Against the Galilaeans

Despite it only surviving in small fragments, I believe Emperor Julian's anti-Christian polemic, 'Against the Galilaeans', still brings up some rather valid and interesting criticisms of the Christian religion and its scriptures, both the ones they created and the ones they appropriate from the Jews.

Julian (supposedly, since even these fragments that survive were copied by a Church father in order to refute them, and as such, some of the points may have been edited to make Julian look like a fool) makes some of the following claims:

-Why did the true God, he asks, withhold the knowledge of good and evil from men or express jealousy that men should eat from the tree of life and live forever? Julian explains that the Greeks held that the gods had deified and raised number of human hero-figures to Olympus, and as such, they were much more generous and kind than the "omnibenevolent" Christian God.
-He writes that learned men should find it absurd to believe that the God who created the world, who describes himself as being "jealous", would content to confine himself to caring for a small tribe in Palestine while letting all races besides the Jews worship false gods for thousands of years and not appear to them as well.


Interestingly enough, he also makes fun of Christians for having nothing in common with Jews or the Jewish traditions/theology, which is quite accurate since modern academia holds Christianity to have been Hellenic and pagan in influence while only incorporating surface elements from Judaism. It appears that, even back then, this was very evident.

Shame that we'll never get to see the most convincing of Julian's theses, since the Christcucks simply burned the work and consigned it to oblivion upon finding themselves in a hard position.

One last interesting thing Julian asked: how did the snake learn human speech for it to tempt Eve and Adam?

Other urls found in this thread:

catholic.com/tracts/creation-and-genesis
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

>-He writes that learned men should find it absurd to believe that the God who created the world, who describes himself as being "jealous", would content to confine himself to caring for a small tribe in Palestine while letting all races besides the Jews worship false gods for thousands of years and not appear to them as well.


At least for this point, if you start from the perspective of believing the Bible (which Julian seems to do) he does. You have guys like Balaam, and the "Mixed multitude" that hung out with the Hebrews, and all sorts of people like Melchitzedek or Job, who also seem to be worshipers of the Abrahamic God, unconnected with Israel, and seem to have some idea of what's going on.

> It appears that, even back then, this was very evident.

It would probably be even more evident, since there were considerable living traditions of Jewish practice right up in peoples faces.

>One last interesting thing Julian asked: how did the snake learn human speech for it to tempt Eve and Adam?

Given the mode of prophetic contact in the OT (I.e., if you're not Moses, it's all some dream or vision) and the Garden story features direct "conversation" with god, you've probably got some sort of dream/vision/mystic quest thing as opposed to a literal snake and a literal fruit.

>Given the mode of prophetic contact in the OT (I.e., if you're not Moses, it's all some dream or vision) and the Garden story features direct "conversation" with god, you've probably got some sort of dream/vision/mystic quest thing as opposed to a literal snake and a literal fruit.

The Christians at the time held the Old Testament - including the Genesis - to have been literal. Julian even points out as one of his criticisms that it is ridiculous how Christians hold the Genesis to be literal account despite its fantastical nature and its problematic nature.

Most Christians always thought of the Genesis as literal up until the 19th century. While I know some people will try to refute this by telling me one of the influential Church theologians (was it Polycarp or Aquinas?) said it was metaphorical, this view was very much an individual one, and, because the Church establishment has never been a democracy, ultimately irrelevant - the Church held the Genesis and its events as having been literal occurrences, only backpedaling once the view became ridiculous in the light of scientific developments.

There even are some Christians to this day who believe in Genesis as a literal account.

>You have guys like Balaam, and the "Mixed multitude" that hung out with the Hebrews, and all sorts of people like Melchitzedek or Job, who also seem to be worshipers of the Abrahamic God, unconnected with Israel, and seem to have some idea of what's going on
the surrounding peoples in Canaan probably also worshipped YHVH, we know for sure some in Edom did at least. this probably also has to do with the merger of YHVH and El. Melchitzedek for instance was a priest of "El Shaddai". interesting Ezekiel mentions Danel as a rightious man, someone we know of from a text found at Ugarit, who had a story involving El, though honestly I've forgotten the details.

stop this meme now.

>meme

>The Christians at the time held the Old Testament - including the Genesis - to have been literal

But they also (I think, I'm not an expert on Early Christian beliefs) held Deuteronomy to be literally true, and that Moses was the only to speak to God "Face to face" and everyone else gets the dream or the vision, which necessarily implies that Adam's contact with god, central to the Genesis garden story, to be at least a little fuzzier than the text states.

