LIVES OF THE PROPHETS (1st-4th century AD) Questions

[rakovsky]

The scholar James Charlesworth wrote about it:

The author, who was apparently more a compiler of legends—some of which he missed—probably lived in Jerusalem, since there is convincing evidence that he was intimately familiar with Jerusalem, Judaean, and Palestinian topography and geography. The Jeremiah legends, however, betray an Egyptian provenance. Christian additions abound in the various recensions, but the only ancient ones are in the life of Jeremiah, verses 7-8 and 10 (cf. only vaguely possible Christian interpolations in Hosea, vs. 2, and in Habakkuk, vss. 11-14)."

(The Pseudepigrapha and Modern Research, pp. 178-177)

Charles Torrey's translation of the Lives of the Prophets can be found online here: archive.org/details/SBLMS1
And here: web.archive.org/web/20160301192214/http://www.summascriptura.com:80/html/Lives_of_the_Prophets_Torrey.html

Torrey writes in his preface:

The original document was not Greek, however, but Semitic. The translation idiom is unmistakable to the expert in Semitics who has gained familiarity with this variety of Greek. ... The document which emerges is a characteristic deposit of old Jewish folklore, first published in Palestine, in the Hebrew language, in the first century of the present era.

For the original language,

Torrey proposed Hebrew, other authors proposed Aramaic. The preferred use of quotations from the Septuagint suggests a Greek original with semitic coloring... Most scholars consider this work to be of Jewish origin dating the 1st century CE. Torrey[5] suggests a date before 106 CE.
Jeremias in his [1958] study examines both the archaeological and the literary evidence, in particular the Herod architectural activity and the attestations of Matthew 23:29 and Luke 11:47, and considers the Lives as a witness of popular devotion in the 1st century.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA's ENTRY ON LIVES OF THE PROPHETS

Flores Florentino notes in his book "Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies" that it has many translations, so it was once likely widespread (eg. Latin, Syriac, Ethiopian).

(Question 1) In the Lives of the Prophets' chapter on Jeremiah, the prophecy of the virgin's arrival with her child in Egypt must refer to the Holy family's escape to Egypt. what was the Egyptians' practice of bowing to a babe in a manger?
The chapter on Jeremiah says,

7. Jeremiah also gave a sign to the priests of Egypt,[11] that their idols would be shaken and their gods made with hands would all collapse, when there should arrive in Egypt a virgin bearing a child of divine appearance. 8. Wherefore even to the present time they honor a virgin mother, and placing a babe in a manger they bow down to it. When Ptolemy the king sought the reason for this, they said to him: "It is a mystery handed down from our fathers, a sign delivered to them by a holy prophet, and we are awaiting its fulfiment."[12]

FOOTNOTES
[11] The following tradition was probably narrated by native Egyptians resident in Jerusalem, see the Introduction.
[12] This Christian passage stood in the original text, see the Introduction.

To clarify the footnotes: In his Introduction, Torrey discussed the available manuscripts and explained that Codex Marchalianus, AKA Codex "Q", which has the story about the Virgin, must be the original Greek translation from Hebrew. The preceding paragraph had a story from the children of Antigonus and Ptolemy wherein Alexander the Great took Jeremiah's bones to Alexandria, which drove out the local serpents. Torrey supposes that the story about the prophecy of the virgin came from the Egyptians like the story about Jeremiah's bones did.
I wonder what practice the Egyptians had about honoring a virgin and bowing to a babe in a manger. Maybe the author is referring to pre-Christian Egyptian legends and mythology?
Wikipedia's entry on Miraculous Births has a section on Egyptian mythology:

Horus' conception and birth were understood in terms of the Egyptian doctrine of parthenogenesis, which was connected with the goddess Neith of Sais. ...

<<Many of the attributes of Isis, the God-mother, the mother of Horus; and of Neith, the goddess of Sais are identical with those of Mary the Mother of Christ." (page 161)[4] Early Christian stories in the Apocryphal Gospels, which record the wanderings of the Virgin and Child in Egypt are similar to stories found on the Metternich Stela texts about the life of Isis. (page 161)[4] Also, the pictures and sculptures of Isis suckling her child Horus are the foundation for Christian figurines and paintings of the Madonna and Child. Of course, the legend of the birth of Horus has many elements not found even in the Apocryphal Gospels.>>[10]

[10]"Apollo. Hammerwood. National Curriculum: Ancient Greece, Greeks"

Critics of the theory that Horus' birth resembled Christ's say that Horus wasn't really born of a virgin, and that his mother Isis physically procreated with Osiris using a prosthetic male organ that she made. (See the discussion on: www.quora.com/To-what-extent-did-ancient-Egyptian-religion-influence-Christianity)

Another big problem with equating Jeremiah's prediction in the Lives of the Prophets with Egyptian pre-Christian myths like the birth of Horus is that Jeremiah as an Old Testament prophet rejected Egyptian pagan mythology, which included the myth of Horus.

(Question 2) Could Jonah be the widow's son whom Elijah raised?
Tyre was a mainly gentile city near Israel, and the chapter on Jonah in Lives of the Prophets suggests that Elijah ended up staying at Jonah's home in Tyre because they were fellow Israelites:

2. After he [Jonah] had been cast on shore by the whale and had made his journey to Nineveh, on his return[43] he did not stay in his own land, but took his mother and settled in Tyre, a country of foreign peoples.
3. For he said, "In this way I will take away my reproach, that I prophesied falsely against the great city Nineveh."[44]

4. Elijah was at that time rebuking the house of Ahab, and having called a famine upon the land he fled.[45] Coming to the region of Tyre he found the widow and her son, for he himself could not lodge with the uncircumcised.
5. He brought her a blessing; and when her child died, God raised him from the dead through Elijah, for he wished to show him[46] that it is not possible to flee from God.

