Mandaeism?

[lemonbeam]

Hi, Is this true?

‘‘Christianity" started as a heretical offshoot of Mandaeism.Mandaeism was a sect within Samaritan Judaism.Judaism itself is the historical hybrid offshoot of heretical Akhenaton Kemetic ideas developed under Zorasterian hegemony during the long Persian occupation of Kemet/Egypt.’’

 

[SalomeBintullah]

Hi, Is this true?

‘‘Christianity" started as a heretical offshoot of Mandaeism.Mandaeism was a sect within Samaritan Judaism.Judaism itself is the historical hybrid offshoot of heretical Akhenaton Kemetic ideas developed under Zorasterian hegemony during the long Persian occupation of Kemet/Egypt.’’

In a word, no. There’s ample historical evidence that Christianity was an offshoot of Judaism (not Samaritan Judaism) that was founded by the man Jesus of Nazareth, who was what he claimed to be, namely, God. I suggest Lee Strobel’s book The Case for Christ.

As for the Akhenaten/Judaism connection, I used to think the same thing, until I actually became an Egyptology major. Akhenaten’s sole god, the Aten, is represented by a sun disc and is in no way comparable with YHWH. Sigmund Freud, who was in no way an authority on the matter, was the first to come up with the theory that Moses’ monotheism was derived from Atenism. Egyptologist Erik Hornung has written a book called Akhenaten and the Religion of Light if you’d like to pursue study of Atenism. But I warn you, Hornung’s writing is extremely technical.

Also, the Persians Period in Egypt lasted from 525-332 B.C., or the 27th-31st Dynasties. Slightly less than 200 years is not a huge amount of time, although it’s true that the Ptolemies only controlled Egypt for about the same amount of time. Atenism died at the same time as Akhenten himself, in approximately 1333 B.C. (Well, technically it continued into the reign of his mysterious successor Smenkhkare before being abolished by Tutankhamun early in his reign.) Anyway, the point is that there is no evidence whatsoever that the practice of Atenism outlived the Amarna Period, let alone survived into the Persian Period.

The person who wrote those words in italics uses a lot of scholarly-sounding words like “Kemetian Atenism” (“Kemetian” means Egyptian, and Atenism was never otherwise), and “Zoroastrian hegemony,” word combinations that no scholar would actually use. In other words, the person who wrote those words in italics is a pompous know-nothing.

ETA: The conquerors of Egypt, whether Persian or otherwise, never imposed their culture or religion on the Egyptians. Rather, they adapted themselves to the culture and religion of the Egyptians.

 

[SalomeBintullah]

You can read Wikipedia’s article on Mandaeism here. They sound link a Gnostic remnant that is not actually related to Samaritan Judaism. So that’s yet another strike against the claim that Christianity comes from Mandaeism.

 

[Publisher]

As I understood, Mandaeism was the remnant of a group of Jewish believers who claimed Jesus had usurped John the Baptist. We see some of the “conflict” in the NT book of Acts where disciples of Jesus meet disciples of John and ask which baptism they received…of John or Jesus.

The Madaens exist still tody.

 

[lemonbeam]

Hello, he responded with the following:

*In a word,yes.And here’s why…

Persian/Zoroastrian hegemony lasted just about as long as the USA has from 1776 til now.

It’s impact was about the same on that ‘world’ as the USA’s on our current one.(regionally speaking)

What is known historically as Judaism is a result of synchronization of monotheistic religious trends across the Persian empire with a strong impetus from it’s Kemetin Satrap.

Just like 200 years of synchronization in the USA has given the world Christian Science,Adventism,Mormonism & Fardian Islam.And will birth more future combinations as long as it last.

In ancient times there were many’ Judaism’ & many Yahweh temples-just like today there are many ‘types’ of Christians & Jews,etc.

Generaly instead of ‘denominations’ some scholars call these different groups listed under an over arching ‘umbrella’ category -“schools”.

These ‘schools’ were led & founded by ‘teachers’ who gathered ‘students’ who studied under them.

One(among many) such school(s) under the umbrella of ‘heretical’ Judaism(as opposed to official Judaism centered around the priesthood in Jerusalem & the Jewish royal family)was the school of ‘John’ in Alexandria (Egypt).

‘Jesus’ was one such student in John’s school-and not even a prominent one.

This ‘John’ has come down to us in official histories as “John the Baptist”…to his students he was 'Seth" “Enosh” “the Son of Man” “Knowledge of life” “Son of God” etc…

His followers held him in high esteem & hailed him as a great healer,scholar,miracle worker & “Messiah”.The ruling /official Jewish leadership saw him as a dangerous blasphemous cult leader with too large a following of gullible people & had him killed.

