Podcasts about Zoroaster

Questions? Comments? Text Us!In the newest What's On Your Mind, host Scott Langdon sits down with Dr. Jerry L. Martin for a deep and heartfelt conversation about divine growth, spiritual tension, and the unfolding mystery of God's nature.As they revisit God's revelation to the ancient prophet Zoroaster, the discussion opens with Jerry's experience of spiritual anxiety, and how his body reacted to the unknown before divine communication began. This leads into a powerful exploration of how God Himself describes being not all-powerful, not all-knowing, and not all-good; at least not in the absolute sense. Instead, God is growing, evolving, and seeking fullness through relationship, through the world, and through us.Through Zoroaster's divine encounter, God comes to see His “other side.” A concept that challenges traditional theology but resonates deeply with those who see spirituality as a journey, not a fixed set of beliefs. Scott and Jerry explore themes like duality, good and evil, panentheism, and the reality of imperfection in divine creation.Drawing from metaphors in music, embodiment, and human love, the conversation touches on Beethoven, spiritual embodiment, and how meaning is co-created through lived experience. This episode will speak to anyone curious about the divine, questioning inherited beliefs, or wondering if God can grow with us. 

Een matroos klimt naar het kraaiennest. Wat hij ziet, doethet bloed in zijn aderen bevriezen: een schip, gehuld in een vurige gloed, dobbert als een geest over de deinende zee. Hij ziet zeilen, maar geen teken van leven. Er bestaat voor hem geen twijfel: dit is het verdoemde schip waarover in elke haven wordt gefluisterd — de Vliegende Hollander die nooit zal aanmeren… Patrick Bassant gaat op zoek naar de oorsprong van deze intrigerende mythe, van een Australische gentleman-crimineel naar de slavenhandel, een duivelspact en het einde van de VOC, Britse rancune en Duitse romantiek, en we varen langs de vele verschijningen van de Vliegende Hollander in literatuur en cultuur, van zombiebevers, Jack Sparrow, de fluwelen broek bij Gerard Reve, de verdoemde papegaai van Jef Last en de foute Hollander in dienst van de Kriegsmarine bij Louis Ferron. Hopelijk vinden we dan onze rust… Tekst: Patrick Bassant, Gerard Reve, Jef Last enLouis Ferron. Opname, montage, AI, sound design: Patrick. U kunt de inktpodcast steunen via www.buymeacoffee.com/inktpodcast.Literatuur:Agnes Andeweg, De Vliegende Hollander en Terneuzen. Vaninternationaal symbool tot lokale legende. Uitg. Den Boer de Ruiter, Vlissingen 2015Gerard Reve, De taal der Liefde 1971 (Verzameld Werk deel 2) Louis Ferron, La Paloma een spel in achttien scènes, gebaseerd op Richard Wagners libretto voor "Der fliegende Holländer",Bezige Bij 1987Jef Last, De Vliegende Hollander, Amsterdam Arbeiderspers1947Peter Altena, Léon Stapper en Michel Uyen, Van Abélard tot Zoroaster. Literaire en historische figuren vanaf de renaissance in literatuur, muziek, beeldende kunst en theater. 1994Troels Ussing, De mythe doorgeprikt: Dit is de waarheid over De Vliegende Hollander. Historianet.nl Gepubl op 27-08-2024Wagner, Richard pf: Joseph Keilberth cond/ Bayreuth Festival Orchestra & Chorus (1955) 

Zoroaster and Abrahamic Religions Part II: From Zoroaster to MosesSummaryIn this episode, we explore how sacred histories are not always straightforward records of the past, but deeply layered narratives shaped by memory, theology, and retrospective meaning. From the retroactive storytellingstructures in Abrahamic texts to the haunting poetic legacy of the Gāthās in Zoroastrianism, we reflect on the challenges of tracing historical truth amidst mythic resonance. Why do prophets appear fully formed in scripture? How do traditions remember and reshape their origins? And what makes Zoroaster such a singular figure in the history of religious thought? Join me as we peel back the layers of sacred memory and step into the luminous, elusive world ofsalvation narratives.Keywords#Zoroaster; #PhilosophyOfReligion; #CulturalMemory; #SacredTexts; #Gathas; #Zoroastrianism; #HistoryOfReligion; #SalvationHistory; #ReligiousNarratives; #PropheticTradition; #EthicalMonotheism; #MythAndMemory; #ReligiousOrigins; #OralTradition; #SpentaAndAngra; #Zarathustra;#AncientWisdom

Questions? Comments? Text Us!In this special episode of The Life Wisdom Project Jerry L. Martin is joined by acclaimed horror author, essayist, and religious thinker Matt Cardin for a profound exploration of divine duality, Zoroastrian cosmology, and the moral landscape of good and evil.Together, they dive into God's revelations to the prophet Zoroaster as recounted in God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher, unpacking a worldview where life is not a passive unfolding — but an active battlefield between light and darkness, truth and illusion. Through the lens of Zoroastrianism and Manichaean thought, the conversation traces how spiritual maturity demands we choose a side — not in tribal allegiance, but in moral clarity and existential responsibility.Matt Cardin brings his unique background at the crossroads of religion, metaphysical horror, and philosophical inquiry to the fore. The episode confronts some of the most challenging spiritual insights from the book, including:“Most spiritually attuned people are not truth seekers.”“To look evil in the face is a spiritual act.”“My aspects have a life of their own and go wayward.”These statements form the foundation for a dialogue about spiritual integration, shadow work, divine self-awareness, and the lived tension between peace and calamity — as illustrated in both Zoroaster's vision and Isaiah 45, where God declares, “I form the light and create darkness.”The episode also explores how horror writing, when used with spiritual intent, can serve as a radical form of not turning away — of confronting the hidden, the repressed, the divine and monstrous within. Cardin's reflections on Jung, Freud, and the archetypal struggle for integration are especially resonant for seekers navigating complexity in both self and cosmos.Whether you're drawn to Zoroastrian theology, psychological integration, or the spiritual function of horror literature, this conversation invites you to experience divine reality with open eyes — and a willingness to face the truth, however unsettling it may be.Other Series:The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series:From God To Jerry To You- a brand-new series calling for the attention of spiritual seekers everywhere, featuring breakthroughs, pathways, and illuminations.Two Philosophers Wrestle With God- sit in on a dialogue between philosophers about God and the questions we all have. What's On Our Mind- Connect the dots with Jerry and Scott over the most recent series episodes. What's On Your Mind- What are readers and listeners saying? What is God sayingResources:THE LIFE WISDOM PROJECT PLAYLISTStay ConnectedShare your thoughts or questions at questions@godandautobiography.com

Questions? Comments? Text Us!What if God had another side?In this special revisit of Episode 26, Zoroaster Sees God's Other Side, we explore one of the most profound moments in God: An Autobiography- a divine encounter that reshaped both Zoroaster's understanding of the cosmos and God's own self-awareness.Zoroaster, the ancient Persian prophet, perceived not just divine light, but divine struggle. In this remarkable dialogue, God shares how this revelation was a growth experience for Him, as He unveiled His dual nature to one of His earliest great prophets.God candidly addresses the existence of evil, not only in the world, but within Himself. Through Zoroaster's story, the problem of evil becomes a spiritual revelation: God is not a static perfection, but a being evolving toward wholeness. The universe is shown to be a shared spiritual journey, where even chaos plays a role in the unfolding of sacred order.

Questions? Comments? Text Us!Jerry shares his fascinating revelations during prayer concerning the prophet Zoroaster's profound encounter with the divine.Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest known monotheistic religions, but few know its rich history—largely preserved through oral tradition—that allows us to understand what God was communicating to Zoroaster through the cosmic battle between good and evil.In this powerful narrative, we're introduced to the figure of Ahura Mazda—the embodiment of wisdom and goodness—and His counterpart, the Hostile Spirit, often perceived as God's “evil twin.” This story dives into the eternal struggle between light and darkness, a central theme in Zoroastrian belief and one still deeply relevant to the modern spiritual seeker.Join us as we explore these ancient revelations and how they continue to echo in our understanding of the divine, the nature of evil, and the choices our souls are called to make.Are you paying attention? Visit godanautobiography.com for more information and to get your copy of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher — the true story of an agnostic philosopher who heard the voice of God and recorded their conversations.Other Series:The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series:Life Wisdom Project: How to live a wiser, happier, and more meaningful life with special guests.From God To Jerry To You: Calling for the attention of spiritual seekers everywhere, featuring breakthroughs, pathways, and illuminations.Two Philosophers Wrestle With God: Sit in on a dialogue between philosophers about God and the questions we all have.What's On Our Mind- Connect the dots with Jerry and Scott over the most recent series of episodes.What's On Your Mind: What are readers and listeners saying? What is God saying?Resources:READ: "You Could Be Wrong."FROM GOD TO JERRY TO YOU PLAYLISTWould you like to be featured on the show or have questions about spirituality or divine communication? Share your story or experience with God!#fromgodtojerrytoyou #FGTJTY #godanautobiographythepodcast #experiencegod #SpiritualAwakeningShare Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a satanic ritual… well, actually it's probably not. In the weeks leading up to Super Bowl 57 the public was given multiple idols to honor in the name of ever-changing political correctness. The last week of January featured a statue of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the New York State Supreme Court house next to actual law givers like Moses and Zoroaster. Her body was deformed though with tentacles and horns and she stood on a lotus flower, a symbol of spirit overcoming matter, even though the idol was a symbol of matter aborting spirit. The same artist crafted another similar statue across the street supposedly representing Eve. In both cases is the universal mother called upon and then inverted to draw on the energy of Lilith of Lamashtu, the Mother of Beasts. The graven image reminded many of medusa who is famous for turning men into stone. A week later on February 5th the Grammys featured Sam Smith and Kim Petra performing a song called ‘Unholy' with cartoonish depictions of the Devil, alongside of flames, cages, red clothes and horns. While most were caught up in the childlike depiction of evil they missed the intentional magic circle on stage and/or the lyrics of the song which referred to the unholy practices at the ‘body shop', perhaps a lyric noting our increasing desire to drug and mutilate children and adults in the name of identity, obesity, or rebellion. Darkness and chaos are, after all, rebellion against light and order, and altering the image of god is probably evil. The performance was said to be ground breaking because of the gender and sexual identities of Sam and Kim, relating their devilish images to a cartoon devil from the Powerpuff Girls tv show wherein Satan wears drag and is confused about his identity. His name is HIIM, or His Infernal Majesty. Social media was also ablaze about Madonna, who introduced the performance. Many said she looked plastic, fake, and just awful. Madonna, of course, blamed this on ageism and mysoginy despite many observers being older and women. Once again, largely overlooked, was her hair which was done in a way to mimic the horns on the Ginsburg statue. Since Madonna is trying to maintain her relevancy and youth it would seem that she is the one attempting to perform unholy acts against nature. She is, in essence, the Black Madonna, or the black MA (mother) DONNA (goddess). A week later we arrive at Super Bowl 57 on February 12, 2023, played in Glendale/Phoenix, Arizona, at State Farm Stadium, between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs. Commercials were mostly drab with few exceptions. A new Flash movie, Ant Man, Doritos triangles, Disney magic, the Masked Singer with a gargoyle, and some electric vehicle commercials from Jeep, GM (which featured zombies, Stranger Things, and Squid Games), and RAM (which seemed to really try with their ‘Premature Electrification' to convict you electric is better). The most notable were SquareSpace, Tubi, and U2. SquareSpace featured Adam Driver talking about how the service for websites ‘could create itself' and how this was the ‘singularity'. Adam Driver multiplied into what reminded some of agents from the matrix before being sucked into a portal. Square Space is also the dimension of Metatron's Cube or the meta verse, the eight sphere embodied by Saturn's essence.Tubi took viewers down a ‘rabbit hole' during the year of the rabbit, as rabbits physically took people and threw them into the abyss. And perhaps the most disturbing of all was the band U2 announcing their residency at the MSG Sphere in Las Vegas with a short 15 second ad featuring sphere-like UFOs, intense trailer-like music and a warning that ‘an unidentified object has been spotted over the skies'. What made this ad so disturbing to some was the fact that in the 72 hours prior to the game UFOs, which for some reason were not called UAPs and were not blamed on Russia, were tracked and shot down in Deadhorse, Alaska, Yukon, Canada, and over Lake Huron near Michigan. Lake Michigan airspace had been shut down hours before while the FAA also shut down the airspace over Montana due to NORAD tracking a ‘radar anomaly'. If the Super Bowl took your attention away from these unidentified objects then the U2 commercial redirected your attention back at the very end of the game. Not all of the UFOs were spherical, however, a reference to the Chinese Spy Balloon shot down on the east coast a week before. Instead, they were cylindrical and silver, while the Great Lakes UFO was octagonal. Several were called ‘airships'.In a tongue-in-cheek observation one could see the Vince Lombardi Trophy itself as holding not a football but a cylindrical, silver airship. Then there is Halftime. Usually sponsored by Pepsi the 2023 show was sponsored by Apple and performed by Rihanna and some dancers in white. Pre-game advertisements had Rihanna in a cloak of green moss or grass with her hair done (like a character from Dr. Seuss) to look like the roots or branches of a tree. Her entire pre-performance outfit made her appear to represent a tree which was sponsored by the black apple. This is obviously Edenic and the black apple logo is the poisoned apple given a tempted Eve in the garden, or Snow White. In essence, Rihanna was a representation of the Universal Mother of Nature. We even saw Adam and Eve in an avocado commercial during the game, a symbol of a womb and new life.Pre-game notes made sure the tens of millions of views knew that the game-day military flyover was performed entirely by women, that a black female coach Autumn Lockwood was the first to assistant coach a Super Bowl, and that both starting quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes, had darker skin, sort of. In other words, much homage was shown to black women in particular but black folks in general during black history month. As these things typically come off as insincere it was not noted that the NFL is over 70% black, and that roughly 38% of assistant coaches and 10% of head coaches are black. Not bad for representing only 14% of the entire population. But more to the point…Rihanna, who was opposed to the NFL for some time, decided to perform anyway. She represented the Universal Mother of Nature or Queen of Heaven. Halftime began with the singer suspended on a giant mirror and accompanied by two lower mirrors on each side, each with two dancers in white. Overall there were seven of these mirrors but we only see five to begin. The image created is that of the GEN (Chinese) or GON (Japanese), one of the Eight Trigrams of the I Ching, featuring a horizontal solid bar with two bars underneath on the left and right sides the.As the performance proceeds the suspended mirrors move in a way to indicate a stairway or a Staircase either to Heaven or Hell, as it shifts in both directions. This also flips the GEN or GON upside down and then back up. Next we see the mirrors on left and right drawing the eye down to the bottom central mirror with Rihanna, who was first at the apex of a ziggurat, is now at its bottom - this flipping represents both male and female or fire and water. It is traditionally Isis who is the all-seeing eye at the apex of the heavenly facing pyramid. We know Rihanna has a large Isis tattoo on her chest.After her dancers crawl behind her across the red stage and she retouches her makeup once, the mirrors return to view suspended in a straight line across the top of the stage. She then performs her iconic ‘Run this Town' song as the central mirror then lifts her back into the air and she transitions to the song ‘Umbrella'. A particularly interesting note about this song should not be passed up. UMBRELLA as a word is a combination of two words - UMBRA and ELLA. This is their meaning:UMBRA: a shadow region of darknessELLA: a female given name, from Germanic meaning ‘all'In other words, UMBRELLA is an all encompassing female name given to darkness. Here we are reminded again of the Black Madonna or the inverted Universal Mother. It should be noted, furthermore, that Rihanna has a giant tattoo of Lady Isis on her chest. We should also note that the black goddess Kali is said to be symbolized by mirrors. The mirrors at the halftime show furthermore reflected the heavens above as if to reject divinity. In the Lovecraft universe the god Yog-Sothoth appears in many different forms. He is the ‘guardian of the gate', or portal of past, present, and future (think of those commercials for SquareSpace and Tubi). He is described as a series of 13 ‘iridescent globes'. One of them is called UMBRA. Horror fan pages suggest that this particular representation of Yog-Sothoth is a type of demon who grants fame, fortune, etc., when worshipped. Such a demon is very popular in music and is honored by Eminem (the shadow), Lady Gaga (the monster and fame), and Billie Eilish (bury a friend). The chanting of UMBRELLA is like an incantation. The reduction of the word to “ella, ella, eh, eh, eh'” is similar to ABRACADABRA, which is reduced to BRACADABR, RACADAB, ACADA, CAD, A, etc. It is a word used to enchant when performing a magical act or ritual. The Super Bowl itself is a giant witch's cauldron to brew up magic potion. The reference to rain is excessive in the music industry, too, and is usually called the Rain Main, which is played by Jay Z in the ‘Umbrella' music video. Rihanna, it should be noted, begins the music video song with all black leather, oily attire and ends up covered in silver paint, signifying the infernal, while bowing down inside of a pyramid, a reference to the earth-womb. This is when she chants ‘ella' and ‘eh'. None of this happened at the Super Bowl Halftime show, however, which ends with pretty standardBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tst-radio--5328407/support.

The Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster as collated by W. Wynn Westcott are a highly influential, and yet fairly obscure, set of pithy phrases. Gathered from the texts of numerous ancient writers, these ‘oracles' seem to hint at an entire schema for the cosmos. We'll dip our wings into the darkly-splendid waters of these ‘oracles,' perchance to glimpse the light of the fire therein.

In this episode of the Podcast for Cultural Reformation, Pastor Nate Wright and Dr. Joe Boot examine the origin, history, and theology of one of the world's most primitive dualistic pagan religions: Zoroastrianism. Though small, this religion has had a significant impact on history. Join us as we dive deep into Zoroastrianism. Episode Resources: Subscribe to our Rumble Channel - https://rumble.com/v6hi4pg-zoroastrianism.html CHAPTERS:00:00 Cold Open: The Religion of Zoroaster03:15 Intro03:25 Welcome05:03 Upcoming Events07:02 Why Zoroastrianism?11:21 Who is Zoroaster or Zarathustra? 13:10 What Did He Teach?18:00 Understanding Zoroastrianism through a Biblical Lens20:18 Nimrod & The Table of Nations21:56 Zoroaster: The Seed of the Woman?23:47 The Hope for the Seed of the Woman, the Seed of Religion34:10 ReformCon '25 AD34:56 A Distorted Faith37:12 The Influence of Zoroastrianism/Ancient Dualism43:10 Saoshayant: The Zoroastrian Messiah43:47 Core Beliefs of Zoroastrianism46:14 Salvation Without Atonement49:34 Ahura Mazda: An Impersonal God53:27 The True Seed of the Woman: Jesus Christ59:23 OutroThe WAIT is OVER!!! Pre-order your copy of the NEW updated and expanded version of Dr. Boot’s Mission of God with a brand-new study guide! Get it here: https://ezrapress.ca/products/mission-of-god-10th-anniversary-edition; UPCOMING CONFERENCES:REFORMCON '25 | "Out of the Ashes" | April 24-26, 2025 @ Tucson, AZ: https://reformcon.org/ For All Ezra Events: https://www.ezrainstitute.com/events/; Think Christianly about politics with the help of Dr. Boot’s latest book “Ruler of Kings:” https://ezrapress.ca/products/ruler-of-kings-toward-a-christian-vision-of-government; Got Questions? Would you like to hear Dr. Boot answer your questions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us at https://www.ezrainstitute.com/connect/contact/; For Ezra’s many print resources and to join our newsletter, visit: https://ezrapress.com. Stay up-to-date with all things Ezra Institute: https://www.ezrainstitute.com;Subscribe to Ezra’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPVvQDHHrOOjziyqUaN9VoA?sub_confirmation=1;Fight Laugh Feast Network: https://pubtv.flfnetwork.com/tabs/audio/podcasts/8297;Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ezra-institute-podcast-for-cultural-reformation/id1336078503;Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dW1gDarpzdrDMLPjKYZW2?si=bee3e91ed9a54885. Wherever you find our content, please like, subscribe, rate, or review it; it truly does help.

In this episode of the Podcast for Cultural Reformation, Pastor Nate Wright and Dr. Joe Boot examine the origin, history, and theology of one of the world's most primitive dualistic pagan religions: Zoroastrianism. Though small, this religion has had a significant impact on history. Join us as we dive deep into Zoroastrianism. Episode Resources: Subscribe to our Rumble Channel - https://rumble.com/v6hi4pg-zoroastrianism.html CHAPTERS:00:00 Cold Open: The Religion of Zoroaster03:15 Intro03:25 Welcome05:03 Upcoming Events07:02 Why Zoroastrianism?11:21 Who is Zoroaster or Zarathustra? 13:10 What Did He Teach?18:00 Understanding Zoroastrianism through a Biblical Lens20:18 Nimrod & The Table of Nations21:56 Zoroaster: The Seed of the Woman?23:47 The Hope for the Seed of the Woman, the Seed of Religion34:10 ReformCon '25 AD34:56 A Distorted Faith37:12 The Influence of Zoroastrianism/Ancient Dualism43:10 Saoshayant: The Zoroastrian Messiah43:47 Core Beliefs of Zoroastrianism46:14 Salvation Without Atonement49:34 Ahura Mazda: An Impersonal God53:27 The True Seed of the Woman: Jesus Christ59:23 OutroThe WAIT is OVER!!! Pre-order your copy of the NEW updated and expanded version of Dr. Boot’s Mission of God with a brand-new study guide! Get it here: https://ezrapress.ca/products/mission-of-god-10th-anniversary-edition; UPCOMING CONFERENCES:REFORMCON '25 | "Out of the Ashes" | April 24-26, 2025 @ Tucson, AZ: https://reformcon.org/ For All Ezra Events: https://www.ezrainstitute.com/events/; Think Christianly about politics with the help of Dr. Boot’s latest book “Ruler of Kings:” https://ezrapress.ca/products/ruler-of-kings-toward-a-christian-vision-of-government; Got Questions? Would you like to hear Dr. Boot answer your questions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us at https://www.ezrainstitute.com/connect/contact/; For Ezra’s many print resources and to join our newsletter, visit: https://ezrapress.com. Stay up-to-date with all things Ezra Institute: https://www.ezrainstitute.com;Subscribe to Ezra’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPVvQDHHrOOjziyqUaN9VoA?sub_confirmation=1;Fight Laugh Feast Network: https://pubtv.flfnetwork.com/tabs/audio/podcasts/8297;Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ezra-institute-podcast-for-cultural-reformation/id1336078503;Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dW1gDarpzdrDMLPjKYZW2?si=bee3e91ed9a54885. Wherever you find our content, please like, subscribe, rate, or review it; it truly does help.

In this episode of the Podcast for Cultural Reformation, Pastor Nate Wright and Dr. Joe Boot examine the origin, history, and theology of one of the world's most primitive dualistic pagan religions: Zoroastrianism. Though small, this religion has had a significant impact on history. Join us as we dive deep into Zoroastrianism. Episode Resources: Subscribe to our Rumble Channel - https://rumble.com/v6hi4pg-zoroastrianism.html CHAPTERS:00:00 Cold Open: The Religion of Zoroaster03:15 Intro03:25 Welcome05:03 Upcoming Events07:02 Why Zoroastrianism?11:21 Who is Zoroaster or Zarathustra? 13:10 What Did He Teach?18:00 Understanding Zoroastrianism through a Biblical Lens20:18 Nimrod & The Table of Nations21:56 Zoroaster: The Seed of the Woman?23:47 The Hope for the Seed of the Woman, the Seed of Religion34:10 ReformCon '25 AD34:56 A Distorted Faith37:12 The Influence of Zoroastrianism/Ancient Dualism43:10 Saoshayant: The Zoroastrian Messiah43:47 Core Beliefs of Zoroastrianism46:14 Salvation Without Atonement49:34 Ahura Mazda: An Impersonal God53:27 The True Seed of the Woman: Jesus Christ59:23 OutroThe WAIT is OVER!!! Pre-order your copy of the NEW updated and expanded version of Dr. Boot’s Mission of God with a brand-new study guide! Get it here: https://ezrapress.ca/products/mission-of-god-10th-anniversary-edition; UPCOMING CONFERENCES:REFORMCON '25 | "Out of the Ashes" | April 24-26, 2025 @ Tucson, AZ: https://reformcon.org/ For All Ezra Events: https://www.ezrainstitute.com/events/; Think Christianly about politics with the help of Dr. Boot’s latest book “Ruler of Kings:” https://ezrapress.ca/products/ruler-of-kings-toward-a-christian-vision-of-government; Got Questions? Would you like to hear Dr. Boot answer your questions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us at https://www.ezrainstitute.com/connect/contact/; For Ezra’s many print resources and to join our newsletter, visit: https://ezrapress.com. Stay up-to-date with all things Ezra Institute: https://www.ezrainstitute.com;Subscribe to Ezra’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPVvQDHHrOOjziyqUaN9VoA?sub_confirmation=1;Fight Laugh Feast Network: https://pubtv.flfnetwork.com/tabs/audio/podcasts/8297;Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ezra-institute-podcast-for-cultural-reformation/id1336078503;Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dW1gDarpzdrDMLPjKYZW2?si=bee3e91ed9a54885. Wherever you find our content, please like, subscribe, rate, or review it; it truly does help.

An ancient Passover letter might not be what it seems. New research suggests it could reflect Zoroastrian influences, reshaping what we know about Judaism's origins. Join me and Gil Kidron of A Podcast of Biblical Proportions as we uncover this fascinating cross-cultural connection.Linkshttps://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2024-11-04/ty-article/new-study-of-passover-letter-may-change-what-we-know-about-the-birth-of-judaism/00000192-dc36-ddcf-a7f7-dc76c3eb0000?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=emailhttps://podcastofbiblicalproportions.com/This is a podcast by Dan Hörning and Bernie Maopolski.If you like what we do you can support the Fan of History project on https://www.patreon.com/fanofhistoryContact information:E-mail: zimwaupodcast@gmail.comhttp://facebook.com/fanofhistoryhttps://twitter.com/danhorninghttps://www.instagram.com/dan_horning/Music: “Tudor Theme” by urmymuse.Used here under a commercial Creative Commons license. Find out more at http://ccmixter.org/files/urmymuse/40020 Support the show and listen ad-free to all of the episodes, including episode 1-87. Click here: https://plus.acast.com/s/history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can certain failures possess a nobility that surpasses success? Join us as we journey into the mystical world of Henry Van Dyke's "The Story of the Other Wise Man," where we unravel the tale of Artaban, the fourth wise man. This episode invites you into the spiritual and philosophical quest of Artaban, set against the backdrop of ancient Persia under Augustus Caesar and Herod. As Artaban embarks on his pursuit of knowledge and truth, his story becomes a tapestry of moral dilemmas, trials, and the relentless pursuit of enlightenment, inviting you to reflect on your own life's journey.Transport yourself to the opulent surroundings of Ecbatana, where Artaban's introspective saga begins amidst a gathering of Parthian followers of Zoroaster. Listen as we explore the profound themes of faith and perseverance, reflected in Artaban's journey to Babylon, guided by celestial signs and accompanied by his faithful horse, Vazda. As Artaban grapples with skepticism from his peers and the solitude of his mission, he remains steadfast in his quest, embodying the courage to walk his path alone.Feel the tension as Artaban faces poignant decisions: aiding a dying stranger or continuing his quest to find the Messiah. Set against the striking landscapes of Egypt and Alexandria, Artaban's narrative unfolds with themes of patience and love, guided by the wisdom of a Hebrew rabbi. His story, rich with the promise of a kingdom founded on unconquerable love, becomes a powerful reminder of the transformative power of storytelling and the deeper meanings behind our pursuits.Support the showThe American Soul Podcasthttps://www.buzzsprout.com/1791934/subscribe

In this episode Chris brings Opinion Scholarship on the ancient Persian religion--Zoroastrianism. We discuss the Proto-Indo-European people, their culture and religion and how they came down through the Indo-Iranian tribes that became both Zoroastrianism in Iran and Hinduism in India. We discuss the influence Zoroastrian ideas had on both Judaism and Christianity and explore what Zoroaster meant when he claimed to be restoring monotheistic purity to their ancient, Indo-European faith. This brings us to the Christian idea of the Logos, which compare and contrast to the Zoroastrian idea of Vohu Mana.  Enjoy ;) 

In this episode Chris delivers Opinion Scholarship on the meaning of Plato's famous Cave Allegory. He shows through the words of Plato and the ancient Greek Poet Pindar that the secret goings-on of the Eleusinian Mysteries share a hell of a lot with the experience of the prisoner freed from Plato's cave. He then posits that the secrecy surrounding the Mysteries kept Plato from speaking about it directly, leading to the parables and allegories sprinkled throughout his dialogues. And to conclude, he samples accounts from the ancient world all the way through to the modern one of other people who had a mystical experience paralleling the one outlined by the Cave Allegory. We hear the same message from Plato to Plotinus and from Meister Eckhart to Alan Watts. From Jesus to Zoroaster and from Buddha to St. Paul. Enjoy ;)

John the Beloved tells us that the only powerful obstruction between us and God is within: our attitudes, fears, and conditions that we carry. When we are diligent in thoughts and prayers towards Light, the blessings of God may flow freely. Zoroaster affirms the Divine Love path to at-onement with God. Go to divinelovesanctuary.com to learn more about God's Divine Love. Or visit facebook.com/divinelovesanctuaryfoundation/live for previous circle recordings or soul-truth.ca and new-birth.net to browse transcripts of previous messages.

