Enoch

[Thomas]

And you're entitled to your opinions, but please supply references.

OK. We agree Salome is the wife of Zebedee, mother of James and John. The tradition says she's one of the three daughters of Anna, but that's just tradition, without any secure foundation.

But I see no evidence there is a Salome, sister of Jesus?

Acts 1: 14; It was the custom of the disciples after the death of Jesus, to meet and worship with the mother and family of Jesus; [His sisters, his father Cleophas/Alpheaus/Joseph the son of Heli, his half brother Simeon, etc].

LOL, rather a lot of eisegesis going on here. The most common verse is:
"with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren."
or:
"with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers."
Nothing more than that. 'adelphos' can be read as biological brother, brother-in-spirit, friend, etc. No mention of Jesus' father, btw.

Mary the Mother of young John, who had been surnamed "MARK," which, according to Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible, means, "Hammer, or the Hammerer," and John surnamed "Mark," is associated with young John, who Jesus had surnamed "Man of Thunder." [Thor]

Careful. Mark is commonly derived from Mars, the Roman God of War. Not sure about 'the hammerer' ...

And Jesus refers to both brothers, "and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17. In that instance, the derivation is Hebrew, and means someone of a fiery and zelous nature – although He might just be teasing them about their Roman name.

It is disputed today, if there ever was a 'Herod Philip II,' many scholars today, are of the firm opinion that there was no Philip1, and Philip2, but only Philip the son of Herod who ruled from Bethsaida, but please supply evidence if you believe there was.

OK. Well my evidence is a quick wiki. Never the gold standard, but a pointer – the lineage and family tree of Philip of Herod seems well attested. I see no sign of scholarly dispute?

It was to Philip of Bethsaida that the Greeks came, when seeking an audience with Jesus.

Yes. A different Philip.

According to the Encyclopedia Britt, ‘Philip of Bethsaida, the son of ‘Herod the Great’ was born in 20 BC of a young Jewess by the name of ‘Cleopatra’ (A Macedonian name)

Where's that? I check EB and I get:
1: Philip the Tetrarch or Herod Philip born 20BC
2: Philip the Apostle, born Bethsaida of Galilee

Philip [Philadelphus] the son of Cleopatra, married his niece Herodias the daughter of his half brother Aristobulus, one of two sons of Miriamne, who were murdered by Herod the Great.

I think you've followed a common error, not, I think, in the EB.
Herod II (27BC-33/34 AD) was a son of Herod the Great and Mariamne II, the daughter of Simon Boethus the High Priest.

"Some writers call him Herod Philip I (not to be confused with Philip the Tetrarch, whom some writers call "Herod Philip II")
(source wiki)

According to Josephus: Jewish Antiquities (Book XVIII, Chapter 5, 4):
"Herodias, [...], was married to Herod, the son of Herod the Great by Mariamne, the daughter of Simon the High Priest. [Herod II and Herodias] had a daughter, Salome..."

Herod II to was second in the line of succession, but following Antipater's execution (4BC) for plotting to poison his father, moved him to first in line as eldest surviving son, but his mother's knowledge of the plot and failure to stop it led to his being dropped from this position in Herod the Great's will just days before he died. He lived in Rome with Herodias as a private citizen, surviving his father's deathbed purges. Herod Antipas and his other remaining half-brothers shared Judaea amongst them.
(wiki)

According to Josephius (ibid) "Herodias took upon her to confound the laws of our country, and divorced herself from her husband while he was alive, and was married to Herod Antipas"

+++

As you can see, it's important to follow references and keep them in mind, or you spin off into all sorts of assumptions and errors.https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Philip-the-Apostle
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Philip-the-Apostle

 

[The Anointed]

OK. We agree Salome is the wife of Zebedee, mother of James and John. The tradition says she's one of the three daughters of Anna, but that's just tradition, without any secure foundation.

But I see no evidence there is a Salome, sister of Jesus?

Salome is indeed the wife of Zebedee, mother of James and John and sister of Jesus. She's one of the three Grand-daughters of Anna/Hanna, the mother of Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers and sisters?

LOL, rather a lot of eisegesis going on here. The most common verse is:
"with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren."
or:
"with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers."
Nothing more than that. 'adelphos' can be read as biological brother, brother-in-spirit, friend, etc. No mention of Jesus' father, btw.

