Marcus the Gnostic and Psalm LXVIII: 19

I wrote:

I think I found "Dositheus" in the canon in a place beside John 4. I was trying to figure out what "gematria" would be in Aramaic (I still haven't figured it out yet) and I looked for all the Peshitta references to "measure" noticing that the term for "measure" or "proportion" is rooted in msh which is also the root to "messiah."

So I came up with about five references and ultimately came back to the old question of how interchangeable "Jesus" and "Christ" are in the Pauline canon. You already know from Irenaeus that "grace" is an important word for Mark (whether called a "heretic" or not). In Eph 7 we read in our standard version of the passage that:

every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ

Yet it is followed by a completely incomprehensible passage that:

Wherefore it is said, He ascended on high, and took possession of heaven and gave good gifts to men.

The actual passage cited from Psalms 68 is quite different:

You ascended the high mount, leading captives in your train and receiving gifts from people, even from those who rebel against the Lord God’s abiding there.

If you look at the oldest Catholic interpretation of the passage it actually comes as part of Irenaeus' refutation of the Marcosian doctrine of the redemption of Judas saying after a lengthy attack against the heretical position that:

but the Lord suffered that He might bring those who have wandered from the Father, back to knowledge and to His fellowship. The search into the greatness of the Father became to her a passion leading to destruction; but the Lord, having suffered, and bestowing the knowledge of the Father, conferred on us salvation. Her passion, as they declare, gave origin to a female offspring, weak, infirm, unformed, and ineffective; but His passion gave rise to strength and power. For the Lord, through means of suffering, "ascending into the lofty place, led captivity captive, gave gifts to men,"

Clearly the heretics interpretated the passage differently - namely as I suggest that the passion occured on the "holy mountain" and Judas was the one who rebelled against the Lord.

Irenaeus goes on to explain how proper understanding of the passage implies that:

and conferred on those that believe in Him the power "to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and on all the power of the enemy," that is, of the leader of apostasy. Our Lord also by His passion destroyed death, and dispersed error, and put an end to corruption, and destroyed ignorance, while He manifested life and revealed truth, and bestowed the gift of incorruption.

I can't help that the Church Father's emphasis implies that the heretics see that Judas was somehow involved in the process of "gift giving" but that's another story.

The point is that if you go back to the idea that "measure" comes from the same root as "messiah" the line in Eph 4:7 actually might originally have read

every one of us is given grace according to the Christ of the gift of God

In other words that the Pauline community may well have identified their messiah as the completion of the Dosithean expectation. A little later in the same chapter we read:

we all become one in faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, and become a perfect man according to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, that we henceforth be not as children easily stirred and carried away by every wind of false doctrines of men, who through their craftiness are artful in deceiving the people;

If you make the same substitution it reads:

we all become one in faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, and become a perfect man according to the Christ of the standing [qm] of the fulness of Christ, that we henceforth be not as children easily stirred and carried away by every wind of false doctrines of men, who through their craftiness are artful in deceiving the people but that we be sincere in our love, so that in everything we may progress through Christ who is the head. It is through him that the whole body is closely and firmly united at all joints, according to the Christ of the gift [of God] which is given to every member, for the guidance and control of the body, in order to complete the edifying of the body in love.

Just thought you might be interested in what happens when you start supposing the text was deliberately corrupted away from the original meaning.

Boid wrote back:

The quote from the Psalm in the Epistle to the Ephesians matches MT. Beware of paraphrastic modern translations. Here is what the MT has. “You (singular) went up to the Height, you captured something / someone / some things / some people // OR You captured what had been captive [You could equally well read the Hebrew as “You captured captivity”, as Irenaeus does. This is actually compatible with the Targum, even though the referent of the noun is different and so the word by word analysis is different]. You took gifts to mankind. [Actually the choice of preposition hints at an ellipsis of “You took gifts and gave them to mankind”]. Even for those that disobey [or rebel, or go astray]. [OR: even though they were disobedient / rebellious / straying]. So that Yah Elohim [not YHWH!!!] might dwell”. Targum: You, Moses the Prophet, went up to the Rekia’ [RESH-QOF- YOD ‘AYIN, one of the levels of Heaven, the word translated “Firmament” in Genesis I]. You captured what was captive, you learnt the words of the Torah, and gave them as gifts to mankind. Even the disobedient / rebellious / straying, if they repent, will have the Shechinah of the Glory [Yeqara, Yod-QOF-RESH-ALEF] of YHWH Elohim settle on them / dwell in them”. Rashi: You, the Prince [Nagid] of his people, Moses the son of ‘Amram, went up to the Height. You captured what was captive, the Torah. You took gifts from the Upper Regions and gave them to mankind. You even brought about the dwelling of the Holy One in the Mishkan, amongst those that were disobedient / rebellious / straying.

There are variants in two other commentators.

Now, back to the subject of Psalm LXVIII: 19. Ibn ‘Ezrra: “You went up etc.” is said by a by a human to David, either as an inspired utterance or in a prayer. The word Height refers to high fortifications. “You took gifts for mankind” means that those sold into slavery, even though being astray and having broken the Covenant of your (singular) people / nation, even those that were astray but might become converts, will dwell in the place of the Shechinah. I take this to be a way of avoiding the traditional interpretation, but notice the words “those sold into slavery” which doesn’t fit the rest and sounds pretty Pauline to me. Metsudat David: Nevertheless, you, Israel, went up to the Height, that is, you ( Moses, from the comments on the verses before) were strong enough [ lit. your hand was raised enough] to overpower them (Israel) into accepting the Torah, which you had captured away from the angels, [NOTE WELL!] and taken so a to be s a gift accessible amongst mankind, not amongst the angels above.

All the commentators are consistently Pauline in the same way in their explanation of the verses before and after. I assume all of them follow old midrashim, but I haven’t had time to look. Note that there is a translation into English of the Targum of the Psalms, and also of the Midrash Tehillim [midrash on Psalms]. The Midrash Tehillim is not a unity, but a compilation by the late Palestinian Amora’im of everything on the Psalms they could lay their hands on, mostly very old stuff, without any regard for the contradictions between the different interpretations. There’s a lot in it that is taken from old midrash collections that have not survived. ALL the Targums have been translated into English in a series put out by T. & T. Clark of Edinburgh [now owned by Rupert] in recent years. Be very wary, in fact be realistic and be utterly paranoid, about the accuracy of any translations in the Brown Judaica Series under the nominal supervision of Jacob Neusner.

Your reading of the context and intention of the quote from Psalm LXVIII: 19 is more important than you realise.