Eruch Jessawalla - Aug 13, 1987

Do you yearn for a deeper understanding of the universe and your place within it? Would you like to unlock the secrets of manifesting your best life? Welcome to a live reading of Crossroads of Consciousness, by me, Jani Bryson. I will post one chapter per week until the final chapter has been released....it's also available in full, now, on Amazon. Within the complex web of life, where the known and unknown mingle, an incredible adventure awaits those brave enough to pursue it. This adventure is no ordinary one; it reaches into the heart of our consciousness and the universe itself, holding the key to unlock the vast potential within each of us. That key is consciousness—the foundation of our reality, the spark behind our experiences, and the doorway to uncharted territories.Whether this is your first introduction to consciousness beyond the veil, or your hundredth, I hope to share something new that causes you to ponder, to stretch your current belief systems, and to question the very fabric of your existence. I hope that the stories of our forbearers, included within this book, ignite a spark within you – a spark that lights the flame of exploration beyond the known.We start with the little known tale of the mythical fall of consciousness, and follow the intermittent trail of its subsequent rise through the lives of luminaries that have gone before us. Within these stories are nuggets of greater understanding which can be leveraged for personal growth and transformation. We look at obstacles to this growth and ways around them.This book is part of my Expanding Consciousness Framework™ and is an overview of how we arrived at our current state of consciousness as well as suggestions to break free of perceived constraints and an illustration of the mechanism behind co-creating the reality we desire. I've also created a "Screenplay for the Mind", based on this book, on Kindle Vella. LIke this book, the story, by the same name as this podcast, is an IMMERSIVE experience that will carry you beyond the boundaries of conventional knowledge. This life-changing journey, explores the infinite power that lies within us all, leveraging it to manifest a life of purpose, joy, and abundance. As with this podcast, a higher consciousness itself directs the episodes.

BEST OF: It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a satanic ritual… well, actually it's probably not. In the weeks leading up to Super Bowl 57 the public was given multiple idols to honor in the name of ever-changing political correctness. The last week of January featured a statue of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the New York State Supreme Court house next to actual law givers like Moses and Zoroaster. Her body was deformed though with tentacles and horns and she stood on a lotus flower, a symbol of spirit overcoming matter, even though the idol was a symbol of matter aborting spirit. The same artist crafted another similar statue across the street supposedly representing Eve. In both cases is the universal mother called upon and then inverted to draw on the energy of Lilith of Lamashtu, the Mother of Beasts. The graven image reminded many of medusa who is famous for turning men into stone. A week later on February 5th the Grammys featured Sam Smith and Kim Petra performing a song called ‘Unholy' with cartoonish depictions of the Devil, alongside of flames, cages, red clothes and horns. While most were caught up in the childlike depiction of evil they missed the intentional magic circle on stage and/or the lyrics of the song which referred to the unholy practices at the ‘body shop', perhaps a lyric noting our increasing desire to drug and mutilate children and adults in the name of identity, obesity, or rebellion. Darkness and chaos are, after all, rebellion against light and order, and altering the image of god is probably evil. The performance was said to be ground breaking because of the gender and sexual identities of Sam and Kim, relating their devilish images to a cartoon devil from the Powerpuff Girls tv show wherein Satan wears drag and is confused about his identity. His name is HIIM, or His Infernal Majesty. Social media was also ablaze about Madonna, who introduced the performance. Many said she looked plastic, fake, and just awful. Madonna, of course, blamed this on ageism and mysoginy despite many observers being older and women. Once again, largely overlooked, was her hair which was done in a way to mimic the horns on the Ginsburg statue. Since Madonna is trying to maintain her relevancy and youth it would seem that she is the one attempting to perform unholy acts against nature. She is, in essence, the Black Madonna, or the black MA (mother) DONNA (goddess). A week later we arrive at Super Bowl 57 on February 12, 2023, played in Glendale/Phoenix, Arizona, at State Farm Stadium, between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs. Commercials were mostly drab with few exceptions. A new Flash movie, Ant Man, Doritos triangles, Disney magic, the Masked Singer with a gargoyle, and some electric vehicle commercials from Jeep, GM (which featured zombies, Stranger Things, and Squid Games), and RAM (which seemed to really try with their ‘Premature Electrification' to convict you electric is better). The most notable were SquareSpace, Tubi, and U2. SquareSpace featured Adam Driver talking about how the service for websites ‘could create itself' and how this was the ‘singularity'. Adam Driver multiplied into what reminded some of agents from the matrix before being sucked into a portal. Square Space is also the dimension of Metatron's Cube or the meta verse, the eight sphere embodied by Saturn's essence.Tubi took viewers down a ‘rabbit hole' during the year of the rabbit, as rabbits physically took people and threw them into the abyss. And perhaps the most disturbing of all was the band U2 announcing their residency at the MSG Sphere in Las Vegas with a short 15 second ad featuring sphere-like UFOs, intense trailer-like music and a warning that ‘an unidentified object has been spotted over the skies'. What made this ad so disturbing to some was the fact that in the 72 hours prior to the game UFOs, which for some reason were not called UAPs and were not blamed on Russia, were tracked and shot down in Deadhorse, Alaska, Yukon, Canada, and over Lake Huron near Michigan. Lake Michigan airspace had been shut down hours before while the FAA also shut down the airspace over Montana due to NORAD tracking a ‘radar anomaly'. If the Super Bowl took your attention away from these unidentified objects then the U2 commercial redirected your attention back at the very end of the game. Not all of the UFOs were spherical, however, a reference to the Chinese Spy Balloon shot down on the east coast a week before. Instead, they were cylindrical and silver, while the Great Lakes UFO was octagonal. Several were called ‘airships'.In a tongue-in-cheek observation one could see the Vince Lombardi Trophy itself as holding not a football but a cylindrical, silver airship. Then there is Halftime. Usually sponsored by Pepsi the 2023 show was sponsored by Apple and performed by Rihanna and some dancers in white. Pre-game advertisements had Rihanna in a cloak of green moss or grass with her hair done (like a character from Dr. Seuss) to look like the roots or branches of a tree. Her entire pre-performance outfit made her appear to represent a tree which was sponsored by the black apple. This is obviously Edenic and the black apple logo is the poisoned apple given a tempted Eve in the garden, or Snow White. In essence, Rihanna was a representation of the Universal Mother of Nature. We even saw Adam and Eve in an avocado commercial during the game, a symbol of a womb and new life.Pre-game notes made sure the tens of millions of views knew that the game-day military flyover was performed entirely by women, that a black female coach Autumn Lockwood was the first to assistant coach a Super Bowl, and that both starting quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes, had darker skin, sort of. In other words, much homage was shown to black women in particular but black folks in general during black history month. As these things typically come off as insincere it was not noted that the NFL is over 70% black, and that roughly 38% of assistant coaches and 10% of head coaches are black. Not bad for representing only 14% of the entire population. But more to the point…Rihanna, who was opposed to the NFL for some time, decided to perform anyway. She represented the Universal Mother of Nature or Queen of Heaven. Halftime began with the singer suspended on a giant mirror and accompanied by two lower mirrors on each side, each with two dancers in white. Overall there were seven of these mirrors but we only see five to begin. The image created is that of the GEN (Chinese) or GON (Japanese), one of the Eight Trigrams of the I Ching, featuring a horizontal solid bar with two bars underneath on the left and right sides the.As the performance proceeds the suspended mirrors move in a way to indicate a stairway or a Staircase either to Heaven or Hell, as it shifts in both directions. This also flips the GEN or GON upside down and then back up. Next we see the mirrors on left and right drawing the eye down to the bottom central mirror with Rihanna, who was first at the apex of a ziggurat, is now at its bottom - this flipping represents both male and female or fire and water. It is traditionally Isis who is the all-seeing eye at the apex of the heavenly facing pyramid. We know Rihanna has a large Isis tattoo on her chest.After her dancers crawl behind her across the red stage and she retouches her makeup once, the mirrors return to view suspended in a straight line across the top of the stage. She then performs her iconic ‘Run this Town' song as the central mirror then lifts her back into the air and she transitions to the song ‘Umbrella'. A particularly interesting note about this song should not be passed up. UMBRELLA as a word is a combination of two words - UMBRA and ELLA. This is their meaning:UMBRA: a shadow region of darknessELLA: a female given name, from Germanic meaning ‘all'In other words, UMBRELLA is an all encompassing female name given to darkness. Here we are reminded again of the Black Madonna or the inverted Universal Mother. It should be noted, furthermore, that Rihanna has a giant tattoo of Lady Isis on her chest. We should also note that the black goddess Kali is said to be symbolized by mirrors. The mirrors at the halftime show furthermore reflected the heavens above as if to reject divinity. In the Lovecraft universe the god Yog-Sothoth appears in many different forms. He is the ‘guardian of the gate', or portal of past, present, and future (think of those commercials for SquareSpace and Tubi). He is described as a series of 13 ‘iridescent globes'. One of them is called UMBRA. Horror fan pages suggest that this particular representation of Yog-Sothoth is a type of demon who grants fame, fortune, etc., when worshipped. Such a demon is very popular in music and is honored by Eminem (the shadow), Lady Gaga (the monster and fame), and Billie Eilish (bury a friend). The chanting of UMBRELLA is like an incantation. The reduction of the word to “ella, ella, eh, eh, eh'” is similar to ABRACADABRA, which is reduced to BRACADABR, RACADAB, ACADA, CAD, A, etc. It is a word used to enchant when performing a magical act or ritual. The Super Bowl itself is a giant witch's cauldron to brew up magic potion. The reference to rain is excessive in the music industry, too, and is usually called the Rain Main, which is played by Jay Z in the ‘Umbrella' music video. Rihanna, it should be noted, begins the music video song with all black leather, oily attire and en

What if a pathway existed to seamlessly connect the realms of Eastern and Western spirituality? As we delve into history, tracing the footsteps along the ancient Silk Road trade routes spanning over 3000 years, we uncover a unique convergence of spiritual wisdom. Within this historical tapestry, Ancient Persia emerges as a pivotal connection point, embodying the heritage of Zoroastrianism—a profound bridge between the spiritual traditions of the East and West.  In this episode with tantric monk and philosopher Alexander Bard, we explore the enduring influence of Zoroastrianism, a 3700-year-old religion that serves as a profound connection between these two worlds. We delve deep into the teachings, practices, and philosophy of Zoroaster, and the impact they could have on our modern nihilistic society that finds itself in a crisis of meaning. From embracing psychedelics to the timeless struggle between good and evil, Bard challenges you to rethink the essence of spirituality.  This episode is sponsored by: MUD/WTR Go to MUDWTR.com/amp to save $20 on your subscription and claim your freebies.  SACRED HUNTING Go to ⁠www.sacredhunting.com/ ⁠and mention Aubrey's name/podcast for $250 off | Connect with Alexander Bard | Twitter | X | @bardissimo Instagram | www.instagram.com/alexanderbard123/ Facebook | www.facebook.com/alexander.bard ⁠⁠⁠⁠To partner with the Aubrey Marcus Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Connect with Aubrey | Website | ⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2GesYqi ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram | ⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2BlfCEO ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook | ⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2F4nBZk ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter |⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://bit.ly/2BlGBAdAd⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out "Own your Day, Own Your Life" by Aubrey Marcus | ⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2vRz4so⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the Aubrey Marcus newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.aubreymarcus.com/pages/email⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the Aubrey Marcus podcast: iTunes | ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://apple.co/2lMZRCn ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Spotify |⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://spoti.fi/2EaELZO ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stitcher | ⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2G8ccJt ⁠⁠⁠⁠ IHeartRadio | ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ihr.fm/3CiV4x3 ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Google Podcasts | ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3nzCJEh ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Android | ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/2OQeBQg⁠

In our Mysticast conversation with Zebanoo Gifford President of the World Zoroastrian Organisation, (https://www.w-z-o.org/world-zoroastrian-house/) we discuss the similarities between the ancient teachings of Zarathustra known also as Zoroaster,the first prophet to proclaim a monotheistic religion, as a universal life-enhancing philosophy, and the teachings given to The Aetherius Society by and through Dr. George King (Note 1) There were so many parallels drawn from this exploration that Debra declared that she believed that she had been searching for Zoroastrianism but because she was not born into the religion was guided instead to The Aetherius Society, its New Age brother!  Zerbanoo responded that she (Debra) had found both religions exactly when she needed to find them as Zoroastrian is all about living a good life and helping others do the same, known in Zoroastrianism as Humata, Hukhta, Hvarshta (Good Thoughts, Good words, Good deeds). Extracts Note 1.Dr. George King (1919-1997) was a Master of yoga, trance medium and the author of many books on spirituality. He was contacted by an extraterrestrial intelligence known as “Aetherius” in 1954, and founded The Aetherius Society in 1955 – to promote and act upon the wisdom of highly evolved intelligences from other planets who communicated with, and through, him for over 40 years. The Twelve Blessings - The Aetherius Society. The Absolute is God seen as the essence of all things – the creator of the universe and every single part of the universe. There is nothing outside of it because it is quite literally everything. Its name – Brahma, Jehovah, the Divine Source or whatever – is irrelevant – and it is certainly far greater than the old-fashioned conventional view of God as an old man on a cloud.    Further Study: https://www.w-z-o.org/world-zoroastrian-house/ https://www.aetherius.org/ https://www.aetherius.org/the-twelve-blessings/  https://www.zerbanoogifford.org/

