Alternate View on Christianity

reply to post by windword


Did Paul study with the Essenes, and then betray them?

5. The Essenes required a person to commit to a three year study period, prior to acceptance into the Brotherhood. The Bible records that Paul (who wrote a large part of the Bible's New Testament) withdrew for a 3 year period just prior to beginning his preaching.

6. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes record that a man who had studied with them for a three year period, had betrayed them, and was spreading 'lies' about their faith. This person is simply referred to in these writings as "The Liar". The Bible and several other historical manuscripts record that there was much disagreement between Paul and some of the disciples and leaders of the early church. Paul was teaching that observance of certain Jewish customs or 'laws' was not a requirement for salvation. He defends himself in the Bible, claiming "I am NOT a liar!"

wicca.com...

Eisenman shrewdly points out that the two Scrolls villains, the Liar and the Wicked Priest, are never identified with each other, and indeed they cannot be references to the same person, since the Liar is said to be a betrayer and defector from within the group, while the Wicked Priest is the enemy without. Eisenman's candidate for the Liar is Paul who repudiated the Law for which James and his Covenanters were zealots. Like the Tübingen School, Eisenman sees the Pseudo-Clementine literature as the refuge of important stray traditions which furnish clues to the relations between the parties of the early Christian movement. And there the James-Paul enmity, which Luke papers over but which peeps out between the paragraphs in Galatians, is on plain display
www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com...

The Essenes believed that the leaders of the temple were evil, wicked liars.

A good example of a group which separated itself from society at large and defined itself against the Temple in Jerusalem are the Essenes, or perhaps you might say, the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Dead Sea community, whom most scholars regard as Essenes. Here is a group of people who left Jerusalem, went to live in the wilderness, to live by themselves, totally isolated from other Jews, from the rest of the community, and as their Scrolls reveal, saw themselves as the new sacred community, waiting for the time, when ... they imagine that the Temple would be reconstituted and reconstructed and rebuilt.... and a new and better priestly group would take over the Temple in Jerusalem. And, in the meantime, while the wicked priests are still off in Jerusalem, following the wrong calendar, following the wrong purity rules and officiating improperly before the Lord, in the meantime, pure purity and true holiness resided only among themselves, in their own community, off near the Dead Sea.... The community itself was a surrogate temple....
www.pbs.org...

Seems to me I remember Jesus expressing something along these lines, when he called the Pharisee's the children of Satan.

The Essenes were teaching were very esoteric and kept their knowledge of the sacred mysteries in secret.

29. They gave a mystical sense to the Scriptures, disregarding the letter.
The letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive (1 Cor 3:6).

30. They had many mysteries in their religion which they were sworn to keep secret.
To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom; to them it is not given (Mt 13:11). Great is the mystery of godliness. (1 Tim 3:16)

31. They taught by metaphors, symbols, and parables as not to reveal their inner teachings.
Without a parable spake he not unto them. (Mt 13:34)

The Essenes didn't believe in the physical resurrection of the body.

37. They disbelieved in the resurrection of the external body.
It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Cor 15:44).

www.thenazareneway.com...

Originally posted by windword
The Essenes didn't believe in the physical resurrection of the body.

Well, that bit right there should tell you that the Essenes weren't Christians.

So, we're in agreement now that the Essenes weren't Gnostics? That the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi are two separate and unrelated things?

reply to post by adjensen


No, I don't agree that Essenes weren't Gnostic. They valued the study of all things esoteric, including mathematics, astrology, the study of the human body and schools of medicines.

They were more aligned with the Pythoreans than with the Hebrews. Pythogoras and Plato were Gnostics, but I don't believe them to have been the first, but the manifestation of a long line of scholars of the sacred mysteries.

I believe that Jesus believed himself to be a messiah, and was supported as such by the Essenes. The teachings and studies of the Essenes were considered sorcery by the Pharisees and later by the Catholic Church. Jesus was considered a blasphemer and sorcerer by the temple leaders. But, in actuality Jesus was practicing and teaching the elements of gnosis.

I believe that the Essenes were the first Christians and that they didn't believe Jesus to be physically divine nor did they believe he was raised from the dead in his physical form.

