The Gospel of Philip: "Ignorance [Buddhism's avijja] is the mother of all evil [bad karma born of greed, hatred, and fear], not malice, not weakness, ignorance." That is why Buddhism and Gnosticism are classified as "wisdom traditions."
Woman, Thy Name is Ezer ["Rescuer"] The [Judeo-Christian] LORD God said, “It is not good for the man [Adam] to be alone. I will make a helper [ezer, rescuer, Eve] suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18). [Hey, LORD, but what about my first wife, Lilith? - Don't worry about her, Adam, my boy, I'll send her away to become a demoness and jealous eater of babies. That ought a teach her to mouth off. - Like your wife, Asherah, LORD, who I suppose was therefore my mom? - Don't ever bring her name up, Adam, or else! Anyway, my boy, we were better off alone just kicking it in this groovy garden planet we grew out of effort. Enjoy it before I throw you out. Unless you want a guy-pal to hang with. How about a Steve? - Whatever, LORD, as you see fit.]
Scholar R. D. Freeman observes that ezer (pronounced /et-sir/) is a combination of two words, one meaning “to rescue” or “to save,” the other meaning “to be strong.”
Theologian and author Dr. Walter Kaiser notes that ezer appears in the Old Testament often in parallel with words denoting strength and power. The word ezer does not mean that a woman should never be an assistant, an ally, a supporter.
There is nothing negative about a man or a woman helping someone or being called by the [God] to fulfill that role! It’s always a privilege to serve [the God] as we serve others. But it is also crucial that we understand that in the biblical definition of “helper,” the ezer can also fulfill a different role.
It seems that ezer has more to do with what helping looks like, because it doesn’t seem to suggest anything about hierarchy. In some instances, ezer is a word with military connotations; the ezer is also a warrior.
In this context, help comes from one who has the power and strength to provide it. Ezer is a verb as well as a noun, meaning “to defend, protect, surround and cherish.” The ezer is an amazing mix of strength, power, proactivity, and vulnerability. Source
— Adapted from Chapter One, “The Blueprint,” by J O Saxton
What is anyone to make of Adam and Eve on Earth (Eden)?
Of course, the story of Adam and Eve (the Adama or first iteration of humankind and its other half, Eva, the second woman after Lilith in Judaism) is deep and ludicrous.
It is deep that it must be hinting at something else, a truism set in a mythological tale, ludicrous if taken at face value after centuries of translation and misinterpretation.
For instance, there is no "apple," but Christians will swear there is. The "snake" is a humanoid reptilian. There is much here, likely inherited from Sumerian sources, spun by countless rabbis and sincere students to take some useful teaching from it.
Likewise, Buddhism has an origin myth -- not of how it "all" started but rather how human life on this earth began. Long, long ago, light beings (devas, which are a superior class of brahmas) alighted on this planet and over the course of time devolved and became coarser and coarser until we find ourselves the way we are today.
The full tale the Buddha told, almost certainly rooted in true things but explained simply in ways that are hard to take literally, is known as theAggañña Sutta or "A Buddhist Genesis," "On Beginnings."
In this analysis, the "light beings" (lit. "shining ones") are not humanoid beings who can fly alighting on earth by light itself reaching earth like photons from a faraway source. The author explains his motive for writing it:
The Aggañña Sutta of the "Long Discourses of the Buddha" (Dīgha Nikāya) is no satire or parody, as seen by some scholars. Drawing upon cosmology, Darwinism, psychology (Freud, Piaget, etc.), and linguistics, it paints a historically and scientifically accurate picture of devolution and evolution, going beyond the Big Bang. Sentient beings emerge [on earth], bringing with them the latent defilements of craving and passion, nourished by evolving plant life around them. Compatible with Western science, the breakthrough comes when Abhassara beings [from the Abhassara heaven or plane of existence] are taken to be photons, taking Abhassara in a literal etymological sense of "Hither-come-shining-arrow." However accurate this picture may be, the Buddha’s point, is that knowledge of the Dhamma is more important than anything else, explaining the title. More
Buddhist cosmology
Artists paint images of space for NASA
The Buddha described a universe consistent with the multiverse theory where there are countless worlds in all 10,000 directions, anywhere we can point. But all of these are classified into 31 Planes of Existence. One such plane is this world of "radiant ones."
So this sutra is saying this is the divine and sublime world we came from, not evolving from microbes in a primordial soup up to great apes or hominids (though that may be the origin of these bodies). We are fallen devas with every potential of becoming devas again, so in that sense we are divine beings in these sensual bodies.