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts Let's face it the New Testament probably calls Jesus God (or god) a couple of times and so do early Christian authors in the second century. However, no one offers much of an explanation for what they mean by the title. Did early Christians think Jesus was God because he represented Yahweh? Did they think he was God because he shared the same eternal being as the Father? Did they think he was a god because that's just what they would call any immortalized human who lived in heaven? In this presentation I focus on the question from the perspective of Greco-Roman theology. Drawing on the work of David Litwa, Andrew Perriman, Barry Blackburn, and tons of ancient sources I seek to show how Mediterranean converts to Christianity would have perceived Jesus based on their cultural and religious assumptions. This presentation is from the 3rd Unitarian Christian Alliance Conference on October 20, 2023 in Springfield, OH. Here is the original pdf of this paper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Z3QbQ7dHc —— Links —— See more scholarly articles by Sean Finnegan Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Introduction When early Christian authors called Jesus “god” (or “God”) what did they mean?[1] Modern apologists routinely point to pre-Nicene quotations in order to prove that early Christians always believed in the deity of Christ, by which they mean that he is of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father. However, most historians agree that Christians before the fourth century simply didn't have the cognitive categories available yet to think of Christ in Nicene or Chalcedonian ways. If this consensus is correct, it behooves us to consider other options for defining what early Christian authors meant. The obvious place to go to get an answer to our initial question is the New Testament. However, as is well known, the handful of instances in which authors unambiguously applied god (θεός) to Christ are fraught with textual uncertainty, grammatical ambiguity, and hermeneutical elasticity.[2]  What's more, granting that these contested texts[3] all call Jesus “god” provides little insight into what they might mean by that phrase. Turning to the second century, the earliest handful of texts that say Jesus is god are likewise textually uncertain or terse.[4] We must wait until the second half of the second century and beyond to have more helpful material to examine. We know that in the meanwhile some Christians were saying Jesus was god. What did they mean? One promising approach is to analyze biblical texts that call others gods. We find helpful parallels with the word god (אֱלֹהִים) applied to Moses (Exod 7.1; 4.16), judges (Exod 21.6; 22.8-9), kings (Is 9.6; Ps 45.6), the divine council (Ps 82.1, 6), and angels (Ps 8.6). These are texts in which God imbues his agents with his authority to represent him in some way. This rare though significant way of calling a representative “god,” continues in the NT with Jesus' clever defense to his accusers in John 10.34-36. Lexicons[5] have long recognized this “Hebraistic” usage and recent study tools such as the New English Translation (NET)[6] and the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary[7] also note this phenomenon. But, even if this agency perspective is the most natural reading of texts like Heb 1.8, later Christians, apart from one or two exceptions appear to be ignorant of this usage.[8] This interpretation was likely a casualty of the so-called parting of the ways whereby Christianity transitioned from a second-temple-Jewish movement to a Gentile-majority religion. As such, to grasp what early postapostolic Christians believed, we must turn our attention elsewhere. Michael Bird is right when he says, “Christian discourses about deity belong incontrovertibly in the Greco-Roman context because it provided the cultural encyclopedia that, in diverse ways, shaped the early church's Christological conceptuality and vocabulary.”[9] Learning Greco-Roman theology is not only important because that was the context in which early Christians wrote, but also because from the late first century onward, most of our Christian authors converted from that worldview. Rather than talking about the Hellenization of Christianity, we should begin by asking how Hellenists experienced Christianization. In other words, Greco-Roman beliefs about the gods were the default lens through which converts first saw Christ. In order to explore how Greco-Roman theology shaped what people believed about Jesus as god, we do well to begin by asking how they defined a god. Andrew Perriman offers a helpful starting point. “The gods,” he writes, “are mostly understood as corporeal beings, blessed with immortality, larger, more beautiful, and more powerful than their mortal analogues.”[10] Furthermore, there were lots of them! The sublunar realm was, in the words of Paula Fredriksen, “a god-congested place.”[11] What's more, “[S]harp lines and clearly demarcated boundaries between divinity and humanity were lacking."[12] Gods could appear as people and people could ascend to become gods. Comprehending what Greco-Roman people believed about gods coming down and humans going up will occupy the first part of this paper. Only once we've adjusted our thinking to their culture, will we walk through key moments in the life of Jesus of Nazareth to hear the story with ancient Mediterranean ears. Lastly, we'll consider the evidence from sources that think of Jesus in Greco-Roman categories. Bringing this all together we'll enumerate the primary ways to interpret the phrase “Jesus is god” available to Christians in the pre-Nicene period. Gods Coming Down and Humans Going Up The idea that a god would visit someone is not as unusual as it first sounds. We find plenty of examples of Yahweh himself or non-human representatives visiting people in the Hebrew Bible.[13] One psalmist even referred to angels or “heavenly beings” (ESV) as אֱלֹהִים (gods).[14] The Greco-Roman world too told stories about divine entities coming down to interact with people. Euripides tells about the time Zeus forced the god Apollo to become a human servant in the house of Admetus, performing menial labor as punishment for killing the Cyclopes (Alcestis 1). Baucis and Philemon offered hospitality to Jupiter and Mercury when they appeared in human form (Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.26-34). In Homer's Odyssey onlookers warn Antinous for flinging a stool against a stranger since “the gods do take on the look of strangers dropping in from abroad”[15] (17.534-9). Because they believed the boundary between the divine realm and the Earth was so permeable, Mediterranean people were always on guard for an encounter with a god in disguise. In addition to gods coming down, in special circumstances, humans could ascend and become gods too. Diodorus of Sicily demarcated two types of gods: those who are “eternal and imperishable, such as the sun and the moon” and “the other gods…terrestrial beings who attained to immortal honour”[16] (The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian 6.1). By some accounts, even the Olympian gods, including Kronos and Uranus were once mortal men.[17] Among humans who could become divine, we find several distinguishable categories, including heroes, miracle workers, and rulers. We'll look at each briefly before considering how the story of Jesus would resonate with those holding a Greco-Roman worldview. Deified Heroes Cornutus the Stoic said, “[T]he ancients called heroes those who were so strong in body and soul that they seemed to be part of a divine race.” (Greek Theology 31)[18] At first this statement appears to be a mere simile, but he goes on to say of Heracles (Hercules), the Greek hero par excellence, “his services had earned him apotheosis” (ibid.). Apotheosis (or deification) is the process by which a human ascends into the divine realm. Beyond Heracles and his feats of strength, other exceptional individuals became deified for various reasons. Amphiarus was a seer who died in the battle at Thebes. After opening a chasm in the earth to swallow him in battle, “Zeus made him immortal”[19] (Apollodorus, Library of Greek Mythology 3.6). Pausanias says the custom of the inhabitants of Oropos was to drop coins into Amphiarus' spring “because this is where they say Amphiarus rose up as a god”[20] (Guide to Greece 1.34). Likewise, Strabo speaks about a shrine for Calchas, a deceased diviner from the Trojan war (Homer, Illiad 1.79-84), “where those consulting the oracle sacrifice a black ram to the dead and sleep in its hide”[21] (Strabo, Geography 6.3.9). Though the great majority of the dead were locked away in the lower world of Hades, leading a shadowy pitiful existence, the exceptional few could visit or speak from beyond the grave. Lastly, there was Zoroaster the Persian prophet who, according to Dio Chrysostom, was enveloped by fire while he meditated upon a mountain. He was unharmed and gave advice on how to properly make offerings to the gods (Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 36.40). The Psuedo-Clementine Homilies include a story about a lightning bolt striking and killing Zoroaster. After his devotees buried his body, they built a temple on the site, thinking that “his soul had been sent for by lightning” and they “worshipped him as a god”[22] (Homily 9.5.2). Thus, a hero could have extraordinary strength, foresight, or closeness to the gods resulting in apotheosis and ongoing worship and communication. Deified Miracle Workers Beyond heroes, Greco-Roman people loved to tell stories about deified miracle workers. Twice Orpheus rescued a ship from a storm by praying to the gods (Diodorus of Sicily 4.43.1f; 48.5f). After his death, surviving inscriptions indicate that he both received worship and was regarded as a god in several cities.[23] Epimenides “fell asleep in a cave for fifty-seven years”[24] (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 1.109). He also predicted a ten-year period of reprieve from Persian attack in Athens (Plato Laws 1.642D-E). Plato called him a divine man (θεῖος ἀνήρ) (ibid.) and Diogenes talked of Cretans sacrificing to him as a god (Diogenes, Lives 1.114). Iamblichus said Pythagoras was the son of Apollo and a mortal woman (Life of Pythagoras 2). Nonetheless, the soul of Pythagoras enjoyed multiple lives, having originally been “sent to mankind from the empire of Apollo”[25] (Life 2). Diogenes and Lucian enumerate the lives the pre-existent Pythagoras led, including Aethalides, Euphorbus, Hermotimus, and Pyrrhus (Diogenes, Life of Pythagoras 4; Lucian, The Cock 16-20). Hermes had granted Pythagoras the gift of “perpetual transmigration of his soul”[26] so he could remember his lives while living or dead (Diogenes, Life 4). Ancient sources are replete with Pythagorean miracle stories.[27] Porphyry mentions several, including taming a bear, persuading an ox to stop eating beans, and accurately predicting a catch of fish (Life of Pythagoras 23-25). Porphyry said Pythagoras accurately predicted earthquakes and “chased away a pestilence, suppressed violent winds and hail, [and] calmed storms on rivers and on seas” (Life 29).[28] Such miracles, argued the Pythagoreans made Pythagoras “a being superior to man, and not to a mere man” (Iamblichus, Life 28).[29] Iamblichus lays out the views of Pythagoras' followers, including that he was a god, a philanthropic daemon, the Pythian, the Hyperborean Apollo, a Paeon, a daemon inhabiting the moon, or an Olympian god (Life 6). Another pre-Socratic philosopher was Empedocles who studied under Pythagoras. To him sources attribute several miracles, including stopping a damaging wind, restoring the wind, bringing dry weather, causing it to rain, and even bringing someone back from Hades (Diogenes, Lives 8.59).[30] Diogenes records an incident in which Empedocles put a woman into a trance for thirty days before sending her away alive (8.61). He also includes a poem in which Empedocles says, “I am a deathless god, no longer mortal, I go among you honored by all, as is right”[31] (8.62). Asclepius was a son of the god Apollo and a human woman (Cornutus, Greek Theology 33). He was known for healing people from diseases and injuries (Pindar, Pythian 3.47-50). “[H]e invented any medicine he wished for the sick, and raised up the dead”[32] (Pausanias, Guide to Greece 2.26.4). However, as Diodorus relates, Hades complained to Zeus on account of Asclepius' diminishing his realm, which resulted in Zeus zapping Asclepius with a thunderbolt, killing him (4.71.2-3). Nevertheless, Asclepius later ascended into heaven to become a god (Hyginus, Fables 224; Cicero, Nature of the Gods 2.62).[33] Apollonius of Tyana was a famous first century miracle worker. According to Philostratus' account, the locals of Tyana regard Apollonius to be the son of Zeus (Life 1.6). Apollonius predicted many events, interpreted dreams, and knew private facts about people. He rebuked and ridiculed a demon, causing it to flee, shrieking as it went (Life 2.4).[34] He even once stopped a funeral procession and raised the deceased to life (Life 4.45). What's more he knew every human language (Life 1.19) and could understand what sparrows chirped to each other (Life 4.3). Once he instantaneously transported himself from Smyrna to Ephesus (Life 4.10). He claimed knowledge of his previous incarnation as the captain of an Egyptian ship (Life 3.23) and, in the end, Apollonius entered the temple of Athena and vanished, ascending from earth into heaven to the sound of a choir singing (Life 8.30). We have plenty of literary evidence that contemporaries and those who lived later regarded him as a divine man (Letters 48.3)[35] or godlike (ἰσόθεος) (Letters 44.1) or even just a god (θεός) (Life 5.24). Deified Rulers Our last category of deified humans to consider before seeing how this all relates to Jesus is rulers. Egyptians, as indicated from the hieroglyphs left in the pyramids, believed their deceased kings to enjoy afterlives as gods. They could become star gods or even hunt and consume other gods to absorb their powers.[36] The famous Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great, carried himself as a god towards the Persians though Plutarch opines, “[he] was not at all vain or deluded but rather used belief in his divinity to enslave others”[37] (Life of Alexander 28). This worship continued after his death, especially in Alexandria where Ptolemy built a tomb and established a priesthood to conduct religious honors to the deified ruler. Even the emperor Trajan offered a sacrifice to the spirit of Alexander (Cassius Dio, Roman History 68.30). Another interesting example is Antiochus I of Comagene who called himself “Antiochus the just [and] manifest god, friend of the Romans [and] friend of the Greeks.”[38] His tomb boasted four colossal figures seated on thrones: Zeus, Heracles, Apollo, and himself. The message was clear: Antiochus I wanted his subjects to recognize his place among the gods after death. Of course, the most relevant rulers for the Christian era were the Roman emperors. The first official Roman emperor Augustus deified his predecessor, Julius Caesar, celebrating his apotheosis with games (Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar 88). Only five years after Augustus died, eastern inhabitants of the Roman Empire at Priene happily declared “the birthday of the god Augustus” (ἡ γενέθλιος ἡμέρα τοῦ θεοῦ)[39] to be the start of their provincial year. By the time of Tacitus, a century after Augustus died, the wealthy in Rome had statues of the first emperor in their gardens for worship (Annals 1.73). The Roman historian Appian explained that the Romans regularly deify emperors at death “provided he has not been a despot or a disgrace”[40] (The Civil Wars 2.148).  In other words, deification was the default setting for deceased emperors. Pliny the Younger lays it on pretty thick when he describes the process. He says Nero deified Claudius to expose him; Titus deified Vespasian and Domitian so he could be the son and brother of gods. However, Trajan deified Nerva because he genuinely believed him to be more than a human (Panegyric 11). In our little survey, we've seen three main categories of deified humans: heroes, miracle workers, and good rulers. These “conceptions of deity,” writes David Litwa, “were part of the “preunderstanding” of Hellenistic culture.”[41] He continues: If actual cases of deification were rare, traditions of deification were not. They were the stuff of heroic epic, lyric song, ancient mythology, cultic hymns, Hellenistic novels, and popular plays all over the first-century Mediterranean world. Such discourses were part of mainstream, urban culture to which most early Christians belonged. If Christians were socialized in predominantly Greco-Roman environments, it is no surprise that they employed and adapted common traits of deities and deified men to exalt their lord to divine status.[42] Now that we've attuned our thinking to Mediterranean sensibilities about gods coming down in the shape of humans and humans experiencing apotheosis to permanently dwell as gods in the divine realm, our ears are attuned to hear the story of Jesus with Greco-Roman ears. Hearing the Story of Jesus with Greco-Roman Ears How would second or third century inhabitants of the Roman empire have categorized Jesus? Taking my cue from Litwa's treatment in Iesus Deus, I'll briefly work through Jesus' conception, transfiguration, miracles, resurrection, and ascension. Miraculous Conception Although set within the context of Jewish messianism, Christ's miraculous birth would have resonated differently with Greco-Roman people. Stories of gods coming down and having intercourse with women are common in classical literature. That these stories made sense of why certain individuals were so exceptional is obvious. For example, Origen related a story about Apollo impregnating Amphictione who then gave birth to Plato (Against Celsus 1.37). Though Mary's conception did not come about through intercourse with a divine visitor, the fact that Jesus had no human father would call to mind divine sonship like Pythagoras or Asclepius. Celsus pointed out that the ancients “attributed a divine origin to Perseus, and Amphion, and Aeacus, and Minos” (Origen, Against Celsus 1.67). Philostratus records a story of the Egyptian god Proteus saying to Apollonius' mother that she would give birth to himself (Life of Apollonius of Tyana 1.4). Since people were primed to connect miraculous origins with divinity, typical hearers of the birth narratives of Matthew or Luke would likely think that this baby might be either be a descended god or a man destined to ascend to become a god. Miracles and Healing As we've seen, Jesus' miracles would not have sounded unbelievable or even unprecedent to Mediterranean people. Like Jesus, Orpheus and Empedocles calmed storms, rescuing ships. Though Jesus provided miraculous guidance on how to catch fish, Pythagoras foretold the number of fish in a great catch. After the fishermen painstakingly counted them all, they were astounded that when they threw them back in, they were still alive (Porphyry, Life 23-25). Jesus' ability to foretell the future, know people's thoughts, and cast out demons all find parallels in Apollonius of Tyana. As for resurrecting the dead, we have the stories of Empedocles, Asclepius, and Apollonius. The last of which even stopped a funeral procession to raise the dead, calling to mind Jesus' deeds in Luke 7.11-17. When Lycaonians witnessed Paul's healing of a man crippled from birth, they cried out, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men” (Acts 14.11). Another time when no harm befell Paul after a poisonous snake bit him on Malta, Gentile onlookers concluded “he was a god” (Acts 28.6). Barry Blackburn makes the following observation: [I]n view of the tendency, most clearly seen in the Epimenidean, Pythagorean, and Apollonian traditions, to correlate impressive miracle-working with divine status, one may justifiably conclude that the evangelical miracle traditions would have helped numerous gentile Christians to arrive at and maintain belief in Jesus' divine status.[43] Transfiguration Ancient Mediterranean inhabitants believed that the gods occasionally came down disguised as people. Only when gods revealed their inner brilliant natures could people know that they weren't mere humans. After his ship grounded on the sands of Krisa, Apollo leaped from the ship emitting flashes of fire “like a star in the middle of day…his radiance shot to heaven”[44] (Homeric Hymns, Hymn to Apollo 440). Likewise, Aphrodite appeared in shining garments, brighter than a fire and shimmering like the moon (Hymn to Aphrodite 85-89). When Demeter appeared to Metaneira, she initially looked like an old woman, but she transformed herself before her. “Casting old age away…a delightful perfume spread…a radiance shone out far from the goddess' immortal flesh…and the solid-made house was filled with a light like the lightning-flash”[45] (Hymn to Demeter 275-280). Homer wrote about Odysseus' transformation at the golden wand of Athena in which his clothes became clean, he became taller, and his skin looked younger. His son, Telemachus cried out, “Surely you are some god who rules the vaulting skies”[46] (Odyssey 16.206). Each time the observers conclude the transfigured person is a god. Resurrection & Ascension In defending the resurrection of Jesus, Theophilus of Antioch said, “[Y]ou believe that Hercules, who burned himself, lives; and that Aesculapius [Asclepius], who was struck with lightning, was raised”[47] (Autolycus 1.13). Although Hercules' physical body burnt, his transformed pneumatic body continued on as the poet Callimachus said, “under a Phrygian oak his limbs had been deified”[48] (Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis 159). Others thought Hercules ascended to heaven in his burnt body, which Asclepius subsequently healed (Lucian, Dialogue of the Gods 13). After his ascent, Diodorus relates how the people first sacrificed to him “as to a hero” then in Athens they began to honor him “with sacrifices like as to a god”[49] (The Historical Library 4.39). As for Asclepius, his ascension resulted in his deification as Cyprian said, “Aesculapius is struck by lightning, that he may rise into a god”[50] (On the Vanity of Idols 2). Romulus too “was torn to pieces by the hands of a hundred senators”[51] and after death ascended into heaven and received worship (Arnobius, Against the Heathen 1.41). Livy tells of how Romulus was “carried up on high by a whirlwind” and that immediately afterward “every man present hailed him as a god and son of a god”[52] (The Early History of Rome 1.16). As we can see from these three cases—Hercules, Asclepius, and Romulus—ascent into heaven was a common way of talking about deification. For Cicero, this was an obvious fact. People “who conferred outstanding benefits were translated to heaven through their fame and our gratitude”[53] (Nature 2.62). Consequently, Jesus' own resurrection and ascension would have triggered Gentiles to intuit his divinity. Commenting on the appearance of the immortalized Christ to the eleven in Galilee, Wendy Cotter said, “It is fair to say that the scene found in [Mat] 28:16-20 would be understood by a Greco-Roman audience, Jew or Gentile, as an apotheosis of Jesus.”[54] Although I beg to differ with Cotter's whole cloth inclusion of Jews here, it's hard to see how else non-Jews would have regarded the risen Christ. Litwa adds Rev 1.13-16 “[W]here he [Jesus] appears with all the accoutrements of the divine: a shining face, an overwhelming voice, luminescent clothing, and so on.”[55] In this brief survey we've seen that several key events in the story of Jesus told in the Gospels would have caused Greco-Roman hearers to intuit deity, including his divine conception, miracles, healing ministry, transfiguration, resurrection, and ascension. In their original context of second temple Judaism, these very same incidents would have resonated quite differently. His divine conception authenticated Jesus as the second Adam (Luke 3.38; Rom 5.14; 1 Cor 15.45) and God's Davidic son (2 Sam 7.14; Ps 2.7; Lk 1.32, 35). If Matthew or Luke wanted readers to understand that Jesus was divine based on his conception and birth, they failed to make such intentions explicit in the text. Rather, the birth narratives appear to have a much more modest aim—to persuade readers that Jesus had a credible claim to be Israel's messiah. His miracles show that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power…for God was with him” (Acts 10.38; cf. Jn 3.2; 10.32, 38). Rather than concluding Jesus to be a god, Jewish witnesses to his healing of a paralyzed man “glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Mat 9.8). Over and over, especially in the Gospel of John, Jesus directs people's attention to his Father who was doing the works in and through him (Jn 5.19, 30; 8.28; 12.49; 14.10). Seeing Jesus raise someone from the dead suggested to his original Jewish audience that “a great prophet has arisen among us” (Lk 7.16). The transfiguration, in its original setting, is an eschatological vision not a divine epiphany. Placement in the synoptic Gospels just after Jesus' promise that some there would not die before seeing the kingdom come sets the hermeneutical frame. “The transfiguration,” says William Lane, “was a momentary, but real (and witnessed) manifestation of Jesus' sovereign power which pointed beyond itself to the Parousia, when he will come ‘with power and glory.'”[56] If eschatology is the foreground, the background for the transfiguration was Moses' ascent of Sinai when he also encountered God and became radiant.[57] Viewed from the lenses of Moses' ascent and the eschaton, the transfiguration of Jesus is about his identity as God's definitive chosen ruler, not about any kind of innate divinity. Lastly, the resurrection and ascension validated Jesus' messianic claims to be the ruler of the age to come (Acts 17.31; Rom 1.4). Rather than concluding Jesus was deity, early Jewish Christians concluded these events showed that “God has made him both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2.36). The interpretative backgrounds for Jesus' ascension were not stories about Heracles, Asclepius, or Romulus. No, the key oracle that framed the Israelite understanding was the messianic psalm in which Yahweh told David's Lord to “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Psalm 110.1). The idea is of a temporary sojourn in heaven until exercising the authority of his scepter to rule over earth from Zion. Once again, the biblical texts remain completely silent about deification. But even if the original meanings of Jesus' birth, ministry, transfiguration, resurrection, and ascension have messianic overtones when interpreted within the Jewish milieu, these same stories began to communicate various ideas of deity to Gentile converts in the generations that followed. We find little snippets from historical sources beginning in the second century and growing with time. Evidence of Belief in Jesus' as a Greco-Roman Deity To begin with, we have two non-Christian instances where Romans regarded Jesus as a deity within typical Greco-Roman categories. The first comes to us from Tertullian and Eusebius who mention an intriguing story about Tiberius' request to the Roman senate to deify Christ. Convinced by “intelligence from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of Christ's divinity”[58] Tiberius proposed the matter to the senate (Apology 5). Eusebius adds that Tiberius learned that “many believed him to be a god in rising from the dead”[59] (Church History 2.2). As expected, the senate rejected the proposal. I mention this story, not because I can establish its historicity, but because it portrays how Tiberius would have thought about Jesus if he had heard about his miracles and resurrection. Another important incident is from one of the governor Pliny the Younger's letters to the emperor Trajan. Having investigated some people accused of Christianity, he found “they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honour of Christ as if to a god”[60] (Letter 96). To an outside imperial observer like Pliny, the Christians believed in a man who had performed miracles, defeated death, and now lived in heaven. Calling him a god was just the natural way of talking about such a person. Pliny would not have thought Jesus was superior to the deified Roman emperors much less Zeus or the Olympic gods. If he believed in Jesus at all, he would have regarded him as another Mediterranean prophet who escaped Hades to enjoy apotheosis. Another interesting text to consider is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. This apocryphal text tells the story of Jesus' childhood between the ages of five and twelve. Jesus is impetuous, powerful, and brilliant. Unsure to conclude that Jesus was “either god or angel,”[61] his teacher remands him to Joseph's custody (7). Later, a crowd of onlookers ponders whether the child is a god or a heavenly messenger after he raises an infant from the dead (17). A year later Jesus raised a construction man who had fallen to his death back to life (18). Once again, the crowd asked if the child was from heaven. Although some historians are quick to assume the lofty conceptions of Justin and his successors about the logos were commonplace in the early Christianity, Litwa points out, “The spell of the Logos could only bewitch a very small circle of Christian elites… In IGT, we find a Jesus who is divine according to different canons, the canons of popular Mediterranean theology.”[62] Another important though often overlooked scholarly group of Christians in the second century was led by a certain Theodotus of Byzantium.[63] Typically referred to by their heresiological label “Theodotians,” these dynamic monarchians lived in Rome and claimed that they held to the original Christology before it had been corrupted under Bishop Zephyrinus (Eusebius, Church History 5.28). Theodotus believed in the virgin birth, but not in his pre-existence or that he was god/God (Pseudo-Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 7.35.1-2; 10.23.1-2). He thought that Jesus was not able to perform any miracles until his baptism when he received the Christ/Spirit. Pseudo-Hippolytus goes on to say, “But they do not want him to have become a god when the Spirit descended. Others say that he became a god after he rose from the dead.”[64] This last tantalizing remark implies that the Theodotians could affirm Jesus as a god after his resurrection though they denied his pre-existence. Although strict unitarians, they could regard Jesus as a god in that he was an ascended immortalized being who lived in heaven—not equal to the Father, but far superior to all humans on earth. Justin Martyr presents another interesting case to consider. Thoroughly acquainted with Greco-Roman literature and especially the philosophy of Plato, Justin sees Christ as a god whom the Father begot before all other creatures. He calls him “son, or wisdom, or angel, or god, or lord, or word”[65] (Dialogue with Trypho 61).  For Justin Christ is “at the same time angel and god and lord and man”[66] (59). Jesus was “of old the Word, appearing at one time in the form of fire, at another under the guise of incorporeal beings, but now, at the will of God, after becoming man for mankind”[67] (First Apology 63). In fact, Justin is quite comfortable to compare Christ to deified heroes and emperors. He says, “[W]e propose nothing new or different from that which you say about the so-called sons of Jupiter [Zeus] by your respected writers… And what about the emperors who die among you, whom you think worthy to be deified?”[68] (21). He readily accepts the parallels with Mercury, Perseus, Asclepius, Bacchus, and Hercules, but argues that Jesus is superior to them (22).[69] Nevertheless, he considered Jesus to be in “a place second to the unchanging and eternal God”[70] (13). The Father is “the Most True God” whereas the Son is he “who came forth from Him”[71] (6). Even as lates as Origen, Greco-Roman concepts of deity persist. In responding to Celsus' claim that no god or son of God has ever come down, Origen responds by stating such a statement would overthrow the stories of Pythian Apollo, Asclepius, and the other gods who descended (Against Celsus 5.2). My point here is not to say Origen believed in all the old myths, but to show how Origen reached for these stories as analogies to explain the incarnation of the logos. When Celsus argued that he would rather believe in the deity of Asclepius, Dionysus, and Hercules than Christ, Origen responded with a moral rather than ontological argument (3.42). He asks how these gods have improved the characters of anyone. Origen admits Celsus' argument “which places the forenamed individuals upon an equality with Jesus” might have force, however in light of the disreputable behavior of these gods, “how could you any longer say, with any show of reason, that these men, on putting aside their mortal body, became gods rather than Jesus?”[72] (3.42). Origen's Christology is far too broad and complicated to cover here. Undoubtedly, his work on eternal generation laid the foundation on which fourth century Christians could build homoousion Christology. Nevertheless, he retained some of the earlier subordinationist impulses of his forebearers. In his book On Prayer, he rebukes praying to Jesus as a crude error, instead advocating prayer to God alone (10). In his Commentary on John he repeatedly asserts that the Father is greater than his logos (1.40; 2.6; 6.23). Thus, Origen is a theologian on the seam of the times. He's both a subordinationist and a believer in the Son's eternal and divine ontology. Now, I want to be careful here. I'm not saying that all early Christians believed Jesus was a deified man like Asclepius or a descended god like Apollo or a reincarnated soul like Pythagoras. More often than not, thinking Christians whose works survive until today tended to eschew the parallels, simultaneously elevating Christ as high as possible while demoting the gods to mere demons. Still, Litwa is inciteful when he writes: It seems likely that early Christians shared the widespread cultural assumption that a resurrected, immortalized being was worthy of worship and thus divine. …Nonetheless there is a difference…Jesus, it appears, was never honored as an independent deity. Rather, he was always worshiped as Yahweh's subordinate. Naturally Heracles and Asclepius were Zeus' subordinates, but they were also members of a larger divine family. Jesus does not enter a pantheon but assumes a distinctive status as God's chief agent and plenipotentiary. It is this status that, to Christian insiders, placed Jesus in a category far above the likes of Heracles, Romulus, and Asclepius who were in turn demoted to the rank of δαίμονες [daimons].[73] Conclusion I began by asking the question, "What did early Christians mean by saying Jesus is god?" We noted that the ancient idea of agency (Jesus is God/god because he represents Yahweh), though present in Hebrew and Christian scripture, didn't play much of a role in how Gentile Christians thought about Jesus. Or if it did, those texts did not survive. By the time we enter the postapostolic era, a majority of Christianity was Gentile and little communication occurred with the Jewish Christians that survived in the East. As such, we turned our attention to Greco-Roman theology to tune our ears to hear the story of Jesus the way they would have. We learned about their multifaceted array of divinities. We saw that gods can come down and take the form of humans and humans can go up and take the form of gods. We found evidence for this kind of thinking in both non-Christian and Christian sources in the second and third centuries. Now it is time to return to the question I began with: “When early Christian authors called Jesus “god” what did they mean?” We saw that the idea of a deified man was present in the non-Christian witnesses of Tiberius and Pliny but made scant appearance in our Christian literature except for the Theodotians. As for the idea that a god came down to become a man, we found evidence in The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Justin, and Origen.[74] Of course, we find a spectrum within this view, from Justin's designation of Jesus as a second god to Origen's more philosophically nuanced understanding. Still, it's worth noting as R. P. C. Hanson observed that, “With the exception of Athanasius virtually every theologian, East and West, accepted some form of subordinationism at least up to the year 355.”[75] Whether any Christians before Alexander and Athanasius of Alexandria held to the sophisticated idea of consubstantiality depends on showing evidence of the belief that the Son was coequal, coeternal, and coessential with the Father prior to Nicea. (Readers interested in the case for this view should consult Michael Bird's Jesus among the Gods in which he attempted the extraordinary feat of finding proto-Nicene Christology in the first two centuries, a task typically associated with maverick apologists not peer-reviewed historians.) In conclusion, the answer to our driving question about the meaning of “Jesus as god” is that the answer depends on whom we ask. If we ask the Theodotians, Jesus is a god because that's just what one calls an immortalized man who lives in heaven.[76] If we ask those holding a docetic Christology, the answer is that a god came down in appearance as a man. If we ask a logos subordinationist, they'll tell us that Jesus existed as the god through whom the supreme God created the universe before he became a human being. If we ask Tertullian, Jesus is god because he derives his substance from the Father, though he has a lesser portion of divinity.[77] If we ask Athanasius, he'll wax eloquent about how Jesus is of the same substance as the Father equal in status and eternality. The bottom line is that there was not one answer to this question prior to the fourth century. Answers depend on whom we ask and when they lived. Still, we can't help but wonder about the more tantalizing question of development. Which Christology was first and which ones evolved under social, intellectual, and political pressures? In the quest to specify the various stages of development in the Christologies of the ante-Nicene period, this Greco-Roman perspective may just provide the missing link between the reserved and limited way that the NT applies theos to Jesus in the first century and the homoousian view that eventually garnered imperial support in the fourth century. How easy would it have been for fresh converts from the Greco-Roman world to unintentionally mishear the story of Jesus? How easy would it have been for them to fit Jesus into their own categories of descended gods and ascended humans? With the unmooring of Gentile Christianity from its Jewish heritage, is it any wonder that Christologies began to drift out to sea? Now I'm not suggesting that all Christians went through a steady development from a human Jesus to a pre-existent Christ, to an eternal God the Son, to the Chalcedonian hypostatic union. As I mentioned above, plenty of other options were around and every church had its conservatives in addition to its innovators. The story is messy and uneven with competing views spread across huge geographic distances. Furthermore, many Christians probably were content to leave such theological nuances fuzzy, rather than seeking doctrinal precision on Christ's relation to his God and Father. Whatever the case may be, we dare not ignore the influence of Greco-Roman theology in our accounts of Christological development in the Mediterranean world of the first three centuries.    Bibliography The Homeric Hymns. Translated by Michael Crudden. New York, NY: Oxford, 2008. Antioch, Theophilus of. To Autolycus. Translated by Marcus Dods. Vol. 2. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001. Aphrahat. The Demonstrations. Translated by Ellen Muehlberger. Vol. 3. The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings. 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Pseudo-Hippolytus. Refutation of All Heresies. Translated by David Litwa. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2016. Pseudo-Thomas. Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Translated by James Orr. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1903. Psuedo-Clement. Homilies. Translated by Peter Peterson. Vol. 8. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1897. Siculus, Diodorus. The Historical Library. Translated by Charles Henry Oldfather. Vol. 1. Edited by Giles Laurén: Sophron Editor, 2017. Strabo. The Geography. Translated by Duane W. Roller. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2020. Tertullian. Against Praxeas. Translated by Holmes. Vol. 3. Ante Nice Fathers. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Tertullian. Apology. Translated by S. Thelwall. Vol. 3. Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Younger, Pliny the. The Letters of the Younger Pliny. Translated by Betty Radice. London: Penguin, 1969. End Notes [1] For the remainder of this paper, I will use the lower case “god” for all references to deity outside of Yahweh, the Father of Christ. I do this because all our ancient texts lack capitalization and our modern capitalization rules imply a theology that is anachronistic and unhelpful for the present inquiry. [2] Christopher Kaiser wrote, “Explicit references to Jesus as ‘God' in the New Testament are very few, and even those few are generally plagued with uncertainties of either text or interpretation.” Christopher B. Kaiser, The Doctrine of God: A Historical Survey (London: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1982), 29. Other scholars such as Raymond Brown (Jesus: God and Man), Jason David BeDuhn (Truth in Translation), and Brian Wright (“Jesus as θεός: A Textual Examination” in Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament) have expressed similar sentiments. [3] John 20.28; Hebrews 1.8; Titus 2.13; 2 Peter 1.1; Romans 9.5; and 1 John 5.20. [4] See Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians 12.2 where a manuscript difference determines whether or not Polycarp called Jesus god or lord. Textual corruption is most acute in Igantius' corpus. Although it's been common to dismiss the long recension as an “Arian” corruption, claiming the middle recension to be as pure and uncontaminated as freshly fallen snow upon which a foot has never trodden, such an uncritical view is beginning to give way to more honest analysis. See Paul Gilliam III's Ignatius of Antioch and the Arian Controversy (Leiden: Brill, 2017) for a recent treatment of Christological corruption in the middle recension. [5] See the entries for  אֱלֹהִיםand θεός in the Hebrew Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon (BDB), Eerdmans Dictionary, Kohlenberger/Mounce Concise Hebrew-Aramaic Dictionary of the Old Testament, the Bauer Danker Arndt Gingrich Lexicon (BDAG), Friberg Greek Lexicon, and Thayer's Greek Lexicon. [6] See notes on Is 9.6 and Ps 45.6. [7] ZIBBC: “In what sense can the king be called “god”? By virtue of his divine appointment, the king in the ancient Near East stood before his subjects as a representative of the divine realm. …In fact, the term “gods“ (ʾelōhı̂m) is used of priests who functioned as judges in the Israelite temple judicial system (Ex. 21:6; 22:8-9; see comments on 58:1; 82:6-7).” John W. Hilber, “Psalms,” in The Minor Prophets, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, vol. 5 of Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Old Testament. ed. John H. Walton (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 358. [8] Around a.d. 340, Aphrahat of Persia advised his fellow Christians to reply to Jewish critics who questioned why “You call a human being ‘God'” (Demonstrations 17.1). He said, “For the honored name of the divinity is granted event ot rightoues human beings, when they are worthy of being called by it…[W]hen he chose Moses, his friend and his beloved…he called him “god.” …We call him God, just as he named Moses with his own name…The name of the divinity was granted for great honor in the world. To whom he wishes, God appoints it” (17.3, 4, 5). Aphrahat, The Demonstrations, trans., Ellen Muehlberger, vol. 3, The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2022), 213-15. In the Clementine Recognitions we find a brief mention of the concept:  “Therefore the name God is applied in three ways: either because he to whom it is given is truly God, or because he is the servant of him who is truly; and for the honour of the sender, that his authority may be full, he that is sent is called by the name of him who sends, as is often done in respect of angels: for when they appear to a man, if he is a wise and intelligent man, he asks the name of him who appears to him, that he may acknowledge at once the honour of the sent, and the authority of the sender” (2.42). Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions, trans., Thomas Smith, vol. 8, Ante Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003). [9] Michael F. Bird, Jesus among the Gods (Waco, TX: Baylor, 2022), 13. [10] Andrew Perriman, In the Form of a God, Studies in Early Christology, ed. David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 130. [11] Paula Fredriksen, "How High Can Early High Christology Be?," in Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity, ed. Matthew V. Novenson, vol. 180 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 296, 99. [12] ibid. [13] See Gen 18.1; Ex 3.2; 24.11; Is 6.1; Ezk 1.28. [14] Compare the Masoretic Text of Psalm 8.6 to the Septuagint and Hebrews 2.7. [15] Homer, The Odyssey, trans., Robert Fagles (New York, NY: Penguin, 1997), 370. [16] Diodorus Siculus, The Historical Library, trans., Charles Henry Oldfather, vol. 1 (Sophron Editor, 2017), 340. [17] Uranus met death at the brutal hands of his own son, Kronos who emasculated him and let bleed out, resulting in his deification (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 1.10). Later on, after suffering a fatal disease, Kronos himself experienced deification, becoming the planet Saturn (ibid.). Zeus married Hera and they produced Osiris (Dionysus), Isis (Demeter), Typhon, Apollo, and Aphrodite (ibid. 2.1). [18] Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, Greek Theology, trans., George Boys-Stones, Greek Theology, Fragments, and Testimonia (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2018), 123. [19] Apollodorus, The Library of Greek Mythology, trans., Robin Hard (Oxford, UK: Oxford, 1998), 111. [20] Pausanias, Guide to Greece, trans., Peter Levi (London, UK: Penguin, 1979), 98. [21] Strabo, The Geography, trans., Duane W. Roller (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2020), 281. [22] Psuedo-Clement, Homilies, trans., Peter Peterson, vol. 8, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1897). Greek: “αὐτὸν δὲ ὡς θεὸν ἐθρήσκευσαν” from Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologia Graeca, taken from Accordance (PSCLEMH-T), OakTree Software, Inc., 2018, Version 1.1. [23] See Barry Blackburn, Theios Aner and the Markan Miracle Traditions (Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991), 32. [24] Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, trans., Pamela Mensch (New York, NY: Oxford, 2020), 39. [25] Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, trans., Thomas Taylor, Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras (Delhi, IN: Zinc Read, 2023), 2. [26] Diogenes Laertius, Life of Pythagoras, trans., Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988), 142. [27] See the list in Blackburn, 39. He corroborates miracle stories from Diogenus Laertius, Iamblichus, Apollonius, Nicomachus, and Philostratus. [28] Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras, trans., Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988), 128-9. [29] Iamblichus,  68. [30] What I call “resurrection” refers to the phrase, “Thou shalt bring back from Hades a dead man's strength.” Diogenes Laertius 8.2.59, trans. R. D. Hicks. [31] Laertius, "Lives of the Eminent Philosophers," 306. Two stories of his deification survive: in one Empedocles disappears in the middle of the night after hearing an extremely loud voice calling his name. After this the people concluded that they should sacrifice to him since he had become a god (8.68). In the other account, Empedocles climbs Etna and leaps into the fiery volcanic crater “to strengthen the rumor that he had become a god” (8.69). [32] Pausanias,  192. Sextus Empiricus says Asclepius raised up people who had died at Thebes as well as raising up the dead body of Tyndaros (Against the Professors 1.261). [33] Cicero adds that the Arcadians worship Asclepius (Nature 3.57). [34] In another instance, he confronted and cast out a demon from a licentious young man (Life 4.20). [35] The phrase is “περὶ ἐμοῦ καὶ θεοῖς εἴρηται ὡς περὶ θείου ἀνδρὸς.” Philostratus, Letters of Apollonius, vol. 458, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2006). [36] See George Hart, The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, 2nd ed. (Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2005), 3. [37] Plutarch, Life of Alexander, trans., Ian Scott-Kilvert and Timothy E. Duff, The Age of Alexander (London, UK: Penguin, 2011), 311. Arrian includes a story about Anaxarchus advocating paying divine honors to Alexander through prostration. The Macedonians refused but the Persian members of his entourage “rose from their seats and one by one grovelled on the floor before the King.” Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, trans., Aubrey De Sélincourt (London, UK: Penguin, 1971), 222. [38] Translation my own from “Ἀντίοχος ὁ Θεὸς Δίκαιος Ἐπιφανὴς Φιλορωμαῖος Φιλέλλην.” Inscription at Nemrut Dağ, accessible at https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/display.php?page=cimrm32. See also https://zeugma.packhum.org/pdfs/v1ch09.pdf. [39] Greek taken from W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae, vol. 2 (Hildesheim: Olms, 1960), 48-60. Of particular note is the definite article before θεός. They didn't celebrate the birthday of a god, but the birthday of the god. [40] Appian, The Civil Wars, trans., John Carter (London, UK: Penguin, 1996), 149. [41] M. David Litwa, Iesus Deus (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), 20. [42] ibid. [43] Blackburn, 92-3. [44] The Homeric Hymns, trans., Michael Crudden (New York, NY: Oxford, 2008), 38. [45] "The Homeric Hymns," 14. [46] Homer,  344. [47] Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, trans., Marcus Dods, vol. 2, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001). [48] Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, trans., Susan A. Stephens, Callimachus: The Hymns (New York, NY: Oxford, 2015), 119. [49] Siculus,  234. [50] Cyprian, Treatise 6: On the Vanity of Idols, trans., Ernest Wallis, vol. 5, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995). [51] Arnobius, Against the Heathen, trans., Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell, vol. 6, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995). [52] Livy, The Early History of Rome, trans., Aubrey De Sélincourt (London, UK: Penguin, 2002), 49. [53] Cicero, The Nature of the Gods, trans., Patrick Gerard Walsh (Oxford, UK: Oxford, 2008), 69. [54] Wendy Cotter, "Greco-Roman Apotheosis Traditions and the Resurrection Appearances in Matthew," in The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study, ed. David E. Aune (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 149. [55] Litwa, 170. [56] William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, Nicnt, ed. F. F. Bruce Ned B. Stonehouse, and Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974). [57] “Recent commentators have stressed that the best background for understanding the Markan transfiguration is the story of Moses' ascent up Mount Sinai (Exod. 24 and 34).” Litwa, 123. [58] Tertullian, Apology, trans. S. Thelwall, vol. 3, Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003). [59] Eusebius, The Church History, trans. Paul L. Maier (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007), 54. [60] Pliny the Younger, The Letters of the Younger Pliny, trans., Betty Radice (London: Penguin, 1969), 294. [61] Pseudo-Thomas, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, trans., James Orr (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1903), 25. [62] Litwa, 83. [63] For sources on Theodotus, see Pseduo-Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 7.35.1-2; 10.23.1-2; Pseudo-Tertullian, Against All Heresies 8.2; Eusebius, Church History 5.28. [64] Pseudo-Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, trans., David Litwa (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2016), 571. [65] I took the liberty to decapitalize these appellatives. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, trans. Thomas B. Falls (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 244. [66] Justin Martyr, 241. (Altered, see previous footnote.) [67] Justin Martyr, 102. [68] Justin Martyr, 56-7. [69] Arnobius makes a similar argument in Against the Heathen 1.38-39 “Is he not worthy to be called a god by us and felt to be a god on account of the favor or such great benefits? For if you have enrolled Liber among the gods because he discovered the use of wine, and Ceres the use of bread, Aesculapius the use of medicines, Minerva the use of oil, Triptolemus plowing, and Hercules because he conquered and restrained beasts, thieves, and the many-headed hydra…So then, ought we not to consider Christ a god, and to bestow upon him all the worship due to his divinity?” Translation from Litwa, 105. [70] Justin Martyr, 46. [71] Justin Martyr, 39. [72] Origen, Against Celsus, trans. Frederick Crombie, vol. 4, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003). [73] Litwa, 173. [74] I could easily multiply examples of this by looking at Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and many others. [75] The obvious exception to Hanson's statement were thinkers like Sabellius and Praxeas who believed that the Father himself came down as a human being. R. P. C. Hanson, Search for a Christian Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), xix. [76] Interestingly, even some of the biblical unitarians of the period were comfortable with calling Jesus god, though they limited his divinity to his post-resurrection life. [77] Tertullian writes, “[T]he Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than I.” In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the angels.” Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son” (Against Praxeas 9). Tertullian, Against Praxeas, trans., Holmes, vol. 3, Ante Nice Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003).