I continue to contend that Jesus didn't die on the cross, but survived the ordeal with the help of his friends and the medicinal knowledge and practical application by the Essenes. The man in white at the tomb of Jesus, was an Essene who probably ministered to Jesus during the days he was within the tomb, nursing him to back to health.

The fact that he was offered honey comb to eat was a tell tale sign of the Essene, as they were gardeners and tended bees. Jesus was first seen wearing the clothing of a gardener, which would have included a veil for protection against bees. This is why he wasn't recognized by Mary.

The Catholic Church was so threatened by the Essene community that they outlawed their practices, not citing them as Essenes or Christians, but as blasphemous Jews who assembled with angels, and practiced sorcery, and celebrated the holidays of antiquity.

reply to post by adjensen

Jesus was not a Gnostic, that's ludicrous. If he was a Gnostic, why wouldn't he have repudiated Judaism the moment he could speak the words? No, he was an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, not a mystic, not a Gnostic, and not the Bringer of Gnosis.

I would like to see anyone try and prove Jesus was not a mystic, after learning what the word mystic means. Oh and good luck with that one.

The "original Christians" were Jews, not Gentiles, so they most assuredly would not have been Gnostics. I don't get why some people think that Jews sat around on the street corner, debating religion and philosophy with Greeks, Celts and Indians. Judaism is an exclusive religion -- almost none of them gave two hoots about any world view other than their own, and the Apostles would be no different.

Judaism then, and now, was a spiritually dead religion which only seemed alive in the prophets and a few handfuls of other characters. Jesus came and changed everything, especially with the access that the common man now has to the holy spirit and a rich spiritual/mystical life in Christ.

Originally posted by windword
The fact that he was offered honey comb to eat was a tell tale sign of the Essene, as they were gardeners and tended bees. Jesus was first seen wearing the clothing of a gardener, which would have included a veil for protection against bees. This is why he wasn't recognized by Mary.

And, with that, we lose all sense of rationality in our conversation. Because no one ate honey in Israel, apart from the Essenes, and Jesus just happened to be tending to the hives shortly after being beaten nearly to death, crucified and stabbed through the heart with a spear.

You ought to consider a career in fiction, and that's not intended as an insult -- you've taken teeny pieces of reality and wrapped them up into a complete tale that is creative, I'll grant you that, but utterly impossible to reconcile with the facts as currently known. Never mind the silliness of Abraham's time machine, the Mighty Morphin' Essenes, who can be all things to all people, apparently, and Jesus the bee keeper.

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by windword
The fact that he was offered honey comb to eat was a tell tale sign of the Essene, as they were gardeners and tended bees. Jesus was first seen wearing the clothing of a gardener, which would have included a veil for protection against bees. This is why he wasn't recognized by Mary.

And, with that, we lose all sense of rationality in our conversation. Because no one ate honey in Israel, apart from the Essenes, and Jesus just happened to be tending to the hives shortly after being beaten nearly to death, crucified and stabbed through the heart with a spear.

I remember sitting in church as a child and hearing the preacher talk about the Essenes, how Jesus and John the Baptist were Essenes and how the Essenes were the ones who moved the stone in front of Jesus' tomb. He was clothed as a "gardener," the Bible says, and the Essene gardeners wore bee keeper's veils. Jesus was disguised as a gardener. Why do you suppose that is?

I have this belief of the Essenes being the first Christians because it was the doctrine that I was taught growing up. I didn't invent this theory by myself, but have recently found myself researching writings on the internet to find were my pastor got this idea, that stuck with me. Now I have the support of others and the evidence to back up these claims.

Believing in the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead was not a requisite of Christianity until the Council of Nicea. Before that, many Christians rejected the mythology of the resurrection and the physical divinity of Jesus. Early Americans who were seeking freedom of worship from the Catholic Church and the Church of England embraced this and called themselves Quakers. The Quakers were much like the Essenes, believing in the Kingdom of God on Earth but rejecting the divinity of Jesus. I hail from a line of Quakers and Shakers, before my mother turned to Pentecostalism.

I never implied that Jesus was gardening or harvesting honey. It doesn't matter that people other than the Essenes ate honey, what matters is they were known for their honey. The fact that the Bible mentions Jesus asking for meat, not honey, but was given honey, is a clue. The author didn't have to mention that he was giving honey comb to eat unless he was trying to convey the message that the Essenes were present.

