Freethought Nation

in a nutshell, that was the original question. Did the quote mean a specific person or not? If you categorically state that someone does not believe in magic pixies, surely they would have to have knowledge of the belief in magic pixies in order to reject them. An alternate position would be having no knowledge of magic pixies.

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Blessed is just about everyone with a vested interest in the status quo

Another part of it was that Wheless' "Forgery in Christianity" makes reference to Origen and the Arians.

I guess the best answer is to actually read the Origen stuff... that would clear it all up for me



no problem... I wasn't offended or bothered. I just moved on and let someone else respond if they wanted to.

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Blessed is just about everyone with a vested interest in the status quo

dude!

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"They must find it difficult...those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as the Authority." -- Gerald Massey, Egyptologist
http://www.myspace.com/skullnboner

It's just a matter of understanding that the English name "Jehovah" refers to the Jewish name "Yahweh" (yud heh vav heh) of the old testament and that the English name "Jesus" refer's to the Jewish name "Yahshua" (yud heh vav shin ayin) of the old testament as well.

Acharya stated:


"Josephus, of course, was aware of some 20 Jesuses, but that doesn't mean that he had ever heard of the Jesus Christ of the New Testament. To which "Jesus" was Origen referring? That's the good question. Let us not forget that there was a very prominent Jesus in the Old Testament - JOSHUA, deemed JESUS in the Greek translation called the Septuagint - and that it is clear that he was considered by many to have been the "Messiah" who brought the Israelites into the Promised Land. Indeed, as also in Suns of God, it appears that there was a long-standing pre-Christian "Jesus cult" composed of ardent followers of Joshua as Messiah, essentially being "Jesus the Christ." It is possible that Origen was complaining that Josephus was not a member of this faction [Joshua cult] who believed that Joshua was Messiah.

It is my opinion that this Joshua/Jesus faction [Joshua cult] - composed of northern-kingdom Israelites, Hebrews and Samaritans - had a significant role in the creation of Christianity.

I would submit, therefore, that Origen was referring to Josephus's discussion of the Old Testament hero/messiah Joshua."



So when ever people are using the modern English name "Jesus" they are in fact saying the name "Joshua" ever time they use the name "Jesus" - whether the person is aware of this or not. To go and talk about Josephus as referring to a number of men named "Jesus" is to suggest that he was merely referring to a number of men named "Joshua" all the while.

So it's more proper to throw out the modern name "Jesus" and look at everything from the older "Joshua" perspective to bring a sense of clarity to the issue. Josephus didn't seem to believe that "Joshua", of the ancient pre-Christian "Joshua cult", was the hebrew messiah according to this clarification of biblical terminology. Acharya seems to have proposed that Origen was possibly complaining about Josephus not buying into the ancient "Joshua" of the pre-Christian "Joshua cult" as being the hebrew messiah.

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The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

I still can't see where this is coming from in reading excerpts of Origen in Suns of God. Yashua, Iesus, Hosea, Esse, Issa, Hesus and all the innumerable dialectical spellings for the same name....it's all Greek to me! The Yahshua, who was a prophet, that Origen is talking about is the one who was put to death by a 'conspiracy' as the Christ/Messiah . That sounds much like the Yashua of the Gospels, rather than the Yahsua/Joshua saviour who brought them to the 'promised land'.

They may have been astrotheologically related, but not historically related, as the Old Testament Joshua was in another period...not the period of when Yashua the prophet-messiah was alleged to have been put to death in Josephus' lifetime, and 'disasters' fell upon the Jews, with the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. Are we saying the Yashua of the promised land was still alive and the same person as the Yashua when the promised land underwent 'calamities' as Origen and the Gospels claim?

Am I confused or what?! Suns of God on pages 384-388 that I am reading make a convincing argument that the originals of Josephus' contained no testimony to the Jesus/Yashua of the New Testament, who was called 'the Christ' or if you prefer "Messiah/Moses" as reported by Origen who was a "Church father"--he that was put to death by a conspiracy etc. If we are talking about a literal flesh and blood Yashua 'called Christ", he is not to be found in Josephus, who apparently didn't believe any of the LIVING "Yashuas" etc. were Messiah/Christ.

As it has been stated before, there were many who were popularly named 'Yashua' after the older "mythtical" Yahshua/Joshua. Should an intelligent educated man that Josephus appears to be simply assume that one of these as they claim was foretold "Yashua/Saviours" so-named in the flesh were any of the one's the Jewish-Messianic cults were expecting? It still boils down to MYTH...not literal historical persons, which Origen is claiming (and Josephus probably knew better thereof as to the nature of 'Messiahs"!).

I stated in my first answer to Oliver that the Jews were seeking a real flesh and blood saviour who would lead them out of bondage and victory over the Romans....not a sappy prophet-preacher do-gooder of which type the Gospel Jesus is made out to be to a large extent. Josephus was a real Jew in that sense, that he believed there was no leader on the horizon that would relieve the troublesome fanatical Jews from being under Roman rule.

I suspect Josephus understood more about the myth than the average nut-job of his day and just as knowledgeable about the cause of the real events of his day considering his highly suspicious background and ties to the Romans, as one who was allegedly of Priestly and Royal ancestory. This latter is just my own opinion on Josephus from some historical quagmire concerning his account about himself and involvement in previous rebellion-wars against the Romans.