#Logos #Persia #Zoroastrianism A major thank you goes out to Ben for sponsoring this stream. In it, I discuss the ancient Persian religion of fire and wisdom knowas Zoroastrianism and compare some of its theology with Orthodox Christianity. Make sure to check it out and let me know what you think. God bless Join the convo: https://streamyard.com/tniy2z6mmf Donochat Me: https://dono.chat/dono/dph Join this channel's YouTube Memberships: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH8JwgaHCkhdfERVkGbLl2g/join Intro Music Follow Keynan Here! https://linktr.ee/keynanrwils b-dibe's Bandcamp: https://b-dibe.bandcamp.com/ b-dibe's Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/b-dibe Thumbnails by iPAK: https://linktr.ee/ipak_arts Superchat Here https://streamlabs.com/churchoftheeternallogos Support COTEL with Crypto! Bitcoin: 3QNWpM2qLGfaZ2nUXNDRnwV21UUiaBKVsy Ethereum: 0x0b87E0494117C0adbC45F9F2c099489079d6F7Da Litecoin: MKATh5kwTdiZnPE5Ehr88Yg4KW99Zf7k8d If you enjoy this production, feel compelled, or appreciate my other videos, please support me through my website memberships (www.davidpatrickharry.com) or donate directly by PayPal or crypto! Any contribution would be greatly appreciated. Thank you Logos Subscription Membership: http://davidpatrickharry.com/register/ Venmo: @cotel - https://account.venmo.com/u/cotel PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/eternallogos Donations: http://www.davidpatrickharry.com/donate/ PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/eternallogos Website: http://www.davidpatrickharry.com Rokfin: https://rokfin.com/dpharry Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/COTEL Odysee: https://odysee.com/@ChurchoftheEternalLogos:d GAB: https://gab.com/dpharry Telegram: https://t.me/eternallogos Minds: https://www.minds.com/Dpharry Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/W10R... DLive: https://dlive.tv/The_Eternal_Logos Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dpharry/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_dpharry