We know that Jesus was still weak and in pain from his ordeal because he asked Mary not to touch him, and he was hungry, asking for meat. He was in recovery.

You ought to consider a career in fiction, and that's not intended as an insult -- you've taken teeny pieces of reality and wrapped them up into a complete tale that is creative, I'll grant you that, but utterly impossible to reconcile with the facts as currently known. Never mind the silliness of Abraham's time machine, the Mighty Morphin' Essenes, who can be all things to all people, apparently, and Jesus the bee keeper

I never claimed Abraham to have traveled in time. Where do you get that? I said that Abraham traveled to Egypt to study the gnosis of the sacred teachings that the Egyptians held. Egypt was the center for higher learning and gnosis from before the time of Abraham. Abraham, Moses, Plato, Pythagoras, and Jesus all studied in Egypt. The center of gnosis.

Another indication of the higher knowledge and Pythagorean alignment of the Essenes was their calender. Their calender was based on solar movement and had 365 days. This indicates that they understood that the earth was a sphere and orbited the sun and that they were aware of and understood the concept of PI. This information was suppressed and the Book of Enoch, which cryptically contained this information, was omitted from the biblical texts, by the Catholic Church. For centuries, and many were were martyred for positing this mathematical and astronomical fact.

More on bees, honey and the Essenes.

The Bee in Religion

We have already touched upon the importance of the Anatolian city of Ephesus and its association with the Bee, including its name – the Bee, and its Bee goddess, Artemis. However, Ephesus was an important city in the development of Christianity as well, for not only did it house one of the seven churches of Asia, as listed in the ‘Book of Revelations’, but Paul spend several years there and the last house of the Virgin Mary is believed to have resided nearby. In fact, many believe the Gospel of John was written there. Yet perhaps the greatest revelation of all is that Artemis and her high priests of Ephesus were called Essenes, meaning King Bees.

The Essenes were a Jewish religious sect founded in the first century BC who flourished for roughly 300 years in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, and their base at Qumran produced one the important historical discoveries of the 20th century; the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were also Beekeepers, and the first association of the Essenes with Bees was in the 2nd century AD by a Greek traveler named Pausanias.

The Essenes, or King Bees as they were known, maintained the role of priestly officials and were the forefathers of Christianity. Even the Catholic Church referred to Jesus Christ as an Aetherial Bee, a name that symbolized the personification of the clear upper air breathed by the great Greek Olympians. In fact, the ‘Book of Luke’ (24, 41-43) confirms that the first food eaten by Christ after his resurrection was honey:

andrewgough.co.uk...

Double post!

Originally posted by windword
I remember sitting in church as a child and hearing the preacher talk about the Essenes, how Jesus and John the Baptist were Essenes and how the Essenes were the ones who moved the stone in front of Jesus' tomb. He was clothed as a "gardener," the Bible says, and the Essene gardeners wore bee keeper's veils. Jesus was disguised as a gardener. Why do you suppose that is?

How am I supposed to know what reason your church/pastor had for believing this? It certainly didn't come from the Bible -- it doesn't say that he was "disguised as a gardener", it says Mary thought he was the gardener, without any explanation for why.

At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). (John 20:14-16 NIV)

The disciplines on the road to Emmaus didn't recognize his either... was he dressed as a traveling salesman that time?

Now I have the support of others and the evidence to back up these claims.

I've still yet to hear any credible evidence to back up anything that you've said. Some guy's opinion on "Tripod.com" is not evidence.

Believing in the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead was not a requisite of Christianity until the Council of Nicea. Before that, many Christians rejected the mythology of the resurrection and the physical divinity of Jesus.

I am not aware of any orthodox Christians who rejected the resurrection of Jesus prior to Nicaea, which was about Christ's divine nature, not whether he was resurrected or not. Given the plethora of evidence in scripture that Christ would be resurrected, and that he was, it is rather silly to claim that the church imposed that notion three hundred years later.

The fact that the Bible mentions Jesus asking for meat, not honey, but was given honey, is a clue.

Luke 24 says that he asked for food, not meat, and was given fish and honey, not just honey. Rethink your clue.

I never claimed Abraham to have traveled in time. Where do you get that?

You claimed that Abraham was a Gnostic, a group that did not exist until 1,500 years after he died, so your only solution is a time machine. Frankly, it is insulting to great minds such as Plato or Aristotle that people like you imply that they were incapable of generating the deep ideas that they are credited with on their own.

