From time of this post, it has been almost 2 months since I’ve received new direction for a question that I had asked right before I feel asleep.
Mind you, it was a vague question. You also may ask.. to whom did I ask this question? Well, since several years ago I had a near death experience which to my best explanation put me right front and center to our Creator, and mind you, this was no physical entity, it was pure energy. A white light with a white that humans cannot perceive … it had no heat, it was cool light. On top of that it was intelligent and radiated love..that’s the best way I can explain.
To add to that, there was music. A constant song… that I associate with angels (angels I could not see, yet perceive). This song was a sustaining song, meaning I was not able to discern any pauses.
Anyways… I bring this up because I asked a question and I was guided to an answer.
It so happens that youtube algorithm suggested a video for me to look at.
It was a podcast interviewing Dr. D C Hillman a philologist, (a philologist is someone who studies the history of languages, especially by looking closely at literature ) he was asking the question: what was Jesus doing in a public park at four in the morning with a naked boy the day he was arrested?
and so down the rabbit hole I went..
The sad part is, he is still asking and not getting answers, he is finding that many theologist are not considering the anthropology of the world that was alive… it a very active world that has influenced the very birth of religion and find themselves turning the other cheek.
and so down the rabbit hole I went.
I visited his youtube channel called LadyBabylon
and he’s shattered my paradigms as it comes to religion.
I must say that perhaps if he was not asking the question himself, or if he was speaking with the conviction that he knows everything… I might have clicked off his channel.
Yet, it is his true desire for people to question sources, to understand the basic evolving anthropology and the impact that language has in society. It is this that makes him so relatable and humble… despite his scholar degrees: MS in Bacteriology, a MS in Classics, as well as a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Wisconsin Madison.
I don’t know how many times I read the story of Jesus and the Agony in the Garden as told in the gospel of Mark 14… how did I not see the naked boy with Jesus? all the other disciples had fallen asleep. Who was that boy and what were they doing?
Yet, it took a philologist to tell me the bible and the Torah were translated from classical Greek from the Septuagint.
They are not original, they are translations.
and now as I look into the Greek and use tools to translate these ancient texts… I am discovering it appears that things were omitted or altered … But why?
If you don’t want to see where your religion originated from and how it morphed it’s best to not even continue reading I’ve already revealed enough for those with ‘eyes to see and ears to hear’.
In his videos Dr. Hillman draws the viewer in by inviting you for front seat to an ancient Greek it’s language and culture.
What I did not mention is that Dr. Hillman went to seminary school during his doctorate program, and he was writing on drug use in the classical era… he was told pretty much that if he wanted to get his degree and the book published he would have to remove any contexts of the drug use by the great leaders of the period. And this happened in the beautiful United States… what a violation of his free speech!
The thing is… that the drug use was spilled into religious rites, into Christianity. The “drink my blood and eat my flesh” was no metaphor.
The man is on a mission…
to understand what Dr. Hillman already knows and is now sharing through his published works and the texts he is reading, we must attempt to recapture the era-time-and culture.
Putting it into better context…Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization. And THAT’S why it matters.
If we’re not careful… we may prove that history repeats itself.
4,000 or even 3,000 years ago were different times, with different norms. Men were marrying 12 year old girls or girls that were blossomed (menses). Boys as young as 7 were turned over to the government to be trained as soldiers. People that could afford purchasing slaves had them. The temples were places of worship and medical care by both Priestesses and Magis. They were the doctors and spiritual advisors or seers and oracles.
At first these concepts are difficult to accept… and one shouldnt accept anything without self-inquiry. In a way we’ve come a long way while in other ways we have slipped epically down a hole and we can’t seem to find our way out.
Here is an example… he had an interesting episode where he was reading and translating from the original source Septuagint – Ezekiel.
Finding the story intriguing, I decided to read the rest… as written in KJV Bible Ezekiel 23:4 and I found the story intriguing and disturbing.
Is Yahweh God, is Yahweh Jesus? Why is Yahweh asking Ezechiel to solve his issues … isn’t HE God? Why does Yahweh have two wives? Is Yahweh a person in the flesh? Is he a God having sex with women and empragnating them? (reminds me of the Greek Gods having sex with humans)
Dr Hillman was not making stuff up… I was reading it in the bible.
“Both of them were mine and they gave me sons and daughters.”
THEN goes on to verse 23:36 to mention Oholah and Oholiba committed ‘abominations’… along with adultery AND that they also sacrificed their children – as food?
Were there rituals involving child sacrifice and eating flesh? What did the KJV mean that these things were abominations?
The Septuagint is written in classic Greek, and pederasty was not questioned it was seen as normal
Now… also keep in mind the Septuagint was written years before the Torah and the Old Testament. The culture of the time had no ‘formal’ religion. The air sparked with magic… and with that also: cult, sex and drugs. I’m not making that up… you can find all of that in the Hymns, Poetry and Medical texts of the time – make sure you have a translator. Even the highly respected books of Galen who was a Roman and Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher – mentions some interesting pharmacology.
I am almost embarrassed that of all the things I did not question in my life was the religion… I was born into it and believed in it blindly, yet have had this gnawing question about the stories origin.
I felt that there was something flawed in the fact that man by a decree (because a man in authority proclaimed it so by penalty of death or some punishment and therefore by FEAR) decided what would be God’s word and wondered if there was any prejudice. I questioned much of the anger and also bloodshed at the hands of religion. I can connect the dots and see the seeds of Christianity and Judaism. I thank my Creator for guiding me to seek Wisdom and as the Greek would say it Sophia, not as a person but as the spirit of Wisdom – yes I do believe that there is something greater than me, because I witness it every day in my life.
And grateful for D.C. Hillman who told me follow the sources. I don’t deny the merits and historical value that the bible and torah and for that matter any other theological text offers… and in that context I can appreciate it.
If sex or even sex with minors was part of the rites to attain IONIC life – which the translators chose to call it Eternal Life (and that translation can take you further down the rabbit hole), and if Jesus was in the middle of a ritual the day he was arrested and caught in the park with a young boy in the wee hours of the morning…
It may explain why every now and then there is a sexual abuse report from the Catholic church. …and with new eyes I read the bible written by man.
It is very liberating to start from where one stands and follow the breadcrumbs backwards past the mythology… it is freedom. I’ve had a near death experience, I know there is something more and it is an indescribable loving energy, to attempt to describe it does it no justice (perhaps in the Greek ). To quote Carl Jung “ON THE MOON” – The moon is dead. Your soul went to the moon, to the preserver of souls. Thus the soul moved toward death. I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death.
I understand that we humans are an interesting batch. We do have a herd mentality… and proof is: we pile into restaurants to sit among perfect strangers and eat food. For many it is comforting to find something whether it be a hobby, politics, religion, or a cause (such as standing for suffering animals which reminds me of Sarah McLachlan SPCA Commercial, who would not stand behind that?? especially after all those images of suffering cats and dogs)… but if we don’t do the research we may be standing for something we truly could NEVER stand for (in some cases follow the money).
Sad to say… some things have not changed. While reading these ancient texts, be it religious books, hymns or letters… we are still a struggling race.
