Apollonius of Tyana Puns

>Apollonius gave a discourse about not going to excess when we make a sacrifice or dedication. Many people had gathered at the shrine soon after the expulsion of the Cilician, and he questioned the priest thus. "Are the gods just?" he asked. "Of course, entirely just," was the reply. "Are they intelligent too?" "Why," was the reply, "what is more intelligent than divinity?" "Do they know about human affairs, or are they ignorant of them?" "That is the greatest advantage of gods over humans," said the priest. "Humans in their frailty do not even understand their own affairs, but the gods understand the business of humans as well as their own."

>"Very good answers, your reverence," said Apollonius, "and very true. Well, since they understand everything, I think that someone coming to a god's abode with a clear conscience should pray, 'O gods, give me what I deserve.' The devout surely deserve good, your reverence, and the wicked the opposite. Hence, if the gods in their kindness find a man to be sincere and free from sin, they send him on his way crowned not with mere crowns of gold, but with every blessing. But if they see a man to be besmirched and corrupt, they leave him to receive his retribution, showing their anger with him only insofar as he dared to enter a holy place when not in a state of purity." At the same time, turning his eyes to the statue of Asclepius he said, "It is your ineffable and native wisdom you practice, Asclepius, when you forbid the wicked to come here, even if they amass all the wealth of India and Sardinia for you. They do not make these sacrifices and dedications to honor divinity, but to buy a favorable judgment, which you gods in your great justice do not grant." And he gave many such philosophic disquisitions in the sanctuary while still in his early youth.

Excerpted from Philostratus' Apollonius of Tyana, trans. by Christopher P. Jones, bk. 1, § 11.

On the assumption the Athenians weren't working on their tans, what was going on?

This was a thought that came to me while reading Norse mythology (Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology, in fact), where Odin gives an eye to learn the secret of the runes. There's also the concept in Judaism/early Christianity where the "Word" is an entity with its own divinity. My thinking is:

• Written communication is an unnatural concept. Being able to receive explicit communication from an inanimate object has not appeared in the natural world before written language.
• Written communication corresponding from one who has died is even less natural
• The rarity of literacy would grant more of a mystery to the written language among the illiterate, elevating the role of the literate

Seemed ascribing divinity to written language might be a common development, and maybe an interesting point in the formation of religion. Maybe it marks a threshold where folk superstition crosses into organized religion? Has anyone smarter than me looked into this?

Edit: I shouldn't have used the word 'birth.' Of course supernatural beliefs predate written language. The formation of religion is a different concept from the birth of supernatural beliefs.

Edit 2: I should have presented this in context of HADD -- Hyperactive Agency Detection Device. This is the aspect of the brain the causes humans to attach agency to things that should not have agency, e.g. blowing wind, lightning strikes, as a way of increasing survival. Hellenistic Greeks attached agency to logos. I think Vikings probably attached agency to runes, which they are documented as possibly using in divination rituals. I wonder how many cultures attached agency to written words. I appreciate the responses, but my question is unrelated to ancient proto-religions and the printing press.

Edit 3: Stop telling me about religious practices that predate written language. I found another adjacent example in Pythagoreanism, a religious cult in which numbers carried a divinity of sorts, which lasted for centuries and even had its own Jesus.

A new paper has been published which argues for further engagement with Mythic Jesus studies. The paper is:

Meggitt, J. J. (2019). ‘More Ingenious than Learned’? Examining the Quest for the Non-Historical Jesus. New Testament Studies, 65(4), 443-460. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0028688519000213

Some quotations from the paper:

• While addressing this thesis is not something that most New Testament scholars relish, or, indeed, have ever relished,^16 it is clear that the subject should merit far greater attention from those working professionally in the field than is now the case. It is no longer tenable for most scholars to ignore it, given the wider context within which the academic study of the New Testament currently takes place. Nor, indeed, is it healthy for the discipline, given the formative role that the question of the existence of Jesus has played since in its inception, even if this has largely been forgotten. (p. 445).

• It would be a rather thankless and dispiriting task to correct the egregious errors of fact, method and interpretation that characterise some of the most popular contributions to the subject in the past and present, seen in, for example, the work of Kersey Graves^31 or Acharya S,^32 but it would be unfair for the contributions of Brodie, Price, Carrier and Wells to ‘be tarnished with the same brush or be condemned with guilt by association’;^33 indeed such scholars are generally as critical of the failings of the excesses of fellow mythicists as any others.^34 (p. 447).

