Caustic Ramblings

Copypasting here my response to a very fascinating Magic Monday thread topic jprussell started. His original question:

I recently heard about a hypothesis that the Old Testament is consciously modeled on Plato and is essentially an attempt to do what he recommended in the /Republic/ and take the known myths of a people and rework them to create a body of belief that would help forge a unified and virtuous people. Advocates of this theory point to similarities in the content and ordering of the Old Testament and Plato's presentation of "the Law," to the fact that we have no textual record of the Old Testament earlier than the time of the Septuagint, and some of the archaeological and textual evidence we do have (like the Elephantine letters) that show the Hebrews being fairly normal eastern Mediterranean polytheists with multiple Gods, temples, harvest festivals and the like, with no mention of things that we now know to be central to the religion (Moses, the Law, the Exodus, and so forth). Have you, JMG, or anyone else here, heard of this theory, and what kind of credibility do you give it? I've heard it second hand from intelligent and knowledgeable people, but it strikes me as one of those theories that might appeal precisely because it is contrarian. Some sources the folks I'm talking to are drawing from: Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible by Russel Gmirkin and Biblical Interpretation Beyond Historicity edited by Ingrid Hjelm and Thomas Thompson

Here is my response (with some minor edits), which is actually to JMG's reply, but it very much expands on many of the things mentioned in the original question:

For starters, the Elephantine letters is slam dunk proof that polytheism was still quite normal among the Hebrews as late as the 400s BC. The letters even show friendly correspondence between the Elephantine community and the Jerusalem priesthood. So it seems Yahweh-only monolatry as a state-mandated policy in/around Judea would have been a rather late development, relative to the Hebrew Bible' internal chronology (which in the first place should be seen as legendary, rather than factual-historical).

The theory Jeff is referring to is a product of some rather recent developments in critical biblical scholarships, particularly the works of an academic by the name of Russell Gmirkin (as Jeff mentioned); he's published three extensive books so far which lay out his theory. In the first he makes a case, via comparative literary critique, that the Pentateuch has source dependency on the works of Berossus (Seleucid Babylonia), Manetho (Ptolemaic Egypt), and a number of Greek works. Now this is not to say that the stories within the Hebrew bible aren't ancient; many of them most certainly are. But the literary format and narrative those stories were encoded in are a product of the Hellenistic era, according to Gmirkin's thesis.

In his works he dated the penning of the Pentateuch to around 270-275 BC, and the whole affair was funded by the Macedonian-Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus; that he assembled all or most of the Jewish tribal elders in Alexandria and gave them access to the great library to help them compose their encyclopedic corpus. It was a known policy of the post-Alexandrian kings to employ local priests/scribes of newly conquered subject peoples to write extensive accounts of their own culture's history, lore, laws, and religious practices (see Berossus and Manetho I referred to above). So by this, the documentation Ptolemy wanted on his Jewish subjects is reflective of the same domestic policy other Macedonian Greek rulers implemented for their various other subject peoples. His other books (I only read his first so far) seem to go into extensive comparison between the Platonic corpus and the Hebrew bible.

Flavius Josephus in his histories of the Jews actually goes into vivid detail on how precisely the Septuagint was composed: in Alexandria and with the financial patronage of the Ptolemies, which coincides with Gmirkin's thesis (perhaps he got this idea from reading Josephus). I'll stop here because it would probably take me at least ten more paragraphs to fully flesh out the finer details of this theory.

From an esoteric standpoint, that 270s BC date seems quite interesting because this time period seems to coincide directly with the onset of the Age of Pisces. I believe this was also the approximate time of the Edicts of Ashoka in India (i.e. the first mass-deployment of religious missionaries). In the Middle East, this was also the time the first birth pangs of Magian religiosity, if we're to bring Oswald Spengler's theories into this equation.

Finally, I have to point out that the term "Judaism" needs careful consideration when used in the context of Greco-Roman antiquity. What we understand today as "Judaism" is merely one version of Hebrew religion dating to the Roman era. Particularly, it's a Roman-approved (after three failed revolts against the empire) form of Pharisee Judaism that later underwent considerable changes in the middle ages. There was actually a lot more ideological diversity in and around Hellenistic and Roman Judea/Palestine than most people today understand; the Gnostics, Essenes, and proto-Christians being prime examples (heck, we don't even know what the Sauducees actually believed). The Mandean religion that survives to this day may in fact be a preservation of older Judaic beliefs that have long been snuffed out everywhere else (perhaps an offshoot of the Essenes).

1700+ years of church propaganda asserting the Bible as a historical document (an infallible one at that!) has long made it politically incorrect to suggest that anything other than a literal reading of Biblical chronology is a historically-accurate version of the events that led up to the emergence and development of the Abrahamic religions. What the difference is today is that it's now finally permissible for researchers to propose and present alternative hypotheses.

