Chaldeans’ are also believed to have had a connection to Egyptian culture that began a Chaldean version of the Egyptian spirituality. The Chaldean culture has also bit the dust, although its literature has been preserved. THe Epic of Gilgemesh the best known example. Abraham came from that area with a whole new narrative that survies today,
Zeus and Pegasus portray the chief god of the Greek pantheon being empowered by a white horse who has acquired the power of the thunderbolt. This white horse has a myth or two attached to it before meeting up with Zeus. These myths were easy to spread by a teacher pointing out the outline of Pegasus in the night sky.
Revelations has two white horses. The one in Rev 6 appears as one of the four horses of teh apocalypse bringing wrath and destruction on the face of the earth and to its inhabitants, The rider is not identified but he has a bow that is believed to associate him with Nimrod the archer and rebel who established ancient Babylon and the Mystery religions in defiance of Yahway. Seals are opened to allow the four horses to operate at the appointed times. The rider is also thought by some to be the anti-Christ who brings deception to the world and to some of the elect.
The white horse in Rev 19 is a total opposite. The horse does not empower the rider. The rider is Jesus in his second coming, a sword coming out of his mouth (the word fo God) and also carrying a bow but for a different purpose. Any similarities between the Rev 6 and Rev 19 white horses is far outweighed by the differences. The connection between either of these two white horses with Pegasus is even more superficial.
People in cultures with horses have dreams about horses. They symbolize all sorts of things. It is merely a part of the times and John’s cuolture that the Holy Spirit provided many visions, two of them with horses. It has nothing to do with Pegasus or Zeus. In fact the intentional use of horses in the Revs as different than Pegasus could be a way of showing that all images bow to Yahway God who empowers his stead rather than the other way around. These differences are very important.
Hey Robert…
Thanks for the all the thoughtful research and comments! Nice discussion.
I take the position that the Book of Revelation is certainly all symbolic, and not literal. The visions point to this, and the language is certainly otherworldly. Let’s start with that assumption. So the book is symbolic of something that happens not on the outside, but inside.
What is it referring to?
The seven seals are the 7 chakras that open symbolically also during higher consciousness. The 7 trumpets and judgments of God is an inner process of ego death. It is a process of the Great and Terrible day of the Lord at the same time, and the trumpet blows and judgments definitely are a type of death on the inside. The two witnesses are the pineal and pituitary gland. All the symbolism of Pegasus etc. is simply the ancient worlds way of explaining this awakening process. The numbers 3 and half and the weeks showing the same of 3.5 years etc, all go along with these symbols. The numerology matches the symbols, kundalini (Holy Spirit).
The original stories of Zues and the other gods were never meant to be taken literally, either. So all these symbols are changed and told through different cultural ideas over time, but they all relate. In order for Revelation not to be a part of this, it would have to be a literal book, and all the symbols in it would have to literally happen.
If it were symbolic and different, then that means the author is still employing Greek thought and ideas. Something would be amiss. Does that make sense?
The author of Revelations, John the Elder, was an older conservative Jewish Christian leader who had been chased out of Israel by both the Romans and the Jews, along with masses of other Jewish Christians. Revelations was written to comfort them. Like many of the conservative Jewish Christians, he was on the opposite end theologically with Paul of Tarsus, and expected Gentiles to convert to Judaism and follow Jewish law as a prerequisite to becoming a Christian. He knew diddley about chakras. Nothing is written in history about such knowledge of the Oriental practices among the Jews.
As for the Osiris and Horus myth, not all the details are the same as Jesus. But the main message of the myth is the same as the myth of Jesus.
From Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt
By Jan Assmann:
“Only thus, in the realm of the dead, could he become the center of a sphere of eternal life for every deceased person who followed him. “Salvation” and
“eternal life” are Christian concepts, and we might think that the Egyptian myth can all too easily be viewed through the leans od Christian tradition.
Quite the contrary, in my opinion, Christian myth is itself thoroughly stamped by Egyptian tradition, by the myth of Isis and Osiris, which from the very
beginning had to do with salvation and eternal life.
Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt
By Jan Assmann
You mention scientific information being verified by peer review and academia etc. but the things you claim aren’t supported by Academia. Academics don’t say Jesus was the son of God or did anything miraculous. That’s apologetics. They also don’t say Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. If you want to stick to what’s logical and academic then you would have to agree that it’s more likely that the writers of the gospels tried to make Jesus fit the prophecies of the Old Testament rather than him actually fulfilling them.