Adam did not speak "face to face" with God. When Adam ate of the fruit, he hid from God, and God called out to him.

I'm about 99% sure that's not what it's talking about, since the thrust of Deuteronomy 34:10 is to asset Moses's superiority over other prophets. When you look at guys like Samuel and Isaiah and Ezekiel, they're not hiding from God when they're having their prophetic communion, and Sameul explicitly needs to relax and get into the right frame of mind with the help of some musicians in order to have a prophecy.

>... is to asset Moses's superiority over other prophets.

Adam was not a prophet, and is therefore not included in the statement that only Moses spoke with God personally but not the other prophets, supposedly.

>meme

>Adam was not a prophet

Of course he was a prophet. Speaking to and more importantly for God is what makes you a prophet. Adam does these things, ergo, he is a prophet.

>While I know some people will try to refute this by telling me one of the influential Church theologians (was it Polycarp or Aquinas?) said it was metaphorical, this view was very much an individual one
And these guys still interpreted many things literally that no Christian today would be caught dead interpreting literally.

True, good point.

Really it was only the Genesis story that was interpreted metaphorically by educated Christians. Up until modern archaeology totally disproved the notion the entire Exodus story and the various Hebrew kings were taken as fact.

Wrong.

Adam did not preach. That is the definition of a prophet: one who is supposedly called by God to preach a message to the people. Adam never did this.

Also consider that some traditions hold Adam to be the first Man: who exactly would he be preaching and prophesying to?

>Really it was only the Genesis story that was interpreted metaphorically by educated Christians
They still interpreted most of Genesis literally as well, only having a problem with the days of creation I'm pretty sure.

Preaching != Speaking for God. The two often overlap, but they're not the same thing. It's the divinely delegated authority to make pronunciations in the name of God.

Now, you might want to check out 2 19:20 again, where God gets Adam to name all the animals that God just made instead of telling Adam what they ought to be called.

>Also consider that some traditions hold Adam to be the first Man: who exactly would he be preaching and prophesying to?

Eve, at the very least. And a rather lame job he does of it, given that her first line in the narrative is to garble God's instructions concerning the tree.

Origen proves you wrong

Origen the anathematized heretic is actually pretty consistent with what he was talking about.

>Origen

He was anathemized during the Second Council of Constantinople and most of his views rejected as heretical. Cherry-picking at its finest.

And Christians really did believe in a literal Biblical account until the 19th century: why are you trying to backpedal so hard?

Yes, but was he anathemied for not accepting a literal interpretation?

>Why did the true God, he asks, withhold the knowledge of good and evil from men or express jealousy that men should eat from the tree of life and live forever?

God withheld the knowledge of good and evil because it was not our place to know of such things. Nor did he want us living forever, because God's plan for mankind was to always return to him and ascend, body and soul into heaven.

>Greeks held that the gods had deified and raised number of human hero-figures to Olympus, and as such, they were much more generous and kind than the "omnibenevolent" Christian God.

Mankinds purpose, originally was such that all men in time, at death, were to ascend body and soul into heaven in perfect harmony with God and His Hosts. The pleasures and joys of Heaven, chief of which is the direct contact and sight of Lord far surpass anything which mankind delusions of Olympus could conjure, and furthermore, was freely given to all men as their natural birthright, rather than a reward to select legendary few.

>-He writes that learned men should find it absurd to believe that the God who created the world, who describes himself as being "jealous", would content to confine himself to caring for a small tribe in Palestine while letting all races besides the Jews worship false gods for thousands of years and not appear to them as well.

Despite their direct and special relationship with God, the Jews repeatedly abandoned their faith, and sought out false gods of not only foreign lands and peoples, but of their own design. It was only after centuries of oppression and diaspora, were the proper conditions and faith found on Earth, for God to enact His plan for Salvation.

yeah man,
i've been saying this shit for years

there might be some untainted information hidden somewhere in russia, within the lost library of ivan the terrible. which would be a goldmine of ancient history if ever found.

These all sound completely convoluted in all respects.

>God withheld the knowledge of good and evil because it was not our place to know of such things. Nor did he want us living forever, because God's plan for mankind was to always return to him and ascend, body and soul into heaven.
>body and soul into heaven.

The Jewish religion did not even have a concept of an Afterlife until the late Second Temple period. There is no mention of an Afterlife in the Old Testament save what was interpolated by later scribes, namely the Pharisees. For being an integral part of God's plan, he sure fails to mention any Afterlife for those thousand years until he randomly comes around in the 1st century CE.