Partial Transcript: Welcome, I am your host, Tara Jabbari. Who was she? Podcast will focus on the stories of women throughout history that were active in the Baha'i Faith. This season is about Hazel Scott, a talented musician and activist. She had evolved in her faith. Having been introduced to the Baha'i Faith by her good friend and famous jazz artist, Dizzy Gillespie, she was interested in learning more. She was particularly intrigued by “progressive revelation.” This is the belief that Manifestations of God represent stages in the spiritual evolution of civilization. These Manifestations include Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad. Or as she explained, “Whenever man has been ready to absorb more knowledge, God has revealed it.” Baha'u'llah is the Manifestation of the Baha'i Faith.Hazel fought nonstop for what was right, she achieved many firsts and her talent was truly one of a kind. In one of the last interviews she ever did, she was asked what is the most important part in her life. Hazel replied, “The important part? When I have been able to transmit that which I have been singularly gifted with…to move an audience to their feet.” I hope you enjoyed learning about Hazel Scott, I certainly did and hope you are inspired and moved to your feet just like she would want.  Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you know your archetype? Do you know that energies are being introduced to our Earth plane from elsewhere in the cosmos? Persian Prophet and Ascended Master Zarathustra shares how to manage “chaotic” energies. He also discusses new discoveries that will change our history, AI, and more; and provides a powerful energy transmission for you to receive in this actual recording from a group channeling session. Zarathustra is also known as Zoroaster - the founder of Zoroastrianism, which is still a practicing religion, primarily in parts of Iran and India. Cindy has channeled Zarathustra for many years, and he appeared as her guest speaker the night of this session, July 20, 2021.