Where do Myth and History begin and wherefrom the Mythtical Iudean "Yahsua" of the Gospel Messianic-Judeans? Would Josephus have spilled the beans on that I wonder? A little off-topic perhaps, but I fail to see where a literal Gospel-Messiah of which Origen speaks has anything to do with a conquering leader named Joshua/Yashua centuries before, wether he existed, the event actually occurred or some leader was given that name as a title. Excuse me if I am tripping off too far.

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"They must find it difficult...those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as the Authority." -- Gerald Massey, Egyptologist
http://www.myspace.com/skullnboner

The idea is that the Joshua cult existed in pre-Christian times, which lead to the creation of the Christ story that was 'eventually' set in the Pontius Pilate time frame (the beginning of the Piscean Age) by the writers of the new testament over a hundred years into the Piscean Age.

Acharya spoke about this issue a little bit in an interview on "Coffee, Cigarette's, and Gnosis. There's evidence of people going around the Mediterranean proselytizing from the position of this pre-Christian era Jesus myth.

(scroll down to "Interview with Acharya S." near the bottom of the play list. Also check out "Acharya on Apollonius" and "Acharya on Mystery religions" where she goes over the issue very strongly)

http://www.thegodabovegod.com/

Around the middle to end of this next video clip Freke goes over the pre-Christian era Gnostics solar messiah as "Joshua", and "Joshua" being a well known mythical figure to the pre-Christian era Gnostics:

Jesus Never Existed

Then there is of course the conspiracy issue associated with "Yahshua Ben Pantera/Sedata that Gerald Massey speaks about in "The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ" lecture.

He goes over the story of a Jewish mystic killed for blasphemy about a hundred years before the reign of Pontius Pilate. There's a lot going on with the Jesus/Joshua issue that tends to bleed over into the Josephus account.

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The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Very good, Tat!

There's quite an extensive section on the subject of the Joshua cult in Suns of God as well.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

I was listening to some audio lectures last night and one thing that Manly P. Hall mentioned in the first section of his Astrotheology Series ("The Zodiac and The Great Platonic Year"), is that some astrologers from India and elsewhere had considered a 'later date' for the beginning of the Age of Pisces than the date that most of us are familiar with these days.

This suggested later date that he spoke of was none other than 325 AD!

Hall strongly suggests that the whole issue of the Counsel of Nicaea was actually aimed at officially kicking off the Age of Pisces on the part of the esoteric religious initiates who were recognizing 325 AD as a reinterpreted starting point for the Age of Pisces.

I'm not sure how to take Hall's suggestion as it seems quite radical. If it's true, then it seems as if the Christ story had been projected back to the accepted Piscean date when it was first being created and was then turned into an orthodox structure around the time of the second proposed date for the beginning of Pisces.

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The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

When Origen wrote that Josephus did not believe Jesus was the Christ, Origen probably based it on the following passage that Josephus wrote:

"What did the most to induce the Jews to start this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how, about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth. The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea." (Flavius Josephus, Jewish War 6.312-313)

Rik

Good point. Josephus hailed Vespasian as the messiah or, in Greek, the christ. Therefore, he didn't portray any Jesus as the Christ. Origen is presuming that Josephus knew of "the" Jesus, but other than the TF and the evidently interpolated phrase about "James the Brother," there is no indication the Jewish historian had ever heard of any supposed "Jesus of Nazareth." Hence, the Church father's language is skewed because of this a priori assumption.

To reiterate, Josephus could not have supposed "Jesus of Nazareth" to be the Christ because he'd never even heard of Jesus of Nazareth. He does, however, discuss some 20 other Jesuses.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Philo’s discussion of Zechariah 6:12 explains the connection between Joshua and the Christ Myth.
Philo – On the Confusion of Tongues http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text ... ook15.html

Philo discusses the man named Joshua by Zechariah as indicating that “the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son”. Zechariah says the name of this son of the eternal father is Joshua (also translated Jesus) son of Jozadak (not unlike Joseph). Philo discusses a man named East whom all his readers would know was really called Joshua by Zechariah.

Philo, author of the concept of the Logos which became identified with Jesus, is speaking in purely messianic terms (eldest Son of the Father of the universe) about a man whom Zechariah names as Joshua. Philo describes Joshua as “imitating the ways of his father, looking to his archetypal patterns.”

The text at Zec 6:11-14 says “make a crown, and set it on the head of the high priest, Joshua son of Jozadak. Tell Joshua this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘[You are] the man whose name is the [East]. And [you] will branch out from [your] place and build the temple of the Lord. [You] will build the temple of the Lord, and be clothed with majesty and sit and rule on his throne."

The meaning of this passage is that the ideal priest-king Joshua son of Jozadak (or Jesus son of Joseph) is the centre of pre-Christian cultic hope. We see here the precursor of Christ in Joshua.

Philo's use of the Zechariah passage is as follows: “I have also heard of one of the companions of Moses having uttered such a speech as this: “Behold, a man whose name is the East!” A very novel appellation indeed, if you consider it as spoken of a man who is compounded of body and soul; but if you look upon it as applied to that incorporeal being who in no respect differs from the divine image, you will then agree that the name of the east has been given to him with great felicity. For the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in another passage, he calls the firstborn; and he who is thus born, imitating the ways of his father, has formed such and such species, looking to his archetypal patterns. ”

Here Philo says the name of Jesus makes no sense as applied to a real man, but only as applied to an incorporeal being. Philo was a mythicist.