CHAPTER THREE

p.19

wealthy beyond compare – Marcus Julius Agrippa was likely the richest man in the world during his reign outside of Caesar.

I had given all things up in order to follow the Savior – this even though the Church was likely his own property so his money was diverted but hardly out of his own hands.

which no eye has seen etc. – a popular reference from the pseudepygripha but with no known origin.

a united messianic insurgency surviving evidence about the bar Kochba revolt argues for a gathering of usually hostile parties all fighting against Rome for no known reason again – i.e. Galileans (see letters of bar Kochba), Samaritans (the writings of the Samaritan Chronicler al Fath as well as Lamentations Rabbah), Jews and even pagans.

I was … carried around … as part of a religious celebration the story is based on the Millar letter from the bar Kochba revolt which is cited later and parallels to Samaritan stories about a figure called Sakta i.e. booths who seems to have shared many of beliefs with Marcionites. Could “booths” have been a codeword for the “heretical side” of their own founder Mark obscured in the Antonine period? It seems likely especially when we identify the beliefs of this community cf.

traitors existed all around him many Roman soldiers went over to the side of the Jewish rebels according to our surviving sources.

my former Garden of Eden the Samaritan tradition understands that the messiah will establish Palestine as the Garden of Eden. The writings of Mark identify “Titus” – i.e. the Emperor – as having done this after the first Jewish revolt cf.

p. 20

[Mark] averted [a Jewish holocaust] seventy years earlier - Marcus Julius Agrippa fought on the Roman side of the Jewish War of 66 – 70 A.D. where over a million Jews were said to have perished. Nevertheless the author’s point is that at least there were survivors – hundreds of thousands of Jews taken away as slaves. The situation in the bar Kochba revolt was markedly different where men, women and children were slaughtered for merely being inhabitants of Palestine.

the brutality that they showed their Christ Mark’s point is a spin on the traditional Christian understanding that Jerusalem was destroyed owing to their rejection of Jesus. The author’s point being that it was their original rejection of him as the Jewish messiah which dispossessed them of their homeland.

execute me right on the spot – the Jews still celebrate their asara harugei malchut or “ten martyrs” – the number ten here being an arbitrary number rather than representing the limit of the Hadrianic persecutions.

p. 21

as triumphant general and victorious conqueror back then – when the Roman forces supporting Marcus Julius Agrippa emerged victorious from their Palestinian campaign lavish celebrations were held in various cities including Rome. It was however after the capture of the rebellious lead Simon that Marcus seems to have personally involved himself in the execution. Christian tradition speaks of him “confronting” Simon and Agrippa is understood to have been Simon’s executioner in the so-called “Acts of Peter” tradition. Simon’s punishment was to be pushed off the Tarapean Rock in Rome just as Simon called “the Rock” was understood to have been “crucified” in a “manner like Adam falling from heaven at Rome according to the same tradition.

Moses’ skin a Samaritan tradition of Marqeh which also understands that his flesh was made of a special substance.

[Nero’s] awful smell – cf.

p. 22

It was this! – i.e. Mark was castrated. On the followers of Bar Kochba also castrating themselves see Midrash Rabbah Lamentations 2.2§4 “Eighty thousand trumpeters besieged Bethar where Bar Kozeba was located, who had with him two hundred thousand men with an amputated finger. The Sages sent him the message, 'How long will you continue to make the men of Israel blemished?' He asked them, 'How else shall they be tested?' Mark was also called “the finger removed” Hippolytus ("Philosophumena", VII, xxx) refers to Mark as ho kolobodaktulos, i.e. "finger removed" or "mutilated in the finger(s)", and later authorities allude to the same defect. Various explanations of the epithet have been suggested: that Mark, after he embraced Christianity, cut off his thumb to unfit himself for the Jewish priesthood. As I show elsewhere “finger” is a universal code word for penis (i.e. Latin, Greek and Aramaic).

p. 23

a lemon, a branch - See Bar Kokhba Revolt, large silver coin known as a sela, 134 -135 CE (undated, attributed to year 3),O:"Shim'on", facade of Temple in Jerusalem w/ Arc of the Covenant ;star above R: "For the freedom of Jerusalem", lulav and etrog (Sukkot holiday symbols). 13.95 g, 1", Over struck on a Vespasian tetradrachm with ghostly portrait and eagle still visible as illustrated by the composite images.

It is a symbol and not a person - On the messianic association with Sukkah see the Zaddokite document but also the Samaritan figure of “Sakta” or booths who is overtly messianic (and Pauline) in the historian Abul Fath.

p. 24

they started celebrating again in recent years in other words Jewish customs and practices had been banned since the Flavian period.

minim the word not only refers to the species or kinds of the festival but interestingly enough is the word used to describe Jewish-Christians in the rabbinic literature for reasons not fully understood by scholars.

They used to construct booths in this festival made of these four things – i.e. after what is now the Samaritan custom. The Jews now build the booth and wave the items in the air.

inter pares – Latin “among equals”

p. 25

Shimon to Yehudah - an actual letter which survives from the bar Kochba found intact in the caves of the Judean desert by Yigal Yadin

p. 26

Soumaios to Jonathes - Bar Kochba letter Millar no.19 (Greek) “Soumaios to Jonathes son of Baianos and to Masabala, greeting ! Since I have sent to you Agrippa, make haste to send me shafts and citrons, and furnish them for the Citron-celebration [= Feast of Tabernacles] of the Jews: and do not do otherwise. Now this has been written in Greek because an impulse has not been found to write in Hebrew. Dispatch him speedily on account of the feast, and do not do otherwise. Soumaios. Farewell!”

[Moses] who you pretend to distance yourself from the Church Fathers frequently misunderstand the Marcionite position thinking that because they argued that their apostle was better than Moses that they necessarily depreciated the forerunner. The messianic tradition of Jews and Samaritans alike understands that the messiah will necessarily be better than Moses and he will introduce a better Law than that revealed by the first lawgiver of Israel.






<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?