Thirty years is a long time, but this year marks exactly that for San Francisco's Acid King. And, they're still the lords of doom and the almighty riff even this far in. Zoroaster and Busse Woods stand as deeply seminal albums as well as stone cold classics. Beyond Vision (Blues Funeral Recordings) is an excellent continuation of their legacy but also marks a chance to really hear its members stretch out and reach for the sky in ways we've never heard before. Buke recently had the chance to speak with Lori S. on the new album and how it came to be, they also discuss her extremely storied history and career, and so much more. Lori is absolutely a legend and should be protected at all costs. We now bring you this conversation in its entirety so grab your beverage of choice, a seat, and enjoy. 9C LINKS: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram. 

About the GuestPatrick Egan is a founding director of Educational Renaissance and Academic Dean at Clapham School. He previously served as an administrator at Providence Classical Christian Academy in St. Louis, Missouri. He earned a B.Mus. in Music History and Literature from Illinois State University, an M.Div. and Th.M. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Patrick and his family spent three years living and studying in St Andrews, Scotland, where he earned a PhD from the University of St Andrews. In addition to his work within the classical Christian educational movement, he has also taught courses in New Testament and Biblical Greek at colleges and seminaries in the US and UK, currently serving as Visiting Instructor in New Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. In 2016 Patrick published Ecclesiology and the Scriptural Narrative of 1 Peter. Patrick regularly writes on the intersection of classical education and modern research at educationalrenaissance.com.Show NotesDr. Patrick Egan forms a framework of classical tradition for today with Charlotte Mason studies. Dr. Egan opens this episode with a brief history of Clapham school and its values pointed towards The Good, The True, and The Beautiful. Their discovery of Charlotte Mason is interesting. Adrienne asks Dr. Egan to share about their application of classical methods aligning to the work of Charlotte Mason.  He also discusses Charlotte Mason's brilliance on the epistemology of how a child learns. He points towards Charlotte Mason's anthropology of a child and how it can influence our pedagogy while complimenting the telos of a classical education. Some Topics and Ideas in this Episode  They discuss the importance of the Spanish Chapel fresco called “Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas”, and its impact on Mason's understanding of a Christian liberal arts education. How does Charlotte Mason fit into the tradition? If we did not have the Dorothy Sayer's essay, could Charlotte Mason have been the force that awakened the classical ed movement?  Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode"What is a Learner?: Reading Charlotte Mason through Aristotle's Four Causes" by Dr. EganEducation Renaissance Podcast with Dr. Egan: https://educationalrenaissance.com/podcast/https://www.wilberforceschool.org/https://amblesideschools.org/category/bill-st-cyr/Plato's DialoguesSt. Augustine's ConfessionsLost Tools of Learning, by Dorothy SayersThe Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie WiseFresco: “Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas”, circa 1365. Fresco. Florence, S. Maria Novella, Cappellone degli Spagnuoli (Spanish Chapel), left wall. Charlotte Mason on the Spanish Chapel fresco, We hold, in fact, that great conception of education held by the medieval Church, as pictured upon the walls of the Spanish chapel in Florence. Here we have represented the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Twelve, and directly under them, fully under the Illuminating rays, are the noble figures of the seven liberal arts, Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Music, Astronomy, Geometry, Arithmetic, and under these again the men who received and expressed, so far as the artist knew, the initial idea in each of these subjects; such men as Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Euclid, whom we might call pagans, but whom the earlier Church recognised as divinely taught and illuminated.The books that Dr. Egan wished he had read sooner: A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason (6th volume)The Abolition of Man, by C.S Lewis_________________________________________________This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★ https://www.classicaleducationpodcast.com/supportOUR MISSIONWe exist for the benefit of both parents and teachers. Teaching is an art and teachers need opportunities to cultivate their craft. Parents need to feel confident that their children are receiving the best education possible. Therefore, our goals are to help parents make well-informed decisions about the education of their children, and to help teachers experience true joy in their vocation. We desire to bridge a large gap that currently exists between most classical schools and the parents who send their students to these schools. Immersing both parents and teachers into the beauty of good teaching is paramount to our goals! Our formative sessions are designed to be LIVE so that you can experience classical education through participating and doing. This is what is expected in classical education. In order to mentor you well, we invite you to participate for a full classical experience. Our online sessions assume modeling, imitation, and meaningful conversation as the basis of experiencing good teaching. OUR SERVICESIf you like our podcast, you will love our online sessions! We offer immersion sessions so you can experience classical pedagogy. A complete listing of our courses is at  https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/Becoming an effective educator requires participation and doing, not merely listening to the ideals of a theory being talked about. Experiencing the labor of thinking, speaking, and asking questions is non-negotiable for a real classical experience. For this reason our courses are LIVE and not recorded. Participation is paramount to a true classical education. Teachers and Home Educators: Grow in your craft of teaching! Do you want to know how to apply what we discuss on our podcast? 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Email Adrienne at BeautifulTeaching@Gmail.com for more information.  _________________________________________________________Credits:Sound Engineer: Andrew HelselLogo Art: Anastasiya CFMusic: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic © 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

Mithras was born of a virgin on Dec 25 in a cave and his birth attended by virgins. Zoroaster was born of a virgin and tempted in the wilderness. Horus was baptized, cast out demons, walked on water and was crucified. Was Jesus copied from these stories? We'll examine these and many more in this teaching! In Part I we focused on establishing the facts that Jesus, as a historical person, lived on this earth. Part II of this teaching focuses on examining the claims of Mithras, Buddha, Krishna, Horus, Osiris, Attis, Dionysus, Tammuz, and Marduk to see if Jesus was a copycat or parallel of the claims regarding these figures. Please take a moment to support the ministry by SUBSCRIBING, RATING us 5 STARS, and sharing our content. We appreciate your support! For more information or to obtain a copy of these slides, please visit www.greaterworksdiscipleship.com or contact us at greaterworksdiscipleship@gmail.com

He alone had to produce a great people, elect, holy and chosen, lead them, feed them, bring them into the place of rest and holiness, make them holy for God, make them the temple of God, reconcile them to God, save them from God's anger, redeem them from the bondage of sin which visibly reigns in man, give laws to his people, write these laws in their hearts, offer himself to God for them, sacrifice himself for them, be a spotless sacrifice, and himself the sacrificer, having himself to offer up his body and blood, and yet offer up bread and wine to God (608/766). Blaise Pascal, Pensées. I.    Controversy over Jesus A.    Christ the controversialist (John Stott) B.    Who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16:13-16) II.    New Testament Record A.    Most reliable reports B.    Good to read the stories, but we will select certain aspects of his life and teaching. III.    Master Teacher and Philosopher A.    Taught all manner of people in different situations. Was creative and responsive.  B.    Used philosophy, parables, prophecy, questions, condemnation IV.    Jesus' Worldview (see also Douglas Groothuis, On Jesus) A.    God and his Kingdom: “Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand” (Matthew 4:17)B.    Humanity 1.    Created (Matthew 19:4-6) 2.    Fallen (Mark 7:20-23) C.    Ethics: Greatest commandment: Love God with all your being and your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39) Extraordinary ethics of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) 1.    Don't sin in your heart with anger (murder) or lust (adultery)2.    Love your enemies3.    Pray for those who hurt you4.    Go the second mile5.    Turn the other cheek D.    Salvation found in him (Matthew 11:27-28; John 6:28-29; 14:6; Acts 4:12) V.    Miracle Worker A.    Over nature: calmed storm, walked on water, cursed the fig tree B.    Over sickness: blindness, insanity, leprosy, crippling diseases, flow of blood C.    Over death itself: raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11) D.    Purpose: Demonstrate the Kingdom of God has come with new power and urgency (Matthew 12:28) VI.    Exorcist: Demon Duster A.    More demonic activity seen in Gospels than any other books of Bible B.    Jesus exposed the demonic realm; they feared him, talked to him, and he overcame them with a word (Matthew 12:28-29). VII.    Man of Compassion A.    Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots (Luke 23) B.    Touched lepers, ate with the down and out “sinners” and up and out (Zacchaeus, Luke 19:1-10) VIII.    Jesus' Authority A.    Never admitted fault, but was not arrogant or a bully B.    Judge of history (Matthew 7; 25:31-46) C.    Had all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18-20) IX.    Christhood A.    The meaning of the title: the uniquely anointed one B.    Not a state of consciousness (New Age idea) or a proper name, but a title fit only for Jesus X.    Uniqueness and Supremacy A.    Jesus' unique knowledge of God (Matthew 11:27) B.    Mediator (John 14:6; 1 Tim 2:15) C.    Jesus was God himself (Mark 2; John 8:58); the Incarnation. XI.    Other Testimony about Jesus Christ A.    Paul: the divine servant (Philippians 2:5-11) B.    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:1-5; see also 14, 18). XII.    Jesus and Other Religious Leaders. See Ken Samples, God Among Sages: Why Jesus is not Just Another Religious Leader (Baker, 2017) A.    Sages: Buddha, Lao Tze, Mahavira, Confucius. Jesus was a sage, but more than a sage. B.    Avatars: Hinduism. Jesus was nothing like an Avatar, but an historical figure. C.    True biblical prophets: Isaiah, Malachi, etc. Jesus was a prophet, but also the divine Messiah. D.    Other prophets: Zoroaster, Mohammad, Joseph Smith. Jesus was a true prophet and divine Messiah. E.    Contemporary gurus: these are imposters. Jesus was who he said he was and stands alone as Lord. Other Resources 1.    Douglas Groothuis, On Jesus (Wadsworth, 2003).2.    Douglas Groothuis, Jesus in an Age of Controversy (Harvest House, 1996).3.    Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith, 2nd ed. (InterVarsity-Academic, 2022), see the chapters on Jesus. Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Graven images are the cornerstone of any kind of veneration or worship. When society and culture become saturated with the same images, however, it becomes clear that an organized cult is at work. From Lovecraft to outright mockery of the sacred there is no doubt that opposition - adversarial - forces are at work, which are hell bent on usurping the natural authority and rights of man as granted by ‘God'. With no God and nothing considered holy a new religion can be born. This cult is not new, though, and is in fact very ancient. It is being reborn, rejuvenated, and revealed. It appears in many forms often run by the scientific priestly elite that demand adherence to their authority. The best recent example of this can be found in the statue of Ruth Bader Ginsburg located atop the New York State Supreme Court building amongst historic lawmakers. But Ginsburg was not a lawgiver, she was a law interpreter, and her decisions were not laws as is implied by the other statues nearby such as Moses or Zoroaster. Even so, her statue looks more like a Gorgon or horned monster, with tentacles and horns. Traditionally the horned god or goddess was a symbol of fertility and sex, but considering that the Ginsburg statue is an official homage to abortion we can assume that sex and abortion are the sacrament and sacrifice to this priestly cult. In fact, the same artist responsible for that abomination also created another statue nearby which calls on Universal mother Eve for the same underlying reason. This transforms Eve into Lilith, who seeks to abort babies and torture men. The Ginsburg statue is also standing on a lotus flower, a strange symbol for abortion, since the latter is concerned with aborting the soul and the former symbolizes the triumph of spirit over matter. But forget creation and life. The old religion wishes to destroy creation and invert what it means to live (evil). Say three hail Ginsburgs and kneel at the altar or the resurrected gods.