I said that Abraham traveled to Egypt to study the gnosis of the sacred teachings that the Egyptians held.

Abram (not Abraham) travelled to Egypt to avoid a famine, didn't have a good time of it, and fled the country. There is nothing in the Bible that says he went there to study anything. The only thing that the Bible has to say about Jesus being in Egypt was when he was a child, again, unlikely to be there for schooling in Gnosticism.

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by windword
I remember sitting in church as a child and hearing the preacher talk about the Essenes, how Jesus and John the Baptist were Essenes and how the Essenes were the ones who moved the stone in front of Jesus' tomb. He was clothed as a "gardener," the Bible says, and the Essene gardeners wore bee keeper's veils. Jesus was disguised as a gardener. Why do you suppose that is?

How am I supposed to know what reason your church/pastor had for believing this? It certainly didn't come from the Bible -- it doesn't say that he was "disguised as a gardener", it says Mary thought he was the gardener, without any explanation for why.

At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). (John 20:14-16 NIV)

I never asked you about my pastor's reasoning but why Jesus was dressed in such a way that he was mistaken for a gardener. In Luke's account, Jesus isn't even seen at the tomb by the women.

The disciplines on the road to Emmaus didn't recognize his either... was he dressed as a traveling salesman that time?

Maybe....

Now I have the support of others and the evidence to back up these claims.

I've still yet to hear any credible evidence to back up anything that you've said. Some guy's opinion on "Tripod.com" is not evidence.

I have cited multiple sources of varying disciplines and doctrines, including Wikipedia, PBS, and Christian individual's and church's websites, metaphysical and even Wiccan websites, but you choose to focus on the one time I cited an article out of the metaphysical website, Tripod. Why are you judging the content of an article based on the site that is hosting the page? Would it be better received if it came from a GoDaddy site?

Believing in the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead was not a requisite of Christianity until the Council of Nicea. Before that, many Christians rejected the mythology of the resurrection and the physical divinity of Jesus.

I am not aware of any orthodox Christians who rejected the resurrection of Jesus prior to Nicaea, which was about Christ's divine nature, not whether he was resurrected or not. Given the plethora of evidence in scripture that Christ would be resurrected, and that he was, it is rather silly to claim that the church imposed that notion three hundred years later.

There was no "orthodox" Christianity until the Catholic Church got their hands in it. There were numerous different Christian cults, including many that were Gnostic in nature. These Gnositc Christians didn't believe in the physical resurrection. If fact, the resurrection was debated among many Christians of the day.

The fact that the Bible mentions Jesus asking for meat, not honey, but was given honey, is a clue.

Luke 24 says that he asked for food, not meat, and was given fish and honey, not just honey. Rethink your clue.

41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?
42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.

I never claimed Abraham to have traveled in time. Where do you get that?

You claimed that Abraham was a Gnostic, a group that did not exist until 1,500 years after he died, so your only solution is a time machine. Frankly, it is insulting to great minds such as Plato or Aristotle that people like you imply that they were incapable of generating the deep ideas that they are credited with on their own.

Plato had a teacher, Socrates. Socrates had 3 teachers. Pythagoras also had teachers. Mathematicians that they were, it is easy to understand why they would go to Egypt for the highest level of mathematical understanding of the day. We are still trying to unravel the mathematical significance of the pyramids.

I said that Abraham traveled to Egypt to study the gnosis of the sacred teachings that the Egyptians held.

Abram (not Abraham) travelled to Egypt to avoid a famine, didn't have a good time of it, and fled the country. There is nothing in the Bible that says he went there to study anything. The only thing that the Bible has to say about Jesus being in Egypt was when he was a child, again, unlikely to be there for schooling in Gnosticism.

Same person! Abram/Abraham A Brahman / A Brahm. Saul of Tarsus/Paul the Apostle.

Gnosis isn't a religion that just started, it is a way of learning and understanding the esoteric mysteries of the spiritual journey of the soul and its mystical relationship with matter. Today's version of Christianity is the only religion that denies the pre-existence and immortality of the soul. This is what gnosticism is and what you deny.

Originally posted by windword
Same person! Abram/Abraham A Brahman / A Brahm.

