Re: Theos-World Jerry- History, Mythology and the resurrection of the dead
Apr 02, 2006 08:50 PM
by Jerry Hejka-Ekins
Of course, a stange thing occurs the further that we go back in
recorded history. History begins to convert to mythology, with no
fine line inbetween the two.
I'm not sure how to understand your meaning here. If you are talking
about the notion of history in the modern sense, it really began around
the time of the Renaissance. It became a fad to dig up old Roman
statues and use them in their gardens for decorations. So, people began
to become interested in who the statues represented, when did they live,
and what their lives were like. The most famous work to come out of this
tradition was Gibbon's multi volume work, the Decline and Fall of the
Roam Empire. Historical writings based upon archeology began in the
1840s when a few wealthy hobbyists began looking for ancient treasures
and mythological cities. Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered Troy was
the most famous of these. The beginning of scientific archeology was
motivated by a desire to more clearly understand the Biblical
narratives--particularly to prove that the Bible is indeed an historical
account. The movement instead has tended to backfire, beginning with
Ernest Renen's controversial Vie de Jesus which attempted to put Jesus
in an historical and political setting based upon the archeology of the
time. The research also inspired a school of "Higher Criticism" which
asked hard questions and threw doubt upon the Bible as an historical work.
The so-called historical works of the medieval period, were usually
hagiographic accounts of kings and saints. The accounts are written
according to formulas. Butler's Lives of the Saints is a famous
example of this.
As we move back into the classical period, we find that the Romans are
probably the only group that thought very nearly like us. But even
Suetonius' Annals of Rome, is more in the form of still current oral
memories. Plutarch's lives is more interested in communicating moral
and philosophical lessons than an exacting account of history.
Herodotus also moves back and forth between oral history, personal
observations and moralizing.
There is also a tremendous body of literature that extends back into
earliest antiquity. Some of it takes the form of folk tales, legends,
fabula, and mythology. The ladder is found in all cultures of the
world, has a distinct structure, and was universally held as sacred.
This is because modern phonetic-based
languages descended from picture-based alphabets containing
thousands of visual symbols. An ancient Oriental alphabet might
contain 1000 different characters, for example, as opposed to a mere
26 characters in phonetic english. Each syllable represented a
picture prior to phonetics.
Actually, if I remember my linguistic classes correctly, syllables
always represented sounds. Chinese and classical Japanese characters
were modified glyphs which represented images which were associated with
sounds. The Egyptian Hieroglyphs represented associations of images and
sounds. For instance, the appearances of certain snakes in a cartouch
would approximately represent our modern "S" sound--like the hissing of
a snake.
And before ancient alphabets concisely contained 1000 letters,
languages first existed as heiroglyphs in caves and tombs. (For
example, in Egyptian pyramids). The walls of caves and tombs
recorded the life histories of the dead, as documented by ancient
news reporters who weren't that artistically acute.
Actually the tombs were decorated by a group of specialists in that
field--sort of priests-scribes who formed the hieroglyphs and paintings
according to an ancient set of guide lines. They were very precise in
their exposition. It was only with the reign of Amenhotep XIV that the
style was changed--and then, only temporarily. The painted scenes were
mostly about an idealistic afterlife, based upon the interests of the
deceased. If the deceased, for instance, liked to hunt birds, then
there would be a scene of him hunting birds in the afterlife. The
Hieroglyphs were mostly prayers, and formulas from the Book of the
Dead. As for "artistically acute" I think we need to be very careful
about judging ancient art from our own standards. For instance, the
Lascaux cave paintings in France, which have been dated to over thirty
thousand years old, show examples of all of the techniques used in art
today--including perspective, which was only reintroduced into Europe
during the Renaissance.
These
heiroglyphs constituted the most accurate of ancient recording
methods, prior to the introduction of refined languages.
Refined languages? I have in my library a textbook on Egyptian
Grammar. It is an oversize book of over 600 pages. I was interested in
making a study of it and found the language incredibly sophisticated and
almost overwhelming. I have in the past studied Latin as was spoken
during the time of Augustus, dipped into Sanskrit and Greek. In
structure, these languages are far more sophisticated than modern
English. When I studied Latin, I remember translating phrases which I
perfectly understood, but because of the limits of the English language,
could not be properly translated. I would say, that instead of
languages becoming more refined, they have been dumbed down over the
centuries.
However, the little children had a problem learning the history
lessons which were embossed on the walls of caves and tombs. After
all, how do you interpret the pictures?