• Identifying the earliest appearance of the Christ-myth theory is also not straightforward. Given that the denial of the historicity of Jesus was sometimes a rather dangerous idea to hold, if we are to tell the story solely with reference to publications that explicitly advocate the position we miss much. ... so far little attention has been paid to the evidence that at least some deists clearly held mythicist views, even if none did so openly in print. (pp. 453-4)

Meggitt succinctly sums up the debate as it has been traditionally played out. Those in the negative generally argue that: (1.) There is no independent non-Christian evidence for Jesus; (2.) Paul does not demonstrate actual knowledge of a historic Jesus; (3.) The gospels are not trustworthy historical documents: they are filled with contradictions, bias, supernatural claims, etc. (4.) The gospels are not independent; they are all dependent on Mark. Mark is a work of fiction writ

Preface

First off, I apologize for the peculiar formatting with little titles (like "Preface" above). Having largely written this post, I realized how cumbersome it would be to read and how wall-of-text-y it would appear without any sort of breaks in the text. I've added some titles throughout to ease the eyesore and better allow the reader to follow my discussion.

Before saying anything else, I'd like to be clear that although I refer to an argument presented by another user, I am not attacking said user. I am addressing an argument for which he is a spokesperson. Moreover, I’m not addressing the whole argument. I am questioning if references (books/articles) in the argument are properly used. I invite the user who normally shares this argument or those who agree with it to see my criticism as an opportunity to better show how these sources are being used and thus better strengthen the argument when it is present in the future.

Prefacing this discussion, I'd like to introduce the argument I will be critiquing and also the historical consensus on Jesus of Nazareth. There is an argument which is shared in this subreddit occasionally. Said argument supports a version of the theory that an historical Jesus of Nazareth never existed; commonly known as the Christ-myth theory. There are a couple standardized presentations of this argument which are regularly shared. You can view one standard presentation of said argument here. See here for another presentation of the argument.

In contrast, the consensus of historians is that the person, Jesus of Nazareth, did exist. He was a Galilean Jew who joined a movement started by John the Baptist, with John's death Jesus began to lead his own movement, Jesus was understood by Rome to be proclaiming himself a king, and thus he was executed by Pontius Pilate for sedition against the Roman Empire. As Amy-Jill Levine writes:

> There is a consensus of sorts on a basic outline of Jesus’ life. Most scholars agree that Jesus was baptized by John, debated with fellow Jews on how best to live according to God’s will, engaged in healings and exorcisms, taught in para­bles, gathered male and female followers in Galilee, went to Jerusalem, and was crucified by Roman soldiers during the governorship of Pontius

Hello,

First, I would like to point that the common position that theists or atheists hold regarding the bible, such as;

• The direct word of god
• Divinely inspired
• Man-made fabrication

I do not have enough conclusive evidence for it to be proved either way so my presentation of points here are more to highlight how many aspects in the bible make far more sense when viewed from the perspective of just a man-made fabrication than what you would expect an all-knowing and all-powerful god would produce.

It is hard to know where a logical place to start is so I'll just pick one at random. I am going to mention these under the view that it was written solely by man and that the reference to any divine or godly event/notion is purely fantastical. When I imply man wrote the bible, I am specifically referring to "men" as in males and not just man in general.

One. Narcissistic/self-important focus

As we know, a common trait among humans (as well as other animals too) is self-importance or self-interest and making sure that things are arranged or setup to preserve this notion. It can be clearly seen throughout the bible that the people who wrote the bible, had a clear bias to ensuring events or decrees were explicitly arranged to best suit them or that the portrayed "god" favored them, as though they were some how "special". It often echos discrimination or intolerance to other "people" (races).

Two. Similar stories predating the bible.

Humans like to emulate stories or sentiments they hear that they like, often wishing they were the originators of such. Depending on how impressionable a person is, sometimes we'll even go to the extreme of copy-catting someone else in image and behavior. The people who wrote the bible seem to be no exception to this rule. We often find remarkable similarities in the stories of the bible with those that we read of other myths and religions, just to name a couple;

• Sumerian myth: Gilgamesh's Flood and Noah's Flood
• The Jesus saga, sharing many remarkable similarities to varying degrees of a fairly wide variety of other mythological characters: Apollonius of Tyana, Mithra, Buddha, Dionysus and Hercules etc.
• The notion of a "God" being similar to that of many myths/religions that predate the bible.

Three. Contradictions

As fallible humans if you couple in the fact that the people that wrote the bible at the time didn't have the capacity to achieve the knowledge that we have today, it is would be expected that the some

Hey guys, so, I’ve been thinking recently about the use of mythology in this show, especially the appearance of the Emerald Tablet and Hermetic texts, and the use of Greek mythology. In this discussion (which may be a bit long), I want to analyse what the use of these features means for the story of Dark. I think the references to mythology work in a twofold way here: myths act as a signifier for the main themes of the programme, but characters also interact with mythology (most obviously, Noah). This is going to be LONG, so I’ve decided to split it into five parts: the first part will be a close reading of the Emerald Tablet, and how it can be interpreted in relation to Dark. I hope you stick with it and enjoy, and would love to hear your comments and criticisms!

