Why Having a Basic Knowledge of Hebrew Changes Everything About Traditional New Testament Scholarship

If only scholars weren't stuck on the idiotic question of whether Morton Smith 'forged' the Mar Saba document they would start to question a far more important question - what do we really know about the second century Christian milieu out of which the Letter to Theodore emerged. I am not saying that any of this can PROVE the authenticity of the text. But as I noted in a previous post I am now beyond this question. I see no reason why this charade has to continue. Let us try to USE to Theodore to help explore our existing knowledge about this critical period.

Roger Viklund was nice enough to forward me an article on the Muratorian Canon. As I have already mentioned earlier - the Muratorian Canon's understanding of the order of the Pauline epistles makes absolutely certain that our 'Roman New Testament canon' was appropriated from an earlier Alexandrian canon undoubtedly associated with the so-called 'Marcionites.'

I happen to think that the word Marcionite was developed from an Aramaic term meaning 'those of Mark' and that the invented heretic 'Marcion' was similarly modified through a typical habit of misrepresenting heads of sectarian communities from Aramaic terms (think 'Ebion' of the Evionim).

I wouldn't have developed these ideas myself. They were given to me as a 'gift' by my friend Professor Ruairidh Boid of Monash University. He started the ball rolling as it were in my mind. Now I understand where the idea of a 'Simon Magus' associated with Samaria came from too.

Before we begin that, let me summarize my last post (it was a trifle long and may have lost some readers).

Because scholars have only a superficial interest in Irenaeus most have likely only focused on Book One of his Against the Heresies and avoided investigating the other works that the Church Father wrote.

We know that Irenaeus penned two works at the same time - On the Ogdoad in order to
distinguish his orthodox opinion about baptism from that of the Gnostics who came from Alexandria and another work written at the same time against those who calculated Easter according to the Jewish calendar. Hill assigns the date of these texts to the end of the Commodian period.

I am certain that Irenaeus' concerns about the 'ogdoad' and the 'quartodecimianists' went hand in hand because of the underlying Alexandrian interest (reflected in the Liber Pontificalis, Origen and other sources) to continue a Christian version of the eight day festival of Unleavened Bread where baptism occurred as the seventh day 'went out' to the ogdoad (the eighth).

There can be no doubt that this was the original Alexandrian practice but it has always been the Samaritan practice to identify the liturgical date of the ancient Israelites 'crossing of the sea' as this 'going out' from the seventh to the eighth day. The Samaritans continue to sing hymns at the moment the 'heptad' becomes an 'ogdoad' (both in terms of the days of the week and festival of Unleavened Bread).

Now we all know that if we want to find the ORIGINAL CONTEXT of the Christian veneration of the baptism rite we have to look to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 where the Apostle connects baptism to the crossing of the sea. My new wrinkle in this understanding is that the letter to the Corinthians was originally identified as 'to the Alexandrians' by the Alexandrians themselves.

Origen and others use 'to the Corinthians' to explain the proper context for the interpretation of the gospel which - as we have noted in a previous post - inferred a consistent 'antithesis' between the god of the Jews who was associated with the 'heptad' and the god of the Christians who was associated with the 'ogdoad.'

The going out into the sea was only one such 'antithesis.'

In my last point I pointed out that the first addition to Secret Mark provides us with the clear example of how the Alexandrian 'redemption' baptism (referenced in the writings of Irenaeus, Hippolytus and the anonymous author of the Treatise on Baptism) was identified as the 'ogdoad.'

The narrative clearly unfolds over an eight day period (utilizing the traditional Jewish notion of 'days' beginning after the sun has set):

Day One - "and they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there" (it would only be natural for Jesus and his disciples to travel only while the sun was up). They go to the tomb (there is no mention of 'darkness' or 'night' in the Secret Mark narrative. Jesus moves the stone without the aid of torches. This is day one.

Day Seven - The narrative of Secret Mark continues "and going out of the tomb, they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich." At some point while Jesus was entertained in the house the counting of "after six days" begins. This means that when the youth reappears is the seventh day. So we read "in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body" with most people not realizing that the word 'evening' here - ὀψία - literally means 'at the end of the day.' In other words, the youth comes to Jesus naked with a linen cloth at the end of the seventh day.

Day Eight - We must imagine that as the sun goes out from the heptad to the ogdoad the youth was baptized. On this eighth day Jesus "remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan."

There can be no doubt my friends that it is Secret Mark which became the basis for the Alexandrian concept of baptism being associated with the ogdoad. Clearly the liturgical association became fixed with the eighth day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread but the context in the gospel was fixed because of LGM 1 (the first addition to Secret Mark mentioned in the Mar Saba document).

Now my wife wants to go out for lunch so I have to publish this without all the necessary corrections. However I have shown already that in all of Irenaeus' references to the 'redemption' baptism of the Marcosians of Alexandria ('redemption' being the word Jews and Samaritans always identify with Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the crossing of the sea) already assume that there is a reference to this practice somewhere near Mark 10:35 (Irenaeus AH i.21.1). Nevertheless we should not lose sight that it is the traditional Samaritan practice of identifying the 'going out of the seventh to the eighth' which is the basis for Christian baptism.

All of this leads us to the whole idea that is ONLY LATER introduced to Irenaeus' Against the Heresies Book One about a 'magical' shemone (שְׁמוֹנֶה) - i.e. Heb. 'eight' - emerging from among sects in Christianity associated with the Samaritans.

My God doesn't anyone see it! 'Simon Magus' is just a variant of all those hostile references to the magical baptismal practices associated with the 'Marcosians' in the writings of Irenaeus and his successors THAT HAPPENED TO FALL ON THE EIGHTH DAY.

There never was an individual 'Simon Magus.' He's just another one of those heretical boogeymen designed to scare the faithful when they encounter the idea of שְׁמוֹנֶה being associated with baptism. 'Oh, you see,' Irenaeus and his minions would say 'these are the teachings of Simon mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. Stay away from these teachings! They are evil.'

The truth was that the Alexandrian emissaries of the original apostolic doctrine were invoking 'shemone' because of Secret Mark and the baptism of the neaniskos on the eighth day.

More to follow, got to feed the family ...