The Great Secret at the Heart of Christianity and Samaritanism

I don't care much for New Testament scholars. I don't know how to put my contempt into words sometimes. It starts with the idea that in order to be a 'New Testament scholar' you have to accept a system which has no natural starting point AND STARTS WITH THE ASSUMPTION THE TRADITION AS A WHOLE DOESN'T HAVE TO MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL.

You know they won't say the word 'Holy Spirit' but in the back of their minds, in their 'heart of hearts' they somehow still believe in the power of supernatural forces to shape the canon.

I am serious, how do you deal with these people?

They all 'know' what Christianity is. You know, the beliefs of their ancestors 'jazzed' up with scientific terminology to make it sound like something other than an inherited bunch of superstitions.

'The rules' are that the 'good guys' are the orthodox. The 'bad guys' are the heresies.

Got that straight?

We know that 'Jesus was a Jew' but then are puzzled when we hear that the Jews themselves thought that he was a Samaritan.

The Samaritans are a problem for these jokers. They are a problem because the existence of Samaritans force them to think CRITICALLY about their inherited religion (something never encouraged by the Church Fathers outside of Alexandria).

Just think. Everything in the gospel points to the Samaritan people being 'good guys' - I mean, you have 'good Samaritans,' the first missionaries being Samaritans (John 4) and a whole bunch of other stuff on one side of the ledger. The Jews represent everything bad in the gospel - Judas, the people who want to kill Christ and a whole bunch of other stuff we all know about.

Yet just because someone in a later period of history - an editor, redactor, who knows - forced an interpretation that God really loved the Jews and hated the Samaritans (just look at the obvious editor's additions in John chapter 4; does anyone really believe much of this dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman HASN'T been reworked?) they are all able to develop this ridiculous argument that Christianity is 'really' a form of Jewish messianism.

Really? Then just show me what Jews believed in a messiah like Jesus. Indeed just show me an example where Jesus argues that HE IS the awaited Jewish messiah, and I will shut up.

You see I think that if we are ever going to make sense of Christianity we are going to have to do it through connecting it to Samaritanism. If you believe Acts (and I for one don't) there has been two models for Christian origins. The Judeo-Christian model embodied in the example of Peter and then 'the heresies' from Simon Magus, Dositheus or whatever other crazy boogeymen you choose to believe in all of whom happen to emerge from Samaria.

I say let's go with the boogeymen. Let's go with those the Church Fathers say are really hypnotized zombies sent on a mission from the Devil. You see, I don't believe the Irenaeus and his horde were ever on the side of God (they were all friends with Commodus, a Satanic Emperor if there ever was one). So I say as a good Middle Easterner - the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

If we go follow the Samaritans back to their earliest sources we end up with the writings of Marqe or 'Mark' as his name would be rendered if he applied for a job in America. We nothing about 'Mark' other than the fact that he lived at a time when Roman names were common among Samaritans (this because everyone in his inner circle had one) and when the land of Israel was still called 'Palestine' (which leaves us a small window which basically ends at the time of the bar Kochba revolt c. 135 CE).

There are no surviving Samaritan documents before 'Mark.' He basically came along and someone - without even having the status of being a high priest (the highest rank in contemporary Samaritan society) managed to completely transform their tradition and become identified as a second Moses in the process.

He must have won the lottery or something ...

So if we find that this guy Mark becomes the 'brick wall' we can't get over when trying to trace the Samaritan tradition back to its roots (roots that must have went back centuries before the Common Era) we are prevented on the Christian side of the ledger from getting anywhere close to any Samaritans because again we are repeatedly warned that any Samaritan is necessarily a heretical zombie controlled by the power of the Devil.

You can't believe anything they say because the Devil is tricky. It might all sound logical and sensible but it really is a 'trick' designed to take us away from the truth and security of 'the true faith.'

I have found it intriguing that the Alexandrians at least think that everything in Christianity comes down to a guy named Mark. He apparently had this vision from God and wrote the gospel that was originally supposed to be the new Torah of Israel but now is imagined as a kind of 'history of Jesus.'

When I traced back the earliest Alexandrian sources in the Church Fathers I found that they understood that Mark wrote his gospel using a kabbalistic cipher. You can go through my posts from last year and trace the argument but basically it came down to this.

