tat tvam asi wrote:

No matter how yo slice it, even you starting premise about the special numbers are arbitrary.
One Sun
One Moon
Five planets adds up to 7?
So what?

Why not group the Sun and Moon and have the number as two.

Once again, you're trying to ask why the ancients did what they did. They observed the sun, moon, and five planets which stood out as different from the stars. If they wanted to combine the sun and moon together then the sacred number would have been six instead of seven. We might have found a six chakra system in the east, or a sabbath on the sixth day of creation instead of the seventh if they thought that way, or even a six branched candle stick in Revelation instead of seven, etc. etc. etc. But no, the ancients chose to take the individual sun and individual moon and each of the five individual planets all together as seven individual celestial sphere, just as they number when looking at each individual one of them up in the sky. Good grief, here's a link to a lecture on the mystery of 5 and 7 so you can get yourself up to spead on what you're talking about in the first place:
http://www.manlyphall.org/audio/astroth ... ient-gods/

tat tvam asi wrote:There's an ongoing play between the numbers 5 and 7 in world mythology due to playing around with the five planets and two luminaries. Anyone who doesn't already know about this may want to have a listen for the sake of getting up to speed on the subject before trying to discuss or debate it....

On the other hand, your theory has nothing do with dating the composition of the NT so enjoy your videos. It really takes 25 episodes to prove the dating? Amazing.

tat tvam asi wrote:How do you know what the videos do or do not say Stahrwe? You've refused to watch them. You're struggling to take bits and pieces of what people have said about the videos in order to comment on their content. I'm starting to wonder if you're afraid to watch the entire series? Why are you still posting here about this video series when you haven't even watched it? Do you also intend to keep speaking about the mystery of 5 and 7 without first listening to the intoductory lecture? That keeps you into the realm of intellectual dishonesty. But, as I've pointed out several times already in this thread: http://www.booktalk.org/let-s-analyze-d ... 1-765.html
You seem to have a pretty deep rooted problem with making dishonest claims and insisting that you are right about them, even when you've been proven wrong...

"Here's an excellent video series outlining the problem of first century Gospel dating. I'm posting the 25 part series and it's well worth watching for those interested in understanding the ins and outs of why first century dating is based on wishful thinking at best" TTA page 1 post 1

Stahrwe wrote:How do you know what the videos do or do not say Stahrwe? You've refused to watch them. You're struggling to take bits and pieces of what people have said about the videos in order to comment on their content. I'm starting to wonder if you're afraid to watch the entire series? Why are you still posting here about this video series when you haven't even watched it?

Stahrwe wrote:I based it on what you said about the videos in opening post of this discussion, remember

Stahrwe wrote:You might get away with that if there were some proof but there isn't.

These are ideas people like Massey and Murdock came up with.

Stahrwe wrote:There isn't any more logic for their magic numbers than there is for any other combination one could come up with, you even admit it where you talk about the ancients using any combination of numbers they wanted.

Stahrwe wrote:If there was significance to the numbers how could they be free to pick, choose and combine.

If that isn't fallacious then logic does not exist at least not here.

tat tvam asi wrote:

Stahrwe wrote:How do you know what the videos do or do not say Stahrwe? You've refused to watch them. You're struggling to take bits and pieces of what people have said about the videos in order to comment on their content. I'm starting to wonder if you're afraid to watch the entire series? Why are you still posting here about this video series when you haven't even watched it?

And so you respond by saying?

Stahrwe wrote:I based it on what you said about the videos in opening post of this discussion, remember

tat tvam asi wrote:Like I said, you're basing your comments not on what you've watched but rather what someone else has said about the videos. Every comment you've made about the videos relies on you trying to comment on what I, or Robert, or someone else has said about them. Get it? The point is that you don't know a thing about the sources and evidence given in this series in order to know the first thing about what it does or does not prove...

Stahrwe wrote:You might get away with that if there were some proof but there isn't.

tat tvam asi wrote:I gave out a link to a lecture about the planets and ancient Gods, you simply have to press the play button in order to educate yourself on just how many mythologies make use of it and what evidence there is to confirm that they most certainly were referring to the 7 celestial spheres surrounding the earth, five of which are planets and two of which are the luminaries.

tat tvam asi wrote:More intellectual dishonesty... There's no mention of Massey or Murdock in this lecture at all. It's about the mythologies themselves and commentary from historians like Plutarch and such about the mythologies which spell out the meaning of certain astronomical myths. You don't know anything about the content of the lecture and you're showing everyone that I may be right about you suffering from a fear of the unknown. You don't even have the guts to watch the videos which are the topic of this very thread, let alone listen to the lecture providing you with the evidence you yourself have been demanding. I can't spoon feed you - you have to make the effort to investigate these things on your own.

Stahrwe wrote:There isn't any more logic for their magic numbers than there is for any other combination one could come up with, you even admit it where you talk about the ancients using any combination of numbers they wanted.

