that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world

Nasoraeans — "shup uuuup".

From Hadrian Augustus to Servianus the consul, Greetings. The land of Egypt (praises of which you have recounted to me, dear Servianus) I have found to be wholly light-minded, fickle, and following after rumors. There, those worshipping Serapis are Christians, and devotees of Serapis are {calling/styling themselves} ‘bishops of Christ’. There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Christian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, bird-diviner, or fortune-teller. Even Patriarch himself, if he comes to Egypt, is forced on the one hand to show reverence Serapis, and on the other to Christ”

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I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright morning star."

This is a full lineage claim in my opinion:

1. Tribal. David's root and David's offspring. The Book of Isaiah requires Jesse's lineage (David's root). 

2. High Royalty. The bright morning star is a descriptor of Venus, which marked a claim to high royalty since at least the world's first empire, with Sargon of Akkad.

Closer to the First Century, Caesar even claimed a direct lineage to Venus as Aphrodite. Academic consensus gives Aphrodite's origin as Ishtar. Scholar Aren Wilson-Wright proposes that the name Aphrodite originates as the Phoenician epithet ʾaprodīt, "The Sublime One" for Ishtar:

Linguistically, Aphrodite derives from ʾaprodīt, a feminine elative form of the root prd meaning ‘unique, excellent, sublime’. As such, it would be semantically opaque to the Greek sailors who brought the cult of Aphrodite back to the Aegean, unlike the other Greek epithets applied to this goddess. 

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- Wilson-Wright, Aren M. (2019). "Venus's Name: The Divine Name Aphrodite as a Phoenician Epithet." Paper presented at the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) Annual Conference, Warsaw, Poland, August 2019.

Arabian rulers also claimed their royalty through Venus, but via the male deity ‘Attar, who has a more ancient origin. Sheiks or tribal kings under the Arabian Confederacy styled themselves as Son of ‘Attar in the Son of [Deity] style. I think this begs the question, "How would their king-of-kings style themselves?" 

The male ‘Attar represents solely the morning star aspect of Venus, and it is suggested that it was syncretized with the Sumerian Inanna to form the Sumero-Akkadian Ishtar, who represents both morning and evening aspects of Venus.

Again, Wiki for ease:

It has been suggested that ʿAṯtar as a masculine Venus god was syncretized into the depiction of feminine Venus goddess Inanna in her depiction as having a masculine beard

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Returning to a portion of Revelation 22:16 in the original Koine Greek:

ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ λαμπρὸς ὁ πρωϊνός (ho astēr ho lampros ho prōinos)

The literal translation is "The star, the radiant [one], the dawn-[one/star]."

In my working hypothesis, in the Transjordan this descriptor may most closely match ‘Attar Shamayin, the deity that eventually becomes attached to the Quedarites who are theorized to provide the Arab lineage of the multi-lineage Nabataeans:

Does Jesus ever in the New Testament condemn polytheism, such as was the standard for Jewish teachers? 

Atarsamain is twice mentioned in the annals of Ashurbanipal, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BC. The reference is to a?lu (sā) a-tar-sa-ma-a-a-in ("the people of Attar of Heaven") who are said to have been defeated together with the Nebayot (Nebaioth/Nabataeans) and the Qedarites led by Yauta ben Birdadda, who was also known as "king of the Arabs".[1]

(Yauta ben Birdadda — Yauta is constructed just like Yehuda, but with a lack of the West Semetic 'h' and the known interchangeable 't' and 'd'.)

So it is my original opinion that whenever a concept might be unknown to the intended audience in the New Testament, or whenever it is protocol to limit the use of the personal name, that a descriptor is made for it instead, like the bright morning star.

Descriptors is how I believe I deciphered The Mandaean Book of John, who they claim to be John the Baptist.

** you do not have permission to see this link **

I believe this great book to be a history of the world since the time of written language to John's First Century.

Again, I believe the Mandaeans to be cultural reenactors of the world's first written religion, while Jesus' followers followed the modern iteration of it. This would be like Colonial Williamsburg  reenacting the innovations made by the Founding Fathers, while Silicon Valley brings you Gemini Pro for free. This knowledge imo was in cuneiform, which ceases to be produced in the First Century.

Writing was an incredibly precious tool reserved for insulated groups whose trash even shows an immense amount of copies; does anyone really believe that they just kept forgetting history since writing's invention in Sumeria?