Glad you introduced the fact that 'Adolphos' can be read as biological brother, brother-in-spirit, friend, etc, just as 'Adelphi' can be read as biological sister, sister in spirit, sister-in-law etc, in relation to the two women at the cross by the name Mary, 'Mary the mother of Jesus and her sister Mary Magdalene.'

Careful. Mark is commonly derived from Mars, the Roman God of War. Not sure about 'the hammerer' ...

Mark is a traditionally masculine name with roots in the Bible as well as Latin and Swedish. It can mean "polite," "shining," "warring," or "hammer."

Joseph the Levite from Cyprus was later surnamed 'Barnabas,' by the apostles, he has a sister who has a son, his nephew named Mark, COL 4, 10.

Paul and Barnabas were appointed as missionaries to Asia Minor. It was in this capacity, and taking with them, young John who was surnamed “Mark,” who was the adopted son of Mary the half-sister of Joseph who had been surnamed Barnabas, they visited Cyprus and some of the principal cities of Pamphylia, Pisidia and Lycaonia (Acts 13:14).

After they had returned to Antioch from the Jerusalem council and after spending some time there (15:35), Paul asked Barnabas to accompany him on another journey (15:36). Barnabas wished to take John surnamed Mark along, but Paul did not, as he had left them on the former journey (15:37-38). The dispute ended by Paul and Barnabas taking separate routes. Paul took Silas as his companion and journeyed through Syria and Cilicia; while Barnabas took John surnamed Mark to visit Cyprus and the land of Pamphylia, where today, in the town of Ephesus, the grave sites of Mary the [Half-sister] of Joseph/Barnabas and adopted mother or grandmother to John the beloved disciple, can still be visited.

ανεψιος [anepsios] appears only the one time in the New Testament: In Young’s Literal Translation its meaning is “Nephew,” Salute you doth Aristarchus, my fellow-captive, and Marcus, the nephew of Barnabas, In the King James Version, it is translated “Sister’s son.” “Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas.” John surnamed Mark was the son, adopted son, or grandson, of Mary the sister to Joseph who was surnamed Barnabas.

When you speak of the tradition without any secure foundation, I assume you are referring to the tradition of the Roman Church of Emperor Constantine, who claim that the wise men were at the manger in Bethlehem in 6 B,C,. shortly after birth of Jesus, when the scriptures reveal that the wise men didn’t even arrive in Israel until 4 B.C., just before the death of Herod the Great.

When you speak of the tradition without any secure foundation, I assume you are referring to the tradition of the Roman Church of Emperor Constantine, who claim that the wise men were at the manger in Bethlehem in 6 B,C,. shortly after birth of Jesus, when the scriptures reveal that the wise men didn’t even arrive in Israel until 4 B.C., just before the death of Herod the Great.

Helena was the mother of Emperor Constantine, who established his Universal church in 325 AD, some 300 years after Jesus had established his apostolic church in Jerusalem.

Constantine appointed his mother Helena as Augusta and gave her unlimited access to the imperial treasury in order to locate the relics of early Judeo-Christian times. And the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem of Judaea, was originally financed and built by Helena the mother of Emperor Constantine, who have both been deified as saints by the Universal church that was established in 325 AD.

According to the traditions of the Church of Constantine, Mary and her child [supposedly] rested in a cave, called the Milk Grotto, near the place where today stands the Church of the Nativity. There, (Or so it is said) their supposed Virgin Mary breastfed the child Jesus to keep it quiet, while the soldiers of Herod were slaughtering the innocent children in Bethlehem of Judaea. A drop of milk [supposedly] fell on a stone of the cave, and the stone was supposed to have magically turned white. During the early centuries, this white rock, diluted in water, took the appearance of milk and was used as a religious relic.

Both Christians and Muslims believe scrapings from the stones in the grotto boost the quantity of a mother’s milk and enhance fertility. Mothers usually mixed it in their drinking water; would-be mothers placed the MAGICAL rock under their mattress.

There is also an old tradition which originated from the universal church of Constantine that identifies this as the burial site of the young victims of Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents. There is a chapel dedicated to them in the caves beneath the Church of St. Catherine. None of this can be historically or biblically supported.

According to the traditions handed down by their saint Helena, it was in 6 BC, in the first few days after the birth of the child that the wise men paid homage to the baby Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem of Judaea, and immediately after the wise men were supposed to have left, Herod’s men began killing all the male children in that district who were two-years and below, while Mary supposedly hid in the milk Grotto, after which, Joseph and Mary with the baby Jesus, are said by Helena to have fled from Bethlehem of Judaea into the land of Egypt, where, according to Helena, they must have remained for two years, until Herod died in 4 BC.