Remark from Reddit: "I can’t remember which church schism it was, but it related to the thought that the Old Testament God is not the same God of the New Testament."

My response:

There were actually a good number of early churches which did not recognize the Jewish/OT god as the True God. And they each devised slightly different myths to explain why the OT god is flawed, inferior or even evil. This division actually started before Christianity came to be. The Sethians, who likely predated the first Christian sects by at least a century, started off as a group of disaffected Jewish mystics living in Alexandria who much preferred Platonic teachings. The Sethians simply flipped the script and declared the OT god to be the devil. (Many subsequent Gnostic groups would follow suit) And then during the 1st century CE there was Philo of Alexandria. Though he remained a pious Jew throughout his life, he devises and hammered out an esotericized Jewish theology that was essentially Platonic in character. While Philo's work didn't make a lasting effect on the Judaism of his time period (though it may have influenced Kabbalah centuries later), it essentially was a blueprint for what would become the core Christian theology. For example, the allegory of the Word/Logos becoming flesh was one of Philo's innovations, among several others.

The standard Christian canon is an unresolved and rather schizophrenic attempt at reconciling an all-good Platonic godhead with a rich and voluminous Hebrew scriptural base plagued by a very flawed god; the church fathers eagerly utilized the Jewish canon as an easy means to bolster their claim that Jesus Christ was prohphecized centuries before his coming, and thus convince lots of simple-minded people to join their cult. The very blatant incongruity between these two clashing god concepts was haphazardly paved over by the church and thus never explained in anything resembling a coherent or logical manner. And thus all the violent mob attacks, book burnings, witch hunts, heresy hunts, ect. when any sane mind dared to point out this gaping wound in the entire edifice.

On belief and practice:

1. Traditional Gnostic schools of thought posit an original spiritual unity that came to be split into a plurality, through a series of emanations. This doctrine can be conceptualized as either Monism or Panentheism.

2. As a result of this pre-cosmic division, the manifest universe was created. The lower layers of existence, which would include the material universe, were created by beings possessing inferior spiritual powers to that of the Godhead and His highest emanations. Some historical Gnostic doctrines speak of these lesser spiritual beings resembling entities like Jehovah of the Hebrew scriptural canon (The Christian Old Testament), and many of the anthropomorphic deities found in most ancient polytheistic religions. Other doctrines speak of a benign or neutral Demiurge (Artificer) being/spirit (or series of artificer beings) who created the material universe.

3. Differing Gnostic teachings and myths feature both male and female emanations of God (often referred to as either Aeons or Archangels) who were involved in the cosmic creation. Some Gnostic myths organize these emanations into a hierarchy of male-female pairs, somewhat reminiscent of the ancient Egyptian religion.

4. In the cosmos, space and time is imagined as having either a malevolent or constrictive character and may be personified as demonic beings (or simply, capricious forces of nature) separating man from God. In other doctrines, the domains contained within space and time are a part of an illusion or at least a rather distorted or degraded version of the higher realms.

5. For humankind, the material universe is either vast prison or an illusion that ensnares souls. Human beings are enslaved both by the physical laws of nature and by man-made moral laws that are based on worldly-material power dictates (like the Mosaic code, as an example) and other legalistic religious doctrines and creeds that were created by fallible, flawed and corrupted men.

6. Humankind may be personified as Adam (or Anthropos), who lies in the deep sleep of ignorance, his powers of spiritual self-awareness stupefied by materiality. And within the soul of each individual human of this physical world is an "inner man," a fallen spark of the divine substance. Since this exists in each person, we have the possibility of awakening from our stupefaction; a human soul requires many lifetimes (death/rebirth cycles) of cumulative experience on the material plane to reach the point where an awakening is possible.

7. What ultimately ignites the awakening is not obedience, faith, or good works, but knowledge of the divine. However, to attain knowledge of the divine, a seeker must cultivate for himself higher states of consciousness and attaining these higher states requires the cessation of habits, behaviors and activities that turn people down toward the material plane and thus away from divinity. Gnosis-seekers must work hard to purify their souls and attain a state of temperate, benevolent and disciplined conduct. This is accomplished through leading life of performing good works, avoiding destructive lifestyles, engaging in virtuous conduct, and striving to attain an all-around excellence of character.

8. Before the awakening, individual humans often undergo some sort of psychological crisis event; things like: troubled dreams, trials and tribulations in their daily life, loss of a loved one, having a crisis of conscience of some form or another, ect.

9. Man does not attain the knowledge that awakens him from these dreams by cognition (intellectual reasoning and speculation) but through direct revelatory experience, and this knowledge is not conveyable information but a modification of the sensate being.