The original followers of Mark in Egypt said that one has to be 'clued into' the kabbalistic clues of the strange numbers being cited throughout - i.e. the consistent reference to the number six (i.e. sixth hour, sixth day, six six six etc.), the number twelve, the number thirty, forty nine, the number seventy two, the number ninety nine and one hundred which are all products of a unique kabbalistic cipher developed from the disappearance of the letter vav (the number 6) from the universe.

1
1 + 2 = 3
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 15
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 7 = 22
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 8 = 30
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 8 + 9 = 39
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 = 49
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 = 60
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 = 72
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 = 85
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 = 99

They identify Mark as 'encoding' his gospel with these numbers in the following place. I don't want to get too bogged down with this proof but the Egyptians followers of Mark pointed to the emphasis on the following numbers in the gospel as proof that this 'code' was present in its original form:

10 - "And what woman having ten drachmas would lose one of them, and not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek it with care till she found it; and when she found it, call her friends and neighbours, and say unto them, Rejoice with me, as I have found my drachma that was lost?" [Diatessaron xxvi.9; AH i.14.1]

Ten is the value of the letter yod or iota which appears in the saying"one Iota, or one tittle, shall by no means pass away until all be fulfilled." [AH i.3.2]

the number of disciples to whom Christ appeared after being raised from the dead [Diatessaron LIV.17; AH i.18.3]

22 - the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

30 - the age of Jesus when crucified [Diatessaron iv.24; AH i.14.1]

- the number of days from Jesus baptism of his disciple to his crucifixion (i.e. 'the redemption').

- the parable of the labourers sent into the vineyard. For some are sent about the first hour, others about the third hour, others about the sixth hour, others about the ninth hour, and others about the eleventh hour. Now, if we add up the numbers of the hours here mentioned, the sum total will be thirty: for one, three, six, nine, and eleven, when added together, form thirty [Diatessaron xix.27f].

- symbol of the first level of 'fruitfulness' in the parable 'and some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it; and it yielded no fruit. And other fell into excellent and good ground; and it came up, and grew, and brought forth fruit, some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hundred.' [Diatessaron xvi.24]

- the amount of money needed for the redemption of a slave/Judas returns to the high priest [Diatessaron xliv.8]

49 - the number of times Jesus demands forgiveness from our brothers [Diatessaron xxvii.24]

the impending destruction of the temple [Daniel 9:24 - 27 cited in Diatessaron xlii.4 - 6]

60 - symbol of the second level of 'fruitfulness' in the parable 'and some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it; and it yielded no fruit. And other fell into excellent and good ground; and it came up, and grew, and brought forth fruit, some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hundred.' [Diatessaron xvi.24]

72 - the number of apostles sent out to announce the messianic jubilee [Diatessaron xv.15]

99 - the ninety nine sheep and the one who was lost and restored to the 'right hand' [Diatessaron xxvi.1 - 9]

100 - the number of perfection (i.e. one the ehad is restored to the ninety nine).

symbol of the last and greatest level of 'fruitfulness' in the parable 'and some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it; and it yielded no fruit. And other fell into excellent and good ground; and it came up, and grew, and brought forth fruit, some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hundred.' [Diatessaron xvi.24]

It is also worth noting that 'right hand' - yamin in Hebrew - has a numerical value of one hundred - y (10) + m (40) + (50). Being 'seated at the right hand' of God is not surprisingly the conclusion of the gospel narrative

I am sure that no 'serious scholar' is going to accept that the gospel was originally written with a kabbalistic cipher at its core. But the way you can overcome them is by asking whether the 'Marcosians' of Egypt THOUGHT THAT THERE WAS THIS KABBALISTIC CODE in Mark's gospel. The answer is clearly yes because Irenaeus reports on it. Similarly did Clement of Alexandria believe in this kabbalistic code in the gospel? The answer again is yes, not only because Clement was a Marcosians something that others have already noted AND I PROVED A MONTH AGO but the fact that he himself testifies to his belief in the power of numbers and their deliberate arrangement as part of the gospel fabric on a number of occasions.

Again, I don't care if not a single 'serious scholar' is going to want to investigate whether a Jewish author like Mark would have employed kabbalah (what do these people know about the REAL tradition of Jewish people anyway). Their interest - as I have noted on a number of occasions is to ensure that the traditions of their European ancestors is kept sacred and pristine.

