שילה = رسول الل

(a) The Vulgate translates שילה as “qui mittendus est” meaning “the one to be sent”. This does not prove that this was thought to be the literal meaning of the word, but it definitely does mean it was considered an appropriate designation of the one to come.

(b) Where in the Torah is the use of the concept of the sending of this person? See Deuteronomy XXXIII: 2. Regardless of what the translations and commentaries might do to obscure the meaning, it plainly says God will manifest FROM Mt. Sinai, not at or on Mt. Sinai. This does not mean God appeared to the nations of the world from Mt. Sinai at the giving of the first Torah. In that case, the word למו meaning “to them” or in elevated poetic language ambiguously either “to them” or “to him” has no referent, that is, no noun, whether explicit or implicit, to refer to. If the verse has such a meaning, it can only be as a secondary implication. Note also the massive support for the reading לנו “to us”, Septuagint, Peshitta, Targum, Vulgate. At an absolute minimum, even if this is explained away as explanatory translation, which would be hard, it still means this was very widely considered to be the intended meaning. Verse 2 shows there must be an agent of God, who is addressed in the second person. The verse is not addressed to God, since it says “All his holy ones are in your hands”, meaning all God’s holy ones are in your hands. Look at the words following. They speak of submission to a person, not to God. The emphasis at the start of John’s Gospel on the man sent from God, John the Baptist, not being the Light, but only the Herald of the Light, indicates that the words “sent from God” would be taken to designate the Greater Moses or Shilo unless the contrary were explicitly stated. Also, Lîbi לוי the Dosithean Protomartyr (suspiciously resembling Stephen and said elsewhere in A.F. to have come from the same place as Stephen) says absolutely explicitly THE SECOND PROPHET SENT BY GOD FROM MT. SINAI النبي الثاني الذي قدمه الله من طور سيناء (A.F. 176: 2). This wording is derived from Deuteronomy XXXIII: 2 and the first half of v. 7 of the same chapter.

(c) Which tribe is this person from? In the Blessing of Judah (v. 7) it says “Hear, O Lord, the voice of Judah. Thou wilt bring him to his people”. That means the one to come will be brought by God to his people. Genesis XLIX: 10 settles the question definitively. Even those that said the one to come was to be from Levi argued that Judah had at first held the right, but had lost it by the great heresy of the invention of Jerusalem. See my translation of the Asâtîr, ch. XI. When the Samaritan woman accepted that the one to come was to be from Judah (implicit in John IV) this only meant she agreed that Judah had not forfeited its place. It does not mean there had ever been any disagreement over the meaning and implications of Genesis XLIX: 10, or over the meaning of Deuteronomy XXXIII: 7.

This still leaves a difficulty in regard to Dositheos. The scurrilous long story about him (A.F. p. 151 onwards) says right at the start that he was a Jew but without naming the tribe, and in the context there is no hint of him being from Levi. The implications of his dealings with the pious but gullible Priest Yêdo יחדו (diminutive of ידעיה) are that he was not a Priest. On the other hand the short summary of the Dosithean practices and the origin of the movement on p. 82 onwards of A.F. says explicitly he was a Priest. My explanation is that one school of Dositheans maintained that Judah had forfeited its right. It is worth noting that nothing done or said by Dositheos depended on him being a Priest, which means that Priest or not, his actual job was what had originally been intended to be the job of Judah. Notice, however, that Jesus has it both ways, since his mother seems to have been from a Priestly family. His cousin John the Baptist was a Priest.

Now we plainly see the origin of the standard title of Muhammad, the Emissary or Apostle of God, the one sent by God, رسول الله