Our karmas (actions, deeds, intentional acts) determine where we are subsequently reborn, just as previous karmas led to our rebirth on the human plane. We also have the potential to fall further down.
ābhassara: The "Radiant Ones" are a class of heavenly beings of the Fine-Material Sphere (rūpa-loka); cf. deva.
Abhassara is a brahma-world where radiant devas ("shining ones") live from whose bodies rays of light are emitted, like lightning.
This plane of existence belongs to the rūpaloka (the Fine-Material Sphere)
The Buddhist cosmos (universe/multiverse) is classified into three spheres: the Sensual Sphere (kama-loka), where earth and the sensual heavens are, as well as every other plane below the human world (animal, ghost, titan, hells), the Fine-Material Sphere, where more ethereal heavens are, and the Immaterial Sphere, where non-material worlds of pure mind are. This is an interesting distinction as it suggests that all that we call "form" or ultimate "materiality" (rupa) is coming from finer energy that is not yet form. All there is is called nama-rupa, "name and form" (mind and body). Form is of two general kinds, sensual and subtle (matter and light). And there is a sphere of worlds without form, only name or mind, a kind of Logos or Platonic "forms").
It is essential to note that they are brahmas, as this means they are neither male nor female but "god-goddesses" ("supremos") without sexual dimorphism like the lower devas of the Sensual Sphere.
Is there a "heaven"? - There are many!
This plane corresponds to the second meditative absorption or jhāna (Abhs. v.3; Compendium 138, n.4).
All being depend on nourishment: The devas living on this plane subsist on joy (pītibhakkha) (S.i.114.; DhA.iii.258; J.vi.55).
Their span of life is two aeons (kalpas, kappas or more loosely speaking two "eternities"), but there is no guarantee that a person reborn here may not later be reborn in some unfortunate destination/unhappy condition (A.ii.127; but see Abhs. v.6, where their lifespan is given as eight kappas), as is the case for all beings who have not yet attained the first stage of enlightenment.
From time to time these devas utter shouts of joy exclaiming, "Aho sukham, aho sukham!" This sound is said to be the best of sounds.
These devas are completely enveloped in ease (sukhena abhisaññā parisaññā) (A.iii.202; D. iii.219). Their plane forms the third station of consciousness (viññānatthiti). Like humans on the human plane, they are of uniform body, but their perceptions are diverse (ekattakāyā nānat-tasaññino) (A.iv.40, 401; D.ii.69; D.iii.253).
During the periods of the development of the world (evolutionary cycle), many beings are reborn in the Abhassara world, and they are then called the highest of the devas. Yet, even they change their condition (A.v.60).
In lists of devas (e.g., M.i.289) they are listed below the Appamānābhā and above the Subhā. More
Video shorts: Robot Chicken; Magnify explaining ezer, "rescuer" Eve; Billy Carson on the Sumerians; irate Irish lass on feminism overdoing it and crapping on the menfolk
J O Saxton, More Than Enchanting; Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary; Suwanda H. J. Sugunasiri, Dhamma Aboard Evolution; Agganna Sutta (DN 27, Digha Nikaya, Pali canon); G. P. Malalasekera (Dictionary of Pali Proper Names); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
El Castillo ("The Castle") pyramid towers over the ruins at Chichén Itzá, one of the largest Mayan cities, in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula (Donald Miralle/Getty Images/CNN).
Sacred sinkhole or cenote used to feed reptilians ("feathered serpents" in the underworld)
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Mexico's new Mayan Train sparks controversy
The ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula has long been associated with human sacrifice, with hundreds of bones unearthed from temples, a sacred sinkhole (cenote) and other underground caverns.
Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, touching the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico
"The gods" - Mayan plaster idol, Honduras, DEA, (V. Giannella, contributor via Getty Images)
The costly Mayan Train to some of Mexico's most touristic areas (France 24)
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Mexico, Maya (Oaxaca Ocho Venado)
A long-held misconception is that the victims were often young and female — an impression that has stuck in the contemporary imagination and become hard to dislodge even as more recent research has suggested that both men and women were among those sacrificed as well as children. A study published Wednesday (6/12/24) in the journal Nature adds unexpected detail to that more complex picture.
Archeologists discover an ancient Mayan city in the forest that's been hidden for 2K years
Yucatan pyramid in Chichen Itza, Mexico
The new analysis, based on ancient DNA from the remains of 64 people whom archaeologists believe had been ritually sacrificed and then deposited in an underground chamber, found the victims were all young boys, many of whom were closely related.