I don't know of any culture that created tombs, or even caves to teach
history--particularly to "little children." The Egyptian tombs were
sealed after the deceased was entombed. We will probably never answer
all of the questions about the Lascaux caves but most archaeologists
believe that the caves was used for initiation purposes--for the
initiation of adults, or of those being initiated into adulthood at
puberty. Ancient caves were used in the Mediterranean world and in
India for sacred initiations also. This seem also to be true of Asia in
general. Some have paintings, some do not. How do you interpret
pictures? Well, pictures are culturally bound. If we understand the
culture, then we can understand the pictures.
So ancient historians
interpreted the historical storylines, that the ancient news
reporters had embossed on the caves and walls.
If you mean events such as winning a war, it was the kings which
commissioned the art to commemorate the event. Of course, the event was
portrayed according to how the king wished. Paintings and carvings at
the Ajunta and the Elephanta caves, for instance, portrayed gods,
goddesses, Buddhas, etc. They had a strictly religious sense which was
commonly understood in the relevant religious community. Some
represented myths (if you will), which were also the common heritages of
that religious community.
The ancient
historians (even as you consider yourself to be a historian) took
the children directly into the caves and tombs, as per common
classroom settings of the time, and read history lessons from walls
as opposed to from books.
I'm not aware of any culture that had such a practice.
Oral traditions began to follow the
pictures of antiquity.
Amazing statement. The common wisdom is that story paintings were
depictions of already extant oral traditions. Who have you been reading
that argues that oral traditions derived from paintings?
However, even among the teachers, different interpretations of the
historical picturelines began to occur. And the unintentional
creation of mythology invariably resulted, despite the best efforts
of ancient news reporters who would never resort to base metaphor.
This is an amazing scenario. You are assuming that ancient people
thought the same way that we do today. Sorry, but none of this hangs
together. Metaphor is a natural part of ancient cultures. Based upon
what you have written so far, you must believe that the Egyptians, for
instance, really believed that their god and goddesses literally had
human bodies and animal heads!
The ancient histories became more and more distorted over successive
generations, until literal truth was degraded into mythological
metaphor.
Closer to the truth, I would say that "mythological metaphor" was
degraded into literal "truth."
Hence, mythology is little more than bastardized
history. Same thing goes for the Bible. The authors intended quite
literally what you and I interpet to be mere metaphor.
Sorry. I'm not convinced. My masters degree was in literature, and I
spent a lot of years studying the structure of ancient and modern
literature, and on how language constructs our realities. When I was in
France, however, I did visit a lot of medieval cathedrals. The door
ways were often decorated with images of the devil devouring sinful
people, or people otherwise suffering the torments of hell. Be even
here, this was artistic followings of medieval theology in order to
scare their illiterate congregations into conforming to their faith.
Pseudepigraphal literature was deemed even less reliable than
apocryphal literature. This is despite the fact that some of the
canonized authors had also written books that didn't make it into
the bible, such as Paul and Ezekiel. Or what about the uncanonized
book of Enoch, still existant in a halfdozen ancient languages? The
biblical book of Jude directly quotes the book of Enoch as
authoritative, even though it is rejected by the bible's modern-day
canonizers. Some books were good enough for the early church
fathers, but not good enough for the modern church. One-hundred
ancient canons were rejected in favor of a modernized one.
Which demonstrates the evolution of Christian theology.
Did you know,
that prior to the onset of Darwinism, the ancients commonly believed
that the human species descended from immortal gods, and that the
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead originated as early (if not
earlier) as the most ancient Egyptians?
Most cultures had the human species come from the sun or moon, or from
under the earth. But the human species was usually created by a god.
Loki, in German mythology; Thoth in the Egyptian; Yaldabaoth in certain
gnostic sects....
Yes, resurrection was an Egyptian doctrine. But it was Osiris who is
resurrected in heaven, as the people believed they would also do. Once
they were osirified--they would live with the father in heaven.
The earliest recorded Egyptians believed in the Christian doctrine
of the final resurrection of the dead which was to occur at the end
of time. (Or at least their version of it.)
Where did you read this? Sounds like some 19th century speculation.
They believed it so
much, in fact, that they began mummifying the dead in preservative
wraps, simultaneously extracting their organs into jars, so that
their organs may still be available for their end time
resurrection.
Why they practiced mummification is still a matter of controversy. But
we know now that the Egyptians believed that each person had several
souls, one which would remain near the earth for a time, and one which
resurrects in heaven. The mummification was apparently to extend the
life of the earthly soul.
