Page 4 of 10

Re: Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:06 pm
by tat tvam asi
lol!!!

No, Robert Tulip is the discussion leader, an Aussie living on the other side of the world. I'm a moderator from DM Murdocks http://www.freethoughtnation.com forums living in Florida along with many of the other BT members. I just wondered if my screen name registered with you or not. It's from the Upanishads and the forest philosophy close in doctrine of "tat tvam asi", which is sankrit for "thou art that" / "you are it". I picked it up from Joseph Campbell's comparative mythology books and lectures. That ultimate mystery (the great unknown) which is the source, end, and supporting ground of all life and being, is not separate from anything in existence. I found this close in doctrine to hold some powerful truths. Everything that exists is grounded in deep mystery. And the point is that the most you can possibly know, is that ultimately you do not know. That is true "knowing."

"He who thinks he knows doesn't know. He who knows he doesn't know, knows." - Aristotle

lol!!!

What do you know about CiE by the way a gnostic?

Re: Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:12 pm
by a gnostic
tat tvam asi wrote:lol!!!

No, Robert Tulip is the discussion leader, an Aussie living on the other side of the world. I'm a moderator from DM Murdocks http://www.freethoughtnation.com forums living in Florida along with many of the other BT members. I just wondered if my screen name registered with you or not. It's from the Upanishads and the forest philosophy close in doctrine of "tat tvam asi", which is sankrit for "thou art that" / "you are it". I picked it up from Joseph Campbell's comparative mythology books and lectures. That ultimate mystery (the great unknown) which is the source, end, and supporting ground of all life and being, is not separate from anything in existence. I found this close in doctrine to hold some powerful truths. Everything that exists is grounded in deep mystery. And the point is that the most you can possibly know, is that ultimately you do not know. That is true "knowing."

"He who thinks he knows doesn't know. He who knows he doesn't know, knows." - Aristotle

lol!!!

What do you know about CiE by the way a gnostic?
I am not familiar with CiE, but I will check it out. You are so right. The more we know the more we become confronted with what we do not know. The eastern religions do not interest me. The west is messed up enough. I have published "Decoding the Gospel of Thomas." Right now my focus is on the Egyptian, Jesus, quantum physics connection. Because my book is not selling I decided to try again and see if I can do better and hopefully find a legitimate publisher. I published POD and do not have the funds to promote it. Actually I recently down loaded DM Murdocks book and signed up for her news letter. It is from that I got caught up in this discussion. In Thomas I do focus a lot on the Jesus, Egypt connection. Thomas is a collection of 114 mystic sayings of Jesus. As an example; saying 7. "Jesus said, 'Sacred is the lion which becomes man when eaten by a man, and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes and the lion becomes man." The man is the spiritual man and the lion is his animal body. One will eventually over come the other and the person becomes either spiritual or materialist. This also solves the riddle of the Sphinx. The mans head controlling the lion body. Now that I have been able to take time to go deeper into physics I see a third connection and will attempt to lock the three together. With this I really need to get back to work. I am 83 and times a'waisting.

Peace

Re: Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:29 pm
by tat tvam asi
I'm sure you'd do well to give CiE a good read.

And I'll also point you into an interesting direction concerning you're interest with quantum physics in relation to ancient myths:

http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Meanings-L ... 1401088767

http://www.alibris.com/search/books/qwo ... 20Meanings

I read things like this for fun because watching people connect so many dots can be interesting, regardless of whether or not it's completely true or not. But if Scranton has discovered something valid, well then it opens up a world of mystery concerning when, where, why, and how this stuff became embedded into the founding symbols of civilization, which, continued to evolve right down into the Jewish and Christian writings era's and on through the dark and middle ages to present day. I'm sure you'll be blown away by Scranton's personal research if you give this book (and his following books) a good read sometime.

Re: Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:42 am
by tat tvam asi
On to the astrotheology of Isis, Mary, and Virgo...
p.156-157

As we have seen, the holy mysteries of the virgin birth and virginity restoration / perpetuation existed not only among the Greeks and Jews but also in Egypt, concerning both Neith and Isis, among others. The identification of Isis with the Virgin, in fact is further made in an ancient Greek text called The Katasterismoi, or Catasterismi, allegedly written by the astronomer Eratosthenes (276-194 BCE), who was for some 50 years the head librarian of the massive Library of Alexandria. Although the original of this text has been lost, an "epitome" credited to Eratosthenes in ancient times has been attributed by modern scholars to an anonymous "Psuedo-Eratosthenes" of the 1st to 2nd centuries AD/CE. In this book, the title of which translates as "Placing Among the Stars," appear discussions of the signs of the zodiac. In his essay on the zodiacal sign of Virgo (ch.9), under the heading of "Parthenos," the author includes the goddess Isis, among others, such as Demeter, Atagartis and Tyche, as identified with and as the constellation of the Virgin. In Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans, Dr. Theony Condos of the American University of Armenia translates the pertinent passage from the chapter "Virgo" by Psuedo-Eratosthenes thus:

Hesiod in the Theogony says this figure is Dike, the daughter of Zues [Dios] and Themis... Some say it is Demeter because of the sheaf of grain she holds, other say it is Isis, other Atagartis, others Tyche... and for that reason they represent her as headless.

