It would be completely remiss of me to fail to make mention of the current craze in ancient text translation, which is to do with a completely blasphemous (so everyone thinks) rendering of both the Hebrew Bible as well as the original Greek One, including the New Testament and especially the 'appo-kalu(y)psos' section of the latter - by a certain Dr Ammon Hillman, (ex-) Professor of Saint Mary's University of Minnesota.
The material over which the estimable Ammon Hillman is making quite some controversy, is bound to reach out into ordinary-people's-ville, because he has something like over a hundred thousand 'students' formally and informally attending his on-line classes in the Classics and in the study of Ancient Greek (that is to say, particularly the language aspect of it).
I place this pic here because our Bill Smith loves these vehicles, and -, in order to distract y'all from the absolute salaciousness of the content from Mr Ammon Hillman! |
And so eventually, if you have not already come across the controversy, you will do so and immediately thereupon think about why it was we never talked about it before or else at least, what those of us here who contribute (many behind the scenes) think about what his controversial ideas are, say about it now.
In short, he makes a huge point of asking 'who was the naked little boy with the medicated bandage' with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and also at the moments when Jesus was arrested and when the boy is described as evading capture and running away completely stark naked (in the text).
...Well it is in there so let's not argue about that.
This one highly 'red hot' matter is an extension of his other main contention, which is namely that the 12 apostles are merely teenagers when they were following Jesus, and not the grown men that the standard mainstream narrative depicts.
So this stuff that he is saying is all broadly-speaking true: they indeed were mostly teenagers or very young men at most except for perhaps one or two older individuals that were there among them.
Hillman is fundamentally implying that this whole group are homosexuals, of course -, and for this idea he is gathering an enormous following as well as inviting a ton of florid criticism.
Where Ammon Hillman is on categorically solid ground is whenever he translates the original Greek, he does so with no theological biases and consequently comes up with what we have been saying here since forever:
Namely, that both the so-called 'Hebrew' Old Testament, and the modern Christian Bible are Hellenistic compositions that have nothing at all to do with some ancient 'Jewish' or Hebrew story about anything that actually happened to do with 'Jews' or that was ever set down in Hebrew texts anywhere at any time.
You cannot prove archaeologically that there even was a Hebrew language that could have conveyed the ideas that are now theologically carried in the Bible, and no one has ever been able to show any kind of artifact whatsoever for the figures of Moses or Solomon - in any Jewish/Hebrew context at the times those characters were said to have lived.
You're gonna need a lot of cooling drink after reading this! |
There was never at any stage any Hebrew written 'Old Testament' nor any of the books in it.
The 'Hebrew Bible' is a back re-constructing, in a style of Hebrew from a much later time, of Hellenistic, Greek language texts which did indeed already exist.
The 'Jesus Christ' story is a Graeco-Egyptian one. Period.
This is now - certainly in the hands of many leading academics and of course especially Ammon Hillman - a categorical fact of provable history.
I would give you the 'head's up' re Hillman's style of presenting things, though - he is quite the modern eccentric and his style is like that of someone on a serious concoction of hard drugs!
That being said his facts are not seriously contestable.
But his conclusions are coming from his own hyperventilating sense of personal discovery and achievement, and in his rush to tell everyone what he has found, he is not that aware of the missing parts of his own knowledge base.
Every single thing he tries to say is more or less, quite true enough.
Yes the Jesus group was a Greek Mystery 'cult' group, and without any doubts whatsoever, any Hellenic culture person at the time who read the accounts of what they did and what they were like would be bound to say that, well, this looks like the appearance of the Greek God of Wine, Dionysus; if the accounts being given are true reports of what went on.
A medicinally-infused bandage, being carried by a young child is a standard image of the Dionysian cult rituals.
The actual term used in the Gospel in question does mean a medicinally-infused bandage, rather than 'some brief linen cloth.'
This is a Mystery Cult ritual thing... Well it is! |
Hillman goes off merrily down his path of implying very weirdo pedophile things - which he on the one hand adds to the clear-cut and quite sound idea that exotic drugs were being used (as in the standard religious exegesis about the passages) to 'pre-embalm' someone who was about to die, or else to assist them die early - but then he completely misses out on telling us about the other aspects of this interpretation (if you are going to bring it in at all).
I have already told you many times that this 'Mary Parthenoia' was literally an aristocratic priestess of the Temple of Athena or Neith (for the Egyptians), with knowledge of drugs and compounds that could poison, kill, and also revive from death (literally from actual death because this is the idea about the Egyptian Osiris). So none of what Hillman is saying goes against what is already known to ancient world scholars about this.
These temple priestesses are taught from an early age to handle snakes and particularly the Dipsas snake, which is not venomous.
Now..
What you are about to be told no one can know unless they are literally part of this cult.
In the first place too, in the ancient past, it was only females who were ever allowed into these aspects of the 'mystery.'
And, only extremely high-born (IE aristocratic) females. Cleopatra would have been one such an individual - as Octavian discovered to his dismay.
The Dipsas snake is not venomous.
What is poisonous however, is the Murex snail from Byblos (think ancient Thebes), and this must be treated first before it becomes the purple dye that is only permitted to royals to wear.
When the Dipsas snakes are fed on these Murex snails, then they do become venomous.
And, they can kill you. The venom is purple in color.
Just a purple thing. |
And, there is an antidote.
What Ammon Hillman fails to mention, is that when Jesus is walking around carrying his cross on which He will be murdered, a woman comes up to him, with the Ancient Greek language name of Berenike (back-translated into Hebrew as the non-existent Jewish name of Veronica), and she places a 'medicinally-infused linen cloth' over His face.
Now of course none of this is at all properly explained by modern-day Christians because they simply don't know what any of it is about!
Berenike is not a young boy or gay guy...
And, despite that the text says when the tomb was found opened, by the women, a good-looking (the text expressly calls him that) young boy wearing a particular kind of fine cloth garment was sitting in there with no corpse around...
...you are best advised to realize that this is of course not a human 'boy' at all.
Still, you can believe whatever you want.
But, if you make the vaguely intelligent mistake of wandering into the lectures of Dr Ammon Hillman, soon enough if you have your eyes and ears open there, you will put two and two together and wake up to the connection between all of the 'electronic trance music' stuff we keep introducing all the time, and the Cult of Medea and the chanting (enchanting) of the Koreae and so on and 'ET Aliens.' LOL
If you are not completely and utterly scandalized first.