10. The awakening (i.e., the salvation) of any individual is a cosmic event; upon attaining salvation, the the individual is liberated from the cycle of deaths and rebirths on the material plane; this cycle can be symbolized as either the Wheel of Fate/Karma, or the Ouroboros, i.e. the serpent who eats its own tail.

On Ethics and Modernity:

11. The heartfelt rejection of fallible, man-made moral law codes and ossified religious doctrines asserted by the powers of this world as bring “inerrant divine revelation” is enjoined upon every person of good conscience. Gnosis-seekers must reject the authority of religious dogmas that have been shaped by the dictates of money and politics.

12. Having said that, a Traditional Gnostic is reverent toward time-honored teachings and practices and is thus quite diligent and discerning when it comes to determining which teachings are legitimate and which are fanciful, misleading, incomplete and conceived in error. The Traditional Gnostic must be able to identify and reject false teachers.

13. The Traditional Gnostic must be especially skeptical toward any spiritual, metaphysical or religious ideas that have emerged in the modern era, that is: within the last 500 years of Western cultural development. Most modern doctrines on ethics and the human condition are tainted by the corrupting influences of materialism, hedonism, consumer culture, money, dependence on technological conveniences, erroneous ideas about “progress” occurring in a perfectly linear and material manner, and of course the literalist approach to interpreting ancient religious scriptures.

14. The most recent modern ethical doctrines tend to: overwhelmingly emphasize rights (legally sanctioned protections and entitlements) over duties, assert material pleasure as being the highest good, and encourage the pitting of the sexes and racial/ethnic and subcultural lifestyle groups against one another in the name of things like “progress” and “social justice,” thus dividing and destabilizing communities and nations. Very little emphasis is placed on the individual's collaborative role within their family and community, and their obligations and responsibilities toward their social surroundings in general. The Traditional Gnostic must be able to balance their state-granted rights as an individual with their responsibilities to society.

15. Modern ethical doctrines tend to tie their concept of “progress” directly to the advancement of material science and technology, with almost no attention given to spiritual goals and perspectives on the matter. This set of assumptions tends to imply an eventual material-utopian “end of history” event whereby humanity will be “saved” by some sort of technological singularity. In contrast, the Traditional Gnostic must be able to differentiate spiritual progress from the advancement of material knowledge and innovation, and recognize that technology is merely a tool (which can be used to bring about both good and bad outcomes), and not an end in itself. First and foremost, the Traditional Gnostic must prioritize a spiritual worldview over a material one.

16. Many groups and people today claiming to be “Gnostic” actually prioritize these aforementioned modern ethical doctrines over genuine Traditional Gnostic teachings and a spiritual worldview in general, probably owing more to a lack of awareness on the matter, as opposed to a willing ideological orientation. As a result, they will cheery pick fragments of Gnostic teachings and shoehorn them into a modern or postmodernist worldview that is defined by many of the traits outlined above. The is tantamount to the material tail wagging the spiritual dog. To alleviate this cognitive dissonance, the Traditional Gnostic must be able to frame ancient Gnostic teachings within the proper historical context and resist the urge to confuse or conflate such teachings with modern ethical speculations.

17. The Traditional Gnostic must envision ethics as the means for individuals to improve themselves first and foremost, rather than being the act of forcing some set of lofty-sounding abstract ideals onto the world around them. The latter endeavor usually involves flawed people trying to “save the world” before first addressing their own character flaws and bad habits. The result of this is more often than not, a rather predictable drama whereby people project their own demons onto the world and end up doing more harm than good, despite originally having good intentions.

18. The Traditional Gnostic will be able to differentiate genuine Gnostic teachings from literal interpretations of Gnostic-themed myths which have the potential of promoting a cosmic victim mentality for human beings. In other words, when the constrictive and inconvenient aspects of manifested nature are excessively anthropomorphized, human beings may be seen as helpless victims of all-powerful supernatural comic book villain characters and thus things like adolescent-rebellious attitudes toward existence and world-denying escapism are encouraged. When in actuality, according to various Wisdom teachings, humans are more often than not the victims of their own vices and short-sighted worldly endeavors. In other words, the so-called “archons” are alive and well within our own psyches and we certainly have it within our power to battle them. In summary, the Traditional Gnostic will aspire to be a hero rather than a victim.

19. Having said that, people have often indeed been victims of circumstance and collective ignorance over the many many centuries of human history. Victims are ultimately people bereft of agency (willpower) and self-awareness and thus strewn about by chaotic forces. Thus, Gnostics must be ever compassionate and forgiving toward people in the grip of ignorance and flawed modes of living and conceptualizing the world. Of course this doesn't mean accepting their flawed worldviews, but rather recognizing the root causes of error and thus cultivating the awareness and ability required to isolate oneself from the corrupting influences of error.

