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Commentary on Romans 8

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Re: Commentary on Romans 8

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Philo the astrotheologist, from On the Life of Moses, II

XXI. (101) And in the space between the five pillars and the four pillars, is that space which is, properly speaking, the space before the temple, being cut off by two curtains of woven work, the inner one of which is called the veil, and the outer one is called the covering: and the remaining three vessels, of those which I have enumerated, were placed as follows:--The altar of incense was placed in the middle, between earth and water, as a symbol of gratitude, which it was fitting should be offered up, on account of the things that had been done for the Hebrews on both these elements, for these elements have had the central situation of the world allotted to them. (102) The candlestick was placed on the southern side of the tabernacle, since by it the maker intimates, in a figurative manner, the motions of the stars which give light; for the sun, and the moon, and the rest of the stars, being all at a great distance from the northern parts of the universe, make all their revolutions in the south. And from this candlestick there proceeded six branches, three on each side, projecting from the candlestick in the centre, so as altogether to complete the number of seven; (103) and in all the seven there were seven candles and seven lights, being symbols of those seven stars which are called planets by those men who are versed in natural philosophy; for the sun, like the candlestick, being placed in the middle of the other six, in the fourth rank, gives light to the three planets which are above him, and to those of equal number which are below him, adapting to circumstances the musical and truly divine instrument.

XXIV. (117) Such, then, is the dress of the high priest. But we must not omit to mention the signification which it conceals beneath both in its whole and in its parts. In its whole it is a copy and representation of the world; and the parts are a representation of the separate parts of the world. (118) And we must begin with the long robe reaching down to the feet of the wearer. This tunic is wholly of the colour of a hyacinth, so as to be a representation of the air; for by nature the air is black, and in a measure it reaches down from the highest parts to the feet, being stretched from the parts about the moon, as far as the extremities of the earth, and being diffused everywhere. On which account also, the tunic reaches from the chest to the feet, and is spread over the whole body, (119) and unto it there is attached a fringe of pomegranates round the ankles, and flowers, and bells. Now the flowers are an emblem of the earth; for it is from the earth that all flowers spring and bloom; but the pomegranates (rhoiskoi) are a symbol of water, since, indeed, they derive their name from the flowing (rhysis) of water, being very appropriately named; and the bells are the emblem of the concord and harmony that exist between these things; for neither is the earth without the water, nor the water without the earthly substance, sufficient for the production of anything; but that can only be effected by the meeting and combination of both. (120) And the place itself is the most distinct possible evidence of what is here meant to be expressed; for as the pomegranates, and the flowers, and the bells, are placed in the hem of the garment which reaches to the feet, so likewise the things of which they are the symbols, namely, the earth and water, have had the lowest position in the world assigned to them, and being in strict accord with the harmony of the universe, they display their own particular powers in definite periods of time and suitable seasons. (121) Now of the three elements, out of which and in which all the different kinds of things which are perceptible by the outward senses and perishable are formed, namely, the air, the water and the earth, the garment which reached down to the feet in conjunction with the ornaments which were attached to that part of it which was about the ankles have been plainly shown to be appropriate symbols; for as the tunic is one, and as the aforesaid three elements are all of one species, since they all have all their revolutions and changes beneath the moon, and as to the garment are attached the pomegranates, and the flowers; so also in certain manner the earth and the water may be said to be attached to and suspended from the air, for the air is their chariot. (122) And our argument will be able to bring forth twenty probable reasons that the mantle over the shoulders is an emblem of heaven. For in the first place, the two emeralds on the shoulderblades, which are two round stones, are, in the opinion of some persons who have studied the subject, emblems of those stars which are the rulers of night and day, namely, the sun and moon; or rather, as one might argue with more correctness and a nearer approach to truth, they are the emblems of the two hemispheres; for, like those two stones, the portion below the earth and that over the earth are both equal, and neither of them is by nature adapted to be either increased or diminished like the moon. (123) And the colour of the stars is an additional evidence in favour of my view; for to the glance of the eye the appearance of the heaven does resemble an emerald; and it follows necessarily that six names are engraved on each of the stones, because each of the hemispheres cuts the zodiac in two parts, and in this way comprehends within itself six animals. (124) Then the twelve stones on the breast, which are not like one another in colour, and which are divided into four rows of three stones in each, what else can they be emblems of, except of the circle of the zodiac? For that also is divided into four parts, each consisting of three animals, by which divisions it makes up the seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, distinguishing the four changes, the two solstices, and the two equinoxes, each of which has its limit of three signs of this zodiac, by the revolutions of the sun, according to that unchangeable, and most lasting, and really divine ratio which exists in numbers; (125) on which account they attached it to that which is with great propriety called the logeum. For all the changes of the year and the seasons are arranged by well-defined, and stated, and firm reason; and, though this seems a most extraordinary and incredible thing, by their seasonable changes they display their undeviating and everlasting permanence and durability. (126) And it is said with great correctness, and exceeding beauty also, that the twelve stones all differ in their colour, and that no one of them resembles the other; for also in the zodiac each animal produces that colour which is akin to and belongs to itself, both in the air, and in the earth, and in the water; and it produces it likewise in all the affections which move them, and in all kinds of animals and of plants.
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Re: Commentary on Romans 8