Made famous by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra which was composed by a young Richard Strauss in 1896 is much more than just two minutes of cosmic fanfare. Based on Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical novel inspired by the ancient Iranian prophet Zoroaster, its nine sections explore everything from passion, science, joy and death, to learning, convalescing, dancing and night wandering… But as a new year dawns how do the drama, power and epic sound worlds of Also Sprach Zarathustra ask and answer the fundamental questions of the universe and our place in it? Tom is joined by our witness philosopher Katrina Mitcheson to find out. Producer: Ruth Thomson

Where do we even start with this episode? Back in May, longtime returning guest August West agreed to join Dylan in talking about a band crucial to his formative years as a metal fan. This seemingly mundane task was upended by a tornado (no joke) and massive fatigue (likely a symptom of being forced to listen to Dylan ramble), resulting in an episode recorded over the course of three sessions. But eventually, they got their shit together to talk about Atlanta, GA sludge outfit, Zoroaster. They delve into their discography and also manage to tell Dylan's mom about Come to Grief, get Mortiis to give DOD the thumbs up, vacuum up rattlesnakes, get Mike IX's approval of Bud Light Seltzer, praise Fred Ward's finest role as the Night Vulture, learn all about Master Therion, find out why Dylan doesn't listen to singles, get old with Clutch, and get ripped off by Skillet.  Albums Covered: Zoroaster (2005) Dog Magic (2007) Voice of Saturn (2009) Matador (2010) Happy holidays everybody! Stay safe out there, smoke weed, and be good to each other.

It's almost officially springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, and the vernal equinox brings with it another reason to celebrate: Nowruz! Commonly known as Persian New Year, Nowruz has its roots in a millennia-old religion founded by a man named Zartosht whose ideas had a profound impact on the world. Anna introduces fire temples and what ancient writers had to say about Zoroastrianism, while Amber hypes the Bronze Age in Central Asia and suggests some ways in which Zoroastrian ideas have affected other religions. Nowruz: Traditions for Persian New Year (United States Institute of Peace: The Iran Primer)What life was like when Zoroaster lived? (Zoroastrian Kids)Avesta (Livius.org)Zoroastrians of Central Asia: Evidence from Archaeology and Art (FEZANA Journal via Academia.edu)Records of the General Conference, 31st session, Paris, 2001, v. 2: Proceedings (UNESCO)Ancient Sogdiana: A ‘Zoroastrian Stronghold' (Avesta.org)Parsi Woman Excommunication Case (Supreme Court Observer)Early Chahar-Taqi Fire Houses and Temples (Heritage Institute)The culture and social institutions of ancient Iran (WorldCat.org)Ātaškada (Encyclopedia Iranica)Fire Altars and Fire Temples in the First Millennia BC/AD in the Iranian World (via ResearchGate)Zoroastrians in East Africa (The Zoroastrian Diaspora)The Obscure Religion that Shaped the West (BBC Culture)An Archaeology of Religion (via Google Books)A Rare Glimpse Inside A Zoroastrian Temple In New York (HuffPost)

Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ontology and an eschatology which predicts the ultimate conquest of evil by good.In this episode we learn more about this lovely religion and we continue to dig into the truth of other beliefs. Rev Lyle Lyleschlundt@gmail.commore education from Infusion Health go to our group Eo Infusion https://www.facebook.com/groups/700877977016354/?exp=dc78To get updates on the podcast https://www.facebook.com/groups/941419766714761/?ref=sharehttps://www.facebook.com/groups/941419766714761/?ref=share&exp=dc78To connect with Rach or CrisInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=kelttz509oe9&utm_content=1stwvz4Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/941419766714761/?ref=shareYouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCtOHTdDXgDeSEWX3oey1MbQWebsite: http://infusionhealthpodcast.com/TikTok: @infusionhealth

Today's meditation comes from The Book Of First Thessalonians in The New Testament and from the writings of Zoroaster, with music by Moments.

The Bahá'í Faith teaches that throughout history, God has sent to humanity a series of divine Educators—known as Manifestations of God—whose teachings have provided the basis for the advancement of civilization. These Manifestations have included Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Muḥammad. Bahá'u'lláh, the latest of these Messengers, explained that the religions of the world come from the same Source and are in essence successive chapters of one religion from God. Bahá'í's believe the crucial need facing humanity is to find a unifying vision of the future of society and of the nature and purpose of life. Such a vision unfolds in the writings of Bahá'u'lláh.   Mahrooz Madella and Barbara Lachmar help us understand the Bahá'í Faith. Madella was born in Iran to a Bahá'í family and moved to the US when she was twelve. She is a member of the Bahá'í community in Salt Lake County, Utah. Lachmar is a former Roman Catholic who became a B Bahá'í when she was twenty in Omaha Nebraska. She lives in Cache County, Utah.  The Bahái Faith official website: https://www.bahai.org/  Baháis of the United States: https://www.bahai.us/    Learn more about our work at https://www.multifaithmatters.org.     Support this work:   One-time donation: https://multifaithmatters.org/donate   Become my patron: https://patron.podbean.com    #BahaiFaith #Bahai #Baha'u'llah 

Subconscious Realms Episode 109 - Sir Robby Marx PT3. Ladies & Gentlemen, on this episode of Subconscious Realms we welcome back the AbsoFuckingLute Legend, Sir Robby Marx!! Ready yourselves for this Killer Episode....The Sons Of Zadok, Leviathan, Birth Of Mithras, The Sumerians, Zoroaster, Sorath The Sun Demon, Alchemy, Patar Stones, Papa Legba, Samael & Lileth, The Naga, a Full-On *Realm-Fest*

In this week's episode Andrew discussed the origins and widespread influence of mysterious historical figure Zarathustra aka Zoroaster the founder of Zoroastrianism. You won't want to miss out on this unique history lesson! - Thank you for listening weirdos! Show the podcast some love by rating, reviewing, subscribing and sharing it today. Your support means so much to us. Let's stay in touch

در این قسمت از دارکست وارد مبحث ناخودآگاه شخصی و جمعی می‌شیم و گزارش دو تا از بیمارهای کارل گوستاو یونگ و می‌شنویم. اینستاگرام دارکست : @darcastpod

Zoroaster's Mystic Teachings had a great influence on the ancient Greek, Veda, Buddhist, Christian, Sufi doctrines; and, in particular, on many of the divine poems of Hafiz. Zoroaster and Hafiz both taught the mystic path of devotion to Divine Consciousness. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/alwaysmystic/support

Assyrian armor found in China. In China?? SCYTHIANS! NEW COLONIES! Sappho and Aesop are born and we talk about Zoroaster and a Zoroastrian named Velma who ritualistically ...Dive into this first episode of the 620's BCE with Dan and Bernie. Plus we have a very special intro by Daniele Bolelli http://www.danielebolelli.com/Good video on Zoroaster https://youtu.be/RTZ0FGcKPuEThis is a podcast by Dan Hörning and Bernie Maopolski.If you like what we do you can support the Fan of History project on https://www.patreon.com/fanofhistoryContact information: http://facebook.com/fanofhistoryhttps://twitter.com/danhorninghttps://www.instagram.com/dan_horning/Music: “Tudor Theme” by urmymuse. Used here under a commercial Creative Commons license. Find out more at http://ccmixter.org/files/urmymuse/40020 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lyrics:Par Karo Uddhar Karo Prabhu Parthi Puri BhagawanHare Ram Ram Ram Ghana Shyam Shyam Shyam Hey Sai Natha BhagawanDeena Daya Kara Karuna Murthy Kali Yuga Avatar Sai BhagawanAllah Sai Buddha Zoroastra Yesu Christhu BhagawanMeaning:O Lord of Parthi! Save me and help me to get released from the cycle of birth and demise. O Merciful Lord Sai Ram! You are the Incarnation of the Kali Age, the embodiment of all names - Ram, Krishna, Allah, Buddha, Zoroaster and Jesus Christ.

Lyrics:Mata Pita Guru Bandhu Sakha HariNarayana Sai Narayana (2)Allah Tum Ho Yesu Tum HoBuddha Zohrashtra Mahavir Tum HoSab Ka Malik Ek Hai BhagawanMeaning:O Lord Sai Narayana you are the Mother, Father, Guru, Kith and Kin. You are none other than Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mahavir and the Lord of the entire humanity.

Lyrics:Rama Hare Sai Krishna Hare Sarva Dharma Priya Sai HareAllah Eshwar Sai HareGuru Nanak Yesu Buddha HareZohrashtra Mahavira Sai HareSarva Dharma Priya Sai Harey (Baba)Rama Hare Sai Krishna Hare (4)Meaning:Glory to Rama, glory to Krishna, glory to Lord Sai, who loves all religions equally. Glory to the name of the Lord of all faiths; Who is known by different names as Rama, Krishna, Allah, Eshwar, Guru Nanak, Jesus, Buddha, Zoroaster and Mahavira. Sai responds to any of these names.

Lyrics:Ram Kaho Krishna Kaho Eshwar Allah Sai KahoBuddha Kaho Guru Nanak Kaho Zohrastra Mahavir Yesu KahoYug Avatara Tum Ho Vishwa Shakthi Tum HoSarva Dharma Priya Sai MaheshaParabrahma Tum HoMeaning:Chant the name of Ram, Krishna, Eshwar or Allah. Chant the name of Buddha, Guru Nanak or Zoroaster. Chant either Mahavir or Jesus. O Sai, You are the incarnation of this age. You are the power behind the Universe. You are Sai Mahesha, who loves all religion equally. You are the embodiment of the Supreme One.

Lyrics:Allah Bhajo Maula Bhajo Hey Allah Sai BhagawanRam Bhajo Hey Krishna Bhajo Hey Rama Krishna BhagawanNanak Bhajo Gautam Bhajo Hey Buddha Sai BhagawanYeshu Bhajo Zoroastra Bhajo Hey Mahaveer BhagawanSai Bhajo Shirdi Sai Bhajo Hey Shirdi Sai BhagawanSathya Bhajo Sathya Sai Bhajo Hey Sathya Sai BhagawanMeaning:Chant the divine names of God - Allah, Maula, Rama, Krishna, Nanak, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mahaveera, Shirdi Sai and Sathya Sai.

Lyrics:Jagadeesha Hare Jaya HoJagadodhara Jaya Jaya HoJagadeesha Hare Jaya HoAllah Yesu Nanak SaiAntaryami Buddha MahaveeraZoroastra Sarva Dharma Priya DevaPrasanthi Nivasa Sathya Sai DevaJaya Ho Jaya Ho (2)Meaning:Victory to Sai the Lord and redeemer of the Universe. Lord Sathya Sai is the embodiment of Allah, Yesu, Nanak, Buddha, Mahaveera and Zoroaster. Sai is the indweller and embodies Supreme Peace.

Lyrics:Guru Nanak Ji Ki Jai Jai KarJo Bole So Hoye NiharAllah (Maula) Sai Lelo SalamSalam Salam Lakhon (Mera) SalamYesu Pita Prabhu Sai RamBuddha Zoroastra Mahaveer NamSalam Salam Lakhon (Mera) Salam Meaning:Glory to Guru Nanak! Who ever sings thus, that person becomes liberated. Accept my salutations, Sai Baba, who is Allah; ten million salutations, accept these salutations of mine. You are father Jesus, our Lord. You are Buddha, Zoroaster and Mahaveera. Please accept my salutations.

Lyrics:Allah Allah Karo PukarSathya Sai Ki Jai Jai KarYesu Pita Ki Jai Jai KarMahaveer Ki Jai Jai KarZoroastra Ki Jai Jai KarSarva Dharma Ki Jai Jai KarMeaning:Victory to Allah, Yesu, Mahaveer, Zoroaster and Sathya Sai who is the embodiment of all religions.

65: Carl A. P. Ruck – The Road to Eleusis; The Myth of Christ Dr. Carl Ruck and I begin our conversation discussing the book The Road to Eleusis, wherein “the classist” Dr. Ruck and coauthors R. Gordon Wasson, “the mycologist,” and Dr. Albert Hoffman, “the chemist,” released a controversial theory that psychoactive entheogenic sacramental ceremonies are often discovered at the root of many religious and spiritual traditions throughout history – and especially within the Greek Eleusinian Mystery tradition that lasted around 2000 years. Throughout the interview we explore subjects including classical sources, interpretation of ancient texts, religion and consciousness, entheogens and psychedelics, the political difficulty of the psychedelic sacrament, academia and censorship, drugs and cult ritual practices, the nature of myth, drugs and addiction, polyethnicity, myth and metaphor, consciousness, and our symbiotic relationship to the earth. BIO: Carl A.P. Ruck is an authority on the ecstatic rituals of the god Dionysus. With the ethno-mycologist R. Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann, he identified the secret psychoactive ingredient in the visionary potion that was drunk by the initiates at the Eleusinian Mystery. In Persephone's Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion, he proclaimed the centrality of psychoactive sacraments at the very beginnings of religion, employing the neologism “entheogen” to free the topic from the pejorative connotations for words like drug or hallucinogen. Check out Prof. Ruck's latest project: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgiwjbne3bj7c24/CarlRuck.mp4 Research Interests: Greek drama, Dionysian festivals and rituals, ancient Mystery religions, Orphism, Zoroaster, Mithraism, ancient Christian heretical sects, the role of entheogens in the evolution of human consciousness and religions, Mythology, secret sacraments in medieval and Renaissance art, ancient and medieval eschatology, fairy-tales and European folklore, secret societies and craft guilds, prehistoric rock art, Greek epigraphy, structural linguistics, Latin and Greek grammar, Mesoamerican shamanism. https://www.bu.edu/classics/faculty-profiles/carl-ruck/ http://wassonwest.com https://entheomedia.net CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com