I am never going to convince scholars to abandon their inherited addiction to the constructs INTRODUCED by Irenaeus in the Commodian period. It came to me after have a back and forth with my friend Timo Paananen over at his site.
Timo and I agree that Morton Smith has been maligned by modern scholarship just because he happened to discover a letter of Clement of Alexandria in a Greek Orthodox monastery. However Timo thinks that in spite of this we shouldn't indict modern scholarship. There is still some good work going on, he assures me. There is hope that the whole field isn't trapped within the inherited presuppositions of their ancestors.
I of course disagree but that's not the point.
I argued that BECAUSE of the specialization inherent in the university system today the existing paradigm ends up being safely protected from radical revisionism.
Scholars will keep on talking about 'the four gospels,' Pauline this and Johannine that even though - in my mind at least - this ignores the fact that the people from the 'land of Jesus' - i.e. the Christians of the Middle East - used a single, long gospel which ignored these distinctions.
I said to Timo - how can future generations of scholars solve ANY of the mysteries associated with variant forms of Christianity if they have no real knowledge of ANY religious tradition OUTSIDE of their tradition based on the fourfold revelation of Irenaeus?
I mean, I think that over the last few months I made some important discoveries which SHOULD shake the foundation of the study of Christianity. I proved that Clement of Alexandria was a Marcosian. I demonstrated that the Marcosians were undoubtedly Egyptian followers of St. Mark. I proved that their 'redemption' baptism was a continuation of the Apostle's establishment of the baptism of the catechumen on the eighth day of Passover.
The list goes on and on.
These discoveries could not possibly have been made by the 'new generation' of scholarship because quite frankly - they don't have a clue about anything outside of the very specialized knowledge developed from the existing paradigm of what Christianity is.
They have no real understanding of rabbinic Judaism. They couldn't distinguish between a Samaritan and a submarine. They politely - but subtly - reject Islam as a 'false revelation' that conquered its 'subjects' with a sword (ignoring the fact that people in the Middle East - including Christians - as a liberator from the hated rule of their Greek overlords.
The bottom line is that BECAUSE their knowledge base is so limited, they will not and CANNOT possibly overturn the existing system.
Their success in their chosen field of study assures their failure.
So it is that I decided to initiate an entirely new approach in my question to use my superior understanding of those traditions related to Christianity but outside of the orthodox Church.
I am going to complete a work of historical fiction to describe what I think happened to prompt Mark to write out the gospel - the new Torah of Israel.
The haters can ridicule this 'speculation.' But I don't care any more. I tried to develop an easy to read - but well researched - work of non-fiction in the Real Messiah and where did that get me?
I have published academic articles but what I need is dynamite not firecrackers.
So I will let my regular readers know that I am going to develop a twenty two chapters of fiction which will spell out the result of my twenty years of research into the authorship of the gospel.
Yes, 'fiction' has a hollow ring to it. It is essentially 'made up.' I have in effect developed a 'bare bones' understanding of what historical forces led Mark to compose his gospel with my 'scholarly efforts' and now I decided to dress this skeleton with flesh.
At the very least modern readers will have a choice in religious fiction - the Acts of the Apostles or my new Ninth of Av which I hope, believe, think is the original explanation of the origin of the gospel that was current in Alexandria and among the so-called Marcionites.
Please don't laugh too hard. This is only a rough sketch I worked out today. I will listen to any constructive criticism to make it better. I would even accept the services of a co-writer as I am NOT qualified to write fiction (although critics of my Real Messiah would certainly disagree) ...
I haven't proofread the copy. It just 'flowed' out of my subconscious this morning. It probably sucks but without further ado - here it is.
THE NINTH OF AV
by Stephan Huller
Preface
My mother always told me, I was destined for greatness even if I wasn't myself the greatest of men. As strange as it might sound, I always found mother's words comforting, even if, as I must now acknowledge she was the furthest thing from being a comforting soul.
I always knew no matter how harsh her expressions were, mother was telling me the truth. This was her greatest virtue. She was a brutally honest person who never held anything back from me. This was true even when I was a young lad.
I was a man destined for greatness even if I myself wasn't in the possession of a great soul. Greatness was simply thrust upon me from a higher place and I did my best to carry out what I perceived to be, the will of God.
Even now as I face difficulties that would have been unimaginable to me when mother spoke these words her utterances give me fortitude. For I don't think mother could have ever imagined the turmoil that we now find ourselves.