I agree Joshua and I really enjoy your website!
Evidence for Abraham https://www.thoughtco.com/archaeological-evidence-abraham-in-the-bible-116875
Instead of assuming the bible story was written in 1500 BC before the Chaldean’s exited, Abraham lived in the earlier age of the Sumerians. Clay tablets discovered during that age corroborate the culture that Abraham came from, the names of the cities and of people. These tablets changes a long history of skepticism about Abraham.
There is evidence that the Hebrews passed through Jericho (search “Jericho” to see my SOS post on this). So there you have it. They started in Urs and entered their new land at Jericho. They believed in a promise given to Abraham which has come true again and again that God would be faithful to bring them and return them to the land of promise. There are esoteric interpretations of what the land of promise symbolizes, and there is a land of promise where decedents of Abraham now live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebla_tablets#cite_note-11
“Contrary to many earlier claims, the present consensus is that “Ebla has no bearing on the Minor Prophets, the historical accuracy of the biblical Patriarchs, Yahweh worship, or Sodom and Gomorra”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/12/09/ebla-tablets-no-biblical-claims/89f81380-1350-415a-b836-570cfec84b68/?utm_term=.6aa6c3ac4103
“But three years of intense study and debate among scholars changed all that. No longer are biblical claims made for the 11,000 clay tablets of Ebla, the ancient Sumerian city whose palace was destroyed by fire around 2300 B.C.”
I concede on this point, that the assertion of evidence published in favor of Abraham’s existence by one author has been swept aside by scholars since about the 1980s. .It is perplexing to me that Cynthia Astle who published the 2017 article I referenced ignored that. I tracked her down on Linked In and intend to get some response from her on this issue.
The deeper one looks, the more issues one will find with archaeology stating Biblical history can be proved. When I first began researching history and archaeology, I would often find seemingly well-researched documents that supported Biblical history, but as I dug, I would always find some other well-researched publication that would make more sense in the end. It can be frustrating and rewarding. At least this has been my experience. I spent countless hours doing this around six years ago.
Then there may be no end and no evidence-based conclusion. We pick what we want (what makes sense) from the pile of contradictory facts. Since what makes sense to each individual varies, we are going to disagree. What makes sense to me is that Israel is being reborn in adversity in fulfillment of a promise made to Abraham. Israel has the most advanced water desalination technology in the world and literally making its own deserts and the deserts of ally nations bloom. It is reasonable for me to assume that fulfillment of its biblical destiny in our day somehow corroborates the historicity of its biblical heritage in Abraham. It is not something that can be easily overlooked or explained away. It affects the rest of the world. The age of terrorism started in the 1970’s when Palestinian guerrillas assassinated all 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. It mushroomed from there to ISIS. We can’t pretend the struggling resurgence of Israel is not significant on the earthly plane.
The earthly events have symbolic meaning to those developing on the higher levels of consciousness. Still that does not make the earthly events fictional. At least that’s the way I see it.
Perplexing as it is, it still demonstrates a progression of restoration of Israel in steps as predicted by the prophets and is tied to the biblical Jubilee concept of property and land returning to its owner. This is a real world fulfillment of prophecy in action today. The last step of restoration of Israel involves it attaining breath (spiritual fulfillment) which is yet to come.
Another prophecy includes the establishment of the modern nation of Israel in the land in 1948. The punishment for Israel’s transgressions was apportioned by God for 430 years, starting when they were taken into Babylonian captivity and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple. Some returned in accordance with Daniel’s interpretation of scripture that stated that the Temple and destroyed Jerusalem would be rebuilt 70 years into the Babylonian captivity. Only some Jews returned. The majority chose to disobey and remain settled in foreign lands. So they had 430 – 70 = 360 years of punishment left. A warning in Leviticus states that refusal to return to the land after being cast off from it would result in an extending punishment by a factor of 7. 360 x 7 = 2520 years which when adjusted for Calendar issues takes us to the Spring of 1948 AD. Also predicted is that Israel would be reborn in a single day, and that occurred on May 14, 1948, when the Jews declared an independent Jewish state right after the British protection of that area expired. Further predicted, is that the birth pangs of Israel’s rebirth would occur after birth, not before; which is what happened right after declaring independence when Arab nations declared war on the new nation.
