Was Moses Wiccan?

reply to post by windword

I am Wiccan, for many years, well read, well studied. I had a chance to read two books supposedly authored by Moses a few years ago...

The Sword of Moses - An ancient Hebrew/Aramaic book of magic J.H. Peterson (Editor), Matthew Vossler (Editor), M. Gaster (Translator)

and

The Sword of Moses, an Ancient Book of Magic. From an Unique Manuscript. With Introduction, Translation, an Index of Mystical Names, and a Facsimile by M. Gaster Moses Gaster (Author)

I have also studied on the Essenes, Jesus was one, and many other biblical people. I find these laws in accordance with Wiccan beliefs, but as Wicca is a modern religion, saying Moses and the Essenes were like Pagans would be more descriptive.

Originally posted by Murgatroid



I learned from our initiators that it seemed that Wicca is, in fact, a manufactured religion not much older than this century.

About a year after becoming a High Priest (1974), I was told by our initiators that Wicca was not what it seemed. Although much of the extant literature written by witches (and Dr. Margaret Murray's work) would lead one to believe that Wicca is a survival of the ancient pagan fertility cults, especially of Northern Europe and the British Isles; there is not a shred of real historical proof for any connection between Bronze Age cults and modern witchcraft.

There did not seem to be evidence for any Book of Shadows (a combined "bible" and ritual book for Wiccans) much older than the 1910's!
www.chick.com...

Contrary to public belief, modern witchcraft is not of Celtic derivation, and is not associated with the Old English word 'witan' meaning "to know", or any word meaning "craft of the wise".

This is the only part of that whole wall of text that is true. Boy once it got past this it really took a long fall into tin foil hat wearing territory

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by Elsha

 

There is no witchcraft in these texts.

On the contrary, there is lots of magic in the Bible. Magic for making things, magic for asking advise, magic for figuring out if your wife is faithful. You simply don't recognize a magic ritual when you see it. And believe me, people can be doing massive public rituals and people don't see nothing. Its pretty freaking amazing. Someone could hit you in the face with a dead fish, and grab your head and point it directly at one and you'd never see it.

As a matter of fact, one happen this week. See if you can find it. It was all over the news.

reply to post by Aeons

magic for asking advise

There is only one sanctioned example of magic for seeking advice, and even that is restricted to the high priest alone. The 'Urim' W'Tumim' roughly translated means 'lights and completions', is a form of divination that acquires knowledge of 'completions' i.e. a probable future, based on the light pattern which shines off the 12 stones of the high priests breastplate.

I guess the idea is. if I were to presume, that knowledge of the future is only relevant to certain actions of the community (collective) which could have serious repercussions, whereas the events of each individual, if they merely follow the basis of Hebrew religion - the worship of the one God - is in their hands to control.

Free will doesn't apply to the collective. Whereas free will applies to every individual. Hebrew religion seeks to make every individual aware of his or hers responsibilities; both to their own selves, and to society at large. Knowledge of the future is therefore irrelevant to the spiritual development of the individual, whereas it could have practical importance to the interests of the collective.

Originally posted by Elsha
reply to post by GeneralMishka

 

no Christians do not consider Moses Christian. They consider him a saint of the First Testament ( the Torah, prophets, psalms and writings) period. You are write however in that only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were considered Jews while the other ten tribes were considered Israelites. Still they handed down only one holy book which was the one we have today...

Sound Christian Theology affirms Old Testament Saints are Christian. Moses is one, like Abraham, that by name hold this testimony


Hebrews 11:24 By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter;

Hebrews 11:25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;

Hebrews 11:26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.

The Old Testament comes from multiple sources, this is called the Documentary Hypothesis. One of those writers was the black Magician Ezra, who rewrote the Torah while in exile in Babylon and basically put in all the crap about animal sacrifices, and the dire warnings to stay away from fortune tellers, astrology, consulting the dead... because they didn't want the goyim to be dabbling in the Mystery religions... and maybe waking up and raising consciousness......

The Law of Ezra

www.essene.com...&Essenes/ezlaw.htm

The Bible had deep esoteric meaning and is actually very valuable for spiritual awakening, but its been messed with, to put it mildly.

Yes, I always understood that Moses was a half-Egyptian (Tutmosis) bastard son of Egyptian royalty, who either lost favor with the houses of the Pharoah or purposely chose to associate himself with his Hebrew mother. He knew some esoteric Egyptian magical skills, but if you go by the Bible, it was really Aaron who knew the most powerful magical stuff. Apparently Moses was a stutterer, and had difficulty with the practice of magic as a result.

reply to post by windword

Was Moses Wiccan?

Sure why not?