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Not to worry, Flann 5 will not disappoint. One way or another, this information will be found deficient. It always is. I just hope it's more imaginative than another link to some tektonic gobbledeegook that goes on for a 100 pages and never really says anything.
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Re: Commentary on Romans 8

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you can't see me here, i'm hiding behind the sun :-D
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That can't be the sun because that would be astrotheology and everybody knows that Christianity isn't based on astrotheology! Only you crazy mythers believe that insane garbage. Just as the wheat on his mantle isn't representative of the star Spica in the constellation Virgo--the Christ-bearer--who isn't the one mentioned in Revelation 12:1-6 because that's just myther nonsense--LOLOLOL!!!!!!! :lol: Dream on, mythers, dream on!! :clap2:
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Re: Commentary on Romans 8

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Those are interesting findings. Though I don't see a reason to go to war over any of it, I'll say that the astrotheological symbolism illustrates that all religions are syncretic, of necessity. Culture is something handed down; there are no new materials really available.
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If people can go to war over non-existent WMD, they can go to war over anything.
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Re: Commentary on Romans 8

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http://www.booktalk.org/post141024.html#p141024
Flann 5 wrote: The best known alternative take on the Bible from the early centuries is that of the Gnostics. Their views are quite diverse with certain unifying ideas. It's hard to say whether they are deniers of the supernatural. Yes when it comes to interpretation they allegorise in keeping with their ideas so don't read a miracle account as a miraculous event. Still there's a kind of theology of original perfection and a being who is ineffable and unknowable and a divine spark in humanity from this original source. So it may be a mythological presentation but there seems to be a theological and ultimately supernatural root there.
Hi Flann, I have now reached the bottom of Page 1 in my gradual responses. By the way, I appreciate your good wishes for Acharya, and DB Roy providing the very helpful extracts from Josephus and Philo, which really are quite hard to fit within conventional paradigms. But for now I want to focus on your comments as quoted.

What I am doing in this thread is reading Romans 8 and trying to offer an explanation that makes sense to me. This is far from easy, given the broad Christian tendency to read Paul through the lens of the Gospels, as through a glass darkly with the assumption of the Historical Jesus story. The deliberate targeted removal of evidence that does not align with the Gospel Orthodoxy means that our available sources are heavily skewed and unreliable. But nonetheless I believe that it is possible to work with the sources to explore the most probable basis, and that this method leads to the result that the secret teaching in Romans is a philosophical Hermetic Gnostic mystery doctrine about an imagined Christ built upon Platonic tradition.

Plato had a rather ambiguous attitude towards God. My introduction to Plato was largely through reading the German founder of Existentialism, the philosopher Martin Heidegger, who quotes Plato’s Sophist as the epigraph in his great work Being and Time, “we who thought we knew the meaning of being are now perplexed.”

My reason for citing Heidegger on Plato is that my view on Gnosticism is influenced by Heidegger’s observation that the meaning of being is perplexing, for example seen in his claim that we can build knowledge upon axioms about being, such as that the meaning of being is care. This idea of care, at once complex and simple, illustrates the relational nature of ethics and ontology, to introduce some technical language. The problem of whether language about God is best described as natural or supernatural, the theme Flann raised in the quoted text, is far from simple.

