I know that most 'experts' on the New Testament think my ideas are really 'out there' and strange - but are they up to the task of disproving what I say? I remember David Trobisch - a man I truly admire - telling me that I say things in order to dare people to disprove them, and I think that David's basically right. All that I would add is that I think it is very important to move the debate away from traditional presuppositions. It is indeed imperative that we consider a lot of things that most scholars never even consider at all.For the moment, I write in a void. But that will change soon. I will at last have my platform to challenge traditional scholarship's entirely one-dimensional understanding of the origins of Christianity.
They have constructed an infinite number of variations on the original argument of Irenaeus, all of their understandings are based on a 'connect the dots' between the Mishnah, the books of Josephus, the Acts of the Apostles and various legends that made their way down to the Church Fathers.
Yet this is not all we are limited to when we want to develop our theories about the origins of Christianity. Convention dictates these choices not the available evidence. There is a wealth of material that very few scholars know about or even consider.
But what do most scholars think that we shoulddo with this evidence? They want to look the other way for - they think - if we ignore it, maybe it will go away.
Of course it won't go away. The only reason that scholars could make these ancient reports and traditions 'disappear' in the first place was owing to the political dominance of the West. Now in an age of decline, other emerging cultures will necessarily seize upon these ignored truths in order to demonstrate the falseness of our culture. It is only natural and in many ways, utterly justifiable.
We do the same thing with religions and faiths of non-Western traditions. It will wonderful to see the proverbial shoe on the other foot.
So let me tell you about my theory about the origins of Christianity. I look into the pre-Antonine period and see very different forms of Christianity and Judaism at work in the world. I happen to think that Marcionitism becomes more influential the further we go back in time and I take the name 'Marcionite' to be an Aramaic term which means 'those of Mark.'
I go on to look at all the earliest references to a tradition associated with 'those of Mark' and end up in Alexandria. I notice that these same 'Marcionites' had a letter to the Alexandrians in their canon which was either removed or renamed by Irenaeus at the end of the second century. I notice that the Alexandrians were always interested in the same castration rituals that were originally associated with the 'Marcionites.' I also notice that prominent Alexandrian Church Fathers happen to be connected with heretical forms of the tradition associated with 'Mark.'
The evidence suggests to me at least that the Alexandrian tradition was originally heretical and only became 'orthodox' through a prolonged process of Imperial involvement (and much bloodshed) which continued into the Arian controversies of the fourth century.
In any event one of the centerpieces to my understanding of this original 'Marcionite' or 'Marcosian' tradition - all unfortunate terms which have trickled down to us through the hostile writings of the Church Fathers is the fact I think it wasn't 'Christian' in the manner in which we traditionally understand the European faith associated with a messiah named Jesus.
I think Mark himself was the 'real messiah' of his tradition and the gospel was written in a deliberately cryptic manner to hide this truth from outsiders.
Indeed as I have demonstrated in the fifty posts which preceded this present one, I think that Mark chose to express himself through a kabbalistic interest in letters of the alphabet. Mark knew how to encode the gospel with a cipher which told his readers what he wanted to say without actually having to explicitly 'say it' for everyone to hear.
I also have noted many times that I think only Jews can fully understand this understanding - or at least Gentiles who are familiar with traditional Jewish kabbalah.
For the moment however I want to demonstrate to those ignorant Gentiles something which I devoted a chapter to in my Real Messiah - the fact that the Samaritan religious leader and messiah, Mark the 'son of Titus' may well have been one and the same with St. Mark (or at least the understanding of him as a gnostic that seems to have circulated in Alexandria).
After many of you have went through my last post and seen the manner in which the 'St. Mark' of the Alexandrian Christian tradition must have had a deep interest in the mystical significance of letters and numbers, I think it only appropriate to demonstrate how the writings of a 'Mark' of the first century with a similar interest in letters is preserved among the Samaritans.
Here is a quote from the beginning of Book Four of the so-called 'Words of Mark' (the Mimar Marqe) which interprets the mystical significance of the Great Song of Moses (Deut. 32). The Samaritan Mark's dissection of the word וַיְדַבֵּר (Deut 31.30) is typical of his methodology throughout the Mimar Marqe:
I shall increase wisdom for you, that you may know the purpose behind the word וַיְדַבֵּר (WYDBR = 'he spoke'). He [God] used וַיְדַבֵּר to the prophetic one in his fasting and weariness, so that he attained a high status such as no one else has ever attained - twenty-two corresponding to the twenty two which Moses wrote on the stones, which are the beginning of the word WYDBR. It was the seal, for they were concealed until Moses the prophet came and God revealed them through him. Every commandment is reinforced by WYDBR and every blessing - BR - strengthened by it.
If it had not been for Moses all this would not have been known and nothing would have been declared of what was sent down. The Creation too was established by it and all that was done was by its enumeration. W represents the six days, which were a storehouse for all that was created. The value of Y is revealed before you - no need to repeat it here. D by it the heavens were perfected and by B every glorious thing was magnified in the world, both the opening and the closing of it - of what had passed and of what was yet to come. In the beginning it closed and it opened. It closed what had passed and it opened what had yet to come [and] when the Ten Words were sent down on two tablets, it was to open and to close, to open up the truth and to close the gate of evil and make an end of enmity. [Mimar Marqe iv.1]
As I noted in my book, there are good reasons to think that Marqe the 'son of Titus' was St. Mark even without an examination of their true writings and true beliefs. Once a comparison of the IDEAS associated with these two towering historical figures named 'Mark' is undertaken our initial suspicions are confirmed. They are both kabbalists, they are both religious leaders that reformed the monotheistic traditions of Israel in the first century according to a new messianic understanding.
Of course who else has even considered these things? Who else has delved into these possibilities? The truth is that NO ONE has even imagined that these parallels I demonstrate exist, so how can these so-called 'experts' in the field of earliest Christianity be so certain that I am wrong? ...
