HOLY SMOKE!
This explains a LOT!
The discovery was made using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry testing on an Iron Age Judahite shrine at Tel Arad, in Israel’s Negev desert. The cannabis altar was in the inner sanctum of the temple, known as the cella, or holy of holies.
“We know from all around the Ancient Near East and around the world that many cultures used hallucinogenic materials and ingredients in order to get into some kind of religious ecstasy,” Eran Arie, curator of Iron Age and Persian Periods archaeology in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem told CNN. “We never thought about Judah taking part in these cultic practices. The fact that we found cannabis in an official cult place of Judah says something new.”
According to a new paper published in the journal Tel Aviv , ancient esoteric worshippers at a Judahite temple at the fortress mound in Tel Arad in Israel “likely smoked cannabis during cultic ceremonies.” This statement comes after a team of Israeli scientists performed chemical analysis on residues found on two Iron Age altars dating back more than 2,700 years at the entrance to the shrine; both were found to contain cannabis and frankincense.
The frankincense had come from the resin of the Boswellia sacra , a small tree found in Oman, Yemen, and Somalia, and according to a Daily Mail report, the presence of cannabis resin suggests “a deliberate psychoactive substance” was made and burned to “stimulate ecstasy as part of esoteric ceremonies.”
19 comments:
Cannabis in the Bible
The Bible's kaneh-bosm is more or less what we today call marijuana. Most Hebrews who got stoned had a far happier outcome than Stephen.
You just had to go and publish this, didn’t you! Now Dr Bob will have to write a long winded article and preach a sermon on how true Christians never smoke pot or used it on altars.
430. I know. I apologize. Perhaps this is where the term "Most High" comes from?
"The report suggests that the ritual use of cannabis was likely widespread throughout Israel at the time …"
This is actually the most interesting question. Was this a one-off? Some apostate group. But they seem to have only a suggestion.
Now we know what that sweet incense offering was all about! Imagine a cloud of that stuff hanging over the mercy seat!
It sounds suspicious. How many temples did the jews have? I thought there was only the one in jerusalem.
Growing up in the church during the 60's and 70's, my sister used to hang out with the other teens in church and during services, they would go out in someone's car and get high. Just as the last song was finishing up, they would all come in like nothing happened. I guess they had it right.
We could all have used a few blunts back in the day plastered to those old hard metal chairs for 3+ plus hours having to endure Gerald Waterhouse or Dean Blackwell blathering on without end. Herbert may have enjoyed a toke while guzzling down a few bottles of Bristol Creme.
I would be very surprised if there were any evidence that smoking weed was a common sacramental practice associated with the ancient Hebrew religion. Look how wine is so often the object of moralizing in the OT and NT. Certainly, if there were a widespread weed problem back then, there would be some moralizing directed towards it in contemporaneous ethical writings. This does not seem to be the case.
I would not be surprised if there were some evidence of using weed or other psychoactive concoctions in ancient worship in Palestine. If errant people were so beyond the pale as to sacrifice their children to Molech, a little weed would seem relatively trivial. But it does not speak of the entire nation nor does it characterize the ancient Hebrew religion proper.
I believe Non Ecliptic Orbit's post reveals modern christian fundamentalistic prejudice toward the use of weed. One of the revelations is his remark concerning "smoking". I believe the average priest would concede like Clinton that "he never inhaled" as the smoke may have been used as incense was used........and yes inducing a mind expanding phase leading to philosophical musings regarding the cesspool of life or society in general.
Especially the tribes of Judah and Benjamin are portrayes as warlike and fierce like lions.
We know from ancient warrior practices like the Zulu or the Scythians that they would not engage in man to man battle before having their spirits lifted by "medicine man" handing out "medicine." So soldiers would have definitily used it before storming and slaughtering caananite dwellings, I mean Himmler got sick and nausious when he visited a concentration camp.
Wine the object of moralizing??? It was the Greeks who were appalled at any people drinking undiluted wine. So my guess is the moralizing started after the Macedonian invasion and Hellenizing of the Temple service.
nck
910 noted: " But it does not speak of the entire nation nor does it characterize the ancient Hebrew religion proper."
I'm sure that's true. But it only requires the Priests doing so to inspire their visions and the voices in their heads. Ezekiel must have surely imbibed judging from Ezekiel 1 and 10 as well as "John" in Revelation :)
Dennis:
I think your conclusion involves imposing our modern standards on ancient society. Drug usage is criminalized in our society so people are discreet or secretive about using drugs. In some Native American societies of hundreds of years ago, for instance, the use of peyote in religious worship was acceptable. Nobody tried to hide it, intoxicating though it might be. It seems reasonable that if psychoactive drugs were used in ancient Near Eastern religious worship without stigma (like wine), we would read something about that in ancient literature including the Bible.
On the other hand, can I prove to a materialist that Ezekiel was not on a trip? I don't think so. In fact a materialist will find nothing in the Bible to be numinous. But, then, materialism has its own prodigious deficiencies.
The Jerusalem Temple is the only one mentioned in the Biblical record. There seem to have been at least two others - one in Elephantine and one at Tel Arad. What their exact relationship was to the Jerusalem Temple is a matter of conjecture.
We must remember that the text of scripture that won out was approved by those in power in Jerusalem. They weren't anxious to draw attention to any competitors.
Most COGlodytes, if they got in a time machine to make sure their One True Religion™ really hadn't changed at all since the first century would probably come scurrying back to present, never to return, and then be placed in the difficult position of having to live in much greater denial for the rest of their lives as they continued to do the things they've always done the way they've always done them and keep telling themselves more loudly than ever that they way they do it now is the right way because that's still exactly the way it started out, no matter what their lying eyes have seen.
Anon 11:54PM, you can make a current splinter member's head spin if you remind him that the first century apostles:
1) had no idea that seven of the many contemporary church congregations represented "eras" of the church.
2) kept Pentecost on either Sivan 5, Sivan 6, or Sivan 7, depending on the length of the previous month (which wasn't fixed, as the Hillel fixed calendar hadn't been adopted yet).
3) carried neither briefcases nor scrolls to Sabbath services; they sat and listened attentively
The culture shock for an ACOG member would be insurmountable.
11:54
Yeah would be funny to see Jesus heal those Covid Lepers, bring George Floyd back to life as a priority, just before resurrecting gerald waterhouse and have lunch with Monica Lewinsky just before giving a sermon on the sabbath and tip the waitress big time because she had to make ends meet being a, single mom and all.
Of course after all this socializin'Jesus would take a couple of zinc tablets from the Arroyo Grande prophet's hardware store.
Any gifts received should immediately be sent to Wadsworth tax deductible.
Nck
"2) kept Pentecost on either Sivan 5, Sivan 6, or Sivan 7, depending on the length of the previous month (which wasn't fixed, as the Hillel fixed calendar hadn't been adopted yet)."
I really don't think that you can prove that one. That's assuming the count starts after the first day of unleavened bread. No way to prove that view.
"1) had no idea that seven of the many contemporary church congregations represented "eras" of the church. "
Now that's just a dumb comment since John was the last surviving apostle and he wrote Revelation in his last years. I'm sure those seven churches were as irrelevant as any others prior to the writing of Revelation.
Funny how some people think they're so brilliant! Coming up with little quips that make no sense yet they think they are brilliant. Lol!
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