20. And finally, the Traditional Gnostic must resist the urge to harbor hatred in their heart toward various historical forces, movements, ideologies and institutions which have oppressed, suppressed and mercilessly attacked Gnostic thinkers, visionaries, sects and movements throughout the last 2,000 years or so of history. The Gnostic may recognize that such oppressive and evil-spirited movements have been first and foremost political projects and not genuine religious or spiritual endeavors. The Traditional Gnostic must resit the urge to employ a boogeyman or scapegoat to pin all of humanity's problems onto. Understanding error does not mean the need to conjure up a storm of negative emotions. In the end, a negative mental or emotional state means a negative spiritual state. Such a state inhibits spiritual growth and makes liberation/salvation impossible until this antagonistic state is dissolved into the aether.

The following an a brief excerpt from Harold Bloom's Nov. 1979 Washington Post review of The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels:

During the first two centuries of Christianity, the new religion sustained a constant challenge by the Gnostic movement. This movement was regarded by all Christian authorities as an initial heresy within Christianity itself, but such a view of Gnosticism is clearly inadequate. Gnosticism from its origins constituted a rival religion to both Judaism and Christianity. There were indeed Jewish Gnostics, and a bewildering array of Christian Gnostic sects, but there were also pagan Gnostics. Gnosticism was both a tendency within other religions, and an eclectic but authentic religion in itself.

...Knowing is the essence of Gnosticism, whose name derives from the Greek word, gnosis , signifying knowledge in an experiential and intuitive sense. The Gnostic is a person who knows that what is oldest and most authentic in him is neither his body nor his soul, but rather is an inmost self, the pneuma or "breath" which is also a "spark" of the fire of an alien, true God, alien both to this cosmos, and to the human body and soul alike. Through no fault of his own the Gnostic finds himself solitary in a cosmic dungeon, our galaxy, cut off from salvation by the true God who has not made this world, has not made man's soul, has not even made the pneuma or man's true self, because that is co-eternal with Him.

The central dilemma of Gnosticism is that it remains a religion of salvation, dependent upon knowing rather than believing, while insisting that salvation is wholly acosmic and atemporal.

Pragmatically, Gnosticism is an elitist religion of despair, because it holds out no hope for the natural woman or man, but only an ultimate hope for the "spark" we continue to carry.

The central shock of Gnosticism comes from its aggressive side, turned strongly against normative Judaism and orthodox Christianity: The evil or at least foolish Demiurge or wrong-headed god who made the world, our bodies and even our psyches or souls, is no less than Jevoah Elohim, the creative God of the book of Genesis.

Credit should go to a user on the "Gnostic" subreddit for digging up this quote.

I have my own broad definition of "Gnosis" I will explain in the near future. However this brief list of criteria is something I believe to be a very accurate approximation of what I term "Mythical Gnosticism," or alternatively, "Judeo-Christian Gnosticism." This is what most people with a modicum of knowledge on comparitive religion think of when the term Gnosticism is brought up.

• The Gnostics posited an original spiritual unity that came to be split into a plurality.


• As a result of the precosmic division the universe was created. This was done by a leader possessing inferior spiritual powers and who often resembled the Old Testament Jehovah.


• A female emanation of God was involved in the cosmic creation (albeit in a much more positive role than the leader).


• In the cosmos, space and time have a malevolent character and may be personified as demonic beings separating man from God.


• For man, the universe is a vast prison. He is enslaved both by the physical laws of nature and by such moral laws as the Mosaic code.


• Mankind may be personified as Adam, who lies in the deep sleep of ignorance, his powers of spiritual self-awareness stupefied by materiality.


• Within each natural man is an "inner man," a fallen spark of the divine substance. Since this exists in each man, we have the possibility of awakening from our stupefaction.


• What effects the awakening is not obedience, faith, or good works, but knowledge.


• Before the awakening, men undergo troubled dreams.


• Man does not attain the knowledge that awakens him from these dreams by cognition but through revelatory experience, and this knowledge is not information but a modification of the sensate being.


• The awakening (i.e., the salvation) of any individual is a cosmic event.


• Since the effort is to restore the wholeness and unity of the Godhead, active rebellion against the moral law of the Old Testament is enjoined upon every man.

As I alluded to above, Gnosis is a much broader concept than what we find in the fragmentary knowledge we have today of the various Gnostic sects, mystery schools, secret fraternities and religious movements that flourished all around the Mediterranean and Near Eastern regions during late antiquity. In my own belief, Gnosis is the true transcendental spiritual tradition of the West; it has appeared and reappeared under various philosophical guises and forms of religious expression. The Judeo-Christian version is merely one of the mythical expressions of Gnosis.