Tuesday, November 21, 2006

 

Book of Spells of Serpents

The Book of Spells of Serpents, a lost work ascribed to St. Paul, would be considered part of the New Testament apocrypha, as it appears in a 6th century list of works that were considered non-canonical, but no known text has survived, although it has been referenced numerous times in other non-canonical ancient books.

From its descriptions, the book appears to be an anti-Ophite work, supporting the orthodox position that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was evil, rather than the Ophites' position that the serpent was a hero who tried to teach Adam and Eve in order to let them escape what the Ophites saw as an evil world created by a demiurge.[1] According to the early church fathers,the work described the beguiling nature of the serpent, and its crafty use of spells, and clever oratory skills, to obtain favour in the Garden and to manipulate the first man for its own gain: the serpent was so wily that it routinely confused Adam about the instructions God gave him, eventually leading to his expulsion.

However, as this is the report of those opposed to the Ophites' views, this description of the text may be somewhat misleading. For example, it was also said that the text briefly touches on the wisdom of the Serpent, and warnings he communicated to Adam, and to Eve, about God's devious nature and fearful admonitions against disobedience. This point of view supported that of the Ophites, and contrasts greatly with the prior description that puts the serpent as the villainous trickster.

References:
^ For more about Ophite theology, see Ophites. See also Ophite Diagrams, Lost New Testament Apocrypha, Non-canonical Pauline Epistles.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Book of Spells of Serpents". This link may die if entry is finally removed or merged.

Comments:
It seems interesting to me that, in an information-age, information of any type is prized. Rather than pure randomness or eclecticism that is prized, also, information that appeals to the base sensibilities of the reader prevails - so that internet communication becomes a massive shoring up of material that supports existing prejudices, and a rejection of anything that is opposite or irrelevant.

However, you buck this trend by simply holding on to anything that falls out of the lap of greatness onto the carpet of lost crumbs, and I salute you. I have argued against Wikipedia (it's not all good) on my own weblog... if you're interested, I would be proud if you read it.
 
Don't let this knowledge be thrown into the wastebasket of time. I am an Ophite myself and someday the truth shall be known to all.
 
I hope I came to the right place. Is it alright if your blog discusses Joseph E. Yahuda and his contributions?

The article written about him was deleted because he was deemed "fringy" and "non-notable". Yet, Joseph E. Yahuda spent 30 years of his life researching languages and though he is not an officially recognized linguist, his academic contributions should nonetheless be known to people.

Here is the link from the deletion log:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/
Joseph_E._Yahuda

The article has been deleted, but I am hoping that you would give Joseph E. Yahuda a place in your blog even if his linguistic theories are ultimately false. I too believe that knowledge is important irrespective if it is based on notable or non-notable people, events, etc.

Here is Yahuda's background info:

Joseph Ezekiel Yahuda (born on July 29, 1900 in Jerusalem and died in 1995 in Westcott, Surrey, England) was a British lawyer, freelance author and self-styled linguist. He was the son of Isaac Benjamin Ezekiel Yahuda, a longtime researcher and linguist. In 1982, he published a book entitled ''Hebrew is Greek, Greek is Hebrew'', in which he proposed the theory that the Hebrew and Arabic languages are Greek in origin. He claimed that virtually all Hebrew and Arabic words could be "derived" from Greek ones. Examples of the etymologies he proposed are the following:

*''Israel'' < ''Is-ra-el'' < εις ('powerful') + ''ρα'' ('king') + ''ηλ'' ('sun')

*''Cain'' < ''Ka-en'' < Κα ην < Γα ην < Γήινος ('from the earth').

Published Works:

*Joseph E. Yahuda, ''Hebrew is Greek, Greek is Hebrew''. Oxford: Becket Publications, 1982.

*Joseph E. Yahuda, ''Law and Life According to Hebrew Thought''. New Series, Vol. 26, No. 3 (January 1936), pp. 283-292.

I also have a list of criticisms made towards Yahuda's 1982 work if you want. Leave a comment on my blog at hellenicempire@blogspot.com if you need anything else or if you agree/disagree about showing Joseph E. Yahuda on your blog.

Again, even if Yahuda's linguistic theories are incorrect, people deserve to know who he is. Realistically, there are a plethora of scholars who provided theories that were eventually proven false. Yet, their contributions are still recognized in Wikipedia. Of course, one reason why the Yahuda article was deleted was because "there was no evidence of his book having sold over 5000 copies." Another reason entails Yahuda not eliciting many Google hits. To me, these are not very good reasons.

Overall, I am happy to know that there is someone who actually cares about articles created on Wikipedia that are unfortunately deemed as "useless" even if they provide some positive contribution to humankind's collective knowledge.

Thank you for creating this blog and I hope you consider placing Joseph E. Yahuda in it.

Take care and good luck with everything.
 
I love this site and really appreciate this knowledge.

I have studied bibical history. I have read some of the lost books of the Bible as they are called.

Interesting enough, most of the books earlier left out the Bible were done so because the people in charge of collecting them into one volume could not see their relationship to Jesus of the New Testament.
 
Actually the title of the book written by Joseph Jahuda is not "Hebrew is Greek and Greek is Hebrew" but only "Hebrew is Greek" (Becket Publications, 1982, ISBN-10: 0728900130, ISBN-13: 978-0728900134). It seems to be one of the the books the most difficult to find and probably there is a significant interest this certain book to remain ignored and unknown. As a matter of fact the reader should master both Greek and Hebrew (and even Arabic) in order to be able to judge the expressed opinions.
 
Thank you the jewish writer for telling the truth.Indeed Hebrew is Greek.Let me remind also that jewish people in the past loved the greek civilization.They were living,thinking and hoping to be greeks.I hope the jewish people to change their mind and look to their fathers nad become again a "I want to be greek" nation
 
I have not read the book yet,have only heard a resume of it.What I tend to believe is that Greeks were present everywhere on the shores of the Near East thousands of years BC for I accept the pelasgian theory.Now,what seems to me to be very plausible an explanation to 'hebrew (being) greek' is that due to the fact Greeks were present in the Near-East they've helped other peoples to organise their writing according to an alphabet and abandon the ieroglyphic type of writing.The Jews whom I concider Semites like the Arabs of the Peninsula,lived next to the Sumerians after leaving Yemen their country.It is from the Sumerians we have an hieroglyphic type of writing which the Jews have propably used at first,before moving North and ending up in Canaan-Palestine.The Jews seem to me to have adopted the alphabet from the Greeks and have created an arabic sumerian style of writing it down.Following that I do not think that Jews came themselves from continental Greece.I also remembered that the hebrew alphabet resembles greatly the greek in its lay out too.
Aa=alpha/aleph.....k,l,... etc
 
The title of Yahuda's book is "Hebrew is Greek", not "Hebrew is Greek, Greek is Hebrew", as it's written in your article
 
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