Through the magic of words, rituals and by the sheer fact that anything can be misconstrued and pretty much anything can be put in a book... Then ya Moses can be Wiccan, just write a book about it put it in a sealed secret place, wait a few thousand years for the decimation of this civilization. Then wait for whoever finds it in the future to decipher it and start worshiping the people and things in the book.

Crazier things could happen, if by chance the world were to end tomorrow and the only surviving book left in the future that humans would find could be the Harry Potter books. Chances are they will begin worshiping them as fact and a whole cult would grow around it, and eventually over time it will even become an institutionalized global religion....In fact for all you know all these ancient texts could of been the Harry Potters of there day that some aspiring writers back then distributed, or stowed it away for whatever reasons, and we just happen find it and just happen to take it all a bit to serious.

Originally posted by Aeons

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by Elsha

 

There is no witchcraft in these texts.

On the contrary, there is lots of magic in the Bible.

Quite so. The Bible is chock full of magic and spells (also known as prayers). Everything is determined by astrology. Jesus and his disciples essentially make their living by demon casting and healing. It's a book of supernatural happenings among human beings.

The supernatural and magic stuff is heavily downplayed these days by the churches to the point where folks like the Pentecostals and Southern Baptists practically discourage reading the Bible. But for all the encouragement people get to "be like Jesus," or wonder "what would Jesus do," they rarely acknowledge that Jesus was involved in a lot of sorcery and magic, and he was part of a long tradition of it. Jesus even bragged that he was more powerful that Solomon in that regard.

Any adult who explores the Bible in greater depth than a child in Sunday School is bound to be lead to the occult.

Originally posted by Blue Shift
Any adult who explores the Bible in greater depth than a child in Sunday School is bound to be lead to the occult.

Hahahah! I can just see the bumper sticker now:

"Christianity: The Gateway Path To Satanism"

I'm soooo designing one of those.

reply to post by Blue Shift


Really? You post is so tongue in check that I wont address its many fallacies unless you are not kidding?!

reply to post by windword


What?

Originally posted by Blue Shift

Originally posted by Aeons

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by Elsha

 

There is no witchcraft in these texts.

On the contrary, there is lots of magic in the Bible.

Quite so. The Bible is chock full of magic and spells (also known as prayers). Everything is determined by astrology. Jesus and his disciples essentially make their living by demon casting and healing. It's a book of supernatural happenings among human beings.

The supernatural and magic stuff is heavily downplayed these days by the churches to the point where folks like the Pentecostals and Southern Baptists practically discourage reading the Bible. But for all the encouragement people get to "be like Jesus," or wonder "what would Jesus do," they rarely acknowledge that Jesus was involved in a lot of sorcery and magic, and he was part of a long tradition of it. Jesus even bragged that he was more powerful that Solomon in that regard.

Any adult who explores the Bible in greater depth than a child in Sunday School is bound to be lead to the occult.

Exodus 22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Deuteronomy 18:10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Deuteronomy 18:11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

Isaiah 47:9 But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. Isaiah 47:10 For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness:e fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
Acts 19:19 Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. Acts 19:20 So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.

For those bold enough to believe the miracles of Christ had a source of an unclean spirit, I must bring this to your attention. Even then he was accused of using demonic powers

Mark 3:22 And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.
...

Mark 3:28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:

Mark 3:29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation:

Mark 3:30 Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.

reply to post by Elsha

witch·craft/ˈwiCHˌkraft/
Noun:
The practice of magic, esp. black magic; the use of spells and the invocation of spirits.

These commandments don't require the use of magic or spells, and to invoke a spirit, one needs a name. Magic is mind over matter, imposing ones will over nature or binding ones will to an object, person or spirit.

These commandments simply require the greeting and communion of Mother Earth and her angels, and the Heavenly Father and his angels.

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by Elsha

 

witch·craft/ˈwiCHˌkraft/
Noun:
The practice of magic, esp. black magic; the use of spells and the invocation of spirits.

These commandments don't require the use of magic or spells, and to invoke a spirit, one needs a name. Magic is mind over matter, imposing ones will over nature or binding ones will to an object, person or spirit.

These commandments simply require the greeting and communion of Mother Earth and her angels, and the Heavenly Father and his angels.

Those who worship the queen of heaven(false goddess ) are warned throughout the Bible, notably by the Prophet Jeremiah

Jeremiah 7:18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

Jeremiah 7:19 Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?

reply to post by GeneralMishka


Okay, but the "Earthly Mother" that is referred to in these commandments isn't called the "Queen of Heaven." That is a different entity.

Originally posted by Blue Shift
Yes, I always understood that Moses was a half-Egyptian (Tutmosis) bastard son of Egyptian royalty,

Actually, there was not really any such thing as "bastardry" in ancient Egypt. All children of the king/princes/etc were titled "child of my body" (in tomb inscriptions) whether the mother was a wife or a concubine.