TORREY'S FOOTNOTES
[43] The rabbinical writings have no mention of any return of the prophet from Nineveh to his own land (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, VI, 351). [3 Maccabees 6:8] speaks of such a return.
[44] Jonah 3:4-10.
[45] 1 Kings 17:1 f. {Top}
[46] That is, Elijah. From this account arose, not unnaturally, the widespread rabbinical legend that "the son" mentioned in 1 Kings 17:17 was Jonah (!), although this is made impossible by the preceding narrative, which evidently antedates the legend. It is to be observed that in 1 Kings the LXX has the plural, "children," in verses 12, 13, and 15, and this is supported by "household" in the Hebrew of vs. 15. The plural should probably be read in the Heb. of vss. 12 and 13. The popular tradition recorded in the Lives, that the widow of 1 Kings 17 was Jonah's mother, was therefore not in conflict with the Biblical narrative. The Greek text of our MS gives the original translation, all the others are under the influence of the rabbinical story, which is told consistently in the E version. See the Note on the text.

In his Introduction, to show that Codex "Q", is older than Epiphanius' version, Torrey comments: "Note 44. Epiphanius not only adopts the foolish identification of Jonah with the child raised to life by Elijah, but also rearranges the whole story."
3 Maccabees says that after being saved from the whale, Jonah was restored to his family.
The story of Elijah raising the widow's son is in 1 Kings 17, which begins:

9. Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
10. So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.

Elijah was a c.9th century prophet, Jonah was an 8th-9th century one, and both were from northern Israel. The Bible doesn't mention Jonah moving to Tyre after converting Nineveh. And the Bible says that the widow's homes was in Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, rather than to Tyre, although Tyre and Sidon are next to each other.
I don't know why Torrey says in footnote 46 that Jonah being the widow's son "is made impossible by the preceding narrative, which evidently antedates the legend", especially because he writes later, "The popular tradition recorded in the Lives, that the widow of 1 Kings 17 was Jonah's mother, was therefore not in conflict with the Biblical narrative."

(Question 3) Was there a golden calf at Gilgal?
1 Kings 12 describes the Northern Israelite king Jeroboam setting up two golden calves: "One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other."
Then in their preaching journey, Elijah and Elisha went from Gilgal to Bethel, as 2 Kings 2 notes:

1. And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.
2. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Bethel.

In Amos 4:4, Amos taunts the Samaritans sarcastically, and mentions it next to Bethel, where there was a golden calf: "Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years:"
Then in Amos 5:5, Amos warns the House of Israel about Gilgal: "But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought."
In Hosea 12:11, Hosea complains about Gilgal, "Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields."
One might imagine that young bulls were sacrificed at an altar with a golden calf in Gilgal, but the Bible doesn't say this.

The Lives of the Prophets says about Elisha:

1. He was from Abel-meholah, of the territory of Reuben.
2. When he was born, in Gilgal,[87] a marvelous thing happened: the golden calf bellowed so loudly that the shrill sound was heard in Jerusalem;
3. and the priest announced by Urim and Thummim[88] that a prophet had been born to Israel who should destroy their graven and molten idols.

Torrey's Footnote
[87] Gilgal a seat of idol worship, Hosea 4:15; 9:15; 12:ll, Amos 4:5; 5:5.
[88] This passage in the Lives is the oldest witness to the belief, found in the writings of certain Church fathers, that one of Jeroboam's two golden calves was set up in Gilgal instead of Dan.

I wonder if the passage above could mean in Greek that while he was from Abel-meholah, he actually was born in Gilgal, since ancient Greek didn't use commas and they are inserted in modern translations based on the translator's sense of the meaning. The sentence construction "When he was born, in Gilgal, a marvelous thing happened" sounds ambiguous, because by putting commas on both sides of "in Gilgal", it isn't clear whether "in Gilgal" applies to the preceding or subsequent clauses. Or maybe the golden calf was moved to Bethel or Dan. Or the writer is mistakenly asserting that there was a golden calf at Gilgal.
The Encyclopaedia Biblica by Thomas Cheyne et. al (1901, p.1731) theorizes that there could have been two Gilgals, one near Bethel.

[alon]

rakovsky said: Torrey writes in his preface:
The original document was not Greek, however, but Semitic. The translation idiom is unmistakable to the expert in Semitics who has gained familiarity with this variety of Greek. ... The document which emerges is a characteristic deposit of old Jewish folklore, first published in Palestine, in the Hebrew language, in the first century of the present era.

For the original language,
Torrey proposed Hebrew, other authors proposed Aramaic. The preferred use of quotations from the Septuagint suggests a Greek original with semitic coloring... Most scholars consider this work to be of Jewish origin …

Interesting. I believe the so called “New Testament” was originally written in Hebrew. It is a point of contention between Messianics and Christians, though many Christian scholars are coming on board with the idea. And it is a point of contention between Mesianics as well. The parent synagogue of this forum believes some was written in Hebrew, some in Greek.

rakovsky said: (Question 1) In the Lives of the Prophets' chapter on Jeremiah, the prophecy of the virgin's arrival with her child in Egypt must refer to the Holy family's escape to Egypt. what was the Egyptians' practice of bowing to a babe in a manger?