Mayan Calendar is not this simple Aztec
“There were two big moments of surprise here,” said lead study author Rodrigo Barquera, a researcher in the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
“We were thinking, influenced by traditional archaeology that we would find, a non-sex-biased burial or mostly girls,” he said.
“And the second one [was] when we found out that some of them were related, and there were two sets of twins.”
The lurid notion that the Maya only sacrificed young women or girls is largely a myth that originated from early and romantic accounts of Chichén Itzá’s sacred sinkhole, or cenote, said Prof. Rubén Mendoza, an archaeologist in the Department of Social Sciences, Behavioral, and Global Studies at California State University, Monterey Bay (csumb.edu). He wasn’t involved in the study but is an editor of a new book on ritual sacrifice in Mesoamerica [a name for Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, all of which are located in North America]. More
This year’s theme is BOOKS THAT MADE THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
Neighborhoods, whether real or imagined, conventional or boundless, changing for better or worse, bestow an identity. They give us a way to see things – a way to see the world.
A neighborhood’s more than a collection of houses on a network of streets.
A neighborhood could be defined as a collection of people with unique experiences, conditions, and desires, who together form something bigger and more deeply affecting.
It’s where people engender powerful stories together.
“It could be that the neighborhood, not the individual, is the essential unit of social change…when you think in neighborhood terms you see things previously rendered invisible.”
— David Brooks, New York Times
The debate between Ehrman and Evans along with Stewart's introductory framework make this book an excellent primer to the study of the historical Jesus, and readers will come away with a deeper appreciation for the ongoing quest to find out if there ever was a historical Jesus.
SYNOPSIS: This book features a learned and fascinating debate between two great Bible scholars about the New Testament as a source on Jesus. Prof. Bart Ehrman, an agnostic New Testament scholar, debates Craig Evans, an evangelical New Testament scholar, about the historical Jesus and what constitutes "history."
Their interaction includes such compelling questions as:
What are sound methods of historical investigation?
What are reliable criteria for determining the authenticity of an ancient text?
What roles do reason, inference, and interpretation play?
Readers of this debate -- regardless of their interpretive inclinations or biases -- are sure to find some confirmation of their existing beliefs, but they will surely also find an honest and well-informed challenge to the way they think about the historical Jesus.
Prof. Ehrman's new course, "The Scribal Corruption of Scripture: How the Bible Was Changed and How Readers May Never Know," delves into the heart of one of the most crucial questions for those interested in the Christian religion: How can we be sure we have the original writings of the New Testament?
Contents:
00:00:00 - The Scribal Corruption of Scripture
00:15:00 - Understanding Manuscript Evidence
01:05:24 - New Covenanters Before Jesus
01:22:24 - Dead Sea Scrolls as New Testament Basis
02:04:24 - Audience Questions
Description:
📜 Join a riveting exploration into the fascinating world of biblical scholarship as MythvisionTV presents an exclusive interview with two renowned scholars, Bart Ehrman and James Tabor. In this enlightening discussion, these distinguished experts shed light on the intriguing journey of how the New Testament came into existence.
🔍 Delve into the historical and textual complexities that surrounded the formation of the New Testament and discover the wealth of insights these scholars bring to the table.
Dr. Bart Ehrman, known for his groundbreaking work in New Testament studies, and James Tabor, a leading expert in early Christianity, share their expertise and perspectives in this thought-provoking conversation.
📚 Learn about the challenges, debates, and controversies that emerged during the compilation and canonization of the New Testament and gain a deeper understanding of the diverse texts that were considered for inclusion.
🧐 Whether one is a scholar, a student of theology, or simply someone curious about the origins of the Christian scriptures, this interview offers a unique opportunity to grasp the intricacies of the New Testament's creation.
🔔 Catch this chance to expand knowledge and engage with the fascinating history of the New Testament.
Like, share, and subscribe to MythvisionTV to stay updated on more enlightening conversations with experts in the field of biblical studies.
👥 Featuring:
Bart Ehrman: A leading New Testament scholar and author.
ABOUT: James Tabor is a distinguished historian of early Christianity.
📅 Stay tuned for more captivating discussions on MythvisionTV as we continue to explore the depths of religious history, archaeology, and biblical scholarship. Subscribe now to embark on an intellectual journey. #NewTestament #BartEhrman #JamesTabor #BiblicalScholarship #ReligiousHistory #MythvisionTV
New course: "The Scribal Corruption of Scripture: How the Bible Was Changed and How Readers May Never Know" delves into the heart of one of the most crucial questions for those interested in the Christian religion:
How can we be sure we have the original writings of the New Testament? In a world where the first copies made by the authors have been lost to time, and we possess only hand-written copies of copies, often created centuries later, this course explores the authenticity of the New Testament texts.