There are various accounts of princes named Thutmose (at least five of them) and none of the details matches Moses (their spouses and offspring are known, and they're buried in Egypt.) The most famous attempt to associate Moses with a Thutmose

Josephus (first century historian) says Moses' mother Thermuthis gave him the name Moses, which in Egyptian means "saved from the water" -- note that the name isn't Egyptian (the mother's name -- it's a Greek version of something) nor is "moses" the Egyptian term for "saved from water." "Meses" is "made by" or "fashioned by" ... so "Ramses" means "fasioned by the god, Ra.

... purposely chose to associate himself with his Hebrew mother.

And there's little evidence (beyond a few "snake spells" written in Hebrew using hieroglyphs that the Hebrews were there in any number. The armies certainly didn't bring home lots of slaves.

He knew some esoteric Egyptian magical skills, but if you go by the Bible, it was really Aaron who knew the most powerful magical stuff. Apparently Moses was a stutterer, and had difficulty with the practice of magic as a result.

I believe that's in the midrashes... but am not sure.

Originally posted by windword
The Dead Sea Scrolls are collection of biblical manuscripts from what we now call the Hebrew Bible. The texts were found in 1947 in a cave in an area called Qumran, in the west bank of Palestine. One of the amazing things about these text is the uncanny perfection of the preserved ancient texts, to the letter. en.wikipedia.org...

Some of the manuscripts discovered and translated have thrown a new light on the essence of Hebrew law and mysticism. Among these books are "The Book of Enoch and "The Book of Moses."

Except... if you look at your source material, you will see that neither book is mentioned as being found with the Dead Sea Scrolls. And the texts are not complete or uncanny in their perfection. Have a look at them for yourself.

Here we find a unique set of commandments that acknowledge and require the communion with and the honoring of Mother Earth and her angels, as a morning ritual.

Indeed, they are unique. You will not find any original manuscript in ancient languages that says ANY of this.

That means the person got it from someone who made it up.

Tht seems very "earth" oriented, very much like Wicca.

As others have said (I converted to Wicca back in the early 1970's) it's not very Wiccan.

reply to post by MeritocracyNow

The Old Testament comes from multiple sources, this is called the Documentary Hypothesis.

That hypothesis was disproved long ago by Umberto Cassuto.

Seriously, just think for a second how ridiculously naive the premise of the documentary hypothesis is: some editor just 'took', with no logic or reason, a bunch of different documents, and produced the 5 books of Moses.

Literary analysis - like that of Yoram Hazony's 'Philosophy of the Hebrew Scriptures" shows how clear and consistent the 5 books of Moses are.

In general, scholars agree that the Hebrew Bible was redacted at the time of Jeremiah, circa 600 BCE. When the Hebrew Bible was created, the various books which made it up i.e. 5 books of Moses, prophetic writings, etc, were brought together. But they were brought together not haphazardly, like the documentary hypothesis naively assumes, but with forethought, and sophistication; it contains the essential beliefs - IN ALLEGORICAL FORM - of the Hebrews.

The Bible had deep esoteric meaning and is actually very valuable for spiritual awakening, but its been messed with, to put it mildly.

I love how people with a rudimentary knowledge of the subject can so blithely make such statements.

The Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the Torah which the Jews have retained is essentially the same Torah at the time of Jeremiah.

And as for 'esoteric' secrets. Blah, honestly, you don't understand a thing about the Hebrews. They weren't preoccupied (although some books are essentially mystical, such as the song of songs, parts of the book of Ezekiel) with mysticism. Rather, the Hebrew Bible is a book of philosophy; Genesis in particular is particularly focused on metaphysics, while subsequent books in the Hebrew scriptures address issues of theology, living, morality, politics (book of esther is a fine example), and even sociology (the book of judges begins with anarchism "when all people did what was good in their eyes", and ends with a constitutional monarchy, when the people saw that with each generation, or 'judge', the people became corrupt).

What Hazony has shown - and he and his team at the Shalem Center will add to their already impressive research with subsequent books - is the multitudinous angles the Hebrew Bible expresses in terms of how to live, how to know God.

watch two videos at amazon

Hence, you find some books, with a thoroughly legalistic basis, while others, such as ecclesiastes, takes an opposite, more cynical approach, which nevertheless finishes with a religious note. The metaphysics of Genesis 'sets the stage' so to speak, with regards to basic 'types' of individuals. Within the type promoted by Abel, there are myriad different paths. Pre-Rabbinic Judaism was a tremendously eclectic religion, which saw belief in God as central, but ways in which one came to worship God, or they thought about God, or they chose to live, were different.