I wouldn’t know about Egyptian mythology or practices. I do know Jesus was never laid in a livestock feeder to be worshiped. And He was not born in a barn. Jews who were traveling never stayed at inns. They were seen as dens of iniquity. Synagogues had rooms for traveling Jews, and during times when many were traveling they built sukkot, temporary shelters against the walls. They had stone receptacles for food, to keep it cool. Kind of like Fred Flinstone’s ice chest. That is what He’d have been laid in as a newborn, sort of a makeshift crib.

When they went to Egypt, He’d have been a bit older. So the mythology doesn’t hold true. I’m not surprised the church adopted this myth. And Egyptian influences plagued the Hebrews from the time they left. But it is myth, stories told by pagans as their bible.

Horus' conception and birth were understood in terms of the Egyptian doctrine of parthenogenesis, which was connected with the goddess Neith of Sais. ...

Parthenogenesis is not the same as being made pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And nothing of the birth of the Messiah was connected to Ises, Neith, Sais, or Horus.

rakovsky said: <<Many of the attributes of Isis, the God-mother, the mother of Horus; and of Neith, the goddess of Sais are identical with those of Mary the Mother of Christ." (page 161)[4] Early Christian stories in the Apocryphal Gospels, which record the wanderings of the Virgin and Child in Egypt are similar to stories found on the Metternich Stela texts about the life of Isis. (page 161)[4] Also, the pictures and sculptures of Isis suckling her child Horus are the foundation for Christian figurines and paintings of the Madonna and Child. Of course, the legend of the birth of Horus has many elements not found even in the Apocryphal Gospels.>>[10]

The early church fathers were unrepentant pagans. That they adopted these symbols around which to model their statues is not surprising. They were not supposed to make any statues of people in the first place. It is idolatry.

rakovsky said: Another big problem with equating Jeremiah's prediction in the Lives of the Prophets with Egyptian pre-Christian myths like the birth of Horus is that Jeremiah as an Old Testament prophet rejected Egyptian pagan mythology, which included the myth of Horus.

All Jews rejected these pagan myths. It is part of what being set apart to God is about.

rakovsky said: (Question 2) Could Jonah be the widow's son whom Elijah raised?

TORREY'S FOOTNOTES
[43] The rabbinical writings have no mention of any return of the prophet from Nineveh to his own land (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, VI, 351). [3 Maccabees 6:8] speaks of such a return.
[44] Jonah 3:4-10.
[45] 1 Kings 17:1 f. {Top}
[46] That is, Elijah. From this account arose, not unnaturally, the widespread rabbinical legend that "the son" mentioned in 1 Kings 17:17 was Jonah (!), although this is made impossible by the preceding narrative, which evidently antedates the legend. It is to be observed that in 1 Kings the LXX has the plural, "children," in verses 12, 13, and 15, and this is supported by "household" in the Hebrew of vs. 15. The plural should probably be read in the Heb. of vss. 12 and 13. The popular tradition recorded in the Lives, that the widow of 1 Kings 17 was Jonah's mother, was therefore not in conflict with the Biblical narrative. The Greek text of our MS gives the original translation, all the others are under the influence of the rabbinical story, which is told consistently in the E version. See the Note on the text.

In his Introduction, to show that Codex "Q", is older than Epiphanius' version, Torrey comments: "Note 44. Epiphanius not only adopts the foolish identification of Jonah with the child raised to life by Elijah, but also rearranges the whole story."
3 Maccabees says that after being saved from the whale, Jonah was restored to his family.
The story of Elijah raising the widow's son is in 1 Kings 17, which begins:
9. Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
10. So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.

Elijah was a c.9th century prophet, Jonah was an 8th-9th century one, and both were from northern Israel. The Bible doesn't mention Jonah moving to Tyre after converting Nineveh. And the Bible says that the widow's homes was in Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, rather than to Tyre, although Tyre and Sidon are next to each other.
I don't know why Torrey says in footnote 46 that Jonah being the widow's son "is made impossible by the preceding narrative, which evidently antedates the legend", especially because he writes later, "The popular tradition recorded in the Lives, that the widow of 1 Kings 17 was Jonah's mother, was therefore not in conflict with the Biblical narrative.”

I’d say it is highly unlikely that Jonah was the widow’s son.

Sorry to be so short in my reply. I am remodeling, and under the gun to get done. I'll try to get to the rest of your post later.

Dan C

[alon]

(Question 3) Was there a golden calf at Gilgal?
1 Kings 12 describes the Northern Israelite king Jeroboam setting up two golden calves: "One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other."
Then in their preaching journey, Elijah and Elisha went from Gilgal to Bethel, as 2 Kings 2 notes:
1. And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.
2. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Bethel.

In Amos 4:4, Amos taunts the Samaritans sarcastically, and mentions it next to Bethel, where there was a golden calf: "Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years:"
Then in Amos 5:5, Amos warns the House of Israel about Gilgal: "But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought."
In Hosea 12:11, Hosea complains about Gilgal, "Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields."
One might imagine that young bulls were sacrificed at an altar with a golden calf in Gilgal, but the Bible doesn't say this.

The Lives of the Prophets says about Elisha:
1. He was from Abel-meholah, of the territory of Reuben.
2. When he was born, in Gilgal,[87] a marvelous thing happened: the golden calf bellowed so loudly that the shrill sound was heard in Jerusalem;
3. and the priest announced by Urim and Thummim[88] that a prophet had been born to Israel who should destroy their graven and molten idols.

Torrey's Footnote
[87] Gilgal a seat of idol worship, Hosea 4:15; 9:15; 12:ll, Amos 4:5; 5:5.
[88] This passage in the Lives is the oldest witness to the belief, found in the writings of certain Church fathers, that one of Jeroboam's two golden calves was set up in Gilgal instead of Dan.

