It is difficult to overstate the significance of this one quote. There are reports that in deepest Jewish antiquity the official position of the religion was that only the ten utterances ("ten commandments" for my Gentile readers) came from heaven. The rest of the six hundred and three commandments were only written on the authority of Moses.
With Mark the Samaritan (c. late first/early second century CE?) we have confirmation of a source connected with that original position. The rabbinic writings only attribute it to "Sadducees" or unnamed sources.
The point is that St. Mark the original gospel writer developed a narrative which reflected a similar idea. As we read in Clementine Homily III
Accordingly [Jesus] knowing the true things of the law, said to the Sadducees, asking on what account Moses permitted to marry seven, 'Moses gave you commandments according to your hard-heartedness; for from the beginning it was not so: for He who created man at first, made him male and female.'
The point is that if Mark was the original author of the gospel as most people suppose, isn't it at least intriguing that this Mark shares the same opinion about the 'heavenly Torah' or indeed the idea that there is a different order in rank with regards to these commandments and those which were established by Moses?
This 'intriguing possibility' is thrown into orbit when yet another Mark is identified as holding this same opinion in the first century - viz. Marcus Julius Agrippa.
The point is that the name 'Marcus' is very rare in Palestinian Aramaic. Jastrow can't even find one example of a Jew of this name in the whole period. Yet isn't it curious that three individuals with the same name - Marcus - are associated with the same opinion and - as I show in the Real Messiah - can all intimately connected with Christian ideas.
I think that the Samaritan 'Marqe' and the Christian 'St. Mark' are distant memories of Marcus Julius Agrippa, the last historical king of Israel and a individual alternatively identified as 'knowing all the controversies of the Jews' and having a deep knowledge of Greek philosophy.
Could Marcus Julius Agrippa be the real St. Mark?
Could the gospel of Mark really be an ainos which secretly argued for Agrippa's status as the 'real messiah' of Israel?
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