Yet let's move on to the relative safety of acknowledging that Samaritan Mark employed kabbalah everywhere throughout his the writings which now make up the Mimar Marqe. I have always marveled at the chances of two guys named Mark could be living in the first century establishing messianic truths for two 'separate' communities and happen to be remembered by their followers as developing their arguments using kabbalah.

Let give you one example from the Samaritan tradition for contrast.

We were doing some preliminary examinations of the Mimar Marqe Book Two Chapter Seven in our last few posts. Now we are going to kick into high gear and starting getting at some of the secret codes in this section.

I will start with the most obvious as Marqe comes out and announces his interest in a particular gematria. Let me cite the particular section of text in Chapter Seven for the audience from MacDonald's inferior translation:

See the word yashar with which the great prophet began (the Song of the Sea cf Ex. xv.1). He made it a shield in the face of all shame, five hundred and ten comprising of three sections

In other words we don't have to worry about whether we are reading too much into the material. Mark is clearly pointing out to us that there is a great secret hidden in the letters yod (which has a numerological value of 10), shin (which has a value of 300) and resh (which equals 200). Added together you get 510.

It should be noted that both the Jewish and Samaritan Exodus narratives have the words 'they sang' in the first verse of the Song of the Sea, but only the Samaritans spell the 'sang' as yashar. The Masoretic text adds a second yod to the word to get 'yashir.'

Now let's look again at the whole section of Mark's narrative and notice how many times words with the letters yod, shin and resh are used each having a numerological value of 510. I will bold the words and put the Hebrew letters in brackets:

Observer the prophetic status of Moses, how he began to proclaim in the words of Enosh, by which he magnified the True One then men began to call upon (ShRY) the name of the Lord (Gen iv. 26; Targ.)

At the beginning of the Song (Ex. xv) is then, for (the letter) Tit was made an extensive garden. The True One commanded it and Abraham made it - And the Lord God planted (Gen ii. 8), the True One spoke; and Abraham planted a tamarisk tree (Gen xxi. 33), the True One wrote.

Then Moses began (ShRY) and said in the sea; he composed his Song a garden of praises. He said then to rear a fine garden with living trees, and also when he began (ShRY) to proclaim the word then Creation was renewed at that. Then included Creation and Sabbath, Sabbath being an excellent pillar, all of it good, for God established it on the foundation of Creation; thus Moses began (ShRY) with mighty proclamation.

Then is the Beginning, the opening - wholly excellent! Sabbath is a city - wholly blessed! Beginning is an origin, wholly spiritual! Sabbath is a place, wholly sacred!

Here the knowledge of Moses was revealed to the world and it provided knowledge for the living and the dead. He then said 'sang' (YShR) - a momentous, unalterable word. These are eminent words, like shining light. 'They sang' (YShR) he began it and proclaimed it. 'They' whose inner meaning is of significance, is a foundation that cannot be destroyed.

Beginning was created and Sabbath brought into being. The covenant with Abraham was manifest in the number ZAIN (=7).

See the word 'sang' (YShR) with which the great prophet began. He made it a shield in the face of all shame, five hundred and ten comprising of three sections - the years sojourning of the ancestors, the years of slavery for their children, the years of the prophethood by which Moses reached this high status. And also AZ - the great prophet Moses sang (YShR), and all the Israelites with him.

There is a problem involved here about which we ask the Elders of the People who were gathered together to receive knowledge of the wonders which God did in Egypt through Moses his servant. These were prior to the wonders done in the Red Sea in Egypt in the presence of Israel. Why should the wonders done in the Red Sea precede the wonders done in Egypt in this song? (i.e. why Ex. xv. 1 - 7 before 8 - 10).

And Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore (Ex. xiv. 30b) before The great work which the Lord did against the Egyptians (Ex xiv. 31a; Targ)

The explanation of this problem is that they did not continue to believe in God and in His servant Moses. When they saw the wonderful deeds done by the Lord in the sea and the death of all the Egyptians, they believed in the Lord and in Moses His servant. After the death of the Egyptians through wrath and anger, He lifted them up onto the surface of the sea. The wonder is that He made their faces upturned that Israel might see them. After they had seen them, they sank down and they saw them no more.

