
The Evil Creator
Origins of an Early Christian Idea
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Narrated by:
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Ben Henri
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By:
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M. David Litwa
About this listen
This book examines the origins of the evil creator idea chiefly in light of early Christian biblical interpretations. It is divided into two parts. In Part I, the focus is on the interpretations of Exodus and John. Firstly, ancient Egyptian assimilation of the Jewish god to the evil deity Seth-Typhon is studied to understand its reapplication by Phibionite and Sethian Christians to the Judeo-catholic creator. Secondly, the Christian reception of John 8:44 (understood to refer to the devil's father) is shown to implicate the Judeo-catholic creator in murdering Christ. Part II focuses on Marcionite Christian biblical interpretations. It begins with Marcionite interpretations of the creator's character in the Christian "Old Testament," analyzes 2 Corinthians 4:4 (in which "the god of this world" blinds people from Christ's glory), examines Christ's so-called destruction of the Law (Eph 2:15) and the Lawgiver, and shows how Christ finally succumbs to the "curse of the Law" inflicted by the creator (Gal 3:13). A concluding chapter shows how still today readers/listeners of the Christian Bible have concluded that the creator manifests an evil character.
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Hermetica I
- The Corpus Hermeticum, Asclepius, and Nag Hammadi Hermetica Ordered as a Path of Initiation
- By: M. David Litwa
- Narrated by: Elegwen O'Maoileoin
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hermetic corpus is a spiritual and intellectual treasure stemming from ancient Egyptian sages who could write and think in Greek. Since the Renaissance, this corpus has appeared in an order that does not fit the path of spiritual initiation suggested by the corpus itself.
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Wonderful Reading/Ordering of This New Translation
- By Matt Barker on 05-10-25
By: M. David Litwa
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Hermetica II
- The Excerpts of Stobaeus, Papyrus Fragments, and Ancient Testimonies in an English Translation with Notes and Introduction
- By: M. David Litwa
- Narrated by: Luke Betzner
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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This volume presents in new English translations the scattered fragments and testimonies regarding Hermes Thrice Great that complete Brian Copenhaver's translation of the Hermetica (Cambridge, 1992).
By: M. David Litwa
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Theurgy: Theory and Practice
- The Mysteries of the Ascent to the Divine
- By: P. D. Newman
- Narrated by: Michael Ellick
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In this detailed study, P. D. Newman pushes the roots of theurgy all the way back before the time of Homer. He shows how the Chaldean Oracles were not only written in Homeric Greek but also in dactylic hexameter, the same meter as the epics of Homer. Linking the Greek shamanic practices of the late Archaic period with the theurgic rites of late antiquity, the author explains how both anabasis, soul ascent, and katabasis, soul descent, can be considered varieties of shamanic soul flight and how these practices existed in ancient Greek culture prior to the influx of shamanic influence.
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Essential current scholarship
- By Leontios Sethian on 08-20-24
By: P. D. Newman
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The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic
- By: Jean-Manuel Roubineau, Malcolm DeBevoise - translator, Phillip Mitsis - editor
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Beyond the rehashed clichés, this book inspires us to rediscover Diogenes' philosophical legacy—whether it be the challenge to the established order, the detachment from materialism, the choice of a return to nature, or the formulation of a cosmopolitan ideal strongly rooted in the belief that virtue is better revealed in action than in theory.
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Diogenes is something else!
- By Josiah S. on 01-31-25
By: Jean-Manuel Roubineau, and others
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Armageddon
- What the Bible Really Says About the End
- By: Bart D. Ehrman
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff, Bart D. Ehrman
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In Armageddon, acclaimed New Testament authority Bart D. Ehrman delves into the most misunderstood—and possibly the most dangerous—book of the Bible, exploring the horrifying social and political consequences of expecting an imminent apocalypse and offering a fascinating tour through three millennia of Judeo-Christian thinking about how our world will end. By turns hilarious, moving, troubling, and provocative, Armageddon presents inspiring insights into how to live our lives in the face of an uncertain future.
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The best explanation I have heard in my 70 years on Revelations
- By Ian Huntington on 05-19-23
By: Bart D. Ehrman
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On the Historicity of Jesus
- Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
- By: Richard Carrier
- Narrated by: Richard Carrier
- Length: 28 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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The assumption that Jesus existed as a historical person has occasionally been questioned in the course of the last hundred years or so, but any doubts that have been raised have usually been put to rest in favor of imagining a blend of the historical, the mythical, and the theological in the surviving records of Jesus. Historian and philosopher Richard Carrier reexamines the whole question and finds compelling reasons to suspect the more daring assumption is correct.
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Very detailed analysis with a clear conclusion
- By E. Moore on 07-09-15
By: Richard Carrier
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The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament, Volume 1
- By: Joshua Bowen
- Narrated by: Seth Andrews
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The Old Testament is a fierce battleground for atheists and Christian apologists, with each side accusing the other of taking challenging and troubling passages out of context. In this handbook, Joshua Bowen not only provides the background to the Old Testament and the ancient Near East, but engages with hotly contested topics like slavery, failed prophecy, and the authorship of debated Old Testament books.
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Very informative with beautiful narration
- By Frank Rizzo on 07-07-21
By: Joshua Bowen
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The Origin of Satan
- How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Who is Satan in the New Testament, and what is the evil that he represents? In this groundbreaking book, Elaine Pagels, Princeton's distinguished historian of religion, traces the evolution of Satan from its origins in the Hebrew Bible, where Satan is at first merely obstructive, to the New Testament, where Satan becomes the Prince of Darkness, the bitter enemy of God and man, evil incarnate. In The Origin of Satan, Pagels shows that the four Christian gospels tell two very different stories.
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Must read for all practicing Christians
- By Venusian Incognito on 09-06-19
By: Elaine Pagels
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God
- An Anatomy
- By: Francesca Stavrakopoulou
- Narrated by: Francesca Stavrakopoulou
- Length: 15 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male.
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GREAT READ!!
- By Chester Johnson on 04-27-23
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Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell
- A Straightforward Summary of the 21st Century's only Plausible Metaphysics
- By: Bernardo Kastrup
- Narrated by: Christian Leatherman
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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As the failures of physicalism begin to shake the confidence of even the most biased of its supporters, a new view on the nature of reality is establishing itself as the only tenable alternative: Analytic Idealism. According to it, there is a world out there independent of our individual minds, but such world is—just like ourselves—also mental or experiential. While being a realist, naturalist, rationalist, and even reductionist view, Analytic Idealism flips our culture-bound intuitions on their head.
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Dr. Kastrup is articulating a revolution in philosophy and science as great as Einstein‘s theories of relativity.
- By paul smith on 05-24-25
By: Bernardo Kastrup
Beautifully Informative
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The detailed connection between set-typhon and the early Israelite deities el and yahweh.
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Good
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great research
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Clear and understandable examples
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Great Introduction to the Concept
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Depth
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As a child I always saw the Old Testament god as evil.
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The lost History of a different Christian theology
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Remarkable Scholarship
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