So, in this first part, I will be looking at one of the most prominent type of symbolism that is used heavily in Dark: occult references to Hermeticism. Hermeticism is a branch of Western mysticism that came to influence much of the “science” prevalent in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. It draws from Classical texts, as well as Judeo-Christian traditions. The key symbol of this tradition found in Dark is the picture of the “Emerald Tablet”, which is a list of 12 to 14 points (depending on the version) that were purported in the medieval and early modern periods to describe how to successfully turn base metals into gold. It appears several times in Dark; first, it is shown tattooed on Noah’s back, as well as hanging in the hospital in 1986 and in 1986 Ulrich is shown listening to a band called “Tabula Smaragdina”, which is an alternate name for the ET. I will come back to why I think these images are used in conjunction with these characters in particular in Part 2.

The Emerald Tablet is a piece of the “Hermetica”, which is a selection of Egyptian/Greek texts from 2nd century AD that form the basis of Hermeticism. The “Hermetica” discussed life, the universe and everything, with several texts that deal with alchemy and astrology. The Hermetic texts are attributed to “Hermes Trismegistus” (“thrice-great Hermes”), who does not seem to have been a real person but an amalgamation of several ancient philosophers. Traditionally, Hermes Trismegistus was associated with the Greek God Hermes (messenger of the gods) and the Egyptian God Thoth (associated with magic and the judgement of the dead). Although the Emerald Tablet was supposedly part of this corpus, it probably is actually a later interlo

Solid, liquid and gas

Global chaos ensues.

The disease wipes out 99% of humanity, and the desperate survivors are forced to live in a post-alpaca lip tick wasteland.

Annoying

When I asked the keeper why, he said, "It was bread in captivity!"

9th Day of the 3rd moon, 99 AC

Storm’s End

 

The Ceremony

The sept of Storm's End, like the keep itself, possessed an austere sort of grandeur.

The place where the Baratheons worshipped contained no frills, no pure golden altars, no cookie-cut archways or colorful frescoes of gods and angels, no jewel-encrusted idols. It was cavernous enough to hold a small army, and light-filled with hundreds of blazing candles, and all around was granite, marble, slate. The Seven's effigies stood towering and solemn over the affairs of people below. Narrow, high windows overlooked Shipbrecker Bay and a yellow sunset. The dais was high, above the crowds that had gathered. Everything about the place seemed tall, imposing, solid. It would last millennia if undisturbed by something more immovable than stone.

It had always been Serra's favorite place in the world. The sept was her own home, the septon's voice comforting in its sternness against sin and unchanging message. Here she would be wed, in a place her ancestors planned and built, not in a place where she was only a guest. Her marriage would be planned and built the same way.

It was nearing time. The nobles inside had begun to fidget, waiting for someone to appear at the doors or the septon to raise his crystal.

It had been an all-day affair to prepare, since the wee dark morning when she was awoken by handmaidens and hairdressers and seamstresses and made to do everything they said. It was easy to obey and free her mind to revel in the novelty of this, finally, being the day she craved after so long waiting. How would it feel to cast her cloak aside and take up Daeron's? Would she be a new woman in a few hours? Would everything make sense, would all her anxieties disappear when she served her ultimate purpose? Would all the questioning of her mind now be replaced with certainties? Yes, I am a wife to a prince, now, she imagined herself thinking. I know my place. I am happy, she imagined herself believing. I have purpose.

She was scrubbed, scraped, brushed, dried, maneuvered, encased in ivory silk and gold brocade until she felt twice her weight. The gown matched her manner entirely, and purposefully so; it was all elegance and structure and it was proper and chaste, but she felt as if it was wearing her, instead of the opposite. Her skin had been made raw and then soft again and scented with lilac and lav

A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk.

The wife asks him, "Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?"

He replied, "They had avocados."

Turns out it was The Who that let the dogs out

That has left scientists scratching their heads.

Because they got in a fight once and 21

This made him a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Edit: I do now realize I misspelled Gandhi. I cannot edit the title, just know that I see it and am sorry.

We went out and had beers. Cool guy, very driven, wants to be a web designer.

Saturday and Sunday...the rest are weekdays.

"Oh, just a couple of minutes ago."

In case I got a hole in one

... that came back to bite me.

No one told me life was gonna be this way.