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang (YShR) this song to the Lord (Ex. xv. 1). Each of them remembered the word 'sang' (YShR) out of all the words of the praise, because it comprised all the words of the praises - an extremely fine arrangement was the arrangement by Moses and the Israelites in this Song by the sea!

Now remember, I don't have to justify my claims that Mark is drawing our attention to the three letters yod-shin-resh. This is made explicit in his narrative. But what no one is likely to realize is that these same letters which mean 'sang' in the Samaritan Pentateuch narrative also are an important root to words which mean 'firm' or 'strong' and - more importantly have always been used as a homiletic explanation of the name 'Israel.'

Why is this important? It is because I am certain that what Mark is really saying through his cryptic manner of speech is that the archangel who wrestled with Jacob was there in the sea with Israel (which makes sense because both were effectively established as 'Israel' because of his involvement).

Yet the specific interest that Marqe takes in the word yashar also allows us to connect Jesus to the whole concept as well. Let me go back to a previous post that I made back in March.

Look in any ancient Christian manuscript for the title Christ and you are bound to find instead the title 'XC.' Our Roman Church Fathers were quick to tell us that the letters are supposed to signify 'respect' for Jesus' identification as the Christos (i.e. XristoS = XC). Yet when we actually go back in time we see that XC was originally used to as a kind of marginal note representing the Chrestos (Xrestos = XC).

While the Romans told us that XC meant Christ and this was Jesus' proper title, the Alexandrians and Marcionites and various other heretics were equally steadfast that XC really meant Chrestos was Jesus' true title.

In other words, Jesus wasn't the Christ.

Now no one has been able to make sense of what this Marcionite title Chrestos really meant. The common understanding was that Jesus was 'the Good' god. Yet this never made sense to me. Good is the worst possible epithet. Even in Greek Chrestos had the sense of simpleton as it does in French viz. bon homme. Of course God is good but good is ultimately meaningless or - as we see in Justin and various other Church Fathers a screen to say 'Christians are good people' or something stupid like that.

Here's my discovery. Open up an LXX concordance. Chrestos takes the place of three Hebrew words 'tov' (obvious) yaqar (precious, honored) and yashar (upright). Yashar is the intriguing one because it leads us to something absolutely central in Judaism.
0A

Hebrew Proverbs 2:21 כִּי-יְשָׁרִים יִשְׁכְּנוּ-אD6רֶץ; וּתְמִימִים, יִוָּתְרוּ בָהּ

LXX Proverbs 2:21 χρηστοὶ ἔσονται οἰκήτορες γῆς ἄκακοι δὲ ὑπολειφθήσονται ἐν αὐτῇ ὅτι εὐθεῖς κατασκηνώσουσι γῆν καὶ ὅσιοι ὑπολειφθήσονται ἐν αὐτῇ

In short Chrestos = yashar. As Kittel notes Chrestos "when used20of people means 'worthy,' 'decent,' 'honest,' morally 'upright' or 'good." (p 1320)

Okay so far? So why would the Marcionites have been so interested in identifying Jesus by a title which means 'upright,' 'just' or 'righteous.' Well let's bring to the table the other strange feature of the Marcionite understanding of Jesus - he had a supernatural body. He could walk through crowds, f ly through the air, and only appeared to be crucifed on the cross.

What does this have to do with Chrestos? Well, I hope it wouldn't be too much to say that the Marcionites thought that Jesus had an 'angelic' characteristic. Numerous passages in Tertullian can be used to argue this. Well take a guess which angel happens to be connected with the Hebrew word yashar?

ISRAEL.

Yes almost everyone in antiquity made the connection between a word spelled yod-shin-resh and Israel. Israel is (yod+shin +resh) + el (god). The Samaritans maintain a form of Hebrew which doesn't differentiate between shin and sin (the Jews put a dot on the right and left side of the letter to differentiate between two different phonemes). The Samaritans simply say the name of Israel comes from yashar or specifically Gen 32:28 "And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power [yashar] with God and with men, and hast prevailed."