We still preserve bodies in coffins today, not
allowing their full decay after the model of the Egyptians, even
though we are not commonly aware of why preserving dead bodies was
started in the first place.
Yes, the Jews followed after the Egyptians in the burial custom, and the
Christians followed the Jews. The Jews also learned circumcision from
the Egyptians.
Of course, the antithesis of the ancient doctrine of immortality was
reincarnation. If one should not accomplish the re-acquistion of
physical immortality, as is the birthright of our species, having
descended from the elder (immortal) gods, then may that one be
cursed to near-endless reincarnational cycles, until such time as
she/he becomes spiritually reawakened to the inherent physical
immortality contained within our species.
First I have heard of this. Every culture which I am familiar, which
believes in some form of reincarnation, believes that the final goal is
to join the gods in the invisible worlds.
May the wicked be cast into ever-repeating reincarnational hells,
until such time as they should venture to awaken physically forever,
as per the final evolutionary cycle of the human species. Herein
being the immortal physical resurrection of all dead souls, once
having been trapped in reincarnational cycles, both dying and
birthing from hellish dimension to hellish dimension, despite the
immortal birthright contained therein, which was bestowed upon us by
our ancestral elder gods. This is what the ancients believed.
Who? Which ancients? Which culture? Which religion?
Best,
Jerry
Vincent wrote:
Jerry-
You wrote:
"I see. So, instead of just communicating their opinions, they would
present some historical scenario as authoritative in order to get
you to buy into their belief. That would be a misuse of the
original idea of history. It is dishonest manipulation. The word
history comes from the Greek and originally met "inquiry." So,
history, in its original use, was a means of discovery--a way to
inquire into and thus more deeply understand ourselves and others.
That is also how I use history and how ,I believe, history ought to
be properly used."
A few years ago, I had purchased a very nice $400 four volume set of
history books called "Chronology of World History", which was
published by ABC-Clio/Hutchinson. It was their last set too, so I
was very lucky that I got it before someone else did. I saw it in a
library one time, and since it was a reference set, I couldn't check
the books out and take them home with me. So I purchased the
publisher's very last set before it was out of print.
The four volume set was the most elaborate undertaking ever
accomplished, to document the entirety of the earth's recorded
history, spanning across every continent and nation, and
encompassing all historical categories. Politics, religion,
ecology, science, economics, society, etc.. The fourth volume
contains every international news event ever broadcast up until
1998. 70,000 historical news events in world history, from the dawn
of recorded time, were condensed to a paragraph in length each. And
containing no indoctrinations. Just the facts.
Of course, a stange thing occurs the further that we go back in
recorded history. History begins to convert to mythology, with no
fine line inbetween the two. This is because modern phonetic-based
languages descended from picture-based alphabets containing
thousands of visual symbols. An ancient Oriental alphabet might
contain 1000 different characters, for example, as opposed to a mere
26 characters in phonetic english. Each syllable represented a
picture prior to phonetics.
And before ancient alphabets concisely contained 1000 letters,
languages first existed as heiroglyphs in caves and tombs. (For
example, in Egyptian pyramids). The walls of caves and tombs
recorded the life histories of the dead, as documented by ancient
news reporters who weren't that artistically acute. These
heiroglyphs constituted the most accurate of ancient recording
methods, prior to the introduction of refined languages.
However, the little children had a problem learning the history
lessons which were embossed on the walls of caves and tombs. After
all, how do you interpret the pictures? So ancient historians
interpreted the historical storylines, that the ancient news
reporters had embossed on the caves and walls. The ancient
historians (even as you consider yourself to be a historian) took
the children directly into the caves and tombs, as per common
classroom settings of the time, and read history lessons from walls
as opposed to from books. Oral traditions began to follow the
pictures of antiquity.
However, even among the teachers, different interpretations of the
historical picturelines began to occur. And the unintentional
creation of mythology invariably resulted, despite the best efforts
of ancient news reporters who would never resort to base metaphor.
The ancient histories became more and more distorted over successive
generations, until literal truth was degraded into mythological
metaphor. Hence, mythology is little more than bastardized
history. Same thing goes for the Bible. The authors intended quite
literally what you and I interpet to be mere metaphor.
"The usual titles for these works are "The Corpus Hermeticum"
or "The Discourses of Hermes Trismegistus." The Collection is made
up of 18 surviving discourses to which is also usually added a Latin
work: Asclepius. The Title, "Shepard of Hermes" sounds like it
might be the hermetic writings, or a book about them. The Shepard
(Poimandres) represents the Divine Intellect in these writings, and
is the second person in the dialogue. So the Poimandres is the
Logos or Christos of Gnosticism. The best translation which I am
currently aware is entitled "Hermetica" by Brian P. Copenhaver.