For I do not find myself in a predicament which affects just my own person, or my own family but, in fact, one which draws a whole people, my people, the nation of Israel into a crisis greater than it has ever confronted in its history.
Indeed my people have always found themselves in situations which have caused them to doubt the firmness of their relationship with God. We were founded as a nation with a test from God and our Lord continues to probe the sincerity of our devotion to him down through the ages. Never the midst of all these trials, great men have stood up to vindicate us before the Almighty.
Among this current generation however, there was none capable of fulfilling Israel's deliverance save for myself, the least of all men. I was a reluctant participant in my nation's salvation simply because I did not feel at first that was capable of releasing them from their appointed destiny. Nevertheless through a strange turn of events, which I can only see now as proof of my divine election.
I don't know if the world will ever see it that way. I am not even sure if history will judge me kindly. I only know in my heart that I carried out the task that God's will chose me for to the best of my abilities.
In this hour, where the destiny of my entire people hangs in the balance, I do not feel confidence in my abilities, nor do I glory in the role that was chosen for me. I only know that as a vessel of divine will, one who has acted with sincerity and truth, despite my obvious infirmities and weakness it would be impossible for me to fall short of the mark now, in what could be the end of the Jewish people.
CHAPTER ONE
I was awoken from my sleep last night by my sister. She had a terrible dream. "They're all going to die," she said. "I saw them gathered together like pigs set for slaughter." I could hear her voice tremble as she recounted the details of her experience. She raised her body from our bed and signaled for Hypatia her servant to light the lamps. "They were all gathered together," she said. "They were enclosed in a massive pen. Each one pressing against the other," she said shivering.
"Hold me, Marcus," she declared nuzzling her forehead into my chest.
It was like we were children again. I sat there upright in my bed embracing my sister Berenice in the stillness of that moment broken only by the sound of oil igniting.
"You can go now," I told Hypatia.
Berenice lifted her head and asked me if it was all true. I paused for a moment and nodded my head.
"Do you remember Socrates in the Phaedo," I murmurred, "The dream was bidding me to do what I was already doing, in the same way that the competitor in a race is bidden by the spectators to run when he is already running."
"But I had no idea," Berenice snapped. She turned her head and then lifted herself out of my bed, but I continued with the quotation.
"The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words," I declared with a stony expression on my face and deliberate lack of emotion in my voice.
"I never paid much attention to Plato," Berenice replied walking over to gaze out at the stars.
"That's because you were too busy seducing your instructors," I said.
She smiled for a brief moment, pushing a handful of her thick raven locks out from in front of her face. Berenice returned to contemplation and her expression changed.
"What can we do?" she asked. "Surely it can't end this way."
"I already told you," I replied. "I told you a long time ago. It's not to late for us to act."
I paused to see if my words were making any sort of impression on her, to see if she was changing her mind. She turned her face away from me as if she was becoming aware of my investigation so I added the words "It all depends on you."
"But they hate me," she said, "They call me a whore and even worse things still."
"It's not about you," I immediately retort realizing a moment after a spoke that my tone was too harsh. My sister never responded well to orders from anyone let alone me.
"But it is all about you, isn't it?" Berenice quipped.
"No," I said softly, "it's about them. It's about the children who will suffer in the fires of judgement that will soon engulf the city. It is about the innocent who will die alongside the guilty, indiscriminately roasted in the flames, burned alive in unimaginable temperatures. But most of all it's about God and our duty ..."
"God?!" she shouted. "How can you say it is about God? God is in control of all things. He led us to this very moment. He led them to the precipice, he led them to stare into the abyss that they created for themselves. If God cared so much about these people why can't he change their wickedness. If it was about God you would expect him to do something about this situation but he choses to do nothing. Therefore he must want this to be the end of this people."
"You know not what you are talking about," I declared again with too much anger in my voice. "You forget what happened in Moses' day," I said but before I could continue Berenice made a dismissive gesture with her hand.
"Little brother, don't lecture me with all your learned knowledge. I live in the real world of real human intercourse, I don't spend my days buried in the writings of the dead," she angrily retorted. She brushed back the hair from her face again this time finding something to keep her locks in place. She looked at herself in the mirror and then at me through the same reflective surface.