The headlessness of the goddess / constellation is interesting in consideration of the story that Isis too was at some point decapitated. This, in ancient times Isis was identified the constellation of Virgo, the Virgin. In fact, as we know well, much of the myth surrounding Osiris, Isis, and Horus appears the theme of the constellation of the Virgin giving birthto the baby sun at the winter solstice, long before the Christian era and likely serving as one source for the nativity story of Jesus Christ.

In fact that the Virign Mary herself is associated with the constellation of Virgo becomes evident from the placement of her "ascension into heaven," called the "Assumption of the Virgin Mary," on August 15th, representing one of the four greatest religious festivals in France, for one. Christians believe that this date reflects the time when the mortal Mary ascended or was assumed into heaven. However, the fixation on this date of the supposedly mortal Mary's assumption is quite obviously a reflection of an ancient observance of the assumption of the constellation of Virgo during the time when the sun god "absorbs the celestial virgin in his fiery course, and she disappears in the midst of the luminous rays and the glory of her son." Concerning this event, Sir Rev. Jacob Youde William Lloyd (1816-1887) relates:

The Roman Calendar of Columella (Col. lii, cap. ii, p.429) marks the death or disappearance of Virgo on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of September, that is, on the 15th of August; and on this day the ancient Greeks and Romans fix the Assumption of Astraea, who is the same as Isis. At the end of the three weeks or thereabouts, the Calendar notes the birth of the virgin Isis, or her release from the solar rays. On the third day before the Ides, that is the 8th of September, it says the middle of Virgo rises, so that the same constellation, which is born on the 8th of September, presides at midnight on the 25th of December over the birth of the sun...

The ancient Roman calender of Columella dates to around 65 AD/CE and does indeed discuss the assumption of the constellation of Virgo, on the precise date centuries later ascribed to Mary's assumption in the Christian mythos. The Greek goddess Astraea was a daughter of Zues who, after her ascension into heaven, became Virgo.


This is something that most people have never confronted in any direct "aha" sort of way. The same is true of the beheading of John the Baptist. Many of these myths are fixed to specific dates due to what can be observed up in the sky between the heavenly bodies motions during that day or time period. These are clearly not based first on real historical events or supernatural miracles taking place on the earth. It's the other way around actually. What takes place in the sky is then worked into the surface storyline of a given mythology so as to align society below with what is taking place in the heavens above. There's nothing spooky, supernatural, or magical about any of this in reality. It really is nothing more than an observation, by human sky watching priests and religious leaders, who then arranged and oriented their mythic tales to correspond with natural observation. This is clearly a running theme in mythology and one that is very much present in the Judeo-Christian myths, as they sought to use the same priestcraft techniques while devising their own social structure mythologies. They learned much from other the priesthoods of the region and it shows when confronting the Judeo-Christian mythos on these terms.

I'd like to press along some more into the chapter "Other Virgin Mothers":
p.159-160

As previously demonstrated, Neith and Isis are not the only pre-Christian and non-Christian virgin mothers, and their offspring are not the sole products of the a virgin or miraculous birth... The Greek myth of the virgin Danae being impregnated by Zues as a "golden shower" - essentially sunlight, which could be deemed the "breath of heavenly fire" - and giving birth to the divine son, Perseus, is referred to by the Christian apologist Justin Martyr (100-165 AD/CE), in his comparison of Christianity with pre-Christian myth. In Dialogue with Trypho (66), in his defense of Christ's virgin birth, Justin says:

...in the fables of those who are called Greeks, it is written that Perseus was begotten of Danae, who was a virgin; he who was called among Zues having descended on her in the form of a golden shower.

In chapter 22 of his First Apology, Justin reiterates the comparison between Christ's birth and that of Perseus:

And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus.

In this same regard, ancient skeptic Celsus (2nd cent. AD/CE) remarked; "Clearly the Christians have used the myths of the Danae and Melanippe, or of the Auge and the Antilope in fabricating the story of Jesus' virgin birth."

