On Jesus the Samaritan

This is just an observation; it is not a definitive statement of my belief.

My original suggestion that Jesus might have BECOME a Samaritan has really set me to thinking. What follows is just exploratory at this stage.

(a) What VARIETY of Samaritan? You can see how the Dosithean doctrine that the Mountain is not holy without the Tabernacle could be reconciled with the Christian doctrine that the earthly Tabernacle is now unnecessary and that only the Heavenly Tabernacle matters.

(b) This leads to an answer to the question of why some Dositheans sound so Christian.

(c) You can see why Jerusalem is a fitting place for Jesus to DIE. It is the place of what is ended.

(d) Was Dositheos an innovator? Or did he actually represent an old variety of Samaritan thought replaced by what later became dominant? Is he, in fact, the equivalent of Markion in historical position? Would it be too much to wonder whether he is the same person? Would this mean that what we have as the writings of Marqeh are a SELECTION, with the inconvenient bits left out?

(e) It is natural that Christian theology should regard the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 A.D. as convenient. Can we suppose that the puzzling references to profanation of the Mountain before and after both Jewish Wars were convenient for some Samaritans?

(f) Have you read Traktat vom Samaritanermessias: Studien zur Frage der Existenz und Abstammung Jesu (Bonn, 1919) This booklet didn’t convince anyone at the time, because Jesus was not ethnically Samaritan. On the other hand, it can’t be ignored. My solution makes sense of Hammer’s mass of evidence. To be a Samaritan is not an ethnic matter. It is a matter of renouncing a heresy. Any Jew can do it with ease. Any non-Jew can do it with a bit more work. (The modern situation of favouring Jewish women over Jewish men is no more than a tikkun [to use Rabbinic terminology], i.e. a restriction not in the Torah whether the text or the tradition, but a decree by religious authorities solely to address particular historical circumstances, and therefore by definition not intended to be permanent).