Paul The Herodian and the DSS

[Brainache]

I don't know. The idea looks like more of a stretch now anyway.

But I was thinking more about this "Manahem" character in Josephus and wondering if he might be the "Spouter Of Lies" rather than Paul. And Paul was just one of Manahem's Allies, with connections to Herod.

Is there enough coffee in the world for a bloke like me?

And if he is the Spouter Of Lies who has been receiving Royal support all these years in the build-up to the war, then maybe Josephus was just trying to keep the Royals out of it, by saying that Menahem:

...he broke open king Herod's armory, and gave arms not only to his own people, but to other robbers also. These he made use of for a guard, and returned in the state of a king to Jerusalem; he became the leader of the sedition, and gave orders for continuing the siege;

Maybe he started out equipped by Herod in the first place, that is what he is famous for, and no doubt part of the reason he was so swiftly rejected by everyone else.

Oh well, more to think about, I guess.

 

[pakeha]

I don't know. The idea looks like more of a stretch now anyway.

But I was thinking more about this "Manahem" character in Josephus and wondering if he might be the "Spouter Of Lies" rather than Paul. And Paul was just one of Manahem's Allies, with connections to Herod.

Is there enough coffee in the world for a bloke like me?

About the coffee- have you followed Fooledmewunz' quest for the perfect coffee?
He's gone to the lengths of trying coffee beans gleaned from elephant poo.
Now THAT'S coffee devotion!

While it may be a stretch, "Manahem" makes a great excuse to study and think about the contents of DSS.
And any excuse is good to reread Josephus.

 

[Brainache]

I just read this horrifying incident in Josephus:

4. There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary; her father was Eleazar, of the village Bethezob, which signifies the house of Hyssop. She was eminent for her family and her wealth, and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them besieged therein at this time.

The other effects of this woman had been already seized upon, such I mean as she had brought with her out of Perea, and removed to the city. What she had treasured up besides, as also what food she had contrived to save, had been also carried off by the rapacious guards, who came every day running into her house for that purpose.

This put the poor woman into a very great passion, and by the frequent reproaches and imprecations she east at these rapacious villains, she had provoked them to anger against her; but none of them, either out of the indignation she had raised against herself, or out of commiseration of her case, would take away her life; and if she found any food, she perceived her labors were for others, and not for herself; and it was now become impossible for her any way to find any more food, while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow, when also her passion was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself; nor did she consult with any thing but with her passion and the necessity she was in.

She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, "O thou miserable infant! for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a by- word to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews." As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed.

Upon this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and withal uncovered what was left of her son.

Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight, when she said to them, "This is mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also."

After which those men went out trembling, being never so much aftrighted at any thing as they were at this, and with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother. Upon which the whole city was full of this horrid action immediately; and while every body laid this miserable case before their own eyes, they trembled, as if this unheard of action had been done by themselves. So those that were thus distressed by the famine were very desirous to die, and those already dead were esteemed happy, because they had not lived long enough either to hear or to see such miseries.

http://www.biblestudytools.com/history/flavius-josephus/war-of-the-jews/book-6/chapter-3.html

All of this apparently also took place at "Mary's House".

Forget coffee, I need whiskey...

Maybe I'll meet a stranger who will teach me all about the Widow's Son...

 

[Brainache]

Not sure if I posted this doco before:


Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls - Historical Documentary

 

[Brainache]

Just popping in to mention that I recently started using Facebook regularly and the other day I decided to look for "Robert Eisenman" there. I found him and liked his page (it's where I found that Documentary above).

I sent him a message asking about Menahem and 2 Thessalonians, but he hasn't responded to that yet, but he did accept my "Friend" request.

I am now officially a "Friend" of Robert Eisenman.

The man is obsessed with Israeli Politics. I was hoping there would be more History and less Politics, but he does post some interesting Archeology stuff as well. I've even had my first actual "chat" with him, about a book on "Aisha". He told me to watch his Islam lectures on Youtube.

He was perfectly friendly, I just have to find some way to filter out the Politics and just follow the History posts.

Any Facebook veterans out there who can help me?

 

[Brainache]

I just read this horrifying incident in Josephus:

4. There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary; her father was Eleazar, of the village Bethezob, which signifies the house of Hyssop. She was eminent for her family and her wealth, and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them besieged therein at this time.