Biblically neither passage you cite says anything about the 2 golden calves specifically. They speak more of the worship of idols in general, of which figures of calves were prominent:

Amos 4:1 (NASB) Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria, Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, Who say to your husbands, “Bring now, that we may drink!”

This speaks of many idols- cows, plural. And the mountain would probably be Mt. Gerizim.

Amos 4:4 (NASB) “Enter Bethel and transgress;
In Gilgal multiply transgression!
Bring your sacrifices every morning,
Your tithes every three days.

They were offering to idols what was God’s. However I don’t see any mention of those specific idols. You’d think as the apparent major centers of worship those idols would be there. So I really don’t know.

The main thing I take from this is the proscription of and penalties for idolatry. Making statues or figures representing people or animals and praying to them is forbidden. Even in the sin of the more famous (infamous) golden calf, where they were trying to make an idol to attract the God of Israel the penalty was severe. Praying to or offering to an idol is wrong, and God will not let it go unpunished.

As to where those specific idols ended up, I never cared enough to look into it. It’s missing the point.

I wonder if the passage above could mean in Greek that while he was from Abel-meholah, he actually was born in Gilgal, since ancient Greek didn't use commas and they are inserted in modern translations based on the translator's sense of the meaning. The sentence construction "When he was born, in Gilgal, a marvelous thing happened" sounds ambiguous, because by putting commas on both sides of "in Gilgal", it isn't clear whether "in Gilgal" applies to the preceding or subsequent clauses. Or maybe the golden calf was moved to Bethel or Dan. Or the writer is mistakenly asserting that there was a golden calf at Gilgal.
The Encyclopaedia Biblica by Thomas Cheyne et. al (1901, p.1731) theorizes that there could have been two Gilgals, one near Bethel.

That the calf bellowed could be metaphor, meaning the demonic realm knew something bad was happening to them. I really don’t know about that either. Just another way to look at that passage. As to comma placement, you’d first need other historical data to back up his birthplace, then you could make an educated guess at placing punctuation. 

Moving the idols would certainly explain the apparent discrepancy. However again, you’d need historical references to back up a definite statement to that effect.

Dan C

[rakovsky]

Dan,

For Question 1 (In the Lives of the Prophets' chapter on Jeremiah, the prophecy of the virgin's arrival with her child in Egypt must refer to the Holy family's escape to Egypt. what was the Egyptians' practice of bowing to a babe in a manger?), let me note that Isaac Hall's 1887 translation (below) of this passage in the Lives of the Prophets is very similar to Torrey's:

Moreover during his lifetime the prophet gave signs to the (idolatrous) priests of Egypt, that their idols were also to fall when an unmarried virgin should give birth, and her son be laid in a manger. On this account the Egyptians adopted the custom of honoring virgins, and of putting an infant in a manger and worshiping it. And to King Ptolemy, who asked concerning this, it was said, that it is the tradition of our fathers, which they received from a saint of God; and we expect that there will be to it a fulfillment. (Hall's footnote: Literally, 'end' or 'completion.')

You wrote:

I do know Jesus was never laid in a livestock feeder to be worshiped. And He was not born in a barn. Jews who were traveling never stayed at inns. They were seen as dens of iniquity. Synagogues had rooms for traveling Jews, and during times when many were traveling they built sukkot, temporary shelters against the walls. They had stone receptacles for food, to keep it cool. Kind of like Fred Flinstone’s ice chest. That is what He’d have been laid in as a newborn, sort of a makeshift crib.

When they went to Egypt, He’d have been a bit older. So the mythology doesn’t hold true.

The passage doesn't specify that the infant would be born in a manger or worshiped in one, only that Egypt's idols would falls when he would be "laid" in one. It just says that the idols would fall when the virgin gave birth and the son was laid in a manger. A manger as you pointed out, is a feeding trough. But it sounds to me as if the passage implies that He would be born in one. Otherwise, it doesn't make much sense why the passage would mention the manger at all.

You talked about Jewish travelers staying in a shelter. The issue is interesting in that in Orthodox Tradition, Christ was born in a cave, rather than in a wooden shelter. The cave birth would go along with a chiastic reading of the Nativity and the Burial of Christ, wherein His birth from Mary and his care by Joseph would parallel His discovery by Mary Magdalene and his care by Joseph of Arimathea, the magi bringing myrrh and frankincense would parallel Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and the women bringing oil and spices for His body, etc. I wonder if the shelter birth image could be related to the concept of the festival of booths, wherein Abraham or other visitors stay in huts, as well as to the offer to build Yeshua a booth during the Transfiguration. It would also be like the practice that you described of travelers staying in sukkot built next to synagogues.

But to get back to the passage, in the Biblical story in Luke 2, Yeshua is found in a manger. It doesn't say that he was born in one, so this must be why the Lives of the Prophets doesn't say that he was "born" in a manger. Luke 2 has the angel tell the shepherds:

12. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
...
15. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
16. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

Based on the story, the shepherds would have come and given some honor to the baby. I think you are making the point that He wouldn't have been in a typical livestock feeder in a barn. Neither Luke 2 nor the Lives of the Prophets goes into the building or the specifics of the trough, they just say that He was laid in a "manger". The Lives of the Prophets also doesn't specify that he was laid in the manger when visiting Egypt. My own impression is that it is talking about His birth when He was laid in the manger.

In her book "The Mother of the Lord: Volume 1: The Lady in the Temple", Margaret Baker notices that in Jeremiah 44, the prophet predicted punishment against the remnant of Judah that had worshiped other gods and had escaped to Egypt during the Babylonian captivity. In Jeremiah 44, the remnant in Egypt replied that they would not heed Jeremiah, saying:

17. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.
18. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
19. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?