>Mankinds purpose, originally was such that all men in time, at death, were to ascend body and soul into heaven in perfect harmony with God and His Hosts

This still isn't sounding convoluted to you? "I'm going to create human beings in a separate world, but my plan is for them to come to me when they die. rather than simply creating them already in my company. For that purpose, I'll ordain this chain of events that results in evil being set loose on the world."

>Despite their direct and special relationship with God, the Jews repeatedly abandoned their faith, and sought out false gods of not only foreign lands and peoples, but of their own design. It was only after centuries of oppression and diaspora, were the proper conditions and faith found on Earth, for God to enact His plan for Salvation.

And yet YHWH never deigned to show himself to the Chinese, the Africans, the Europeans, or the indigenous peoples of the Americas: instead of showing himself to all the peoples of Antiquity to fit his theme of being a universal father/mentor, he dicked around for the first 1,500 years picking sides in petty tribal conflicts in the backwater that was Judea while ignoring every other civilization.

All your responses are shit.

>trying to argue that a certain view was actually mainstream and orthodox all along
>tries to use an individual declared a heretic by the orthodox establishment as proof

You got some sources of Orthodox Christians at the time condemning a figurative interpretation of the bible?

Not the person you're replying to, but to say that all the church fathers were literalists is false:

catholic.com/tracts/creation-and-genesis

>If I were God, I would have done things differently! Since God didn't do things the way I would have done them, this is proof there is no God!

>le 'God works in mysterious ways :)' meme

The Christcuck's refuge when confronted with the illogical and ridiculous nature of their own scriptures.

>le temporal creatures can totes understand their eternal creator x^D

Does your dog understand your motivations for playing fetch?

>The Jewish religion did not even have a concept of an Afterlife until the late Second Temple period.

Your beliefs not mine. There are several passages in the Old Testament from before the Second Temple indicating a belief in the Afterlife, and from a more secularized view, the Jews almost constant respect and reverence for the dead indicates some sort of special treatment of life after death.
>"I'm going to create human beings in a separate world, but my plan is for them to come to me when they die."

He desired for Man to live on Earth. It pleased Him to do so, just as it pleased Him to create the Earth in the first place.

>And yet YHWH never deigned to show himself to the Chinese, the Africans, the Europeans...

You misunderstood my point. God required a stark contrast between His people and false faith of the others, to ensure that one portion of mankind would come to hold a serious attitude on God. The Jews only became true zealots of their faith when subjected to the oppression of foreign masters with false gods. It was only in this zealotry of faith that God decided that His final purpose could be enacted.

If all the world were to know of God, then it would in time rapidly degenerate into false idol worship and be broken apart as so often happened with Israelite.

>There are several passages in the Old Testament from before the Second Temple indicating a belief in the Afterlife

They are interpolations. It is very clear that there was no belief in an Afterlife, idiot. Have you ever heard of the conflict between the Sadducees and the Pharisees? It is explicitly known the Sadducees - the priestly caste - did not believe in an Afterlife, and the Pharisees represented a new but growing movement in the firs 1st centuries.

The Jews most definitely had a concept of the afterlife. Read the book of Enoch. It was a very highly regarded book in its day, and the main reason it was kept out of later versions was because people were scared of its ending, which is the precursor to revelation.

It is from Enoch, the first man to be translated into heaven without death, as is mentioned in Genesis. The first half of the book of Enoch is a recount of the Angels falling to earth as well as an incredible description of the heavenly plane, God's throne, the tree of life, the valley of souls, etc. The second half is revelation from Enoch's perspective. Note this book is one of the oldest and most beloved, and everyone during Jesus' time would have been familiar with it. I believe corruption kept it out. It's quoted from twice in the modern bibles, which lends it even more legitimacy.

He was anathematized for his universalist teachings. The Church has never once in history condemned his, or anyone else's non-literal interpretation of genesis

>enoch

NOT CANON

but Enoch is a late forgery from the 3rd century B.C. at the earliest

Source? Every source I've read claims otherwise.

It's also quoted directly in the New Testament.

>Enoch transported into Heaven

How does that mean there was an afterlife for the common people? Many religious traditions such as the Greeks and Aztecs had stories in which heroes and noteworthy people would be elevated to the Heaven-realms and deified, while the rest simply ceased to be or at most, went to a shady netherworld where they would forget their memories and cease to exist in that way.

How does the ascension of one of God's favorites indicate there is an Afterlife for the common people?