Vance on Nostr: From our interactions so far I think you assume Christ Consciousness and the ...
From our interactions so far I think you assume Christ Consciousness and the historical figure Jesus Christ are the same thing or that the man embodied the consciousness (compassion, love etc) but that is a trick of the organized institutions around the bible ie The Church.
The consciousness isn't being called into question by Hillman or myself but the man is. When Hillman critiques the man you think he is critiquing Consciousness as well. This doesn't fit with your experience of the world (and mine) and so you think Hillman is incorrect. But he is only critiquing the historical figure. The long list you have there I think can be mostly explained by separating the consciousness from the man, as is appropriate, and using historical documents, written in Ancient Greek from various Roman and Greek sources.
Now, a document of 2,000 years isn't necessarily fact because it exists, as you rightly point out but you can use science and logic to understand which ones have more validity from a historical context. There is science in the technicality of the language and also in the pharmacology that could be analyzed to understand which documents could be considered genuine and which fabricated.
For example, The Septuagint. The Church says this is translation FROM Hebrew TO Greek but Hillman claims the opposite. He says it is actually FROM Greek TO Hebrew and provably so in his opinion based on 30 years as a Philologist.
I'm not trying to use credentialism there to say 'trust him' I'm saying he is qualified to make that assessment but it does need verification by others in the field.
An example of how there is a measurable science in the technicality of the language is, in Hillmans words, that The Septuagint has more semantic meaning in it at a technical language level of the words themselves. There is more meaning in them that there is in the Hebrew words. This is because Greek is a more complex language that Hebrew and has more ability to convey meaning. In addition to that there is Pharmacology that could be verified by modern chemistry.
Hebrew has only 8,000 approx words and Greek 500,000 (estimates vary) so we can say Greek is much more complex at least. The question then becomes, what are the chances that The Hebrew -> Greek translation, as The Church claims, managed to add much more semantic meaning AND also keep the pharmacology (which is verifiable by modern chemists) in tact when the Hebrew version did not have this meaning (and technically couldn't support it) and pharmacology in it in a technical sense? Low I would say, very low.
All of that is to say - we don't need to rely on an ancient document and play ancient 'he said, she said'. That isn't what's available here. What is available is a testable and measurable scientific analysis of the texts at a technical language level and at a pharmacological level to confirm if what Hillmans says is accurate.
Now, currently Hillman is the only modern person saying these things (although Origen of Alexandria and Jeremy Bentham have said some similar things historically) and hardly anyone is qualified to also translate the Greek at his level to confirm.
So, how do we verify what he is claiming? In time people will catch up with his translating. The texts he's translating do not just require Ancient Greek knowledge but also medical knowledge and people with both are very very few and far between.
But in part you can see already that what he's translating is accurate based on separate analysis of The Bes Cup which has breast milk and vaginal fluid in it. So we actually do have confirmation now without waiting that what he's saying is at least partially accurate.
In addition, there is more archaeological finds which support what he is translating is accurate from Spain. For eg hair analysis of Bronze Age (3k+ years ago) shows
"The results furnish direct evidence of the consumption of plant drugs and, more interestingly, they reveal the use of multiple psychoactive species."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31064-2
Hillmans claim, based on the translations he made, is that medical women of bronze age kept toxins they made in their which seems to be confirmed by this Spanish find.
So, all of that is to say, there is plenty of factual based science that can, has and will be done to verify his claims.
Note, none of this removes the connection we can have to Christ Consciousness. It just means The Church lied to everyone for millennia (!) about the historical figure Jesus Christ and that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone tbh.
The consciousness isn't being called into question by Hillman or myself but the man is. When Hillman critiques the man you think he is critiquing Consciousness as well. This doesn't fit with your experience of the world (and mine) and so you think Hillman is incorrect. But he is only critiquing the historical figure. The long list you have there I think can be mostly explained by separating the consciousness from the man, as is appropriate, and using historical documents, written in Ancient Greek from various Roman and Greek sources.
Now, a document of 2,000 years isn't necessarily fact because it exists, as you rightly point out but you can use science and logic to understand which ones have more validity from a historical context. There is science in the technicality of the language and also in the pharmacology that could be analyzed to understand which documents could be considered genuine and which fabricated.
For example, The Septuagint. The Church says this is translation FROM Hebrew TO Greek but Hillman claims the opposite. He says it is actually FROM Greek TO Hebrew and provably so in his opinion based on 30 years as a Philologist.
I'm not trying to use credentialism there to say 'trust him' I'm saying he is qualified to make that assessment but it does need verification by others in the field.
An example of how there is a measurable science in the technicality of the language is, in Hillmans words, that The Septuagint has more semantic meaning in it at a technical language level of the words themselves. There is more meaning in them that there is in the Hebrew words. This is because Greek is a more complex language that Hebrew and has more ability to convey meaning. In addition to that there is Pharmacology that could be verified by modern chemistry.
Hebrew has only 8,000 approx words and Greek 500,000 (estimates vary) so we can say Greek is much more complex at least. The question then becomes, what are the chances that The Hebrew -> Greek translation, as The Church claims, managed to add much more semantic meaning AND also keep the pharmacology (which is verifiable by modern chemists) in tact when the Hebrew version did not have this meaning (and technically couldn't support it) and pharmacology in it in a technical sense? Low I would say, very low.
All of that is to say - we don't need to rely on an ancient document and play ancient 'he said, she said'. That isn't what's available here. What is available is a testable and measurable scientific analysis of the texts at a technical language level and at a pharmacological level to confirm if what Hillmans says is accurate.
Now, currently Hillman is the only modern person saying these things (although Origen of Alexandria and Jeremy Bentham have said some similar things historically) and hardly anyone is qualified to also translate the Greek at his level to confirm.
So, how do we verify what he is claiming? In time people will catch up with his translating. The texts he's translating do not just require Ancient Greek knowledge but also medical knowledge and people with both are very very few and far between.
But in part you can see already that what he's translating is accurate based on separate analysis of The Bes Cup which has breast milk and vaginal fluid in it. So we actually do have confirmation now without waiting that what he's saying is at least partially accurate.
In addition, there is more archaeological finds which support what he is translating is accurate from Spain. For eg hair analysis of Bronze Age (3k+ years ago) shows
"The results furnish direct evidence of the consumption of plant drugs and, more interestingly, they reveal the use of multiple psychoactive species."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31064-2
Hillmans claim, based on the translations he made, is that medical women of bronze age kept toxins they made in their which seems to be confirmed by this Spanish find.
So, all of that is to say, there is plenty of factual based science that can, has and will be done to verify his claims.
Note, none of this removes the connection we can have to Christ Consciousness. It just means The Church lied to everyone for millennia (!) about the historical figure Jesus Christ and that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone tbh.