Jeremiah replied:

25. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows.

[/quote][/div]

Jeremiah then predicted that famine and sword would consume the remnant in Egypt.

These passages might or might have inspired the account in the Lives of the Prophets, because there are enough similarities and differences between the accounts. Whereas in Jeremiah 44, Jeremiah (A) criticizes the Jewish remnant in Egypt for worshiping the "Queen of Heaven" and (B) predicts that God would punish them with sword and famine, in the Lives of the Prophets, (A) the Egyptians honor a virgin mother because a prophet gave it as a sign, and (B) Jeremiah gave a sign that Egypt's idols would fall when the virgin bearing a child with a divine appearance came. Just because an account about Jeremiah is found in the Lives of the Prophets, it doesn't mean that it was based on something happening to the prophet in the Bible. For example, it also narrates Jeremiah casting out the serpents or crocodiles from Egypt, which is not in the Bible.

In her book, Margaret Baker mentioned the possibility that the reference to the Egyptians honoring a mother and her child could be Isis and Horus, and that the reference to Jeremiah's prophecy of the coming of the virgin and her child "was probably to Isaiah 19.1, the LORD riding on a cloud to Egypt, but the Lady was represented by the cloud, and so this prophecy was understood, certainly by later Christians, as a prophecy of Mary taking Jesus to Egypt."

You wrote about the possibility that the Egyptians' worship of a virgin and of a child in a manger referred to Isis and Horus:

Parthenogenesis is not the same as being made pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And nothing of the birth of the Messiah was connected to Ises, Neith, Sais, or Horus. The early church fathers were unrepentant pagans. That they adopted these symbols around which to model their statues is not surprising. They were not supposed to make any statues of people in the first place. It is idolatry. All Jews rejected these pagan myths. It is part of what being set apart to God is about.

I think that a better objection to equating Horus' virgin birth with Yeshua's is not that Parthenogenesis (birth from a virgin) differs from pregnancy from the Holy Spirit (since parthenogenesis could be natural from nature or supernatural from God), but rather that Horus was not actually born from a virgin, only that one version of Horus' story resembles a virgin birth. According to BeliefMap:

Horus had a biological father (Osiris), and was conceived through sex. There are at two different versions of how Horus, son of Isis, was conceived.
FIRST, Horus was conceived by the union of Osiris and his wife Isis, just before Set killed Osiris.
SECOND, Horus was conceived by the union of Horus and his wife Isis, just after Set killed Osiris and scattered pieces of him, and Isis reconstructed him, creating for him a new thingy (since a fish ate that piece of him).
Scholars generally agree that not even one pre-Christian source identifies Horus as virgin-born.

Sure, I suppose that some early gentile Christians could have used pagan statues to model their statues of the birth of Christ, despite the generally opposing statues (with exceptions like the Cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant) and Christianity opposing idols. This would tend to suggest that the author of the "Lives of the Prophets" was not referring to the Isis and Horus myth, since scholars consider the author likely a Nazarene writing in Hebrew. But I suppose that even a Nazarene could have theorized that pagan Egyptians made idols of Isis and Horus mistakenly based on an ancient prophecy that Jeremiah made to those Egyptians' forefathers. But then again, maybe the author was referring to some other Egyptian practice.

In the book "Christ in Egypt", D.M. Murdock writes:

Church father Epiphanius related that the Egyptians did indeed celebrate a virgin mother, although in his account these were Greek followers of the goddess Kore at Alexandria. This information was evidently too threatening to the Church however such that it was expurgated from at least one edition of Epiphanius' work. Nevertheless, this virgin mother, says Campbell, is a Hellenized transformation of Isis, and, during the first century BCE, Diodorus equated Isis with Demeter, Kore's virgin mother. Like Diodorus, the poet Apuleius likewise identified Isis with Demeter in his famous work "The Golden Ass" (11.2). As we have also seen, Cosmas of Jerusalem speaks of the same festival as Epiphanius, with Hellenes (Greeks) should that the virgin has brought forth, the light grows. Combining these and other testimonies with the fact of various goddesses such as Isis being called "virgin" in ancient Egyptian texts, and it is obvious that in Egypt existed pre-Christian precedents of the virgin mother.

In his book "Christianity and Mythology", John Mackinnon Robertson writes: "We know from Macrobius [Saturnalia, i. 18] that the Egyptian priests exhibited a babe to the people on a certain day as being the new-born Sun-God; and from Plutarch we know that the infant Horos was figured on the lotos at the time of the winter solstice."

On the other hand, on his Cold-Case Christianity website, J. Warner Wallace writes: "There is no reference to a cave or manger in the Egyptian birth story of Horus. In fact, none of these details are present in the ancient Egyptian stories of Horus. Horus was born in a swamp."

So it sounds like the author of "Lives of the Prophets" is referring to some pagan mythological practice of worshiping an infant in a manger in the 1st century BC-1st century AD, but it is hard to find out exactly what.

[alon]

OK, before we start, we need to remember this work was written centuries after the people it talks about. Most Jewish writers of scripture were either themselves prophets or they were witnesses to the events they wrote about. So while this can give insight to that period of time in which both Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity were just beginning to take form (1st - 4th cen CE, probably late 4th cen), it is neither scripture nor history. It is just how theologians viewed scripture at that time.

rakovsky said: For Question 1 (In the Lives of the Prophets' chapter on Jeremiah, the prophecy of the virgin's arrival with her child in Egypt must refer to the Holy family's escape to Egypt.