If we try to explain this problem, such as in the meaning of care, we encounter similar problems as Plato found when trying to explain the meaning of love, beauty and the good. Simplistic readers imagine that Plato’s ideas are “forms”, a heavenly reflection of earthly things, without recognising that Plato is wrestling with the problem of language, how our descriptions relate to what they describe. Whatever unites all instances of love is defined by Plato as the idea of love. Love is in no way a material thing, but at the same time we cannot simply say that Plato held that love is supernatural. Love can be natural without being material, in that a loving relation between material beings is not itself a material entity, and nor is such an ethical relation strictly reducible to its material substrate.

This same deep Platonic problem of the nature of ideas recurs in Paul, with his discussion of spirit and flesh. Paul asks us to focus on the relational ideas such as love and faith and hope which emerge from our spiritual identity as creatures whose identity is defined by language, in what John called the word of grace. It is simplistic to see Paul's request as an assertion that love is supernatural, because that supposition then leads to imagining a whole separate realm from the natural, a fantasy with no grounds in evidence or logic, but only based in the popular comforts of mythical symbols.

I must again note my strong objection to Mr Peter Kirby, who banned me permanently from his Early Writings dot com discussion forum for discussing this material. It appears to me that Kirby is a fool who imagines and pretends that he has some grasp of theology but in fact does not. The comments above about Plato are a complex analysis of difficult questions. Kirby’s reaction amounted to the assertion that discussion of how Paul could have had a rational basis for his ideas on such topics involves an unscientific religious view. Kirby banned me from his discussion forum for arguing that Paul’s viewpoint in Romans 8 is grounded in a logical outlook on how the metaphysical idea of spirit involves a rational understanding of the order of the cosmos. Meanwhile he allows fundamentalist idiots free rein. It is a great shame that there are few places on the internet other than Booktalk.org which allow a diversity of religious opinion and encourage courteous dialogue. Try quoting my comments here and see how far you get.
Flann 5 wrote:In any event their writings are allegorical in interpretation, in keeping with their philosophy and despite contemporary Gnostic protests, they make the spiritual the ideal and the material the problem. Whatever about this and I'm not an expert on Gnosticism, it would be hard to find astro-theology in their writings. No mentions of Taurus or Leo or something occurring in the house or age of Capricorn in their "gospels" or interpretations. Their writings were suppressed much later than conspiracists claim but what has been recovered shows no signs of zodiacal interpretation.
The whole New Testament is written for a mass audience, with the explicit objective of promoting belief that Jesus is the Christ (John 20). The cultural context was that astrology was intimately linked to the pagan culture of Rome, and was viewed with hostility by the public face of Judaism, even though, as the quotes above from Josephus and Philo provided by DB Roy show, Judaism had a secret esoteric content which was astral, recognising the stars as the markers of time.

This political context means that any explicit discussion of the zodiac and cosmos was bound to be censored in Christian documents, given that the magical theory of Christianity was that Jesus was the ‘branch of Jesse’, arising from a Jewish prophetic tradition. This tradition was explicitly hostile to Babylon and Egypt and Greece because of their natural myths, and the desire to frame religion as compatible with Jewish monotheism with Christianity as its fulfillment.

The conundrum for Christianity was that the structure of the Christ Myth is astral, based in observation of precession. This structure was kept secret, only discussed as allegory, with the hope that the secret mystery elite who invented the Christ Myth could retain control, conveying their views secretly while also presenting the simplified public message of the literal messiah. But this strategic hope failed, due to weight of numbers in politics.

The orthodox church allied with the mass illiterate audience to exclude and suppress knowledge of the real origins. These real origins only survived in fragmentary signs, such as Paul’s eschatology in Romans 8. The entire 7000 year orthodox theory of the structure of time within Christian creeds aligns perfectly to scientific observation of the cosmos, in rough terms against ancient science and in far more precise and detailed terms once we analyse it against the modern analysis of how precession drives climate.
Flann 5 wrote:What we have may be a representative cross-section of their thinking and presentation. In the fragments of Heracleon's commentary on John's gospel for example, we find a kind of numerology at times based on numbers of Aeons, Dyads and Tetrads, alongside allegorical interpretation where Jesus' sandal represents the material world and the nobleman whose son Jesus heals represents the Demiurge/Craftsman etc.
Another superb book by Elaine H. Pagels is The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis: Heracleon's Commentary on John (Nashville and New York: Abingdon Press, 1973). This was Dr. Pagels first book, and is based on her doctoral dissertation. I bought and read this book last year, and have been meaning to write a commentary on it.