The other effects of this woman had been already seized upon, such I mean as she had brought with her out of Perea, and removed to the city. What she had treasured up besides, as also what food she had contrived to save, had been also carried off by the rapacious guards, who came every day running into her house for that purpose.

This put the poor woman into a very great passion, and by the frequent reproaches and imprecations she east at these rapacious villains, she had provoked them to anger against her; but none of them, either out of the indignation she had raised against herself, or out of commiseration of her case, would take away her life; and if she found any food, she perceived her labors were for others, and not for herself; and it was now become impossible for her any way to find any more food, while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow, when also her passion was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself; nor did she consult with any thing but with her passion and the necessity she was in.

She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, "O thou miserable infant! for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a by- word to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews." As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed.

Upon this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and withal uncovered what was left of her son.

Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight, when she said to them, "This is mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also."

After which those men went out trembling, being never so much aftrighted at any thing as they were at this, and with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother. Upon which the whole city was full of this horrid action immediately; and while every body laid this miserable case before their own eyes, they trembled, as if this unheard of action had been done by themselves. So those that were thus distressed by the famine were very desirous to die, and those already dead were esteemed happy, because they had not lived long enough either to hear or to see such miseries.

http://www.biblestudytools.com/history/flavius-josephus/war-of-the-jews/book-6/chapter-3.html

All of this apparently also took place at "Mary's House".

Forget coffee, I need whiskey...

Maybe I'll meet a stranger who will teach me all about the Widow's Son...

The Widow's Son:
http://www.masonicdictionary.com/widowsson.html

Warning secret Masonic Mysteries within. Enter with caution, lest madness ensue...

In Ancient Craft Masonry, the title applied to Hiram, the architect of the Temple, because he is said, in the first Book of Kings (vu, 14) to have been "a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali." The Adonhiramite Freemasons have a tradition which Chapron gives (Nécessaire Maçonnique, page 101) in the following words: "The Freemasons call themselves the widow's sons, because, after the death of our respectable Master, the Freemasons took care of his mother, whose children they called themselves, because Adonhiram had always considered them as his Brethren. But the French Freemasons subsequently changed the myth and called themselves Sons of the Widow, and for this reason.

'As the wife of Hiram remained a widow after her husband was murdered, the Freemasons, who regard themselves as the descendants of Hiram, called themselves Sons of the Widow."' But this myth is a pure invention, and is without the Scriptural foundation of the York myth, which makes Hiram himself the widow's son. But in French Freemasonry the term Son of the Widow is synonymous with Freemason.

The claim has often been made that the adherents of the exiled House of Stuart, seeking to organize a system of political Freemasonry by which they hoped to secure the restoration of the family to the throne of England, transferred to Charles II the tradition of Hiram Abif betrayed by his followers, and called him the Widow's Son, because he was the son of Henrietta Maria, the widow of Charles I. For the same reason they presumably subsequently applied the phrase to his brother, James II.

- Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

Poppycock!!11!!11!!111
I have donned my tinfoil apron of Masonic wisdom in order to impart the following:

The Masonic Order was indeed Ancient. It was an Oral Tradition preserved by the Masons Vespasian and Titus brought back from the war to build the Colosseum. The original Masons told a story about the son of the widow named Mary. This Mary was on a pension from the Masons in Jerusalem, she was also the Matriarch of a family who fought for Jewish independence, but lost. All of her sons were killed in the fight, some by their own countrymen. Eventually the followers of this Mary's Sons so distorted their message that the very reason for the following in the first place had been entirely devoured by the disasters that ensued.

The story Josephus is telling there is a coded message to those Heretic Jews who were at that time still chewing on the corpse of Jesus.

Now lets see if the Illuminati come and get me!

Hahaha Suckers! I'm using three proxies!

 

[Brainache]

Damn, I haven't had my coffee yet, but:

This Masonic stuff is all very weird and all, and if they did start out with some sort of Jewish Oral Tradition, it degenerated pretty quickly. They were cut off from their culture, and their kids didn't get the kind of training that Rabbis got that allowed the Rabbis to keep the Talmud and Mishnah alive for centuries.