Most likely.

rakovsky said: what was the Egyptians' practice of bowing to a babe in a manger?),

I have no idea. I’m not even convinced it is true.

rakovsky said: let me note that Isaac Hall's 1887 translation (below) of this passage in the Lives of the Prophets is very similar to Torrey's:
Moreover during his lifetime the prophet gave signs to the (idolatrous) priests of Egypt, that their idols were also to fall when an unmarried virgin should give birth, and her son be laid in a manger. On this account the Egyptians adopted the custom of honoring virgins, and of putting an infant in a manger and worshiping it. And to King Ptolemy, who asked concerning this, it was said, that it is the tradition of our fathers, which they received from a saint of God; and we expect that there will be to it a fulfillment. (Hall's footnote: Literally, 'end' or ‘completion.')

I personally think the author got confused when he read:

Isaiah 19:1 (NASB) The oracle concerning Egypt.
Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;
The idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence,
And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.

This was part of an apocalyptic end times prophecy, however. Nothing to do with the arrival of a virgin and her child. And how would the Egytians know Miriam was a virgin when Yeshua was born? I doubt they went around telling people this was the Jewish Messiah. They held that secret close.

You wrote: “I do know Jesus was never laid in a livestock feeder to be worshiped. And He was not born in a barn. Jews who were traveling never stayed at inns. They were seen as dens of iniquity. Synagogues had rooms for traveling Jews, and during times when many were traveling they built sukkot, temporary shelters against the walls. They had stone receptacles for food, to keep it cool. Kind of like Fred Flinstone’s ice chest. That is what He’d have been laid in as a newborn, sort of a makeshift crib. When they went to Egypt, He’d have been a bit older. So the mythology doesn’t hold true.”


rakovsky said: The passage doesn't specify that the infant would be born in a manger or worshiped in one, only that Egypt's idols would falls when he would be "laid" in one.

I didn’t say He was born in a manger, I said He was not born in a barn. As to His being laid in one and worshiped, by the time the “Wise Men” got there they’d no longer be living in a sukkah, a temporary shelter. So he would not be laying in a food crib for the Wise Men to worship.

rakovsky said: It just says that the idols would fall when the virgin gave birth and the son was laid in a manger. A manger as you pointed out, is a feeding trough. But it sounds to me as if the passage implies that He would be born in one. Otherwise, it doesn't make much sense why the passage would mention the manger at all.

No, that is just Christian tradition, reinforced by every Nativity Scene each Christmas. As for Egypts idols, I know of no historic record they fell when Yeshua was a young child. I suppose you could spiritualize it and say they fell in the spirit world because the one who would ultimately end them was born. But there is a whole host of problems with that, and I don’t want to deal with them right now. Suffice to say I’d disregard that claim out of hand.

[alon]

rakovsky said: You talked about Jewish travelers staying in a shelter. The issue is interesting in that in Orthodox Tradition, Christ was born in a cave, rather than in a wooden shelter. The cave birth would go along with a chiastic reading of the Nativity and the Burial of Christ, wherein His birth from Mary and his care by Joseph would parallel His discovery by Mary Magdalene and his care by Joseph of Arimathea, the magi bringing myrrh and frankincense would parallel Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and the women bringing oil and spices for His body, etc. I wonder if the shelter birth image could be related to the concept of the festival of booths, wherein Abraham or other visitors stay in huts, as well as to the offer to build Yeshua a booth during the Transfiguration. It would also be like the practice that you described of travelers staying in sukkot built next to synagogues.

Interesting take on the cave theory. But Jews had to dwell in sukkot during the feast of Sukkot, and you had to be able to see the stars through he roof. So a cave would not have been an option.

Synagogues of that day had rooms for travelers, since no Jew would take rooms at an inn with all the depravity there. During the shalosh regalim, the 3 times each year all Jewish males had to be present in Jerusalem, sukkot, temporary dwellings were made against the sides of the synagogues in Jerusalem. The feast of Sukkot was the 3rd of these shalosh regalim each year. So our Messiah, who would dwell with us for a time was born in a sukkah, a temporary dwelling.

rakovsky said: But to get back to the passage, in the Biblical story in Luke 2, Yeshua is found in a manger. It doesn't say that he was born in one, so this must be why the Lives of the Prophets doesn't say that he was "born" in a manger. Luke 2 has the angel tell the shepherds: 12. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. …

φάτνη • (phátnē) f (genitive φάτνης); first declension
manger, crib
(anatomy) socket of tooth

So in Greek the term can mean either manger or crib. He was laid in a food crib, The term in scripture is φάτνη phátnē which means to eat, food, and a crib. A food crib.

rakovsky said: 15. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
16. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

OK, they were back home in Beit Lechem. They lived there, in a house. Why would they take their baby, the Messiah, out and lay him in a livestock feeder? This sounds like an addition by either some Greek translator or a Catholic Monk, but it just doesn’t ring true.

rakovsky said: Based on the story, the shepherds would have come and given some honor to the baby. I think you are making the point that He wouldn't have been in a typical livestock feeder in a barn. Neither Luke 2 nor the Lives of the Prophets goes into the building or the specifics of the trough, they just say that He was laid in a "manger". The Lives of the Prophets also doesn't specify that he was laid in the manger when visiting Egypt. My own impression is that it is talking about His birth when He was laid in the manger.

this is a problem. They all keep coming back to this idea of Yeshua’s lowly birth, and he was turned away by the presumably Jewish innkeeper (if there was one he’d have been apostate, and soon killed by the Siccari), and so he had to be born in a barn and laid in a feeder. They just can’t get away from the imagery. They hark back to His birth story, which they got all wrong, even when at home. If by the time they got into Jerusalem the only shelter left available was in the livestock pen, there would be an outside chance of His birth in a temporary livestock shelter and His being laid in a feeding trough. But they would not have kept laying Him in feeders with the livestock from then on!