Stahrwe wrote:If there was significance to the numbers how could they be free to pick, choose and combine.

tat tvam asi wrote:They weren't free to pick and choose, you were the one trying to do that. They didn't choose how many suns, moons, or planets they would observe in the sky. They just observed what was there. Are you getting upset because I used the word "chose", as in "chose" to leave the celestial spheres just as they're observed, as seven? Perhaps I should have said that they decided to use the number of celestial sphere's just as they are, as seven surrounding the earth.

The significant number of celestial sphere's count as seven from the perspective of the earth - (1)sun, (2)moon, (3)mercury, (4)venus, (5)mars, (6)jupiter, (7)saturn. If you isolate the luminaries from the planets you're left with a five count. The mysteries outlined in the lecture that play on the 5 and 7 theme, which are known as astronomical mysteries to begin with, simply show what the ancients were doing in their myths. I'm just talking about what we do know about ancient myths, not what remains unknown. And you'd be wise to listen to the lecture about what we do know about them for starts...

Mark 8:17: Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?

Interbane wrote:

If that isn't fallacious then logic does not exist at least not here.

You truly are blind to logic, aren't you? You comment upon it as if it's some unseen force whose influence is felt only indirectly. Like a blind man having to guess whether or not the heat he feels is from sunlight or from a fire. Or like a color blind man trying to figure out the color of a fruit by determining if it's shape resembles an apple or an orange.

Logic exists here, and what you're claiming is a fallacy isn't a fallacy.

The ancients may or may not have committed a fallacy with finding meaning in observations of the sky.

The evaluation of how such beliefs evolved entails reverse engineering the beliefs. Such beliefs may have been fallacious, but when the argument is on how such beliefs evolved, it is a meta-level analysis.

Talking about how the ancients believed this or that about 7 celestial orbs doesn't make you guilty of committing a fallacy.

Here is the ultimate litmus test; Reformulate Tat's argument logically, then show us where the fallacy is.

Robert Tulip wrote:Reconstructing Biblical origins, accepting that the stories of Jesus are not historically true, but are parables pointing to a deeper meaning, is an essential start. From GodAlmighty's proof that the Apostolic Fathers had not read the New Testament, we move on to the question of the content of the secret oral tradition that led to the Bible achieving mass appeal. The messianic idea got nowhere in the first century, so had to be packaged in a way that made it accessible to ignorant newcomers. The dilemma for the authors was how to present the ideas in a way that would be acceptable to the bigoted prejudice of popular culture, while opening that culture to a deeper understanding. Sadly they got it wrong, with the bishops suppressing the deeper understanding as they found it did not help their political power games. So we were left with the superficial and false story of Christ as a historical individual, with the old myths of Horus and Isis retained only in garbled and hidden form. Having used myth to climb the ladder to a new consciousness that could support the religious war against the Greco-Roman gods, the church kicked the ladder away as they thought they did not need it any more.

However, the deep wisdom was retained in coded form in the text. One excellent example is the parable of the miraculous production of bread and fish to feed first 5000 and then 4000 men and their families. On the surface this is absurd. No one can look at the sky and turn five loaves and two fish into as many as there are stars in the sky. It is rather like Bullwinkle saying "Hey Rocky watch me pull a rabbit outta this hat."

When we actually look at the text we find that Jesus gets frustrated at the blindness of the disciples because they cannot understand what he means by the five loaves and two fish. It is like he is saying, these are the sun, moon and five visible planets, as the basis of cosmic identity. His listeners have never really thought about astronomy, so the idea that Jesus might be providing a parable about a new age is outside their frame of reference.

robert tulip wrote:The text of this strange parable has obviously been workshopped by the authors of the gospels since they put it in the bible five times. They are conveying a hidden meaning, with the sad knowledge that the stupid mentality of most readers will blind them to the true message.

Mark 8:17: Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?

.

"Astral Mythology - Or 'star mythology.' From the Greek. The corpus of myths in which stars play a role, particularly as divinities or gods in astral configuration... In agragrian and especially in highly advanced cultures (such as Babylon, Egypt, Mexico) astral mythologies arose surrounding the sun, the moon, planets, and individual groups of stars."

--Udo Becker, Lance W. Garmer, "The Continuum Encyclopedia of Symbols," p. 28.

"astrotheology: theology or religious systems based on the observation of stars..."

--"The Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families," p. 93.

"astrotheology, theology founded on the stars"

--"Hartrampf's Vocabulary Builder," p. 156.

"Archaeologists are generally agreed that the dominant ideas embodied in the Roman funerary ritual came from the astrotheology of Babylonia and Syria..."

--Francis Hobart Herrick, "The American Eagle: A Study in Natural and Civil History," p. 200.

Astrotheology: "Theology founded on observation or knowledge of the celestial bodies, such as the sun, moon, planets, stars, constellations, earth, etc."

--Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998

STAR-WORSHIP:

Among the Israelites

"This is perhaps the oldest form of idolatry practised by the ancients. According to Wisdom xiii. 2, the observation of the stars in the East very early led the people to regard the planets and the fixed stars as gods. The religion of the ancient Egyptians is known to have consisted preeminently of sun-worship. Moses sternly warned the Israelites against worshiping the sun, moon, stars, and all the host of heaven (Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3); it may be said that the prohibition of making and worshiping any image of that which is in heaven above (Ex. xx. 4; Deut. v. implies also the stars and the other celestial bodies. The Israelites fell into this kind of idolatry, and as early as the time of Amos they had the images of Siccuth and Chiun, "the stars of their god" (Amos v. 26, R. V.); the latter name is generally supposed to denote the planet Saturn. That the kingdom of Israel fell earlier than that of Judah is stated (II Kings xvii. 16) to have been due, among other causes, to its worshiping the host of heaven. But the kingdom of Judah in its later period seems to have out-done the Northern Kingdom in star-worship. Of Manasseh it is related that he built altars to all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of Yhwh, and it seems that it was the practise of even kings before him to appoint priests who offered sacrifices to the sun, the moon, the planets, and all the host of heaven. Altars for star-worship were built on the roofs of the houses, and horses and chariots were dedicated to the worship of the sun (ib. xxi. 5; xxiii. 4-5, 11-12). Star-worship continued in Judah until the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign (621 B.C.), when the king took measures to abolish all kinds of idolatry (ib.). But although star-worship was then abolished as a public cult, it was practised privately by individuals, who worshiped the heavenly bodies, and poured out libations to them on the roofs of their houses (Zeph. i. 5; Jer. viii. 2, xix. 13). Jeremiah (vii. 18) describes the worship of the queen of heaven to have been more particularly common among the women. Ezekiel, who prophesied in the sixth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin (591 B.C.), describes the worship of the sun as practised in thecourt of the Temple (Ezek. viii. 16 et seq.), and from Jer. xliv. 17 et seq. it may be seen that even after the destruction of the Temple the women insisted on continuing to worship the queen of heaven. In Job (xxxi. 26 et seq.) there is an allusion to the kissing of the hand in the adoration of the moon (see Moon, Biblical Data). According to Robertson Smith ("The Religion of the Semites," p. 127, note 3, Edinburgh, 1889), star-worship is not of great antiquity among the Semites in general, nor among the Hebrews in particular, for the latter adopted this form of idolatry only under the influence of the Assyrians. But Fritz Hommel ("Der Gestirndienst der Alten Araber," Munich, 1901) expresses the opposite opinion. He points to the fact that the Hebrew root which denotes the verb "to swear" is the same as that which denotes "seven," and claims that this fact establishes a connection between swearing and the seven planets; and he furthermore declares that there are many Biblical evidences of star-worship among the ancient Hebrews. Thus, the fact that Terah, Abraham's father, had lived first at Ur of the Chaldees, and that later he settled at Haran (Gen. xi. 31), two cities known from Assyrian inscriptions as places of moon-worship, shows that Abraham's parents were addicted to that form of idolatry. According to legend, Abraham himself worshiped the sun, moon, and the stars before he recognized the true God in Yhwh (see Abraham in Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature). The golden calf, Hommel declares, was nothing more than an emblem of the moon-god, which, in the Assyrian inscription, is styled "the youthful and mighty bull" and the lord of the heavenly hosts (comp. "Yhwh Ẓeba'ot," which term is intentionally omitted from the Pentateuch). He assigns the same character to the two calves made by Jeroboam several centuries later (I Kings xii. 28).

The ancient Hebrews, being nomads, like the Arabs favored the moon, while the Babylonians, who were an agricultural nation, preferred the sun. But, as appears from Ezek. xx. 7-8, the moon-worship of the Israelites, even while they were still in Egypt, was combined with sun-worship. The close similarity between the ancient Hebrews and the southern Arabs has led Hommel furthermore to find allusion to moon-worship in such Hebrew names as begin with "ab" (= "father"), as in "Abimelech" and "Absalom," or with "'am" (= "uncle"), as in "Amminadab" and "Jeroboam," because these particles, when they appear in the names of southern Arabs, refer to the moon.

The term "star-worship" ("'abodat kokabim u-mazzalot") in the Talmud and in post-Talmudic literature is chiefly a censor's emendation for "'abodah zarah." In connection with star-worship, it is related in the Mishnah ('Ab. Zarah iv. 7) that the Rabbis ("zeḳenim") were asked if God dislikes idolatry why He did not destroy the idols. The Rabbis answered: "If the heathen worshiped only idols perhaps God would have destroyed the objects of their adoration, but they worship also the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the host of heaven, and God can not destroy the world on account of the heathen." "

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view. ... 2&letter=S