The cipher

I believe The Mandaean Book of John uses the cultural diffusion of the world's first written religion to discuss the sensitive political history of the world in a way that otherwise would have um, very, very strong opinions by competing empires if it wasn't encoded.

To recap — Sumeria, the world's first civilization had an orderly list of gods, the earliest of which puts first the unmanifested father, Anu the Great (think Anush/Enoch) and his manifested son, Enki, the Lord of Life.

Because it is Enki that is given anûtu, his father's authority, I believe that Enki in anútu is what forms the Mandaean descriptor of The Great Life, Hayyi Rabba. The Mandaeans also use simply "The Life,"  Hayyi, without the "Great," as a descriptor that seems attached to a different historical layer.

In Mandaeanism, which again is the religion of John the Baptist's followers, Hayyi 'The Life" is also counted as the "First Life," whose successors are considered the increasingly distorted images of the First Life.

FIRST LIFE THROUGH FOURTH LIFE DECODED BY NIMMUO OF CYRENE:

FIRST LIFE

• Hayyi, meaning "The Life" in Mandaean.

• Sumeria - World's First Civilization c. 3100-2334 BCE

• Enki, Lord of Life 

Post-Hellenism, in which many Mandaean texts are committed to paper, there is a trend where deities become named as their attributes, ie the Lord of Life can become The Life. (However, I believe I see this naming convention even earlier.)

SECOND LIFE

• Yushamin the Emanated One, imo reading as "Ya of Heavens" and if so, "Living [One/God] of Heavens"

• Akkadian Empire, World's First Empire, 2334 BCE-

• Ea, "The Living One" in anûtu with Anu "Sky/Heavens"

Ea is academically recognized as the iteration of Sumerian Enki, and the Eblaite Hayya is now academically recognized as a an iteration of Ea. "Yushamin the Peacock," as he is called in ** you do not have permission to see this link **, seems in my original opinion to simply be Haya's homonym for peacock that is discussed by scholar Mark Weeden:

For some reason the word for "peacock" is also written using his name (ha‘ia) in an Old Babylonian text (Veldhuis 2004: 251-52).

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Haya (one y) and Hayya (two ys) are considered by many scholars to be the same or iterated deities, and so while it isn't academic consensus, Weeden discusses them both in that paper. 

In comparison with Enki, there is a sharp rise in light and celestial characteristics associated with Ea, such as The Way of Ea. And so Ea and Iah/Aah/Yah/Jah, the deity symbolized by but not actually the moon, (similar to Jesus being symbolized by but not actually the cross) share shining, a star field, underworld running water, rebirth, and 'being in Anu' as shared characteristics.

There is no academic dispute that the arrow of cultural diffusion was mostly one-way, Mesopotamia to Egypt. Divine concepts in artwork, basketry and pottery styles appear first in Mesopotamia, and then appear in Egypt.

Wiki for ease:

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Egypt–Mesopotamia relations were the relations between the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, in the Middle East. They seem to have developed from the 4th millennium BCE, starting in the Uruk period for Mesopotamia (circa 4000–3100 BCE) and the half a millennium younger Gerzean culture of Prehistoric Egypt (circa 3500–3200 BCE), and constituted a largely one way body of influences from Mesopotamia into Egypt.[3][4]

THIRD LIFE

• Abator — Abator Muzania, meaning Abator of the Scales, judge of souls, come on, y'all! Imo Abator is simply the descriptor "He of Abot", as ** you do not have permission to see this link ** is Osiris' city name before it is Hellenized.

• Egyptian Empire c. 1550-1070 BCE

•Osiris

Fourth Life

• Ptahil, literally "Creator god"

• Greek Empire c. 776 BCE-30 BCE

• Serapis

In the Hellenistic period, Serapis functions as the resurrected form of the creator-god Ptah, and eventually syncretizes a whole kitchen sink of Creator gods into a singular "Creator god."

Egypt itself has this clear iteration chain in its syncretization receipts: Osiris-Iah, Ptah-Osiris, Osiris-Apis (Serapis).

The earliest mention of a "Sarapis" occurs in the disputed death scene of ** you do not have permission to see this link ** and Ea as Šar Apsi seems to be the deity intended in the description of Alexander's death.

Wiki for ease: ** you do not have permission to see this link **

yawn Sarapis and Ea unconnected? Alexander Zeus-Ammon spent his final days in Babylon receiving the ritual ministrations of Ea’s own priests. This is during the ascent of the Sumero-Akkadian Revival, so a Sumerian-style pun that unites all the Creator Gods is elite tier.