[alon]

rakovsky said: In her book "The Mother of the Lord: Volume 1: The Lady in the Temple", Margaret Baker notices that in Jeremiah 44, the prophet predicted punishment against the remnant of Judah that had worshiped other gods and had escaped to Egypt during the Babylonian captivity. In Jeremiah 44, the remnant in Egypt replied that they would not heed Jeremiah, saying:
17. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven,

Stop for a moment. If the Jewish apostates were condemned for, it sounds like praying- “whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth”- and burning incense to “The Queen of Heaven,” why then do Catholics now call Marry the “Queen of Heaven,” burn incense and candles before her statues and pray to her instead of to God?

rakovsky said: You wrote about the possibility that the Egyptians' worship of a virgin and of a child in a manger referred to Isis and Horus: “Parthenogenesis is not the same as being made pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And nothing of the birth of the Messiah was connected to Ises, Neith, Sais, or Horus. The early church fathers were unrepentant pagans. That they adopted these symbols around which to model their statues is not surprising. They were not supposed to make any statues of people in the first place. It is idolatry. All Jews rejected these pagan myths. It is part of what being set apart to God is about.”

I think that a better objection to equating Horus' virgin birth with Yeshua's is not that Parthenogenesis (birth from a virgin) differs from pregnancy from the Holy Spirit (since parthenogenesis could be natural from nature or supernatural from God), but rather that Horus was not actually born from a virgin, only that one version of Horus' story resembles a virgin birth. According to BeliefMap:
Horus had a biological father (Osiris), and was conceived through sex. There are at two different versions of how Horus, son of Isis, was conceived.
FIRST, Horus was conceived by the union of Osiris and his wife Isis, just before Set killed Osiris.
SECOND, Horus was conceived by the union of Horus and his wife Isis, just after Set killed Osiris and scattered pieces of him, and Isis reconstructed him, creating for him a new thingy (since a fish ate that piece of him).
Scholars generally agree that not even one pre-Christian source identifies Horus as virgin-born.

Sure, I suppose that some early gentile Christians could have used pagan statues to model their statues of the birth of Christ, despite the generally opposing statues (with exceptions like the Cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant) and Christianity opposing idols. This would tend to suggest that the author of the "Lives of the Prophets" was not referring to the Isis and Horus myth, since scholars consider the author likely a Nazarene writing in Hebrew. But I suppose that even a Nazarene could have theorized that pagan Egyptians made idols of Isis and Horus mistakenly based on an ancient prophecy that Jeremiah made to those Egyptians' forefathers. But then again, maybe the author was referring to some other Egyptian practice.

In the book "Christ in Egypt", D.M. Murdock writes:

Church father Epiphanius related that the Egyptians did indeed celebrate a virgin mother, although in his account these were Greek followers of the goddess Kore at Alexandria. This information was evidently too threatening to the Church however such that it was expurgated from at least one edition of Epiphanius' work. Nevertheless, this virgin mother, says Campbell, is a Hellenized transformation of Isis, and, during the first century BCE, Diodorus equated Isis with Demeter, Kore's virgin mother. Like Diodorus, the poet Apuleius likewise identified Isis with Demeter in his famous work "The Golden Ass" (11.2). As we have also seen, Cosmas of Jerusalem speaks of the same festival as Epiphanius, with Hellenes (Greeks) should that the virgin has brought forth, the light grows. Combining these and other testimonies with the fact of various goddesses such as Isis being called "virgin" in ancient Egyptian texts, and it is obvious that in Egypt existed pre-Christian precedents of the virgin mother.

In his book "Christianity and Mythology", John Mackinnon Robertson writes: "We know from Macrobius [Saturnalia, i. 18] that the Egyptian priests exhibited a babe to the people on a certain day as being the new-born Sun-God; and from Plutarch we know that the infant Horos was figured on the lotos at the time of the winter solstice."

On the other hand, on his Cold-Case Christianity website, J. Warner Wallace writes: "There is no reference to a cave or manger in the Egyptian birth story of Horus. In fact, none of these details are present in the ancient Egyptian stories of Horus. Horus was born in a swamp."

So it sounds like the author of "Lives of the Prophets" is referring to some pagan mythological practice of worshiping an infant in a manger in the 1st century BC-1st century AD, but it is hard to find out exactly what.

So what you are really saying is that none of this is clear. I concur.

[alon]

rakovsky, here is another problem (I don't know if I mentioned this before), but quite often epistles were written for a particular people or time. So some messages, or all or part of this message may have been for someone else. It would make sense to them, but to contemporary minds might be incomprehensible. So you might look for any indication this was for others and not us. It may not be obvious, and the only real indication might be that we simply cannot make any sense of it. That's what the last part sounds to me like.

Dan C

[rakovsky]

Aug 30, 2019 14:04:04 GMT -8 alon said:

Stop for a moment. If the Jewish apostates were condemned for, it sounds like praying- “whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth”- and burning incense to “The Queen of Heaven,” why then do Catholics now call Marry the “Queen of Heaven,” burn incense and candles before her statues and pray to her instead of to God?

