“Our topic this evening”: 5:35

Brought as a Catholic, I was taught that gold signified royalty and the fact that Jesus would be king.

Merry Christmas! 🤗

Merry Christmas. ❤️🌲

And a testimonial from me also: I love following my curiosity and listening to these lectures.  Lovely to get a sense of your connection to the idea of Christ, John.

Looks like a fantastic lineup, can’t wait!

Safe travels to Argentina. Merry Christmas and God bless!

Happy first day of Yule.

Wonderful as usual. Thank you.

Merry Christmas

Love JH's lectures!

Simply brilliant Dr John! Incedible🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

Great 👍

Thanks once again John. Absolutely love these informative talks. Look forward to the next one. Brilliant.

Thanks!

Valeu!

The issue of Zeus, Cronos and Ouranous represents to me three versions of the same god. And when one realizes this the Aphrodite story makes more sense.

An, the patron diety of Uruk emerges as the coastal settlement in the Ubaid as it grows. I conjecture that the city is the merger of middle/lower euphratean culture and ubaid. It is unclear which of the two villages takes the high position, but one god, the sky god, dominated and the other goddess, innana became a mistress to him. The importance of Anu is that through Uruk new settlements gained acceptance and through inanna kings gained annointment (through copulation). Uruk rises at the beginning of the copper age but they lack minerals (except mud) and so Uruk is involving itself in trade and trying to organize along its periphery trade routes to places that have copper.
  One of these places is the northern flanks of the upper tigris. And we know know that they are familiar with the places because early ubaid shows stong cultural links to Hassuna and Samarrah culture. And so that there is a persistence of Jemdet Nasr (l. mesopotamian) culture in remnants of Samarra culture in places like Tel Shemshara. At the tel there is extensive evidence of East West trade and production industries the link to the Ararat mountains. On the northern reaches of the mountains developes around the end of the fifth millenium BCE kura Araxas culture. For all intents and purposes this cukture is protoindoeuropean and also for all intents and purposes within a few hundred years the bronze age developes between these trading boundaries (Jemdet Nasr and Kura Araxas).
It seems likely that the IE god Djues pater is simply a reworking of An, a god involved in trying to improve trade. IOW in the beginning Sumer had rather anicable relationships to the NNW, but their reach to the NW was limited to the southern reaches of the Ararat mountains.
   The big push westward started at the end of the fifth millenium and it did not go well. The major river port on the Euphrates, shurrupak, flanked the river. The city was razed, and not long after flooded (another epic story). The colony of protoMari was abandoned. Around the 26th century BCE Mari had been restored and its kings were now had sufficient strength to push westward. The west offered wine, olive oil, copper, obsidian. It also offered the end market of Egypt. The problem that was in its way the Eblaite confederation. Ata first, with a litlle saber rattling Ebla conceded to allow mari to trade through. Meanwhile everything began falling apart in Sumer. King Zagasi broke the order of things, and he was replaced. Sargon then made his daughter a high priest of the Inanna cult and booted An out of his white temple, Ishtar as she would now be known became a war goddess and a power goddess. So we can see Aphrodite her severing the testicles. She emasculated her great grandfather. But either Sargon or the Ur III dismanteled tye trading confederation. But by the time Sargon gets to Canaan the benevolent trading god Anu has already been planted by the traders on high places, hes a tabernacle god of sojourners and wanderers. And so El, the most high is already established in the western pantheon relatively immune from the cyclical dynastic theologies of the East.
  It should be noted the El survived several attempts to kill him. The hittites and hurrians tried. That failed. The isra'elite god survived at least to the seventh century, when King Yosiah finally killed him, but as we learned later his kingdom was exiled and in Jeremiah we learn that his reforms were not popular and the peoples that negotiated effectively with the Babylonians remained. Margaret Barker suggests that the notion of a higher father persists in the galilee and is reflected in the extended use of father imagry in the new testament.

  So that Aphrodite is an Avatar of Ishtar gains her power buy emasculating the older version of the sky god.

There is hardly a place, not in Christ, or, not in Buddha nature, or any such title and not being such, there are just degrees of being. And sadness is the feeling one gets, seeing another, somehow without this nature... thank you for helping me be more in that place; that I may more fully celebrate Christmas with another. 🙏🏻🌎❤️

Referring to 1:37:50, I suppose that for the person who asks about "the second coming of Jesus in the cave", "the cave" is the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. So, not pentecoste, but easter.

John thank you for another great lecture.  During the Q&A you mentioned my comments about "Q" but you didn't offer any information on why some scholars support the "Q" hypothesis.  I know you did a lecture previously on "Q" so I just watched that.

I'm going to politely disagree with your assertion that there actually is a "Q" source.  There are a number of scholars that don't think there is a "Q" and they have made very good arguments for that conclusion.  Goodacre and Carrier would be good sources to address.  In watching your previous lecture you did say that there are good reasons to doubt "Q" so I appreciate that measured approach.

As always I enjoy your lectures and look forward to the next one.  However, my disagreement with @Sphinx was about their claim that Zoroastrianism was influenced by Christianity which is the opposite of what we know happened.  It had nothing to do with "Q" unless I missed something in the chat (I stepped away to eat dinner).  Clearly Zoroastrianism provided the influence on Christianity via it's influence on Judaism during the 2nd temple period.  You confirmed what I said about Zoroastrianism but stated that you were going to side with @Sphinx.  That was a bit confusing.  I know that you understand Zoroastrianism is a much older religion than Christianity.

Merry Saturnalia