Is Allegro's mushroom Jesus back in fashion?

PSYCHOACTIVE CONCLUSIONS: Jesus Was a Psychedelic Mushroom, a Controversial Theory Suggests. Could It Reshape Christianity Forever? An eccentric idea from the 1970s may rewrite everything we believe we know about the New Testament (Elana Spivack, Popular Mechanics).

In The Sacred Mushroom, Allegro departed from this expertise and turned to the original text of the New Testament. By poring over the roots of key words in a discipline known as philology, Allegro posited that the New Testament’s authors used encoded language to invoke a secret fertility cult hearkening back to ancient Mesopotamia. The group heavily used psychedelic substances, most notably the Amanita muscaria mushroom. This is the Christ-mushroom at the crux of his book.

Allegro arrived at this conclusion by using Sumerian, the language of ancient Mesopotamia, as a key to understanding root words that signaled the civilization’s fertility cults. ...

I'm going to have to actually read Allegro's book. But if his argument for the psychedelic rise of Christianity is based on Sumerian words, he has already lost me. And he would have to work hard to get me back.

Why? Sumerian was the language of Mesopotamia before the rise of the Babylonians and Assyrians. They spoke their own dialects of Akkadian and they used Akkadian as their official language. Even in the time of Hammurapi, Sumerian had the status of an elite, no-longer-spoken, scribal language, like Latin in the Middle Ages. By the time of the New Testament even Akkadian was largely forgotten, known mainly by a few Babylonian scribes. I can't see any way that there was direct influence of Sumerian on the Aramaic- and (largely) Greek-speaking world of the New Testament and early Christianity.

But I do agree with Qumran scholar Matthew Goff's assessment, quoted in this article:

But Allegro certainly wasn’t out of line questioning the role psychedelics may have played in Christianity’s formation. “It’s a legitimate academic question in terms of religions of the Near East of the time,” Goff says. “Were there rituals that were using some sort of substances? That’s not a bad academic question.”

There is evidence for the use of psychoactive drugs in the religious world of and around ancient Israel. See here, here, here, here.

That said, such evidence is scarcer and less direct for Second Temple and Hellenistic/Roman-era Judaism. Ezra's eating of "flowers" before a vision in 4 Ezra 9:26 is perhaps one such place. But elsewhere in the book Ezra achieves his traces through ritual means, such as prayer and fasting.

I think there was ecstatic visionary activity in ancient Israel, Second Temple Judaism, and later Judaism, but this too involved ritual activity rather than the use of psychoactives. I have noted a couple of place where I have argued this at length here. See also here.

For more on John Allegro and his ideas, see here and here.

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Canaanite opium obsequies?

ORGANIC REMAINS: Israeli archaeologists uncover earliest known use of opium in the ancient world. Traces of psychoactive drug found in pottery from Tel Yehud; with new forensic scientific protocols at sites in Israel, discovery may herald many exciting new ‘firsts’ (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

The opium residue was found in high-quality ceramic base-ring juglets that were imported from Cyprus and others used in a burial assemblage discovered at Tel Yehud, in a salvage excavation conducted by Israel Antiquities Authority dig director Eriola Jakoel in 2012-2017.

A number of Canaanite graves from the Late Bronze Age were discovered and the vessels removed for further residue analysis.

The opium traces were found in grave goods, which could imply some sort of funerary-ritual use. But we should be cautious about drawing too many inferences from this context. And to her credit, the lead researcher, Dr. Vanessa Linares, is cautious.

Ariel David's article on this story in Haaretz deserves a mention just for the title: Bong Age? Israeli Archaeologists Find Opium in Bronze Age Ceramics. Residue analysis of 3,300-year-old vessels from Canaanite tombs at Tel Yehud sheds light on ancient drug trade between Cyprus and the Levant.

There is archaeological evidence from Arad that ancient Israelites used a psychoactive substance (cannabis) in a ritual context. There is also evidence that the Philistines of three-thousand years ago used other psychoactive substances in their rituals.

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They burned frankincense and weed at ancient Arad

FUMIGATION: New research reveals Cannabis and Frankincense at the Judahite Shrine of Biblical Arad (Phys.Org). The cannabis was mixed with animal dung to make it burn better. I doubt that improved the smell, though.

The site of Arad is well known for its pre-exilic Yahwistic sanctuary and, especially, for the many Hebrew ostraca discovered in the ruins of the fortress. See here (scroll down a bit) and here and links.