Jeremiah was criticizing the refugees for worshiping other gods, like the "Queen of Heaven" or Asherah, whereas the Catholics believe that Mary is human, not a god like Asherah, and they also burn incense to God in the course of their liturgies. But they don't make statues of God and burn incense in front of statues of God because they would interpret that as idolatry. I think that their understanding of idolatry as it would apply to making statues is that the forbidden idolatry refers to making statues of God or gods, or believing that the physical idol is a god. Eastern Orthodox don't tend to make statues of religious figures because of the Biblical prohibition on graven images, but they don't interpret the prohibition categorically, because for example God told Moses to put Cherubim figurines on the ark. So you can find rare cases of small statues of saints made over the centuries in Eastern Orthodoxy.

[rakovsky]

For Question 2 (Could Jonah be the widow's son whom Elijah raised?), you correctly write that this is highly unlikely. One factor is that 1 Kings 17 does not identify the widow's son, whereas the Lives of the Prophets was written in the First-Second Century AD, so any such information could easily be lost. On the other hand, the identification of the two figures is one of the rabbinical traditions, not just what is found in the Lives of the Prophets.

The only other place Jonah is mentioned in the Old Testament is 2 Kings 14:25, which says about King Jeroboam II of the northern kingdom of Israel: "He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gathhepher." This means that Jonah was prophecying in the time of Jeroboam II (782-753 BC) or earlier (like in Elijah's time), but it seems to imply that Jonah was closer in time to Jeroboam II. In that ancient era, it was common for a prophet (like Nathan) to make prophecies about kings of their era (like David) or soon afterwards.

Steven M. Collins writes on his website:

II Kings 14:25 reveals that Jonah was from the city of Gath-Hepher, which Joshua 19:13 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] records was in the territory of the tribe of Zebulon.

Since it sounds like Jonah was prophecying under Jeroboam II (early-mid-8th century BC) in II Kings 14, whereas Elijah was prophecying under King Ahab (874-853 BC) in 1 Kings 17, Jonah must not have been the widow's son whom Elijah resurrected.

Here is a helpful timeline of the kings and prophets of Israel:

[rakovsky]

Feb 28, 2019 8:56:39 GMT -8 alon said:

As to comma placement, you’d first need other historical data to back up his birthplace, then you could make an educated guess at placing punctuation. 

Moving the idols would certainly explain the apparent discrepancy. However again, you’d need historical references to back up a definite statement to that effect.

Dan C

Dan,

For Question 3 (Was there a golden calf at Gilgal?) You gave good advice about finding the birthplace of Elijah. Elijah is told in 1 Kings 19:16, "You shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi to be king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah (Elisha Ben Shapat meAbel Mehowlah) to be prophet in your place." The Bible doesn't say elsewhere where he was born. It isn't clear whether the father or Elisha was "of Abel Meholah", but it sounds to me like it was Elisha himself, as if one might refer to Yeshua Bar Yosef of Nazareth instead of just "Jesus of Nazareth". Further being "of" a certain city doesn't necessarily mean that the person was born there. "Jesus of Nazareth" was born in Bethlehem, and the martyr "Justin of Rome" was not born in Rome. So it sounds like Elisha was from Abel Meholah, but it's hard to be more specific.

2 Kings 2 describes Elijah leaving with Elisha from Gilgal and going to Bethel: "1. And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal." So it means that Elisha was staying or living in Gilgal, and this would have happened after Elijah had been told to find him as "from Abel Meholah". So in this scheme, Elisha would have been from Abel-Meholah and gone to Gilgal. And it makes sense that he went there because Gilgal was well known as a place of idol worship.

In the Lives of the Prophets, it says about Elisha: "He was from Abel-meholah, of the territory of Reuben. When he was born, in Gilgal, a marvelous thing happened: the golden calf bellowed so loudly that the shrill sound was heard in Jerusalem;"

Based on the sentence's grammar, it looks like he could have been born in Gilgal or that the calf bellowed in Gilgal. But based on context, it must have meant the latter. The first sentence about where he was from would have been the best time for the author to say Elisha's birthplace, if it was different from where he was from. In contrast, it makes sense that the author would note that the golden calf was in Gilgal because of how remarkable it was that it was heard in Gilgal.

Scripture doesn't mention a golden calf being there, but what was the location like where the calves were sacrificed at Gilgal? It was common in ancient times to sacrifice an animal in front of an idol of the animal.

Since Elisha came before Amos and Hosea, and the latter two mention a gold calf at Bethel and animal sacrifices at Gilgal, but don't mention a golden calf there, it sounds as if Amos and Hosea didn't know of a golden calf at Gilgal. And the author of the Lives of the Prophets could have thought that there had been one at Gilgal where the sacrifices occurred and that Elisha had been involved with the destruction of a calf idol at Gilgal where Elisha was. But then again, there is never a mention in the Bible of a golden calf at Gilgal. Maybe the author confused the one at Bethel with the sacrifices at Gilgal.

To address what you wrote earlier:

They speak more of the worship of idols in general, of which figures of calves were prominent:

Amos 4:1 (NASB) Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria, Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, Who say to your husbands, “Bring now, that we may drink!”

This speaks of many idols- cows, plural. And the mountain would probably be Mt. Gerizim.

Lopuhin writes that Bashan was famous for its cattle and that this verse refers to the women of Bashan metaphorically as cows who demand luxury.

[alon]

Aug 31, 2019 11:04:22 GMT -8 rakovsky said:

Feb 28, 2019 8:56:39 GMT -8 alon said:

Lopuhin writes that Bashan was famous for its cattle and that this verse refers to the women of Bashan metaphorically as cows who demand luxury.

Lopuhin could be right in this instance (though I bet the men of Bashan never called their wives this to their face)! 


Seriously, it's difficult to know. 

Dan C

[rakovsky]

Good discussion.