The school ‘Master’ was gone… but class continued.

In the Samaritan/trans Jordan area(a highly successful recruiting area for John’s pupils)Dositheus rose to prominence,claiming the martyred John’s mantle.

A battle for leadership took place between the supporters of Simon,Johns designated choice as succesor & Dositheus,the 'on the ground ’ usurper.

Jesus took advantage in this ‘crises’ of leadership to press his own claims as successor.

Jesus 3 year ministry & martyrs death(ala John)as head of his own version of John’s school(the Way) served as the foundation accounts of what in a little under 100 years would come to be known as Christianity.

Oh…& by the way,the particular sectarian heretical Judaic umbrella that John had his school under is known as the Nazoreans.*

 

[SalomeBintullah]

Hello, he responded with the following:

In a word,yes.And here’s why…

Persian/Zoroastrian hegemony lasted just about as long as the USA has from 1776 til now.

It’s impact was about the same on that ‘world’ as the USA’s on our current one.(regionally speaking)

What is known historically as Judaism is a result of synchronization of monotheistic religious trends across the Persian empire with a strong impetus from it’s Kemetin Satrap.

Just like 200 years of synchronization in the USA has given the world Christian Science,Adventism,Mormonism & Fardian Islam.And will birth more future combinations as long as it last.

Notice how he doesn’t back up any of his laughably wild claims with any scholarship. I suggest that you challenge him to do so. And tell us all of the names of the scholars and sources that he gives so that we can verify them as mainstream and respectable. I strongly suspect that he won’t be able to give you any respectable sources. But go ahead and ask him anyway. I do so love to watch fringe theorists in any field squirm and grasp at straws.

I should also point out that ancient Persia and ancient Kemet (since he’s so keen on using “scholarly-sounding” terms; Egyptologists rarely call Egypt Kemet in scholarly papers) were a heck of a lot religiously diverse than modern America. For one thing, the ancient Egyptian religion was able absorb a lot of seemly contradictory beliefs. The ancient Egyptian religion had no “schools,” although it did have specific cults (in the anthropological sense). The Jews did have different schools of thought, but they all agreed that they were monotheists who worshiped the same God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and followed the Law of Moses. They were purists and deeply suspicious of non-Jewish religions.

Also, it’s worth repeating that Judaism existed before Atenism. But I notice that he’s dropped any references to Atenism. Nonetheless I will repeat what I said in an earlier post: Atenism had been dead for nearly a thousand years before Persia took over Egypt. There was no Egyptian monotheism.

In ancient times there were many’ Judaism’ & many Yahweh temples-just like today there are many ‘types’ of Christians & Jews,etc.

Generaly instead of ‘denominations’ some scholars call these different groups listed under an over arching ‘umbrella’ category -“schools”.

These ‘schools’ were led & founded by ‘teachers’ who gathered ‘students’ who studied under them.

One(among many) such school(s) under the umbrella of ‘heretical’ Judaism(as opposed to official Judaism centered around the priesthood in Jerusalem & the Jewish royal family)was the school of ‘John’ in Alexandria (Egypt).

‘Jesus’ was one such student in John’s school-and not even a prominent one.

Again, no sources. Philo was the “head” of a Jewish school in Alexandria. I know of no one named John who was the head of any Alexandrian Jewish school.

This ‘John’ has come down to us in official histories as “John the Baptist”…to his students he was 'Seth" “Enosh” “the Son of Man” “Knowledge of life” “Son of God” etc…

Oh, please. This is pure Gnostic theology.

His followers held him in high esteem & hailed him as a great healer,scholar,miracle worker & “Messiah”.The ruling /official Jewish leadership saw him as a dangerous blasphemous cult leader with too large a following of gullible people & had him killed.

The school ‘Master’ was gone… but class continued.

In the Samaritan/trans Jordan area(a highly successful recruiting area for John’s pupils)Dositheus rose to prominence,claiming the martyred John’s mantle.

A battle for leadership took place between the supporters of Simon,Johns designated choice as succesor & Dositheus,the 'on the ground ’ usurper.

Jesus took advantage in this ‘crises’ of leadership to press his own claims as successor.

Jesus 3 year ministry & martyrs death(ala John)as head of his own version of John’s school(the Way) served as the foundation accounts of what in a little under 100 years would come to be known as Christianity.

Oh…& by the way,the particular sectarian heretical Judaic umbrella that John had his school under is known as the Nazoreans.