For now though, one point arising is that Flann’s idea that extant Gnostic texts may be representative is most unlikely. Gnostics were subject to extreme bullying and intimidation, and were circumspect about what they wrote down. It is highly probable that key Gnostic ideas are lost, given that the church sought to find and burn them and kill their possessors. So texts such as Heracleon can be viewed like a fragmentary foot of Hercules, a guide to imagining the lost statue, using the archaeological method known as ‘ex pede Herculem’. Contemptuous terms such as “numerology” are designed to support bullying ‘fogmatic’ ignorance.
Flann 5 wrote:Their concern doesn't seem ecological but personal with gnosis as the mode of individual redemption and a now partial, and later post death spiritual return to the original perfection of the unknowable pefect original.
Again, Flann repeats the orthodox misunderstanding of Gnostic views. By caricaturing its opponents in this way, as personal rather than cosmic, the church fomented ridicule towards the whole idea that the Jesus story concealed a deep secret wisdom, in order to serve its agenda of social control. The ecological dimension of reverence for nature is a central intention of the secret teaching in Paul’s idea in Romans 8 that the creation groans as it awaits its redemption, meaning once humans learn the real meaning of atonement as becoming at one with the cosmos when God is known as all in all. Paul expressed the Gnostic ecology at 1Cor15:28, “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.”
Flann 5 wrote: Heracleon seems to think there is no post death life of the soul but I think there are differences among them on this. Allegory is legitimate in interpretation but I think normal grammatical and literary rules apply in determining where it is valid and implied and a strain of common sense would prevent some obvious excesses and errors. Here are the fragments of Heracleon's commentary on John. http://www.gnosis.org/library/fragh.htm
I am pleased that Flann has introduced Heracleon into the discussion. The discussion of the allegory in his exegesis of John, such as the sandal of Christ, needs to be a focus of more extended analysis. Readers bring their own assumptions to reading complex texts, and in this case the assumption that the Gospels are reliable history heavily obscures the ability to find the real meaning of symbolic statements.
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Re: Commentary on Romans 8

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http://www.booktalk.org/post141031.html#p141031
DWill wrote:Thanks for that background. I was interested to learn somewhere that gnosticism was a broad movement during the 200s within several faiths, not only Christianity.
DWill, the dominant assumption is that Gnosticism arose as a mutation from an original literal orthodoxy. This assumption is behind your comment here, but is precisely what is contested by the mythicist reading. Instead, the presence of Gnostic ideas in the Bible itself leads to the interpretation that in fact Gnosticism was a far older and more central theme in Christian origins, conceptualising religion against the hermetic principle that events on earth can be understood as part of the natural whole seen in the ordered movement of the cosmos. This central Gnostic idea is incompatible with supernatural dogma, and as a result the church developed its claim that the later Gnostics simply had wrong speculative interpretations of the historic Gospel events.
DWill wrote: In the way I look at things, as a materialist, it makes a lot of sense to assume that gnosticism blended to a certain extent into the broad stream of Christianity, that it made a contribution to the "finished" religion, in other words. That's the view of R.L. Wilken in The Christians as the Romans Saw Them He writes, "Through dialogue with the Greek tradition, first through the work of Gnostic Christian thinkers, Christianity began to elaborate the implications of the new revelation and to formulate a distinctively Christian teaching" (p. 204).
I haven’t heard of Wilken before, so thank you for mentioning him. But your quoted text contains what for me is an alarm bell, in the phrase ‘the new revelation’. Orthodox theologians assume that Jesus Christ was the historic founder of Christianity, and brought this new teaching. But if in fact Jesus was a Gnostic invention, then the structure of Wilken’s argument is thrown into doubt.
DWill wrote: In the same way, the "pagan" critics of Christianity helped it along by enabling Christians to "find their authentic voice, and without them Christianity wold have been the poorer" (p. 205). Fascinating how opposing forces work on one another.
The actual debates which formed the New Testament are lost, so reconstructing their probable content requires careful analysis, including about how Gnostic ideas found their way into texts such as Romans 8. My view is that the melting pot at Alexandria where Mark wrote his Gospel produced a syncretism between not only Judaism and Hellenic thought, but also other less well known traditions from Egypt, Babylon and India. So the Gnostic concept of Jesus Christ as alpha and omega did not emerge from dialogue between a Palestinian Gospel and the oikoumene as Wilken posits, but rather was embedded from the start.
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Re: Commentary on Romans 8

