And Now A Tangential Argument ...

Rory, if you are reading this blog post here are my thoughts about the Dositheans.

We have established that three groups associated with "1st century Palestinian Mark" emphasized that only the ten utterances came from heaven.

Some might say that this is obvious but sometimes the obvious is what escapes people.

I have come to the conclusion that the Dositheans were the ones who emphasized that only the ten utterances came from heaven. The rabbinic tradition identifies this as the original position but one which was changed because it led to heresy.

Here is my best guess for the Bible verse which accounts for the name 'Dositheans':

And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Come up to Me into the mount and be there; and I will give thee the tables of stone, and the law and the commandment, which I have written, that thou mayest teach them [Exodus 24:12]

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, עֲלֵה אֵלַי הָהָרָה--וֶהְיֵה-שָׁם; וְאֶתְּנָה לְךָ אֶת-לֻחֹת הָאֶבֶן, וְהַתּוֹרָה וְהַמִּצְוָה אֲשֶׁר כָּתַבְתִּי, לְהוֹרֹתָם.

Of course there are undoubtedly a million reasons that you can cite from your superior knowledge of this sect. All I can offer is one simple - perhaps overly simplistic - observation.

Dositheus = 'gift of God'

'I [God] will give thee' is the origin of the name of the sect.

That God physically 'gave' something to Moses:

And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. [Exodus 31: 18]

וַיִּתֵּן אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, כְּכַלֹּתוֹ לְדַבֵּר אִתּוֹ בְּהַר סִינַי, שְׁנֵי, לֻחֹת הָעֵדֻת--לֻחֹת אֶבֶן, כְּתֻבִים בְּאֶצְבַּע אֱלֹהִים

The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets [Exodus 32:16]

These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me [Deut 5:18]

אֶת-הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה דִּבֶּר יְהוָה אֶל-כָּל-קְהַלְכֶם בָּהָר, מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ הֶעָנָן וְהָעֲרָפֶל--קוֹל גָּדוֹל, וְלֹא יָסָף; וַיִּכְתְּבֵם, עַל-שְׁנֵי לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים, וַיִּתְּנֵם, אֵלָי.

It would be interesting to see how the Samaritan Targum renders these verses.

We both suspect that in some way this Greek name 'Dositheus' necessarily goes back to the 'giving' of the Torah. How could this not then imply that the Dositheans held the ten were somehow 'of a different character' than the others?

I know that much of what I say is over-simplistic. When I argue that all Marks held that ONLY the ten came from heaven I am sure that there were ways to express this that wouldn't sound so bombastic. Nevertheless even the rabbinic literature acknowledges that the original position proved to be fertile ground for heresy.

I would argue instead that the Jewish and Samaritan orthodoxies had to take the absurd position that ALL the commandments were equal after the destruction of the temple because Christianity had already claimed the 'only ten' position.

When you really think about it many if not most of the 'other 603' commandments can't be fulfilled any more anyway. Yes, you could theoretically continue sacrificing animals etc but it would necessarily mean acknowledging that Gerizim or the temple of Jerusalem were no long sacred places.

I think that the Christian position (i.e. 'only the ten') was actually the most natural in light of the destruction of 70 CE and Jews especially had to avoid accepting in order to preserve their unique cultural identity.

I know you will argue that Maimonides and other later authorities were very comfortable arguing that the time of the sacrifices were over. However I wonder what happened in the first few seconds, minutes, hours after the end of the temple.

Surely Jews were not as comfortable arguing that the time for sacrifices were over.

I think Marcus Agrippa developed the religion of Christianity to fill the void in the spiritual life of Jews and especially Jewish proselytes which resulted from the destruction of the temple. The argument must have been only ten were originally 'given from God' (notice this term keeps popping up). Only ten were needed.

If I can push my speculation into even wider orbits, let me talk a bit about the Sadducees. Is it too much to say that they were intimately associated with the sacrificial religion associated with the temple. They couldn't have stressed that 'only the ten' came from heaven. It doesn't make sense. The temple(s) were originally their domain. Why would they want to diminish the base of their authority?

I don't know who the Dositheans were but I imagine that they went back to at least the period when the Samaritans (and Jews) constructed permanent structures. You have developed the idea here. I suspect that Marcus Agrippa developed Christianity from their traditional resistance to physical 'houses of God.' The fact that Jerome preserves a tradition that Foti the Samaritan woman (John 4) was a Dosithean illuminates where the original gospel writer was developing Christianity from.

The argument that soon God would not be worshiped in a physical temple was taken over from the Dositheans as I imagine the whole 'heavenly Torah' business (i.e. only the ten were 'given from God').

I hope this wasn't too simplistic for you.