I know that it's the same person But when Abram was in Egypt, he was Abram, not Abraham. And, again, not there to study, scrounging around for food, by accounts.

Gnosis isn't a religion that just started, it is a way of learning and understanding the esoteric mysteries of the spiritual journey of the soul and its mystical relationship with matter. Today's version of Christianity is the only religion that denies the pre-existence and immortality of the soul. This is what gnosticism is and what you deny.

No, that isn't what Gnostics thought that the gnosis was -- Plato's immortality of the soul wasn't some hidden mystery. You need to stop interchanging "Gnostic", "gnosis" and "mystic" like they're all the same thing. They are not.

Bottom line -- Gnostics came AFTER Plato, regardless of the status of mystics, so Abraham needed a time machine if you want to claim he was a Gnostic. You want to say he was a mystic, knock yourself out, but without a time machine, he wasn't a Gnostic. Which is what this argument has been about for the last 200 pages or whatever.

reply to post by adjensen


Gnosis is the science of mysticism. They are inseparable. There is no distinct doctrine that all gnostics prescribe to. gnosticteachings.org...

It is true that Gnosticism was a movement that was popular with the advent of Plato's platonic solids and Pythagoras' theorems. The concept that were adopted by these Gnostics were not new.

The Gnostics supposedly had knowledge of God that was exclusive. They considered themselves superior to the average Christian. The Gnostics prior to Christianity taught that man is composed of body, soul, and spirit. The body and the soul are man's earthly existence, and were considered evil. Enclosed in mans soul, is the spirit, a divine substance of man. This “spirit” was asleep and ignorant and needed to be awakened. It could only be liberated by this special knowledge, that would be called by the modern term illumination. (This teaching is also found in Caballa.)
www.letusreason.org...

Abraham and Moses both were believed to have exclusive knowledge of of God, so much so that they believed that their offspring were the chosen "Children of Light." When God gave Moses the "Law," Moses saw that the people weren't ready or able to understand it or to follow it. So God made a separate set of laws that they could, called the 10 Commandment. The other laws were kept hidden, and only taught in secret to certain priests.

Rabbi Harvey Falk (in his Another Look at the Jewishness of Jesus), informs us that Moses trained thousands of disciples as Essenes. The Essenes themselves describe that event in one of their most important texts: The Essene Book of Moses. In that text, God, at Mount Sinai, gave Moses the Essene Communions on a stone tablet. It was hoped that all the Jewish people would follow the way of life described on that tablet. But when Moses descended Mount Sinai and met with the people, it was clear that the majority were not ready to follow the esoteric Essene teachings engraved on that tablet. Heavy of heart, Moses again climbed Mount Sinai and asked God for an exoteric, easier set of teachings for the masses who were not ready to receive the esoteric Essene teachings. ("esoteric" means "inner circle"; "exoteric" means "outer circle".) God responded by giving the famous Ten Commandments on a second stone tablet; those commandments would be for the masses. Moses was to keep the esoteric Essene Communions for "the Children of Light," for only they could understand them. We read:
"And the Lord called unto Moses out of the mountain, saying, 'Come unto me, for I would give thee the Law for thy people, which shall be a covenant for the Children of Light'.... And God spake all these words, saying, 'I am the Law, thy God, which hath brought thee out from the depths of the bondage of darkness.... I am the invisible law, without beginning and without end.... If thou forsake me, thou shalt be visited by disasters for generation upon generation. If thou keepest my commandments, thou shalt enter the Infinite Garden where stands the Tree of Life in the midst of the Eternal Sea.'"
At that point, God then gave Moses the Essene Communions on the first tablet. Besides the Communions, that tablet included a synopsis of the main Essene teachings, including vegetarianism: "Thou shalt not take the life of any living thing."
www.essene.org...

The Essene Book of Moses

Secret knowledge of the mystical workings of the universe were things that only the elite were allowed to study. It is my belief that the people who were hip to these teachings were, in actuality, gnostics. Yes there was a religious/philosophical movement that it's member called Gnosticism, but I contend that they weren't the first to "know" these teachings, and that they were the same teachings taught by Moses and Enoch and taught to Abraham.

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by adjensen

 

Gnosis is the science of mysticism.

I've told you before -- gnosis is a thing, it is not a tool (and it is most certainly not a science -- "science of mysticism" is an oxymoron.)