While these lectures draw inspiration from his best-selling book, there's no need to have read it to appreciate this course. Instead of simply rehashing the book's contents, he takes a novel approach to essential questions, introducing fresh examples and diverse arguments to delve into the complexities of deciphering the original New Testament writings from surviving manuscripts.
Support Mystery History II's fight against academic fallacies: YouTube finally re-monetized MH II. Thanks to everyone for help through this difficult time as YouTube becomes more draconian and the servant of government agencies that pay it to buy what it spies on viewers, all of the collected data we are giving away often without realizing it. Nineteen Eighty-Four is here, but our "telescreens" are screens of all kinds and the data we trade for services. Hold tight for some mind-blowing content this year from facebook.com/MysteryHisto.... Support on patreon.com/MysteryHistory.
CORRECTIONS: 1) YouTuber Jason Evers Herbert rightfully points out that Sir Austen Henry Layard should have been mentioned as one of the Assyriologists who contributed to the discovery of the Gilgamesh Tablets. Sir Layard began the excavations at the site, but because digs of this nature take so long, he returned to England; his assistant, Hormundz Rasam (mentioned in the video), eventually discovered the tablets. Also worth mentioning is that George Smith is the man who first translated the tablets.
The Un-united Native American Nations of the USA that once fully populated this land
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Native American revolution (tumblr)
Native American leaders and a U.S. State Department official are urging a French auction house to call off a sale of sacred art and artifacts.
The auction is scheduled for next Monday, at the Eve auction house in Paris. Items for sale include a war shirt from a Plains Indian tribe, possibly Lakota, featuring hair from human scalps, as well as an Acoma Pueblo war shield.
The auction also includes numerous ceremonial objects with religious significance to the Hopi tribe. The items in question are so sacred to the Hopi that members of the tribe object to having them photographed or even described, as KJZZ reporter Laurel Morales explained for the Code Switch blog in 2013.
Back then, the items — which the Hopi call "Katsina friends" — were in the news for the same reason they're popping up now: A French auction house was planning to sell them.
Then, and now, the Hopi consider such a sale a profound act of sacrilege.
In the U.S., it's illegal to sell ceremonial Native American items. But France is not bound by U.S. laws on the matter, as The Guardian reports. It's a point of diplomatic friction between the two allies.
The "Trail of Tears" is merely one atrocity in an ongoing genocide (Max D. Standley).
Tribal officials, the State Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico gathered to discuss the pending auction.
The Associated Press reports that the governor of Acoma Pueblo, the tribe whose war shield is up for auction, has reached out to Secretary of State John Kerry and asked him to intervene with French authorities. The wire service continues:
"[Kurt] Riley made an emotional appeal at Tuesday's meeting, seeking the return of the Acoma Pueblo ceremonial shield to the centuries-old village in New Mexico. Tribal leaders said it was illegally taken from the community atop a mesa southwest of Albuquerque, and that by pueblo law, it is a sacred item that should never have been removed.
"Through tears, he said seeing cultural items go up for sale has caused the pueblo emotional harm.
"'How it left the pueblo, we don't know. However its mere existence outside the pueblo tells us an event occurred in violation of Acoma law,' Riley said. 'A black market for these cultural items has emerged in the United States.'"
Emergency meeting (Andrew Harnik/AP)
At Tuesday's meeting, Bradley Marshall and Leilani Pole of the Hoopa Valley Tribal Council described the history of their tribe's devastation by U.S. laws.
[There was] pilfering of their sacred items "by the wagonloads," headed to museums and collectors against the tribe's will.
"Over the years, we've searched high and low for objects that are part of our community," Marshall said. "When we create [ceremonial] objects, we're in prayer.
We're breathing life [prana] into the object. And so these objects are not just a mere object in some fancy collection, these objects are living beings to us. These objects are a part of our family...these objects have a sacred purpose in our community."
An object from the Hoopa tribe is set to be auctioned on Monday; the auction house estimates it is worth thousands of euros.
"We hope one day this member of our community can return to us," Marshall said.
The U.S. government sides with the tribes. Mark Taplin of the Department of State said:
"In the absence of clear documentation and the consent of the tribes themselves, these objects shouldn't be sold. This type of commercialization of Native American cultural property is fundamentally wrong."
The French auction also is to include jewelry from the ancient Hohokam tribe and artifacts from Asia, Africa and elsewhere in the Americas.