Now anyone who has ever read Philo, the various Palestinian Targums, the Prayer of Joseph and all those other pseudepygryphal texts knows that there was inevitably this story where Jacob either wrestles with an angel named Israel or Sariel, was a heavenly angel named Israel or something like this based on a word play related to yasar in Jewish Hebrew yashar in Samaritan Hebrew. The inevitable rejection by scholars that yasar com es from a root which means to 'rule' or have 'power' must be acknowledged. Nevertheless the poi nt isn't what we know but what ancients thought was true about the etymology of the name Israel. It is abolutely amazing to see how every single Greek translator connects Israel with Yashurun or Jeshurun which is derived from the yashar meaning 'upright' and translated as Chrestos in the LXX.

Brown, Driver and Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament p 449 identifies Aquila, Symmachus and Theodoret as identifying Yeshurun as the 'name of Israel, designating it under its ideal character.' Numbers appears to use the word “upright,” “yesharim,” as a play on the word “Jeshurun” to refer to the people of Israel.(Num 23:10) Similarly Rabbi Berekiah in the name of Rabbi Judah b. Rabbi Simon interpreted Jeshurun to mean “the noblest and best among you.” (Genesis Rabbah 77:1.)
Rabbi Aha bar Jacob told that the breastplate of the High Priest contained the words “The tribes of Jeshurun" (Babylonian Talmud Yoma 73b; see also Exodus Rabbah 38:9.)

I have always noticed the 'Jewish' character of the Marcionite sect. I have written about this extensively. Now we can begin to see how Marcionitism developed from a specifically Samaritan understanding .

The reason the Marcionites identified Jesus as Chrestos was because it point to his secret role as the ancient Israel, the figure who gave Jacob the divine name, who visited with Abraham, who guided the Israelites as the column of glory and the well of Miriam.

Marcionitism can now finally be recognized to be connected with Alexandrian Judaism. When Philo and others present the otherwise ridiculous interpretation of the name Israel as 'a man seeing God' what they are really saying is that the name came from wrestling at Peniel or as Sayce (The Early History of the Hebrews p 73 -4) writes:

when the narrative in Genesis was composed a more primitive conception of the Divine nature still prevailed and no reluctance was felt in stating exactly what the patriarch himself had believed. It was God with whom he had struggled, and from whom he had extorted a blessing and a memory of the conflict and victory was preserved in the name Israel which Jacob thenceforth bore. The etymology however is really only one of those plays upon words of which the Biblical writers, like Orient al writers generally, are so fond. It has no scientific value, and was never intended to have any. Israel is, like Edom, not the name of an individual, but of the people of whom the individual was the ancestor. The name is formed like that of Jacob-el, and the abbreviated Jeshurun is used instead of it in the Song of Moses (Deut 32:15 see also Deut 33:5, 26; Isa 44:2). If the latter is correct, the root will not be sarah, 'he fought' or yasar 'he is king' but yashar 'to be upright' 'to direct;' and Israel will signify 'God has directed.' Israel in fact will be the 'righteous' people who have been called to walk in the ways of the Lord.

I think the reader can begin to see what the Samaritan Marqe is secretly alluding to when he takes an interest in the same three Hebrew letters that add up to 510 (the letters yod-shin-resh can be taken to mean 'sang' as in the Samaritan version of Exodus 15.1 OR the root word of the name Israel).

This is why he says quite explicitly:

See the word 'sang' (YShR) with which the great prophet began. He made it a shield in the face of all shame, five hundred and ten

The 'shield' that Marqe is referring to of course is the angelic power of the angel Sariel - identified in Christian circles as Jesus 'Chrestos' which was not only responsible for empowering the community to transform into angels after their immersion in water but also would fight on their behalf.

That is why the Sanmaritans recite the follow prayer as the Sabbath 'goes out' to the eighth day:

וישאו בני ישראל את עיניהם ויראו והנה מצרים נסעים אחריהם וייראו מאד.
ויאמר משה אל העם אל תיראו, התיצבו וראו את ישועת ה'.
ה' ילחם לכם ואתם תחרישון:
14:10b: And the son of Israel raised their eyes and they saw, and behold the Egyptians were driving after them, and they became very frightened.
14:13a: And Moses said to the people, do not fear, stand by and see the salvation of my Name (shehmaa)
14:13b: Shehmaa will fight for you while you keep silent.

The point of course is that way back when, the Christians of St. Mark and the Samaritans of Marqe were associated with the same angelic being who empowered and protect their community.

Someone came along and changed all of that. I think the reader knows who I suspect was responsible for overturning the original tradition and for what reason ...