There is no distinct doctrine that all gnostics prescribe to. gnosticteachings.org...

From that web site, are you a student of Samael Aun Weor (see www.samaelaunweor.info...), the main guy of "gnosticteachings.org"?

reply to post by adjensen


You are not the authority of all things gnostic.

As you can see by the variety of sources that I have posted, I read all kinds of people's work, but I am not a student, per se, or follower of any one of them.

My gnosis has come to me in private revelation, I find like minds through my searches on the internet.

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by adjensen

 

You are not the authority of all things gnostic.

Since I know a fair bit more of actual ancient Gnosticism than you do, I'd say I'm a bit more of an authority than you are.

What you are following is "modern Gnosticism", which is closer to a New Age cult than it is to actual Gnosticism. Samael Aun Weor, for example, is the (dead) figurehead of a variety of cults. Just a friendly heads up.

If you would like to learn about ancient Gnosticism, I would highly recommend going right to the source, the Nag Hammadi library. Most of the books are fairly short and many are quite interesting.

My gnosis has come to me in private revelation, I find like minds through my searches on the internet.

That explains a lot, thanks. I have work tomorrow, so have a good night.

reply to post by windword

In Judaism, the highest priestly "caste "were the Levites

No, the highest priestly "caste" were the Kohens.

Kohen (or Kohain; Hebrew: כֹּהֵן‎‎, "priest", pl. כֹּהֲנִים Kohanim) is the Hebrew word for priest. Jewish Kohanim are traditionally believed and halachically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by itsallmaya


Thanks for that correction. It's interesting to discover. Can you tell me why the "Law" is called "Levitical" law and not "Kohenic" law?

reply to post by windword


I am not an expert in the field by any means and am humbled by your asking me. From my limited knowledge on the subject, this is how it is broken down:

Levi was one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Levi had three sons, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Both Moses and Aaron are direct descendants from Kohath. In Exodus, God entrusted Aaron with the Tabernacle and thus making him the first Priest (Kohan). So in retrospect, Moses and Aaron’s descendants are to be of a higher rank due to their elevated status within the tribe of Levi.

www.wordiq.com...

I did pose the question you asked to an Ask the Rabbi site and will get back to you on his answer about the terminology used. It was a good question and I am curious about the answer myself.

When a jewish male is called up to the bimah (alter) for an aliyah (reading from the bible), they are called in order of their lineage; namely Kohan, Levite, and Israelite. Fascinating that the jewish people can trace their lineage back to biblical times to their present last names. Example: Cohens = Kohan (descendants from Aaron and Moses). Another interesting fact is the lineage is followed from the mother's side. I found this tidbit interesting being that the religion is patriarchal.


Thank you for including me in your discussion.

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by itsallmaya

 

Thanks for that correction. It's interesting to discover. Can you tell me why the "Law" is called "Levitical" law and not "Kohenic" law?

I received a reply back from a rabbi regarding your question.

Here is what he said:

In Judaism the phrase Levitical Law does not really exist. The whole of the third book of the Torah, which is called Vayikra in Hebrew and which the Christians named Leviticus, is also called Torat Kohanim as it deals extensively with the Laws of the Offerings in the Tabernacle and the Temple.

Best regards,

Rabbi Reuven Lauffer

I often wonder if we get the correct understanding in terminology when translations are made, whether through Hebrew, Greek, or even Aramaic texts.

Where do you suppose Leviticus came from and how did the early Christians come up with it?

Originally posted by itsallmaya
Where do you suppose Leviticus came from and how did the early Christians come up with it?

Here's one claim:

The opening word of Leviticus is wayyiqra', which means "and he called." The Jews used this word as a title for Leviticus. They also called it "the law of the priests," "the book of the priests" and "the law of the offerings." These designations summarized the general content of the book, recognizing it as a work intended principally for the priesthood.

The Septuagint calls the book Leuitikon or Leueitikon, "pertaining to the Levites." The Latin Vulgate translated the Septuagint title as Liber Leviticus, "the book of Leviticus," which then became the book’s title in the English Bible. (Source)

My read of that is that in the Hebrew Bible, that book doesn't have a title, and is just referenced by the first word in it, while the Septuagint gave it a proper title. I also note that, in a number of Jewish sources, the book is also referred to by Leviticus (Example).