You want to know what's weirder? I was reading one of those Mormon threads the other day out of sheer boredom, and read that J Smith Jnr stole most of his secret ritual and Temple organisation structure from the Masons. Then I noticed an extremely weird thing; the way the Mormons organise the inner circles of their church is eerily similar to the way the DSS Community inner circles were arranged.

Talk about a stretch! Eisenman's got nuthin' on me...


Double Espresso, stat!

 

[JaysonR]

The reason for that link is that Joseph Smith, even by the LDS tradition, was a massive consumer of religion at a time when religion (in his region) was exploding like computers and software in the silicon valley during the late 70's to the 90's.
The Second Great Awakening was just birthing when Joseph Smith was a young boy, while at the same time Archaeology was just getting formalized into a systemic structure and people claiming to have found arcane objects was quite fashionable; specifically items related to Egyptology (but really anything with arcane and cryptic languages on it); such as Joseph Smith's Kirtland Egyptian papers - a translation by Joseph Smith of (what was eventually found to be) the Book of Breathings, and understood to be a terrible translation by Joseph Smith at this point (the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, that is).
These two rather heavy cultural influences were also occurring at the same time period as the Manifest Destiny and the United States' Expansionist period which philosophically, and theologically, motivated individuals culturally to move west rather rapidly in pursuit of various ideal promised lands.

Joseph Smith is quite a man of his time and only really stands out in much the way Edison stands out for his time; a man who passionately pushed what the zeitgeist of progress was of their time to a maximum zenith.

Religion, archaism, and settlement expansionism were all cultural explosions of this age.
Smith's unique characteristic was in combining all three cultural explosions into one social structure in an attempt to create a sovereign society which was like the Quaker society sovereign states amplified through a lens of a restorationist's version of Thomas More's Utopia (of which Utopia Movements were part of the Manifest Destiny zeitgeist; mass groups of people moving west to found isolated communities they believed or hoped would be utopic, and followed a specific community law unique to their closed community).

 

[Brainache]

OK, so the Masonic - Mormon link doesn't excite you? How about this little piece of wild speculation:

If Modern Christianity is a descendant of what we call "Pauline" Christianity, the Masons were (originally) descended from "Petrine" Christianity. The name says it all.

The rock upon which the Church was supposed to be founded. The rock which the NT portrays as wavering back and forth and parting ways with Paul.

That Rock...

 

[JaysonR]

Early Masonic culture was clearly Christian in cultural background, so that's not going to shock too many folks either really.

Early Masons were essentially Christians like everyone around at the time who were, by our terms today, founding a union to protect themselves against abuse and handed off trade secrets of geometry and construction.

In the 17th and 18th century, when secret societies in the aristocratic circles became fashionable, the Masonic culture was lifted out of being just a band of pseudo-unionized mason workers and grew into a gentlemen's club, and from there expanded further and further, mixing with the spiritual fashions of the times as time went by; such as the rather fashionable 19th century infusion of ad-hoc Egyptian symbolism and runic infusions.

The Masons, in general, hardly shock me...they make complete sense and are not really thrilling aside from the 'you don't get to know what they are doing, nananananana', in the same manner as can be claimed of any government or inner circle of any given religion.
And that 'thrill' is not that thrilling, for me at least, because I don't really care what they are doing; anymore than I care what some monastery in Scotland is doing behind closed doors.

The social difference with the Masons is that folks get hung up on the aristocratic layer of their history and have fun playing conspiracy theory with devious motives of world domination or some such.

It's rich people (not as much now, but sure...) playing with ouija boards in a fraternity house since the 20th century...it's not all that fascinating.

Humans love making secret societies and annotating special rituals to them.
The only thing that is fascinating to me is that groups like the Masons didn't end up far more heavily infused with Gnosticism; one would think that would have been a match made in secret Santa heaven.

 

[Brainache]

Early Masonic culture was clearly Christian in cultural background, so that's not going to shock too many folks either really.

Early Masons were essentially Christians like everyone around at the time who were, by our terms today, founding a union to protect themselves against abuse and handed off trade secrets of geometry and construction.

In the 17th and 18th century, when secret societies in the aristocratic circles became fashionable, the Masonic culture was lifted out of being just a band of pseudo-unionized mason workers and grew into a gentlemen's club, and from there expanded further and further, mixing with the spiritual fashions of the times as time went by; such as the rather fashionable 19th century infusion of ad-hoc Egyptian symbolism and runic infusions.