This is completely ridiculous. This “particular sectarian heretical Judaic umbrella that John had his school under” is known, as this guy himself initially told you, as Mandaeism, not the Nazoreans. He’s completely incoherent. He’s a con artist who’s trying to sell you a load of ideological hooey. I suggest you simply thank him for his time, tell him that he’s failed to convince you or provide you with any evidence other than his unsupported opinion, and break off contact. It’s obvious that he’s positively gleeful wallowing in his ignorance.

Also, read the book On the Reliability of the Old Testament by K.A. Kitchen. Kitchen is a highly respected expert on the Ancient Near East who is a professor at the University of Liverpool. You might want to recommend the book to this guy, although I suspect he’d reject it out of hand because it contradicts his pet theory (concerning the origin of Judaism) with the cold, hard facts of archaeology.

 

[KyivAndrew]

As for the Akhenaten/Judaism connection, I used to think the same thing, until I actually became an Egyptology major. Akhenaten’s sole god, the Aten, is represented by a sun disc and is in no way comparable with YHWH. Sigmund Freud, who was in no way an authority on the matter, was the first to come up with the theory that Moses’ monotheism was derived from Atenism.

As an aside here Salome, I agree with everything you say. I just have a question of the Egyptian religion of Akhenaten. We are told it’s the world’s first monotheistic religion, but would it be correct to say that Jewish monotheism was unlike Akhenaten’s short-lived monotheism in that the Jews were the first to develop ethical monotheism, whereas Akhenaten’s monotheism did not care much for morality. I learned from C.S. Lewis and Paul Johnson I guess that the Jews great contribution to the world was giving an ethical and moral system to monotheism. Does this seem a fair statement? God Bless.

 

[SalomeBintullah]

As an aside here Salome, I agree with everything you say. I just have a question of the Egyptian religion of Akhenaten. We are told it’s the world’s first monotheistic religion, but would it be correct to say that Jewish monotheism was unlike Akhenaten’s short-lived monotheism in that the Jews were the first to develop ethical monotheism, whereas Akhenaten’s monotheism did not care much for morality. I learned from C.S. Lewis and Paul Johnson I guess that the Jews great contribution to the world was giving an ethical and moral system to monotheism. Does this seem a fair statement? God Bless.

Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty fair statement. Akhenaten’s purpose in promoting Atenism wasn’t to change ancient Egypt’s ethical system. Now, depending on which Egyptologist you ask, you’ll get many different opinions on just what his purpose was in promoting Atenism. Some will say political, others will say spiritual. I think it was a bit of both. But in any case, he wasn’t trying to create a whole new system of ethics. And it’s probably important to know that Atenism wasn’t even pure monotheism. The common people prayed to/worshiped the royal family, who acted as intercessors and passed on these prayers to the Aten.

 

[xixxvmcm85]

Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty fair statement. Akhenaten’s purpose in promoting Atenism wasn’t to change ancient Egypt’s ethical system. Now, depending on which Egyptologist you ask, you’ll get many different opinions on just what his purpose was in promoting Atenism. Some will say political, others will say spiritual. I think it was a bit of both. But in any case, he wasn’t trying to create a whole new system of ethics. And it’s probably important to know that Atenism wasn’t even pure monotheism. The common people prayed to/worshiped the royal family, who acted as intercessors and passed on these prayers to the Aten.

For the bold and underlined part, could you explain to me how this was different than our use of saints as intercessors?

Thank you.

 

[SalomeBintullah]

For the bold and underlined part, could you explain to me how this was different than our use of saints as intercessors?

Thank you.

Well, Atenism is kind of confusing, but basically even during this time period the pharaoh was considered divine, so it was more than what we think of as saintly intercession. Egyptologist Erik Hornung puts it this way:

“Aten (or Re-Horakhty) was the god of Akhenaten, but the personal god of the individual was the king - as Assman has put it, ‘He was the god who set out on procession, who performed signs and wonders, and who intervened in the destiny of the individual, holding life and death in his hands.’ …] The king was appealed to as the dispenser of all sustenance, and the epithets of a creator god were heaped on him; the mayor of the new capital conjured up the formula ‘Neferkheprure [Akhenaten’s throne name] brings into being’ as a new name for himself.” (Akhenaten and the Religion of Light, p.55) A couple pages later he goes on to say that Nefertiti was the female element as a personal goddess. The Aten, Akhenaten, and Nefertiti made up a kind of “trinity” (triad is a more accurate word) like other groupings of three gods that were popular during the New Kingdom.

Another difference is that Akhenaten and Nefertiti were still alive while they were being prayed to for intercession.