To see these prophecies fulfilled and some of them still in process in the real world strongly supports that the bible is not a big myth, and that prophecies play out in the real world. This in turn lends credibility to the bible Jesus, to whom 200 prophecies are associated, being real and non-mythical. Not only that he existed, but he exited and fulfilled those prophecies as savior of mankind. Myths do not have this property of playing out, and continuing to play out, in real time.
I am bringing this up because the sources referenced by Nightshadestwine selectively omit any of the considerations I have just mentioned. They may be accepted by other scholars, but if the entire scholar community is missing the boat, then their agreed upon conclusions are meaningless, misleading, inbread, and no more than a failed, wild speculation. This is despite their credentials and the grant money supporting their work, for which the trend is to support skepticism.
If you were exposed to this skepticism at a critical time when you were looking for answers, without considering what I have discussed, then you may have become attached to following such skepticism at the way to truth, when in fact, it is not that at all.
So I strongly urge you and others to continue to look for hidden meanings, but in a manner that does not automatically assume the bible is a myth.,,,, unless you can disprove what I have discussed.
Robert, your arguments are greatly appreciated as it shows much thought and research. However, there is just as much if not more against this line of reasoning, showing that the Bible is myth. The point is, there are equally both sides argued in the scholarly world as of to date, even though I think there is more disproving it. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you or I are right. I can agree to that. But consider this…
Even without the scholarly arguments…there is great reason to believe its myth. Here’s why. Does God change? In other words, he allowed for certain miracles as parting the red sea or walking on water in ancient times, but suddenly does not? That doesn’t make sense. Look outside. All miracles of the Old Testament are contingent upon things happening in grand style that just doesn’t happen today. Did God allow for a certain time in history to show these miracles and all of the sudden in modern times decide to stop, or is it more logical to say that snakes have always never talked, and never will? Or is it more logical to state that the sun does not stop in the sky today as always, or that at one time God allowed it or special reasons? And just during Hebraic history of importance? God does not work that way, as we can see through evolution, the times and season, and through logic. Since we are upon the argument of logic based on scholarly articles, why would it be different today in nature? God is in nature, and nature in God. So all we have to do to know God’s nature is to look outside in nature, correct? If he does not change, then why change his nature, as that would equate to change in God?
I’m very curious about 50 year Jubilee intervals between the official order of the Balfour Declaration to allow Jews to return to their homeland in 1917 and the annexation of territories surrounding Jerusalem as a result of the six days war in 1967 and then the official order to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017. 50 years in between. You would have to be a total skeptic to believe this is coincidental. Jubilee in the bible is the year of restoration to the original owner of lands and property that were lost or sold. If there is something to this, then it is perplexing that the latest change would occur through a megalomaniac like Trump.
Most religions are going to deal with improving behavior, dealing with misfortune, recovery and redemption, afterlife. These are human needs, not concepts patented in Egypt. The manner in which Judaism and Christianity approach these is not borrowed from Egypt, even if some of the stories have some superficial resemblances. Its like a computer and its software. It is unique although other computer/software units have parts and lower level software used to build its own program. If I had 30 other computer/software units from different ages and manufacturers across the globe and took pieces and software features from each one to try to come up with a closest model to the original unique computer/software, it might have a closer resemblance to the original than any simple comparison between the original and any one other computer., because their are more choices of hardware and software to consider combining. But the Frankenstein combo is still likely not to duplicate the original, in fact it may be 20% off and that could make all the difference in the world. Despite tracking all sorts of trends in similarity of world computers and various combos, they all talk and they all, use a vocabulary and numbers, the original computer has a unique operation and when it talks using vocabulary and numbers it generates a message that is not the same as the others or other combos.
I cannot help to remark.
It is April 2022 now and it is proven that peer-review is trying to hold us in the current paradigm of viral sickness.
Could a similar thing occur in biblical studies ?
I quote Robert : “It is not a matter or “academia”, but of how information is acquired, interpreted, peer-reviewed, and vetted by trusted sources. This is how scientific information is verified and it is very successful. It is also how anything is verified, really, from a rent application to the latest fusion reactor.”
I would call it ‘majority rules’ and i am not a big fan of current implementations of democrazy.
In my book the only verification is within my own vehicle, my Israel.
And any attempt to cross my borders : i will defend my God given rights 🙂