If any of the above is true, then that would mean that Mary could not have presented Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem and performed the ceremony of purification according to the time prescribed by the law of Moses, until Jesus was over two-years old and after the death of Herod the great in 4 B.C. when they were supposed to have returned from Egypt.

And still today every Christmas. at every Super Market and everywhere, your children will see the Nativity Scene with the wise men at the manger. Do you explain to them the truth or allow them to remain under the deception of the church.

As you can see, it's important to remain true to the scriptures.

 

[Thomas]

Salome is ... one of the three Grand-daughters of Anna/Hanna, the mother of Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers and sisters?

Is this bibleserachers again?

When you speak of the tradition without any secure foundation, I assume you are referring to the tradition of the Roman Church of Emperor Constantine...

No. There's no such thing as the Roman Church of the Emperor Constantine. It's a web meme, a sure sign of prejudice and poor scholarship.

As you can see, it's important to remain true to the scriptures.

Why do you place such store in Robert Mock MD?

 

[The Anointed]

No. There's no such thing as the Roman Church of the Emperor Constantine. It's a web meme, a sure sign of prejudice and poor scholarship.

It was Emperor Constantine who decided to personally summon all the opposing and quarrelling leaders of all the different bodies of Christian beliefs to the first ever ‘World Council’. The date was 325 AD, in the town of Nicaea, where Constantine was to resolve the bitter source of contention between those differing bodies of beliefs. After Constantine the Judge, ‘HAD MADE HIS DICISION’ on which belief the Christians should follow, he urged all council delegates to sign the revised formula as a statement of faith on which all Christians should in the future agree.

And you have the audacity to say that the post 325 AD Roman church is not the church established by Emperor Constantine.

From the book--- “Jesus The Evidence,” by Ian Wilson. P. 144. “The Middle Ages, for the Jews at least, began with the advent to power of Constantine the Great. He was the first Roman Emperor to issue laws which radically limited the rights of the Jews as citizens’ of the Roman Empire, a right conferred on them by Caracalla in 212. As Constantine’s church grew in power it influenced the emperors to limit further the civil and political rights of the Jews.

But if times were again difficult for the Jews, for the Christian Gnostics and other fringe groups they were impossible. The books of Arius and his sympathizers were ordered to be burnt, and a reign of terror proclaimed for all those who did not conform with the new official Christian line decided upon by Emperor Constantine.

:Understand now by this present statute, Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulinians, you who are called Cataphrygians. . . . with what a tissue of lies and vanities, with what destructive and venomous errors, your doctrines are inextricably woven! We give you warning . . . .Let none of you presume, from this time forward, to meet in congregations. To prevent this, we command that you be deprived of all the houses in which you have been accustomed to meet . . . . and that these house’s, should be handed over immediately to the catholic/ i.e. universal church.

Within a generation, hardly leaving a trace of their existence for posterity, the great majority of these groups simply died away as successive Christian emperors reiterated the policies that Constantine had pursued.”

“That which was spoken by ‘THE PROPHET’ was fulfilled:

Zechariah 11:12-17 New King James Version (NKJV) Then I said to them, “If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain.” So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver.

And the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord for the potter. 14 Then I cut in two my other staff, Bonds, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

15 And the Lord said to me, “Next, take for yourself the implements of a foolish shepherd. 16 For indeed I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are cut off, nor seek the young, nor heal those that are broken, nor feed those that still stand. But he will eat the flesh of the fat and tear their hooves in pieces.

17 “Woe to the worthless shepherd,
Who leaves the flock!
A sword shall be against his arm
And against his right eye;
His arm shall completely wither,
And his right eye shall be totally blinded.”

BTW, You ask, why do I place such store in Robert Mock MD.

Because the bible states that Heli was the biological grandfather of Jesus and Robert Mock MD also states that Alexander Helios AKA Heli is the biological grandfather of Jesus, but If my memory serves me right, I believe your spiritual guides say that Joachim married Hanna and he is the father of Mary the mother of Jesus.

I leave it to you to guess why I put more stock in Robert Mock MD than I do in your spiritual guides.

 

[The Anointed]

I think you've followed a common error, not, I think, in the EB.
Herod II (27BC-33/34 AD) was a son of Herod the Great and Mariamne II, the daughter of Simon Boethus the High Priest.