In chapter 54 of the same apology, Justin basically accuses the "heathens" of plagiarizing the Old Testament "prophecy" at Isaiah 7:14:

...And when they heard it said by the other prophet Isaiah, that He should be born of a virgin, and by His own means ascend into heaven, they pretended that Perseus was spoken of.

This scripture at Isaiah 7:14 refers to a "maiden" giving birth to one named "God is with us" or Emmanuel who has been interpreted in Christian tradition to be a "virgin," i.e., Mary, bringing forth Jesus. Indeed, the author of the gospel of Matthew (1:23) copies this passage in the Septuagint verbatim. Furthermore, the argument about the "prophecy" at Isaiah 7:14 is specious, because the original Hebrew term of "maiden" is almah, which means "young women" but not necessarily a virgin. As noted, the Hebrew term of "virgin" is Bethulah. This example provides an important instance where facts have been twisted by fervent Christian proselytizers in attempts to validate their faith. In Trypho (70), Justin comes up with the infamous Christian excuse for the existence of these various themes in pre-Christian mythology - "the devil got there first!":

...And when I hear, Trypho," said I, "that Perseus was begotten of a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent counterfeited also this."

Thus, as we can see, in order to explain the presence of the virgin birth in so-called Pagan mythology, Justin, along with other Church fathers, argued both that the Pagans plagiarized the Old Testament and that the Devil, knowing Christ would be born of a virgin, planted the idea in the heads of the pre-Christians. Nowhere does this early Church father suggest that the Pagans plagiarized from Christianity, and it is quite evident that virgin-birth motif is pre-Christian and therefore neither unique nor any more "historical" with Christianity than these other, mythical narratives.

Re: Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:26 pm
by D.M. Murdock
The Egyptian Virgin Mother Goddess

Thanks for the deep discussion again, folks.

I wanted to chime in here with some comments and clarifications about Isis being a Virgin Mother and the general concept of the Virgin Mother in antiquity. When one understands the concept of parthenogenesis or "virgin birth" in mythology dating back thousands of years, it should not be difficult to comprehend how Isis is yet another incarnation of the ages-old Parthenogenetrix/Virgin Mother.

As essentially proved by Dr. Marguerite Rigoglioso in her book Virgin Mothers of Antiquity, long before Christianity came up with the notion of the "Virgin Mary" there were numerous goddesses likewise perceived, stemming from the general concept of a Goddess or female Divine Creator who creates out of herself, without external influence or male consort.

The Egyptian Goddess Neith

The Egyptian goddess Neith is evidently some 7,000 years old and is a direct predecessor of Isis. Concerning Neith, Rigoglioso (2010) relates:
...Neith was unequivocally portrayed as an autogenetic/ parthenogenetic creatrix in the inscriptions of the middle and late periods in Egypt, a depiction that may have characterized the goddess in her earliest cult as well. She specifically was both creator and "virgin," a being whose peplos, or dress, no one had lifted. As one of the oldest deities of Egypt, who most likely was worshipped throughout ancient Libya, she thus represents one of the earliest appearances of the archetype of the Virgin Mother goddess in the ancient Mediterranean world. (23)

It is important in discussing Neith as autogene, or self-created Virgin Mother...first to establish her preeminence in the Egyptian pantheon. Neith...was one of the oldest of all Egyptian deities and one of the most important divinities during the early historic period. There is strong evidence that her worship was widespread in predynastic times... She is first documented iconographically in the last phase of the predynastic period (c. fourth millennium B.C.E.)... (26)

As a divinity of the First Principle, Neith was an autogenetic goddess who, in the ultimate mystery, created herself out of her own being. Budge notes...that an inscription on a statue of Utchat-Heru, a high priest of Neith, relates that she "was the first to give birth to anything, and that she had done so when nothing else had been born, and that she had herself never been born." We see her autogenetic aspect echoed in both Egyptian and Greek texts. Plutarch...refers to an inscription on her statue in Sais...: "I am everything that has been, and that is, and that shall be, and no one has ever lifted my garment (peplos)."... That in the above-noted Saitic inscription Neith's "garment" remained perpetually "unlifted" is also a sexual reference... The inscription therefore communicates that Neith never engaged in any kind of sexual union; that is, she was eternally a virgin. Yet, as the primordial Being, she was also generative. Thus, in Neith we have one of the earliest appearances of the archetype of the Virgin Mother, the Holy Parthenos, in her original, unadulterated form. (29-30)
As we can see, the motif of a Divine Female birthing the cosmos without a male consort is firmly established as very ancient.