The Masons, in general, hardly shock me...they make complete sense and are not really thrilling aside from the 'you don't get to know what they are doing, nananananana', in the same manner as can be claimed of any government or inner circle of any given religion.
And that 'thrill' is not that thrilling, for me at least, because I don't really care what they are doing; anymore than I care what some monastery in Scotland is doing behind closed doors.

The social difference with the Masons is that folks get hung up on the aristocratic layer of their history and have fun playing conspiracy theory with devious motives of world domination or some such.

It's rich people (not as much now, but sure...) playing with ouija boards in a fraternity house since the 20th century...it's not all that fascinating.

Humans love making secret societies and annotating special rituals to them.
The only thing that is fascinating to me is that groups like the Masons didn't end up far more heavily infused with Gnosticism; one would think that would have been a match made in secret Santa heaven.

You mean, I've been sneaking from safe-house to safe-house, trying to outwit my implacable Illuminati nemesis, all for nothing?

Oh well, I guess exercise is always good...

 

[JaysonR]

Meh, maybe I am - I mean they...they are after you.
*whistles innocently*

 

[pakeha]

Good to see you back, JaysonR.
All these Illuminati references remind me of Umberto Eco'sFoucault's Pendulum^WP.

 

[Brainache]

Good to see you back, JaysonR.
All these Illuminati references remind me of Umberto Eco'sFoucault's Pendulum^WP.

Excellent book.

 

[JaysonR]

Good to see you back, JaysonR.
All these Illuminati references remind me of Umberto Eco'sFoucault's Pendulum^WP.

Oh I've been lurking; just haven't seen any real good threads that aren't consumed with Jesus.

I'm kind of tired of that subject; almost a decade worth of philosophy and religion forum discussions has been almost entirely consumed by that topic or the other equally tired topic of proving or disproving the Christian or Hindu notion of god (mostly Christian).

I'd really rather see topics on human spirituality as a neurological function, how it can be used, and how the practice could be 'evolved' (to borrow a phrase) into a more efficient mechanism for the purposes which it aids (which, in itself is an entire discussion: what functional purpose such practices serve).

But even then, I am a pessimist as most such discussions begin well and then spiral rapidly out of control into some belittlement of anti-religious badgery assuming the conversation is of something it is not and jumping in and rather ignorantly repeating the same tired mantras about spiritual practices and religion being delusional behaviors of no specific merit and only serve to cause ignorance from delusion; usually citing harms, or segueing into demands for proofs that religions or spiritual ideals are right.
And the opposite end is just as frustrating as some religious or spiritual adherents tend to also jump in, and if they don't take the bait of the above and start a flaming argument of no end with the above individuals, then they misunderstand the conversation to be some denouncement of whatever reverential force or figure they adhere to and become overly defensive, or worse, they see the opportunity to proselytize through some canned amount of contextually senseless material they relate to but to everyone else just appears belligerent and crazy.

It's like sitting around and wanting to talk about the efficient use of leverage in the body for physical action in contest, and one group of people regularly jumping in and denouncing the entire concept of fighting, while another group takes offense at the mere suggestion that their martial form can be 'merely' quantified, or yet another group that would rather bark about how much more superior their specific martial form is to all other forms...meanwhile, I'm just sitting there wanting to talk about how the body works and how to efficiently leverage it through any mediums available.

I should add that discussions that I've had on the topic here have been good and not derailed, usually, into the above types of conversation.

However, I kind of said the basics of what I had to say as a starting point already in Examination of Spirituality as a Systemic Function...though the conversation somewhat fizzled more quickly than I had expected.
There's some other topics that I might be looking into eventually on a similar tangent, but I'm not sure when those will come up or not.

 

[Brainache]

I see my facebook friend Robert Eisenman has made a blog entry about Josephus. I'm reading it now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-eisenman/confusions-of-pharisees-a_b_4675877.html

Several historical and textual problems emerge from identifying the Dead Sea Scrolls with "the Essenes". Since most of our knowledge about "Essenes" is based on notices from the First-Century Jewish historian Josephus, it is reasonable to suppose that some of these difficulties stem from Josephus' own confusions, distortions, or purposeful obfuscations of data. In this regard, it is often overlooked that Josephus himself admits to working from sources -- two of the most well known of which were Strabo of Cappadocia and Nicolaus of Damascus (the source of Acts 6:5's "Nicolaus a convert from Antioch"?)...