"I won't allow you or any of these people stand in the way of my advancement. I had a dream. Dreams come and go but they mean nothing in the end. The only thing that matters is life here in this world and it is in this world that I have found myself in a situation where a man loves me. When this affair is complete, he will marry me and in due course his position will advance and as his wife I will be be made Empress. We will rule the world together and you my brother will be there with me. I don't the love that you do for this stiff necked people. You will continue to rule of this land and these Jews to whom you have developed such a strong attachment."
"Indeed don't tell me about God, or duty or any of those other things which bind you and them to old and dead things," Berenice declared. "I only believe in life and opportunity."
"I have indulged you and you 'learning,' your 'education' and your beliefs because you are my brother and I love you but I am not in awe of you or these things that you occupy yourself with because you don't know life, you have never lived."
"So you are saying that you will do nothing," I replied dispassionately.
Berenice stared at me and then smiled. "No," she said looking away. "I will do something. I am always 'doing something.' I am looking out for our best interests, little brother. I am allowing you to continue researching and studying while I make our way through the world."
I didn't know what to say at that moment. She continued smirking as she stood beside me lying in the bed allowing the silence to drive home her point. It was true. I was wholly dependent on her in this present circumstance. I knew I was in a sense indebted to her in the same way that I was to mama before her. Yet I knew that people were only instruments in a divine plan. I knew that all the women in my life - indeed all the people who I had ever met - were there to advance the cause that I represented. I owed her no more of a debt of gratitude than I did my father for planting the seeds in my mother which generated Berenice and I.
"It is true, Berenice. I am but a weak and impotent scholar. I have been advanced in no small part through your beauty and the effect you have on men of all ages. There is nothing I could ever say which would cause you to change your mind and see beyond the advantages of allowing what is about to happen to our people to occur. My words cannot and will not change you because they come from me, a man you have known all your life and who you see as a burden you have carried on your back for all these years."
"Come back then my sister. Come back to sleep into the bed that you were formerly resting before a dream disturbed you. Come back and lay beside me as you were - not only as my sister but as my wife. I want to return to the state I was in before you awoke me and I need my wife to be beside me in order to be comforted." I said smiling as if to acknowledge the sarcasm in my voice. "You have nothing to fear from me. Return to the sleep which brought you that vision."
Berenice's smirk was gone. She called for Hypatia to return and in a moment she was dressed.
"I think I'd like to go for a walk," she declared.
I reclined in the bed and shook my head, "He needs his sleep."
"I think I know what he needs better than you," Berenice replied leaving the room with Hypatia.
I tried to go back to sleep, but I found myself stirring in our bed. After awhile I had my servant dress me and then I proceeded to go outside. I had a great number of conflicting emotions to sort out in my head the most pressing being how the Emperor and Titus would perceive how Berenice acquired knowledge of the plan that only I and a handful of generals had any knowledge.
The Romans are a superstitious lot, I thought to myself, there would be little doubt that Berenice could have received her information from a supernatural source. In fact we Jews had a reputation for such prophetic gifts. It was often the source of the hatred and jealousy that was directed against us from our enemies among the other nations.
At that very moment as I stood in the main portico of my castle I heard someone approaching me from behind. I immediately knew who it was by his breathing, 'Fancy you being up on this warm summer night, Philip"
"I am a light sleeper," Philip replied, "I was a hunter before I was made a general. We have to be prepared for anything."
"I was just asking myself when this hold mad preoccupation with holocausts took over the world," I said.
Philip was now standing beside me. "The world has always hated us," Philip answered. "They hate us for being rich, they hate us for being poor and everything in between."
I took a deep breath, "I can tell you the first time I had ever heard the word 'holocaust' spoken in the same breath with the Jewish people. It
happened was nine or ten. I was in the company of Caligula."
"Oh he was a mad fucker, that one." Philip laughed.
"Trust me," I answered. "You don't know the half of it."
"You and he were pretty close," Philip said with some hesitation in his voice.
"I was close to them all," I said matter of factly. "Caligula, Claudius, even Nero. I get on with him pretty well all things considered."
Philip smiled, "yeah all things considered. You just about lost him the whole territory. I am amazed he doesn't have us in stocks right now, sir."
"I've known him since he was a little boy," I said with a knowing smile. "It's the next guy I am worried about, the one who follows him. His days are numbered, you know."
"Well that's some kind of lucky streak you're on," said Philip laughing. "I just have to make sure to keep my rope hitched to your chariot."