I still don't think that Jesus or Moses smoked weed. But this is the first evidence I know of that the ancient Israelites used psychoactive substances in their worship practices. See my comments in this post, which also, coincidentally, has a Shavuot connection.

Also, incidentally, for some reason the archangel Metatron has recently acquired a connection with cannabis.

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Cannabis on Sinai?

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Was Smoke on the Shavuot Mountain a Sign Ancient Jews Used Marijuana? (Susie Davidson, The Forward).

The upcoming festival of Shavuot, which means “weeks,” marks the end of a seven-week period that begins during Passover, and the receiving of the Torah under a cloud of smoke at Mount Sinai.

“And all the people saw the thunder and lightning, and the sound of the shofar, and the mountain in smoke; when the people saw it, they became uneasy and stood far away” (Ex. 20:15)

“According to an interpretation of Exodus 19:18, on Shavuot, Mount Sinai began to burn and smoke,” said Orthodox Jewish geriatrician Yosef Glassman.

What kind of smoke is the question.

[...]

This is a ridiculous over-reading of the smoke on Mount Sinai in the biblical narrative. I have commented on a similar claim here and I stand by my comments there.

That said, I don't know whether the ancient Israelites knew of medicinal or ritual uses of cannabis. There is evidence for such use from ancient Near Eastern archaeology, and it seems entirely possible that they did. There is also evidence that the ancient Philistines used psychoactive drugs, apparently in a ritual context, although I have seen no mention of cannabis specifically.

Likewise the rabbis in late antiquity may well have known of medicinal and ritual uses of cannabis, but I would like to see a peer-reviewed argument for it before I accept that they did.

PaleoJudaica takes no position on the modern debate over the legalization of cannabis.

Possibly related post here?

Psychedelic Philistines

DUDE! Sex, drugs and Philistines: A biblical psychedelic scene. Breakthrough ‘sensory archaeology’ research reveals a 3,000-year-old ritual culture of mind-altering substances in Israel (Daniel Bernstein Times of Israel).

The now-lackluster central Israeli town of Yavneh was apparently once the center of a thriving drug scene, according to Israeli researchers.

Cutting-edge technology has allowed archaeologists to find traces of hallucinogenic materials, used over 3,000 years ago by the biblical Philistine people for spiritual rituals, Haaretz reported Thursday.

[...]

So far there has been little to no evidence for the use of psychoactive drugs in the religion of ancient Israel. But new technology like this may be changing the picture.

BENNY SHANNON wants to correct the record:

I never said Moses was stoned when he saw God

Words such as 'trip' and 'high' misrepresent my work on psychoactive plants, says Benny Shanon

* Benny Shanon
* The Guardian,
* Wednesday March 26 2008
* Article history

The Guardian ran two articles on my work concerning the putative use of psychoactive plants in ancient Israel (Moses saw God 'because he was stoned - again', March 6; Face to Faith, March 8). Your news report conveys a picture very different from the one I present in the scientific journal Time and Mind, which is devoted to the history of culture and consciousness. Your report contains words and sentences I have neither written nor uttered, some introduced in quotation marks as if coming from me. Terms such as "drug", "trip", "high" and "stoned" are ones I have nothing to do with and which I do not condone.

Moreover, your first report suffers from some basic misunderstandings of my crucial arguments. ...

Background here and here.

THE MOSES-ON-DRUGS THEORY of Professor Benny Shannon gets coverage in the Jerusalem Post:

HU research: Revelation at Sinai was 'mind-blowing'
By DAVID BRINN

"What a long, strange trip it's been" may be known as a catchphrase conjured up by The Grateful Dead to describe their mind-expanding experience with psychedelic drugs in the 1960s. But a Hebrew University professor of psychology claims that it may also be an appropriate title for the journey experienced by Moses and the Israelites when they wandered in the desert for 40 years.
[After such a long dispersion...]

After such a long dispersion around the world, why are the Jews so radically divided? Kevin Galder, Jacksonvilled, Florida.

Writing in the British scholarly journal Time and Mind, Prof. Benny Shanon claims that Moses and the children of Israel were likely under the influence of natural psychedelics found in the Sinai Desert when cataclysmic events like the receiving of the Ten Commandments took place.

He writes that two naturally existing plants in Sinai have the same psychoactive components as one of the most powerful psychedelic substances in existence, the Amazonian brew Ayahuasca.

[...]

I've already commented here. And Deane at the Merkavah Vision blog has an extended critique.

UPDATE: Thaddeus Nelson has a review and critique at the Archeoporn blog. (Via Alun at the Archaeoastronomy blog.)