I think it might be mostly stuff I've already read, but it might be new to others.

ETA: It was interesting. A bit complicated if you aren't familiar with this topic. Coming soon:

Postscript: I intend, as a follow-up to this presentation, one about how the groups, we understand as and call "Sicarii" -- according to Josephus, supposedly because of the short sword or curved knife they either carried or concealed underneath their clothing and, for him, resembling the famous Roman "Sicae" (something like the Beduin Arab knife today); and their name, therefore, because they used it to assassinate opponents and considered, as a consequence, to be "terrorists" or "assassins" and "the extreme wing of the Zealot Party" -- when looked at in terms of the body of traditional Roman legislation known as "the Lex Cornelia de Sicarius", which outlawed bodily mutilation and was used, in particular (after the Jewish Revolts), to outlaw Jewish "circumcision" (just as is occurring in certain European countries today); then one can see "the Sicarii" not as "terrorists" or "extreme Zealots", as Josephus' wishes us to perceive them, but as "the Party of the Circumcision" par excellence -- i.e., "James' Party", as Paul refers to them with such antagonism in Galatians 2:12-13 (a letter which positively reeks of an anti-circumcision ethos).

Apparently the Huffington post has changed their policy again. I could comment before, but now they want my phone number! Nosey *********** *****! So I won't comment on their website.

ETA II: I thought this bit was particularly interesting, given that I couldn't find any reference to "Menahem The Essene" in the index of his books...

...
This theme of predicting the future -- what by this time goes by the name of "prophesying" -- or having "God-given knowledge of future events" is common to all these episodes. The only difference is that Sameas predicted Herod's future Kingship when Herod was a grown man; Menachem, when he was still a young boy. As Sameas refers to Herod as "an excellent man", so Menachem describes him "found worthy by God" and, at a later point, even predicts an exceedingly long reign for him, at which "Herod...gave Menachem his hand and...from that time on, continued to honor all Essenes" (whatever "Essenes" these are, as we have just stressed, they are clearly not those supposedly responsible for the documents at Qumran which by their very tone and tenor, despise everything "Herodian". What they are, of course, are "Pharisaic").
...

 

[pakeha]

Thanks for sharing the link, Brainache!

 

[Brainache]

Thanks for sharing the link, Brainache!

No worries my friend...

 

[Brainache]

Nobody else thinks it is interesting that the world's leading expert on this subject has suddenly started talking about this Menahem character only after seeing this thread?

I emailed him questions about Menahem and never got a response. Now Eisenman is talking about him as if Menahem was always a part of his Hypothesis.

This amuses me greatly.

I guess I shouldn't expect him to cite my "research", given its informal and jokey tone, but maybe a tiny acknowledgement might be nice...

 

[Brainache]

Nobody else thinks it is interesting that the world's leading expert on this subject has suddenly started talking about this Menahem character only after seeing this thread?

I emailed him questions about Menahem and never got a response. Now Eisenman is talking about him as if Menahem was always a part of his Hypothesis.

This amuses me greatly.

I guess I shouldn't expect him to cite my "research", given its informal and jokey tone, but maybe a tiny acknowledgement might be nice...

Just following up on that, I had a look at the Huffington Post site to find my message to Prof. Eisenman. It is still there:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/idak22?action=comments

James the Just as Righteous Teacher -- The Radiocarbon Controversy
Commented Dec 3, 2013 at 05:11:43 in Religion
“I started a thread about this recently on another forum. I hope I didn't distort Professor Eisenman's ideas too much. I'm just an enthusiastic Amateur. I love his work. I'm wondering if he thinks it's possible that "Menahem The Essene" mentioned in Talmudic Tradition, could be the "menaen" mentioned in Acts as being with Paul at Antioch. They both appear to be associated with Herod, but which Herod?
Cheers
...”

This latest blog of his actually looks like a response to this query of mine, or as if it might have started out that way.

Funny old world, innit?