"It's not luck, you know" said I.
Philip stopped laughing and didn't know what to say. I continued talking after his initial discomfort subsided. "My mother always told me that we create our own destinies," I said pausing once again. "But I don't believe a word of it. It's all in God's will."
Philip looked at me for a moment with a puzzled look on his face. "If it's all in the hands of powers greater than us why are up in the middle of the night standing in a portico, if I may ask sir?"
I stopped and smiled again, "I like to know what's coming up before everyone else. It gives me a distinct advantage over my enemies."
"So you're out here divining the future." Philip replied.
"I guess you could say that," I replied. "I was just marveling at how unimaginable what the group of us here at this fortress have agreed to undertake would have seemed only a generation ago."
"Times change," Philip said.
"And in many ways they stay the same, my dear Philip," I answered. "I was just looking back to see how we got this point, if there was anything I could have done differently."
"Trust me, my Lord," Philip said. "They are all mad. I went to the capital with a force of two thousand cavalry, with Darius beside me. We tried to keep the city friendly but anarchy ensued. We retreated to the Acra, but even our fort there was overrun. I went to Gamala, and they too rose up in rebellion - not just to the Romans but against you and all that you stand for."
"I know all of that Philip," I replied. "I trust you that's why I restored you to your native city of Bathyra."
"That's not my point, sir," Philip said. "I am trying to assure you that they are all utterly mad. There's nothing you could have done different because there is no way to reason with crazy people."
"There is a logic to everything, even to those who seem to have lost their mind," I said. "And remember Philip don't be too quick to call all the Jews crazy for Jewish blood runs through our veins just the same as those against whom we struggle. If you convince the wrong people with that argument they'll soon throw us to the flames too," I said smiling.
"We have to believe that people can be rehabilitated. This is what God has always taught. If we stop believing in that we might as well give up believing in anything."
"I know you have struggled valiantly on my behalf," I declared. "And I know how many of the Jews feel about me, that I am not truly Jewish and not deserving of this crown. They don't see me for who I really am.
"But the truth is that I know that I have been put on the earth to save this stubborn Jewish people even if they don't recognize it or recognize me for that matter. God will make everything known at the appropriate time. In that I have full confidence even if I can't see how this will manifest itself right now."
"I have trust in God and I have trust in you, my Lord Agrippa," replied Philip.
"And I have trust in you, my loyal Philip, that you will keep this conversation in confidence," I said to him. "The hatred that exists for us among the nations is now at such a pitch that I cannot openly resist it. This is the role for which I was chosen by the Almighty, I was anointed for a covert role in the salvation of our nation.
"Did I tell you that even when I was in Alexandria before this whole confusion erupted I saw it openly displayed in my presence. I was at a dinner party with my sister and a local poet named Menander who looked straight at us while reciting the most contemptible words from other writers:
Having been wont to deride Roman laws,
they learn and follow and revere Jewish law,
and all that Moses passed on in his secret volume,
prohibiting to point the way to anyone not following the same rites,
and leading none but the circumcised to the desired fountain
Many in the audience wanted to laugh out loud but were restrained - at least initially. Our host made a timid gesture as if to signal his displeasure, but it was half-hearted and fully insincere. Menander was clearly put there to embarrass my sister and I and with only a brief pause he continued with even greater vitriol directed against our people:
Ah! wretched Jews! gratuitously lost
In death ungrateful! Who, by blind guide led
crashing into their own destruction
Ah! ye silent laughingstocks,
Rushing to ruin! do ye reprobate
Your god fills ye with madness
Exterminate them, expunge them
From this fair earth which they covet so
As Berenice and I walked away with two different perceptions of that slight. My sister became convinced that being a Jew was a burden. She like many members of my family have decided to abandon the customs of our people and adopt Gentile ways."
"And you, my Lord?" Philip asked. "What I mean sir, is knowing what what both know is to come for the Jewish people and their religion, what other course of action is there?"
I hesitated to say any more. I hated to admit that I didn't quite know what to do except to cite what was now a tired old cliche - that everything was in God's hands.
I dismissed from my presence and stood in that portico for almost the rest of that night. I don't know if I was hoping for divine intervention - perhaps an angel coming down from heaven or that I didn't want to return to that bed which was offering up visions of the future. It was difficult enough living in the present with out considering what was about to overtake us all ...