Because he was of Idumaean/Hittite/Macedonian descent, and hated by the Jews, he attempted to appease them by marrying a Jewess by the name Mariamne, a descendant of the Maccabees family of Jewish patriots, whom he actually loved. Mariamne, who had insisted that her brother be appointed high priest, was the daughter of Salome=Alexandra, an heir from the old ruling Hasmonaean line and she is not to be confused with the niece of Herod Antipas, whose name is THOUGHT to have been ‘Salome’ the daughter of Herodias the wife of Philip the son of Herod the Great and Cleopatra, who ruled from Bethsaida the hometown of Peter and his brother Andrew and who was the half-brother to Herod Antipas.

The niece of Herod Antipas, being the daughter to Philip the half-brother to Herod Antipas.

With the support of the Queen of Egypt ‘Cleopatra’, a close friend of the Jewess Salome = Alexandra, (The should have been queen) of the Hasmonaean line which was defeated by Pompey, Salome attempted to have Herod ousted in favour of her grandsons, Alexander Helios and Aristobulus, finally ‘Herod the Great,’ had Mariamne, her brother and her two sons, plus her mother and grandfather all killed, although one of Mariamne’s grandsons, ‘Herod Agrippa 1’ the son of Aristobulus, and brother to Herodias the wife of Philip of Bethsaida survived to rule in Palestine from about the late 41 AD to 44 AD.

 

[Thomas]

It was Emperor Constantine who decided to personally summon all the opposing and quarrelling leaders of all the different bodies of Christian beliefs to the first ever ‘World Council’.

Immediately prior, the empire was divided – Licinius ruling in the east and Constantine the west. Constantine was consolidating his power and in 323AD defeated Licinius and won the eastern empire – and the Arian controversy with it.

His first move was to shut it down. He sent his theological advisor, Bishop Hosius of Cordova, to Alexandria, armed with a letter exhorting both sides to settle their dispute and restore the internal harmony of the church.

They ignored him.

Constantine then decided, on Hosius' suggestion, to call a council, along the lines of a senate. He offered to pay the travel expenses of some 1800 bishops and their retinues to come to Nicaea, near Constantinople where he was establishing the seat of his greater empire.

In the end, less than 300 bishops attended. Noisy as it was, it was an Eastern dispute. Only a relative handful from the west and beyond the borders of the empire.

The date was 325AD, in the town of Nicaea, where Constantine was to resolve the bitter source of contention between those differing bodies of beliefs.

Which, sadly, the Council failed to do.

After Constantine the Judge, ‘HAD MADE HIS DICISION’ on which belief the Christians should follow...

Not quite. Constantine deferred to the bishops. The discussions, sometimes heated, went on for a month. By the end of the council the Arian position was in a minority.

Constantine's theological adviser, Hosius of Cordoba, was opposed to the Arians, and no doubt because of his position he was respected and listened to, but the evidence is clear that the council was between the bishops, it wasn't Constantine telling people what to believe.

He urged all council delegates to sign the revised formula as a statement of faith on which all Christians should in the future agree.

Yes. He wanted peace in his empire. He didn't particularly care what they signed up to.

And you have the audacity to say that the post 325 AD Roman church is not the church established by Emperor Constantine.

LOL, 1800 bishops! The Church was well established by the time of Constantine.

The history from then on is of successive emperors trying, and failing, to dictate Church doctrine. Popes were kidnapped. A Pope died at the hands of an emperor. Discussions were forbidden, but went on regardless. Tragically schisms split the church which was what the emperors dreaded, and could not avoid. I still can't quite explain some of the later Christological disagreements with the Egyptian Coptic church without referring to notes, and I dare say 99% of Christians then or now can't understand what it was all about.

It's not our finest hour, but what shines through is the simple fact that the Church refused to be dictated to.

So no, not Constantine's, not by a long shot.

From the book--- “Jesus The Evidence,” by Ian Wilson

The man who's reading of the evidence tells him Jesus is a charismatic hypnotist?

The books of Arius and his sympathizers were ordered to be burnt, and a reign of terror proclaimed for all those who did not conform with the new official Christian line decided upon by Emperor Constantine.

Despots love ordering stuff burnt. And still it gets squirrelled away.

The loss of texts usually comes about for far more mundane reasons ... the reproduction of texts was a slow and expensive business.

But yes, Jews and others suffered. Was it a 'reign of terror'? Probably not. There's been worse persecutions. But I'm not exonerating Constantine or any of his ilk, just that populist writers do like to exaggerate.