Isis as Divine Parthenogenetic Creatrix

Fast forward to Isis, and we discover that she is a form of Neith and shares the same attribute of being a Virgin Mother, evident from various artifacts that predate the Christian era by centuries and millennia, as I demonstrate in my article "Isis is a Virgin Mother."

As stated by Egyptologist Dr. Reginald E. Witt, In Isis in the Ancient World:
The Egyptian goddess who was equally "the Great Virgin" (hwnt) and "Mother of the God" was the object of the very same praise bestowed upon her successor [Mary, Virgin Mother of Jesus].
One of the inscriptions that calls Isis the "Great Virgin" appears in the temple of Seti I at Abydos dating to the 13th century BCE. As stated by professor of Old Testament and Catholic Theology at the University of Bonn Dr. G. Johannes Botterweck, in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament:
..The Pyramid Texts speak of "the great virgin" (hwn.t wr.t) three times (682c, 728a, 2002a...); she is anonymous, appears as the protectress of the king, and is explicitly called his mother once (809c). It is interesting that Isis is addresseed as hwn.t in a sarcophagus oracle that deals with her mysterious pregnancy. In a text in the Abydos Temple of Seti I, Isis herself declares: "I am the great virgin."...
It should be noted that the king or pharaoh, whose mother is called "the great virgin," is also the living Horus; hence, his great virgin mother would be Isis.

Also, as noted by Rigoglioso above, in the temple of Neith and Isis at Sais was an ancient inscription that depicted the virgin birth of the sun:
The present and the future and the past, I am. My undergarment no one has uncovered. The fruit I brought forth, the sun came into being.
As Dr. Botterweck also writes:
In the Late Period [712-332 BCE] in particular, goddesses are frequently called "(beautiful) virgins," especially Hathor, Isis, and Nephthys.
Also, there exists at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York an ancient Carnelian ring stone from the Imperial period (1st-2nd cents. AD/CE) that is an "adaptation" of a Greek artifact from the fourth century BCE. The ring stone possesses an image of the Greco-Egyptian hybrid god Serapis-Hades and Isis standing before him holding an "ear of wheat and the sistrum." The Greek inscription reads:
The Lady Isis Immaculate
The phrase is translated as "The Lady Isis, Immaculate," the latter word from the Greek verb agneuw, meaning "to be pure or chaste."

Image

There is much more to this story, obviously, which is why in Christ in Egypt I dedicated some 77 pages to this subject of "The Virgin Mother Isis-Mery." The bottom line is that the concept of a Virgin Mother predates Christianity by thousands of years. It should be further noted that from remote antiquity this Divine Mother was apparently often called "Mari," as in Southern India, Phoenicia and among the Basques, to name a few. Hence, we can see that the Christian "Virgin Mary" concept is derivative from ancient myth, not a "unique and divine revelation" about a "real person."

Re: Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 4:46 pm
by Interbane
Lack of virginity is seen as all too human, a corruptive characteristic in some more misogynistic systems. Perhaps fueled by the greed of pleasure-seeking men, virginity is a much sought after attribute. Based on this stratification, where virginity is valued much higher than its alternative, it follows that men would consider gods coming from virgins. I mean, it's a recombination of ideas that you'd reasonably expect to see develop, knowing how the human mind works. I did a quick search for virgin births and found a dozen or more pre-dating Christianity.

Immaculate conception is one recombination further, combing the idea of original sin with the virgin birth. I only mention it because it fits thematically with the recombination of ideas(a key process in the development of religion.)

It seems that Neith is representative of the dilemma about the chicken or the egg, or at least represents an answer to that dilemma, created by the ancients:
Budge notes...that an inscription on a statue of Utchat-Heru, a high priest of Neith, relates that she "was the first to give birth to anything, and that she had done so when nothing else had been born, and that she had herself never been born."
I could see philosophical ideas being resolved by the invention of stories. An unanswered problem irritates the mind. We desire answers instead of loose ends. That long ago, there were no Aristotle's or Hume's or Kant's for us to piggyback on. I'm sure in many minds, stories were valid answers. Especially when told by someone else, and told in a truthful context.

What came first, the human or the infant? The answer is Neith(er). HA!