Fourth Life's Son

• Yukashar, literally "Source of Radiance." Julius Caesar was the inspiration for the Radiate Crown because he was believed to ascend into a star—the Sidus Iulium comet—that was called radiant. Imo this also reads "Ya of Caesar," and thus, "Living Caesar."

Roman Empire 27 BCE-

• Caesar

Caesar, of course, is the only Roman Emperor to receive the Living God title, immortalized in the ** you do not have permission to see this link **

​Θεὸς Ἐπιφανής

Theos Epiphanes

Manifest/Living God

In Right-Ginza 4, Yukashar is named as Yukashar-kana, kana meaning "place." I read this as Caesar of [Place], since each region under him swapped this part out in his title inscriptions.

Ephesus' full ** you do not have permission to see this link **brings up divine lineage and being a savior of humankind pretty similarly to someone we know:

The cities and peoples and tribes in Asia honour Gaius Julius Caesar, son of Gaius, the high priest and imperator and consul for a second time, the manifest god descended from Ares and Aphrodite, and the common saviour of humankind

Is it a coincidence that the appearance of religions track with the revivals of living deification in the Ancient Near East, like with Hammurabi, Caesar, Gaius Julius, and the Aksumites?

​I believe my hypothesis neatly explains why Yushamin places his children in orbit, because Mesopotamian deities are uniquely astral, like Ea:

They brought Yushamen, set him on Earth,
and said to him,
“Give us your children, so they may orbit Earth — Mandaean Book of John

And why Abator of the Scales weighs souls brought by a ferry to a netherworld gate, like Osiris:

a ferry of souls carrying them, over to Abator’s house — Mandaean Book of John

...about Abator. He came, cast him down from his throne, set him at the Nether Gate, and said to him, "Go, and be the judge... — Mandaean Book of John

He set up the throne for Abator, and placed the scales before him, so that he might weigh the souls of the dead to see if they are pure enough to return to the World of Light — Mandaean Scroll of Abator

And why Ptahil acts with the might of a large animal pounding in the columns, evoking the Serapeum ** you do not have permission to see this link **, like Serapis:

Ptahil pounded in the columns — Mandaean Book of John

And why Yukashar is a king of a great palace who weaves a crown, ie wreath, like Caesar:

Hibel called forth with Life’s voice, and brought light to the great palace.

Yukashar achieved success with it, and wove the crown from start to finish. — Mandaean Book of John

Once you understand that the First Life, Second Life, Third Life, Fourth Life, and Fourth Life's son depict the cultural diffusion of tutelary deities across Empires, the Mandaean texts seem to describe an almost six millennium saga (timeline matching the Septuagint) just as exciting as Star Wars. A saga of millenniums a long time ago, and far away, such as that it would take a Millennium Falcon to travel it.

Dr. McGrath, I hope your ears are burning!

- Nimmuo of Cyrene the Wish-Was-Rich writing to you from above the cave springs of my birth, copyright 2026

Dedicated to Gamaliel and my sherpa

If you are sincere I am impressed.

Robert said

brown.connor4 said
And now forgive me for my next comment: when you say
And the Roman-installed local aristocratic sunedrion in Jerusalem, which was specifically tasked over its 80+-year history with replacing, limiting, or reporting any exercise or claim to royal authority would have found and dutifully punished or turned over to Pilate (at the time of Passover when he was present in the city) for punishment.
You only expose yourself as an amateur. Anyone who knows the relevant history and languages will say about your comment, "this person has never even read Josephus, let alone in greek, and is getting all his/her information from online, probably from wikipedia."

Please, no apology necessary. You're absolutely right, I am not at all a professional historian, and have never claimed to be one, but my view of the role of the system of the sunedria, as first imposed by Gabinius and as it seems to have continued to function after it's (partial?) dissolution by Julius Caesar and its continued role under later rulers is based almost entirely on my reading of Josephus. Thus I've endeavored to at least or at best to understand the sunedria as Josephus did. And it's also true that I typically read Josephus in translation, but I do like to refer to the Greek when that seems important or merely interesting. This I did some 12 years ago when I was reading through all of Josephus' various uses of the term συνέδριον.

Now, I do not wish to disparage amateurs from engaging topics here.  But i have noticed a rampant, almost pestilent disregard for "authority" on forums such as this one.  It is almost as if "anyone's 'thought' is as good as anyone's." 
It is not true.  A good response should be a) logical and b) BACKED UP.
that is how history works.   