Indigenous cultural items can be big money in France, the Guardian explains:
"France has a long history, tied to its colonial past in Africa, of collecting and selling tribal artifacts. The Paris-based 'Indianist' movement in the 1960s celebrated indigenous cultures, and interest in tribal art in Paris was revived in the early 2000s following the highly lucrative sales in Paris of tribal art owned by late collectors André Breton and Robert Lebel."
"Does it matter if Moses was hallucinating when he encountered the burning bush?" asks Pete Tobias.
In the third chapter of the biblical book of Exodus there is an account of how Moses hears the voice of God talking to him via a bush that "burned but was not consumed."
According to Benny Shanon, professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the explanation for Moses' experience in the wilderness is that he was under the influence of an extract from an acacia tree [in conjunction with a bush known as Syrian rue] that altered his perception of time and made him believe that God was speaking to him through the burning bush.
Did Moses see harmaline, the psychoactive alkaloid in the "burning bush" Syrian rue? It sounds reasonable. A deva can easily come through as a plant-spirit-being like any of the many, many "gods" and "messenger angels" (gandharvas) we read about in the Judeo-Christian Bible.
The book The Teachings of Don Juan is divided into two sections. The first, The Teachings, is a first-person narrative that documents Castaneda's initial interactions with don Juan. He speaks of his encounters with Mescalito (a teaching spirit inhabiting all peyote plants)... More]
Is this theory -- that Moses was high on drugs rather than actually encountering a manifestation of God [theopany] -- one that rocks the faith of believers to the core?
No doubt we shall hear cries of outrage from those who see themselves as guardians of the [mystical] revealed scriptures that, for many, underpin our civilization.
Egypt, Africa: baby Moses rescued from the Nile (European art by Nicolas Poussin, 1638).
My character was so stoned (Charlton Heston)
But it's as good an explanation as any for what is a personal account of that biblical experience:
A bush in the wilderness, burning but not consumed by the fire -- Moses was on his own (apart from a few of his father-in-law's sheep), hot, weary and, well, stoned.
Dr. Carlos Castaneda knows.
In the context of the story, Moses was also a fugitive, on the run from a country where his people were enslaved, where he was wanted for the murder of an Egyptian, and where he had been brought up in the ruler's palace.
And what about that traumatic experience of being put in a basket in a river as an infant? With that kind of past, who could blame him for wanting to take mind-altering drugs? Or at least reflecting on his life...
In the end, no one except Moses can say what Moses saw. Those who believe that he then went on to write the first five books of the Bible (one of the titles for them in Jewish tradition is, after all, The Five Books of Moses) will say that the burning bush account represents an accurate first-hand report of what happened, based on Moses' memory.
But we know that memory is a bit dodgy (perhaps an effect of those drugs?) -- Mount Sinai, where the Ten Commandments [similar in many ways to Buddhism'sEight and Ten Precepts] were received ("imaginings of a people in an altered state of awareness," according to Shanon), is given a different name (Horeb) when Moses retells the story in Deuteronomy. More
Meditation is a better way to see auras, psychedelic colors, and energy in plants.
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Support Mystery History II's fight against academic fallacies: YouTube finally re-monetized MH II. Thanks to everyone for help through this difficult time as YouTube becomes more draconian and the servant of government agencies that pay it to buy what it spies on viewers, all of the collected data we are giving away often without realizing it. Nineteen Eighty-Four is here, but our "telescreens" are screens of all kinds and the data we trade for services. Hold tight for some mind-blowing content this year from facebook.com/MysteryHisto.... Support on patreon.com/MysteryHistory.
What do two of the most popular stories in the world -- Star Wars and Noah's Ark -- have in common? Special guest narration by "Creationist Cat" (user/creation...). Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI: ancienttexts.org/library/m... The two Biblical flood stories of Noah, side by side: faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cflo... The Epic of Atrahasis: faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Atra... The Sumerian flood epic (of Ziusudra) livius.org/fa-fn/flood/flo... (chart at the bottom of link). Noah cartoon footage: youtube.com... Gilgamesh cartoon footage (actually another Noah cartoon): youtube.com...
We're breathing life [prana] into the object. And so these objects are not just a mere object in some fancy collection, these objects are living beings to us. These objects are a part of our family...these objects have a sacred purpose in our community."
According to Benny Shanon, professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the explanation for Moses' experience in the wilderness is that he was under the influence of an extract from an acacia tree [in conjunction with a bush known as Syrian rue] that altered his perception of time and made him believe that God was speaking to him through the burning bush.