Cambridge U. Press, 1992. It should still be in print."
Could be the same texts that I read, but I'm not sure. There may
have been multiple publishers. I read 'The Shepherd of Hermes' as
part of a set of pseudepigraphal texts. In the text, the man Hermes
has a vision of the post-resurrected Jesus Christ, and they engage
in a twoway dialogue of great length, discussing the nature of
various virtues and the like. The book was accepted into many of
the early biblical canons of fragmented Christian sects, but never
made it into the finalized 1611 King James. As many other books, of
course.
Pseudepigraphal literature was deemed even less reliable than
apocryphal literature. This is despite the fact that some of the
canonized authors had also written books that didn't make it into
the bible, such as Paul and Ezekiel. Or what about the uncanonized
book of Enoch, still existant in a halfdozen ancient languages? The
biblical book of Jude directly quotes the book of Enoch as
authoritative, even though it is rejected by the bible's modern-day
canonizers. Some books were good enough for the early church
fathers, but not good enough for the modern church. One-hundred
ancient canons were rejected in favor of a modernized one.
The particular value of pseudepigraphal literature (whether
authentic or embellished) is that fragments of key insights are
therein available concerning what the ancient theists believed,
versus what Christians 'officially' believe today. Did you know,
that prior to the onset of Darwinism, the ancients commonly believed
that the human species descended from immortal gods, and that the
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead originated as early (if not
earlier) as the most ancient Egyptians?
The earliest recorded Egyptians believed in the Christian doctrine
of the final resurrection of the dead which was to occur at the end
of time. (Or at least their version of it.) They believed it so
much, in fact, that they began mummifying the dead in preservative
wraps, simultaneously extracting their organs into jars, so that
their organs may still be available for their end time
resurrection. We still preserve bodies in coffins today, not
allowing their full decay after the model of the Egyptians, even
though we are not commonly aware of why preserving dead bodies was
started in the first place. The ancient Egyptians feared that if
the physical body was cremated, and it's organs lost, then it would
be unable to rise again at the end of the age of mortals.
And what of Solomon's references to his belief in the concept of
physical immortals who had walked the earth, in the context of the
apocryphal book of Solomon? Immortals were greatly esteemed in
Solomon's time. I'm lacking an exact quote here.
Further, the term 'Oh king, live forever' was a common reference in
ancient times that denoted the potential blessing of the re-
acquisition of physical immortality among mortals. Further, kings
were often attributed as having 'the divine right of infallibity'
concerning decisions of capital punishment. But this 'divine right
of infallibility' was only designated to those reputed to be demi-
gods (born of an immortal god and a mortal). Many of the ceasars
made this claim, for example, (that they were literal demi-gods)
having both political and religious reasons. Only a demi-god (half-
god, half-man) was pure enough to make flawless decisions regarding
capital punishment in those times. No law courts necessary when
gods or demi-gods are available.
Of course, the antithesis of the ancient doctrine of immortality was
reincarnation. If one should not accomplish the re-acquistion of
physical immortality, as is the birthright of our species, having
descended from the elder (immortal) gods, then may that one be
cursed to near-endless reincarnational cycles, until such time as
she/he becomes spiritually reawakened to the inherent physical
immortality contained within our species.
May the wicked be cast into ever-repeating reincarnational hells,
until such time as they should venture to awaken physically forever,
as per the final evolutionary cycle of the human species. Herein
being the immortal physical resurrection of all dead souls, once
having been trapped in reincarnational cycles, both dying and
birthing from hellish dimension to hellish dimension, despite the
immortal birthright contained therein, which was bestowed upon us by
our ancestral elder gods. This is what the ancients believed.
"Writing is a noble aspiration. However, how are you to present the
fruits of your own studies without being aware of the findings and
insights of others? True scholarship is done in a discourse
community where people share their ideas and everyone benefits from
hearing very different points of view, and learning about other's
research in many more areas than one is capable of doing on one's
own. One can, for instance, create an exegetical interpretation,
but would benefit by reading about exegetical systems that have been
worked out by others."
I fully agree with you. I believe that we're doing this now.
-
PS. I will address the rest of your text in an additional message,
insofar as I can tend to get a little bit wordy, lolol.
Blessings
Vince
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