Perhaps in your role as a professional historian (and even an authority of some kind?) you can correct my view or those of Josephus on how the various kinds of sunedria functioned over time?
  

What I will expose is this....I am a jackass who sometimes writes aggressively when I should be going to sleep.  I should probably look into why posts in a free debate get me so irrationally angry.  I think that I get frustrated with Dr. Ehrman's books and lash out here.  

I am embarrassed by my post.  I apologize. 

Stephen said
I think at any kind of disturbance in the Temple during Passover, Jesus would have been arrested outright.  Consequently the events recorded in the gospels between the Temple incident and the crucifixion, the trials and Judas' betrayal, are probably not historical.     
  

I think your assessment lacks historical imagination.  "Arrested Outright"?  There are hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem.  You seem to have an image of the historical scene borrowed from older popular movies where there are a couple hundred people on the stage with Jesus.  This is poor historical imagination.  The historian must reconstruct, imaginatively, plausible scenes.  That means crowds upon crowds.  That means Jewish authorities who are not sitting around idly waiting for some incident.  They had jobs to do.  It is the Passover.  Hundreds of thousands of people coming to the temple to have a lamb slaughtered.  Even when a disturbance should arise as the one Jesus created, they weren't waiting for it.  They had a hundred other concerns during this time.  So there is no way they would have been prepared to simply arrest Jesus on site.  That is not even how modern arrests operate.  Arrests take time, even today with our technology.  

It is strange and even alarming to me how little historical imagination historians exercise.  A world of nonsense would be expunged if we would all just close our eyes and imagine a plausible scene.

Serene said
... It also isn't held where he'd be broadly recognized, he basically does his preaching in Galilee-Peraea and Samaria (Herod Antipas' tetrarchy). 
  

To be fair, if he had an angel cut his hair in the Roman style and shave his beard, to be able to walk around without being recaptured, that might do it.

DavidFord said
Thomas de Wesselow, _The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection_ (2012), 448pp., on 333

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Page 333 — We began this book by asking what sparked Christianity, and we can now provide a very simple, if surprising, answer:
the Turin Shroud.
Finding a peculiar image on the inner surface of his burial cloth, the followers of Jesus became convinced he had been raised from the dead and exalted to heaven.
This belief led to the emergence of a new sect within Judaism— Christianity-to-be.
The real founder of Christianity was not Peter or Paul or even Jesus, but the Shroud.
  

If David Ford has correctly represented the views of this author, Thomas de Wesselow, an art historian who apparently presumes that the original disciples of Jesus were at at some time in possession of the Shroud of Turin, thereby considers himself qualified to speak about the historical origins of Christianity. That's quite a presumptuous claim, completely outside the domain of the expertise of an art historian, and thus not really relevant to the historical topic of this thread. I suggest that all posts relating to the Shroud of Turin be moved to a separate thread where questions related to the dating of the Shroud of Turin can be handled more appropriately. Any objections?

What shroud are you looking at?

AIs have been known to hallucinate, and some of those hallucinations have even appeared in opinions issued by judges.

Two Federal Judges Apologize For Issuing Opinions With AI Hallucinations - 10.24.2025
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In July, I wrote about Judge Julien Xavier Neals of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, who withdrew an opinion that used generative AI.
Judge Henry T. Wingate of the Southern District of Mississippi likewise withdrew an opinion that used generative AI.
Both opinions included made-up citations, which were obvious hallucinations.

Thomas de Wesselow, _The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection_ (2012), 448pp., on 333, 341
amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0525953655/
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Page 333 — And what about the 1988 carbon-dating result?
This is a question that keeps niggling, even after you have delved into it and discovered how easily the result is undermined.
Faith in a scientific verdict supported by popular opinion is difficult to shake off.
The temptation to abandon a “heretical” line of thought and simply accept what you have been told— and what everyone else believes—is extremely strong.
It is not an impulse that affects only the religious.