Re: Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery

Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 10:40 pm
by AlSylvester
The explanation never given is very simple. The Great virgin is the moon! It has to do with the Creation Process of Earth originally. It was the sun and moon, the right and left eye of God that were the waters above that are in the creation. The actual understanding was that the Earth was brought forth on the third day by Moonlight Only! As the moon was the left eye, and so a goddess to the Ancients, it was considered a Virgin Birth. The whole understanding of what we call genesis is based on a natural process, and the six days are about six time periods of this goddess in each hemisphere. This creation process was used and with "Art" it was found that matter could be perfected. That adaption of the process became the religion of Osiris. The moon became isis, his mother in the religion. Horus his son became the Sun! As matter lives and dies, and by this process can be resurrected Perfect, it was assumed that the way of perfecting man had been found. And so, all our customs about death also became from this process. As it took 16 months for this process to work, the stars above were linked to it and so, astrology! Everything is from a 16 month process unknown by our scholars, and evidently it will remain so. This process is very old, and was known world wide. As something happened in our past, it was remembered in many places, but in each it was changed probably because of which parts were remembered. As for the Virgin birth, originally it was in September, under the constellation, Virgo the Virgin! If you will check all that is tied to ancient Egypt during September, you will know this is True.

Al

Re: Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:22 am
by drdalet
I have already mentioned it before, but I like to do it again. I have to use capitals to avoid you feel the need to point out to me that Jesus en Mary didn't exist at all. That however is not my point and not even relevant. For me it is a story, nothing else. The STORY exists and there are even people who believe it is true. I was never a christian and the whole concept is absurd. Even my daughter, who heard the story for the first time at school, came home and asked me how people could believe such nonsense - she was 10 years old at the time.
But now to my point.
In the STORY of Jesus and Mary, they are both human beings. The character Jesus is the son of a girl named Mary, who is not married but accompanied by man. So Mary might have been a minor (she has a chaperone), which means she was a maiden. In my language MAIDEN = MAAGD and MAAGD = VIRGIN. But of course that is in my language. The idea is that girls who are not married are virgins ;-) Of course if such a girl has a baby, nobody believes that anymore - but perhaps Christians do? ;-)
Anyway, the STORY goes that Mary has a child and there is no father. She goes to another place to have the child, which was still custom in the 18th en 19th century (I am a genealogist). Jesus had no father, so he calls God his father. The storytellers make this a FACT. They had to hide the fact that, if it were REAL, Jesus must have had an unknown father. So they made Mary a REAL virgin and Jesus was born from a virgin, making him GODLIKE. Next step was to make this "real person" a God but that is another part of the STORY.
And this is the point I like to make: Can you mention ANY HUMAN in mythology who was a VIRGIN? All the virgin mothers were GODDESSES and not HUMAN.
For me this is the strongest point of the Jesus/Mary story being Bogus and stupid as well.

Re: Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:40 am
by Robert Tulip
drdalet wrote:Can you mention ANY HUMAN in mythology who was a VIRGIN? All the virgin mothers were GODDESSES and not HUMAN.
For me this is the strongest point of the Jesus/Mary story being Bogus and stupid as well.
My view on this is that the power of Christianity arose from its mutation of Egyptian mythology with the novel device of incarnation. By asserting that its myths were literal history, with gods as actual humans, Christianity achieved an unrivalled social impetus. Judaism had set the tone with its mythic historical characters, but Christianity took this method to a whole new level. The absurdity of its claims was secondary to their social appeal. That is always the way with evolution - success depends only on being the best at adapting to circumstances. In the context of the extreme scale of Roman imperialism, military opposition was futile, whereas a mutation of mythology into specific claims of miraculous history obviously gained immense purchase.

At the moment I am reading a really interesting book Susan Sorek: The Jews Against Rome. The truly bizarre thing in this book is that she notes that the history of Palestine in the first century was one of the most documented periods in the ancient world, but none of the early sources make any credible mention of Jesus Christ. It is as if he did not even exist! Try reading The Jewish War by Josephus, or Legatio by Philo. Ask how much of the Gospels must be false for these guys never to have heard of any of it.

Re: Christ in Egypt: The Virgin Isis-Mery

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:15 am
by tat tvam asi
Can you mention ANY HUMAN in mythology who was a VIRGIN? All the virgin mothers were GODDESSES and not HUMAN.
For me this is the strongest point of the Jesus/Mary story being Bogus and stupid as well.
The writers were trying to tie in the Jesus myth to the Jewish scriptures. The idea was to have Jesus coming from the line of King David, descended from Abraham, and Noah, and Adam. That's why Mary is a human being in the myth, a woman descended from Adam, while serving the role of the virgin mother goddesses of antiquity.

If you're reading CiE then you'll find that much of this myth appears to have descended from Graeco-Jewish origins based around Alexandria Egypt and spread throughout the "collegia" around the Roman Empire. The idea was to blend Judaism with Hellenized thinking. So what comes from that is a mythology that reads as historical, such as the Jewish mythology reads.