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Robert Tulip wrote:The whole New Testament is written for a mass audience, with the explicit objective of promoting belief that Jesus is the Christ (John 20). The cultural context was that astrology was intimately linked to the pagan culture of Rome, and was viewed with hostility by the public face of Judaism, even though, as the quotes above from Josephus and Philo provided by DB Roy show, Judaism had a secret esoteric content which was astral, recognising the stars as the markers of time.

This political context means that any explicit discussion of the zodiac and cosmos was bound to be censored in Christian documents, given that the magical theory of Christianity was that Jesus was the ‘branch of Jesse’, arising from a Jewish prophetic tradition. This tradition was explicitly hostile to Babylon and Egypt and Greece because of their natural myths, and the desire to frame religion as compatible with Jewish monotheism with Christianity as its fulfillment.

The conundrum for Christianity was that the structure of the Christ Myth is astral, based in observation of precession. This structure was kept secret, only discussed as allegory, with the hope that the secret mystery elite who invented the Christ Myth could retain control, conveying their views secretly while also presenting the simplified public message of the literal messiah. But this strategic hope failed, due to weight of numbers in politics.
Hi Robert. If I understand you correctly the Gnostics invented a character they called Jesus Christ as an anthropomorphic version of the sun and the twelve apostles therefore could not have existed as real people either but were also invented as symbols of the twelve signs of the zodiac.So Peter,James and John for example, never really existed.
But this is absurd since Paul in his letters speaks of them as real people in the same way as he speaks of Barnabas and Titus.
Peter and the other apostles were married as Paul says.
We also have early Christian accounts of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul under Nero and the banishment of John to the Isle of Patmos.
All conspiratorial invention no doubt despite the documented persecution of Christians by Nero at this time.
Josephus recounts the execution of James who he refers to as the brother of Jesus. Paul likewise refers to James as the brother of the Lord.
Here's Paul's account of his dispute with Peter. http://www.biblehub.com/nasb/galatians/2.htm
It is beyond absurd that Paul was disputing with a non existent person (Peter) who is merely a sign of the zodiac.
On the conspiracy thesis we have to believe that Paul was inventing apostles wholesale and expecting his readers to believe they really existed while he knew they didn't but were mere allegories of the zodiac.
So all this talk of dispute with Peter at Antioch and going up to Jerusalem to confer with the leading apostles are fiction, and Barnabas too is simply woven into the story and colluding in gross deception.
Is it at all credible that Paul could invent all these people as living and active at the time of writing and no one could check whether they existed at all?
I seem to recall Robert that you interpreted Paul's statement in this passage of Galatians of being an apostle to the Gentiles and Peter to the Jews, as being of Peter being to the outer literalist masses and Paul as being to the elite initiates. Yet Paul and Peter are saying the same things about Christ and his death and resurrection in their letters, and it's been a long time since Sagittarius or Taurus wrote a letter to anyone.

That Josephus and Philo interpret the old testament allegorically is interesting though I don't think Philo's method was typical of rabbinic Jews and he was influenced by Greek philosophy.
The Christ mythers are not so keen on Josephus' references to Jesus and of James his brother's execution for some strange reason, besides Tacitus and Suetonius of course.
Indeed the new testament is quite obviously grounded in the old testament but this is all smoke and mirrors according to the conspiracy theorists. Shhhhhhhh! :secret: :secret:
Last edited by Flann 5 on Mon Apr 27, 2015 10:53 am, edited 3 times in total.
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