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"the Genesis story is Jewish, and predates Christianity by at least five if not ten centuries" But the fresco the article is about is from the 13th Century. C

"the Genesis story is Jewish, and predates Christianity by at least five if not ten centuries" But the fresco the article is about is from the 13th Century. Christians at that time or even earlier might have re-interpreted the Genesis story in light of psychedelic experiences. However, on the subject of psychedelic use in early Judaism, there is an interesting article titled "Strange Fires Weird Smokes and Psychoactive Combustibles Entheogens and Incense in Ancient Traditions"[1]: "The incense cults of Israel have been the subject of a wide variety of theological and academic treatments. Researchers have speculated on the use of entheogens of a variety of species in the Bible (Shanon 2008; Merkur 2000; Allegro 1 970) as well as linking a shared entheogenic heritage with Persia in such crucial texts as the Book of Ezra, which sheds much light on foreign influences on Jewish cultic practices (Dobroruka 2006). A number of scholars have discussed the psychoactive incense used in the temple with various theories as to ingredients (Ruck, Staples & Heinrich 200 I ) and cannabis has been suggested as the kaneh bosom (appearing throughout the Old Testament with the first mention in Exodus) that eludes -- along with the other ingredients of the holy incense -- positive or at least complete identification (Benet 1976). ... ... The exact recipe of the Old Testament incenses (Levitical and foreign), if there ever was an official recipe that persisted with exact continuity, will likely never be known. Some of the ingredients may be deduced from other examples in the ancient world of incense cults and their psychoactive aromatics. A starting point would logically be Egypt, from which the Israelites made their Exodus, and their various temple incenses and magico-medical fumigants, which included benzoin, cannabis, Hyoscyamus, bitumen and arsenic sulphide (Shehata 2006). Psychopharmacologists link Egyptian plants found in the various Greek writings and Egyptian medical papyri with the soma/haoma of the ancient world and Peganum harmala, which is still used as a magical incense to this day. Linked with the nybt of the Papyrus Ebers (Flattery & Schwartz 1 989) Peg anum is also mentioned by Dioscorides as being used by ancient Syrians as besasa, or "Plant of Bes" and that it was burned in Egypt before the statue of Bes. The ancient kyphi has been speculated by some scholars to have contained cannabis as well as other psychoactive plants such as Acarus calamus and from sixteen to fifty other ingredients, many of which are unidentified." [1] - https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49821787_Strange_Fires_Weird_Smokes_and_Psychoactive_Combustibles_Entheogens_and_Incense_in_Ancient_Traditions# https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/...

cat199 5y ago
have no doubt that some christians likely dabbled with these things, as did their jewish forbears, and certainly some sects of paganism where this was explicitly allowed/incorporated but it's one thing to acknowledge these various strands as ever having existed, and quite another to take fragmentary evidence out of context and use it as a basis to spin a whole narritive that all of the historical understanding is somehow fundamentally incorrect, and that there is some 'hidden teaching' (which incedentally and conveniently is almost always more permissive w/r/t intoxication/sexuality) there's also the detail that this misunderstanding is also predicated on a false notion that medieval people were as hostile to medicinal plants as we have become after the advent of the pharmaceutical industry - if these plants are not 'evil' and 'suppressed', then it is less 'shocking' and 'world changing' to find references to them in what we might think are surprising places to our modern mind
FridayoLeary 5y ago
But incense was only burned in the temple, with no one around to enjoy it, so what's your point exactly?
cratermoon 5y ago
I saw a Ron Howard movie that starred Tom Hanks which told me the Holy Grail is really a metaphor for the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I read a book by Immanuel Velikovsky that told me that around the 15th century BC, the planet Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object and passed near Earth. Venus is made of up hydrocarbons which spewed out and fell to earth, turned to carbohydrates and fell as manna, then Venus on a later flyby caused the earth to stop turning (and the sun to appear to stand still) and the walls of Jericho to fall. Somehow, not only did Joshua and his armies not get knocked flat on their asses when the earth stopped, but the entire earth did not become magma as the energy of rotation turned to heat. People have been speculating about the "science" of the bible since the scientific method was a thing, and there's a shitload of absolute insane woo.

cat199 5y ago

have no doubt that some christians likely dabbled with these things, as did their jewish forbears, and certainly some sects of paganism where this was explicitly allowed/incorporated but it's one thing to acknowledge these various strands as ever having existed, and quite another to take fragmentary evidence out of context and use it as a basis to spin a whole narritive that all of the historical understanding is somehow fundamentally incorrect, and that there is some 'hidden teaching' (which incedentally and conveniently is almost always more permissive w/r/t intoxication/sexuality) there's also the detail that this misunderstanding is also predicated on a false notion that medieval people were as hostile to medicinal plants as we have become after the advent of the pharmaceutical industry - if these plants are not 'evil' and 'suppressed', then it is less 'shocking' and 'world changing' to find references to them in what we might think are surprising places to our modern mind

FridayoLeary 5y ago

But incense was only burned in the temple, with no one around to enjoy it, so what's your point exactly?

cratermoon 5y ago

I saw a Ron Howard movie that starred Tom Hanks which told me the Holy Grail is really a metaphor for the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I read a book by Immanuel Velikovsky that told me that around the 15th century BC, the planet Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object and passed near Earth. Venus is made of up hydrocarbons which spewed out and fell to earth, turned to carbohydrates and fell as manna, then Venus on a later flyby caused the earth to stop turning (and the sun to appear to stand still) and the walls of Jericho to fall. Somehow, not only did Joshua and his armies not get knocked flat on their asses when the earth stopped, but the entire earth did not become magma as the energy of rotation turned to heat. People have been speculating about the "science" of the bible since the scientific method was a thing, and there's a shitload of absolute insane woo.