Page 341 — The only apparent problem with the Shroud theory is the 1988 carbon dating.
Skeptics, no doubt, will pin their colors to this rickety mast.
I have shown why we should have no faith in this uncorroborated result, although it is impossible, as yet, to determine what might have gone wrong.
One badly conducted scientific test proves nothing.
As Oxford’s Professor Ramsey insists, the 1988 carbon dating was far from definitive and needs to be reassessed in the context of a multidisciplinary research program.^2

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Lev February 28, 2018 at 6:44 am
Are you familiar with the story of Raymond Rogers who was the Director of Chemical Research for the Shroud of Turin Research Project?
He studied the Shroud in 1978, and he was convinced that the Carbon 14 tests in 1988 proved it was a medieval forgery.
That was until the year 2000 when a couple of amateur researchers published a paper showing a seam from a repair attempt running diagonally through the area from which the C14 sample was taken.
When Rogers saw the paper by Marino and Benford, his reaction was that they were not scientists, their theory was ridiculous, and that he still had fibre samples he had taken from the Shroud that could disprove their theory.
You can probably tell where this is going…

Upon examining the fibres under a microscope, Rogers concluded that, as they had hypothesized, a cotton patch had been woven into the linen fibres and then dyed to match the colour of the linen.
The C14 tests were correct, but they were from a medieval sample, not an ancient one.
Rogers was dying of terminal cancer, but was able to conduct further chemical tests and just weeks before he died he was able to publish a peer-reviewed paper that concluded the shroud was 1,300-3,000 years old.
More here: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Perhaps the Shroud of Turin provides us with an image of Jesus after all.

BDEhrman March 1, 2018 at 4:32 pm
Death bed conversion!
But, of course, if it was 1300 years old it would be what people have claimed, a medieval forgery.

Lev August 29, 2019 at 11:53 am
I thought you might be interested in this recent development over the Shroud of Turin:

[July 24, 2019
Study of data from 1988 Shroud of Turin testing suggests mistakes
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“A team of researchers from France and Italy has found evidence that suggests testing of the Shroud of Turin back in 1988 was flawed.
In their paper published in Oxford University’s Archaeometry, the group describes their reanalysis of the data used in the prior study.
After studying the data for two years, the new research team announced that the study from 1988 was flawed because it did not involve study of the entire shroud—just some edge pieces. Edge pieces from the shroud are rumored to have been tampered with by nuns in the Middle Ages seeking to restore damage done to the shroud over the years.
In a recent interview with L”Homme Nouveau, Tristan Casabianca, team lead on the new effort, claimed that the raw data from the 1988 tests showed that the test samples were heterogeneous, invalidating the results.”

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January 20, 2005: A peer reviewed scientific paper by Raymond N. Rogers, retired Fellow of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is published in the journal _Thermochimica Acta_, Volume 425, Issues 1-2, Pages 189-194.
Titled "Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the Shroud of Turin," the paper concludes:

"As unlikely as it seems, the sample used to test the age of the Shroud of Turin in 1988 was taken from a rewoven area of the Shroud.
Pyrolysis-mass spectrometry results from the sample area coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin.
The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the Shroud."

** you do not have permission to see this link **
30. Raymond N. Rogers, "Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the Shroud of Turin," _Thermochimica Acta_ Vol. 425, Issues 1-2, 20 January 2005, Pages 189-194
PDF:
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So my next question about a movement that might possibly value secret followers (like Nicodemus),  "the secrets of the kingdom of heaven," and even conscious obscuring to the public with Jesus' "the Parables are made to conceal, not to reveal" explanation is this —

why do we think that there are not organized groups of people that believe themselves to be the inheritors of this in the modern day?

Some people say that the modern religion are things like rock stars, Star Wars, Star Trek. Until you've had Mark Hamill  walk you into a room then surprise you by quickly closing the door without turning on the lights, with just the light of a crescent moon that happens to be in frame of one small, narrow trailer window, then stare into your eyes wordlessly for what might have been an entire minute, hearing your own heart beat it is thumping so loud, and then having him declare with this profound theatricality and import that you *are* [royal title], I am still thinking about it, yes.

But that isn't the end of these experiences. 

Then I started researching this, then I noticed that in an early interview, Lucas credits a very obscure spiritual society for giving him this idea and turning him on to Joseph Campbell's monomyth. But because Joseph Campbell is that much more public, it is Joseph Campbell that then receives the credit by journos as the inspiration.

Then I found out that the Grammy-nommed musician that I also had the same kind of experience with was also linked thru his touring partner with the same society. She recently wrote a clear dedication song to the founder that all her fans, who never clocked her before as associated with something like this, have now pivoted to accepting that she wrote this plain, unencoded biographical song about the society's 19th C founder because duh, she also bought and lives in the founder's mansion.

And the way more important question is, is revealing the move (because they believe in Christian incarnation, and may be looking for someone with inherent knowledge to be an example of that) or is showing them that I can honor the um not revealing the right way to make friends?