But the Church? The dispute continued despite Constantine's wishes. His own kinsman, Eusebius of Nicomedia, kept the flame alive long after Arius, and nothing happened to him, in a family noted for bloodletting among its own. Constantine was even baptised by him, so clearly he did not place too much store by the theological question. And his successors, influenced by Eusebius, were Arian.

BTW, You ask, why do I place such store in Robert Mock MD. Because the bible states that Heli was the biological grandfather of Jesus and Robert Mock MD also states that Alexander Helios AKA Heli is the biological grandfather of Jesus..

The Bible says Heli – It appears to me that Robert Mock invented 'Alexander Helios III' and his grandiose biography.

I believe your spiritual guides say that Joachim married Hanna and he is the father of Mary the mother of Jesus.

Well, once again you believe in error. I said the tradition says ... the tradition says Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the Gospels. The spiritual guides say the sacred scribe is unknown ...

It was my spiritual guides who led me to see that Arius was not quite so bad a man as history paints him, and that Athanasius was not quite so saintly, but that is based on a balanced reading of the available materials, and I favour sensible scholarly opinion over "opinions so outré and hard to defend on rational grounds" (to quote Henry Chadwick, then Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, from his critique of Wilson's book.)

 

[Thomas]

Because ...

Ah, the error I was referring to was your confounding Philip, son of Herod, with Philip the Apostle, who came from Bethsaida.

If you search 'Philip of Bethsaida' you invariably come up with the apostle, not the Herodian, that was all.

 

[The Anointed]

Ah, the error I was referring to was your confounding Philip, son of Herod, with Philip the Apostle, who came from Bethsaida.

If you search 'Philip of Bethsaida' you invariably come up with the apostle, not the Herodian, that was all.

Jesus called Philip the husband of Herodias, who had been a disciple of John the Baptist’s who was later beheaded for continuously accusing Herod Antipas for sleeping with Philip's wife.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Constantine then decided, on Hosius' suggestion, to call a council, along the lines of a senate. He offered to pay the travel expenses of some 1800 bishops and their retinues to come to Nicaea, near Constantinople where he was establishing the seat of his greater empire.

In the end, less than 300 bishops attended. Noisy as it was, it was an Eastern dispute. Only a relative handful from the west and beyond the borders of the empire.

Well, what is a bishop..

Around the end of the 1st century, the church's organization became clearer in historical documents. In the works of the Apostolic Fathers, and Ignatius of Antioch in particular, the role of the episkopos, or bishop, became more important or, rather, already was very important and being clearly defined. While Ignatius of Antioch offers the earliest clear description of monarchial bishops (a single bishop over all house churches in a city) he is an advocate of monepiscopal structure rather than describing an accepted reality. To the bishops and house churches to which he writes, he offers strategies on how to pressure house churches who do not recognize the bishop into compliance.
Bishop - Wikipedia

The bishops in the 2nd century are defined also as the only clergy to whom the ordination to priesthood (presbyterate) and diaconate is entrusted: "a priest (presbyter) lays on hands, but does not ordain." (cheirothetei ou cheirotonei).

At the beginning of the 3rd century, Hippolytus of Rome describes another feature of the ministry of a bishop, which is that of the "Spiritum primatus sacerdotii habere potestatem dimittere peccata": the primate of sacrificial priesthood and the power to forgive sins.
Bishop - Wikipedia

..so, these bishops were a hierachial structure of governance, and they alone had the power "to forgive sins".

Which, sadly, the Council failed to do.

No, because the laity presumably didn't want to be dictated to by corrupt elite.

Yes. He wanted peace in his empire. He didn't particularly care what they signed up to.

More or less, yes .. it was all about authority.

 

[Thomas]

..so, these bishops were a hierachial structure of governance, and they alone had the power "to forgive sins".

According to the commission by Christ in John 20:23.

No, because the laity presumably didn't want to be dictated to by corrupt elite.

Apart from complaining about Arius in the first place, the laity had very little to do with it. Really it was Eusebius and Constantine's successors who kept the controversy going.

Christological debate had been going on for decades in theological circles. Arius made it public by preaching and rousing public support, although his congregation complained to the bishop that his teaching was herectical .

That it became a public matter was what annoyed Constantine, it was disturbing the peace in Alexandria. Disputes between scholars was fine, as long as it remained in scholarly circles.

 

[Thomas]

Remaining @muhammad_isa v @Thomas moved to ... (I can hear you yawning, you know) ... Arianism again thread.