A Proposed Aramaic Etymology of 'Horos' the Gnostic Title of Jesus

Quote:

Jastrow Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature p. 340 hor, horah (m) teacher, father (Deut Rabba s 1); 'this his hor, that is his father.' plural horim (Gen R. s 68; Yalk Ps. 878) etc. also horah I (f) conception v. horath horah II (f) (b.h; v. hor) [mother] (homiletically) teaching. Cant R. to III, 4 "that means the Tabernacle, for from there issued the obligations of Israel, to abide by legal decisions (Jastrow points to next word) horiah f. decision, instruction, teacher's or judge's office. Y Ber IV 8c top - Moriah 'because instruction goes forth.' also 'special dispensation,' 'an authorized teacher, judge' etc.

As I have noted many times before Tertullian's Against the Valetinians preserves an OLDER version of the original treatise by Irenaeus than the surviving Five Books Against the Heresies. There can be no doubt that Horos was originally equated with 'the Father':

Quote:

And yet if it be such within the bosom of the Father, within the embrace of the guardian Horos, what must it be outside, in free space, where God did not exist [Against the Valentinians 13]

The difficulty was that the heretics were connected with the so-called 'Patripassian' tradition. They understood that Jesus was not the Son but the Father and this system didn't make any sense to later editors so we see the Latin text begin to add the word 'fillii' (Son) to describe Horos even though the term was never in the Greek original in front of Tertullian NOR the surviving Greek MSS of Irenaeus. 

The original understanding was that there was a 'Propator' (Forefather) and a 'Father' the former existing in a higher realm than the latter (much like En Sof in Jewish mysticism exists in a place higher than YHWH). In the end Jesus, the Horos (i.e. Jesus the Father) needs to crucify himself to repair the damage done to the world owing to his improper union with Sophia in the beginning.

Quote:

The animal and carnal Christ, however, does suffer after the fashion of the superior Christ, who, for the purpose of producing Achamoth, had been stretched upon the cross, that is, Horos, in a substantial though not a cognizable form.[Against the Valentinians 27]

If you go through the account of Irenaeus there can be no doubt that Horos is Jesus. The story of the lady with the period which lasted twelve years (sounds like my wife) who wants to touch Jesus's garment features Jesus as 'Horos.' The attempted Greek etymology of horothetes (giver of limit) is a fanciful effort by some Greek speaker in Alexandria that Irenaeus met to give an explanation to what is clearly an Aramaic name.

ALSO REMEMBER that 'Pope' comes from Papa which - in later Greek at least DOES NOT mean 'father' but 'grandfather.' This is important. Papa is an Alexandrian title. The Pope can arguably be the symbol of the Propator not the Father. 

Why is any of this important?

I don't know maybe it isn't but I am starting to wonder if all things about the heretics start to come together when we accept the UNSPOKEN understanding (unspoken because Irenaeus doesn't want us to hear it) that Irenaeus and these same heretics AGREED that Jesus was the Creator of the world who decides to repair the damage that he caused at the beginning of the world by crucifying himself on the Cross (with its obvious symbolism of being shaped like the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet - i.e. showing that it is 'the end' of all things coming up).

In this way, Jesus is the REPENTANT God of the Jews who atones by effectively killing himself in order to introduce his beloved disciple into superior mysteries than the one he originally gave to Moses and the ancient Israelites. 

This would be where LGM 1 of Secret Mark would come into play. It represents a 'recreation' insofar as we have all the elements in the original story - waters, God, man etc. - only now according to the common gnostic myth, Jesus/the Creator has been made aware of the higher power in heaven above him in authority (the Propator i.e. the forefather). The recreation of the new man is also the end of the old man (Adam) who is symbolized crucified on the cross. 

The Gospel of the Hebrews as 'the Gospel of the Eunuchs'

I have always suspected the latter possibility - i.e. that ALL members of the presbytery in Egypt were ritually castrated - but I don't want to get too deeply into the reasons for this, I just wanted to make a small tangential point.

Most of us know that Irenaeus and many others speak of a 'Gospel of the Hebrews' where 'Hebrew' is presumed by many to be a designation for 'Jewish Aramaic.' The problem of course is that outside of Christianity we have no attestation for identifying 'Hebrew' as 'Aramaic.' Indeed Jews themselves did not identify Hebrew as 'Hebrew' until the late second century BCE (the Greek prologue of Ecclesiasticus) and it was still called 'the Holy Tongue' in Aramaic speaking communities into the third century CE.

Interesting it is only Greek texts related to Christianity which identify Aramaic (the language Jews and Samaritans actually spoke to one another) as 'Hebrew.' This has always puzzled me. There are - theoretically at least - two terms which Jews in Palestine, Syria and Arabia could have used to denote the Aramaic language - aramy or sursi. Aramy was the original term which dates back to the legendary figure Aram who was the father of the Syrian people. But what few people realize is that it is highly unlikely that Jewish converts to Christianity living in Palestine would have called their language aramy. As Stern notes:

The identification of 'Arameans' with all Near Eastern Aramaic-speakers is however by no means certain. Indeed, the languages which we call 'Aramaic' do not necessarily correspond to the Aramit mentioned in rabbinic sources. Rabbi distinguishes between Aramit which is spoken in Babylonia, and Sursi (ie 'Syriac') which is spoken in Syria: B.Sot. 49b; B.BK 83a. Indeed, Aramit is mentioned more frequently in the Babylonian Talmud (B.Sot. 33a; B.Sanh. 21b-22a; etc.) than in the Palestinian Talmud (only in Y.Sol. 9,13 (cf B.Sot. 49a and ib.33a; also in M.Shek. 5.3 and Sifre Deut 343) whereas Sursi is more common in the Palestinian Talmud (Y.Pes. 5,3 (= Mekh Bo 3); Y. Meg.1,9, Y.Sot 7,2). than in the Babylonian Talmud (B.Pes. 61a). Most significantly, the Palestinian Talmud calls the language of Laban (in Gen. 31:47) sursi even though Laban comes from Aram and is called (in Gen. 31:20) the Arammi (Y.Sot ib)! If we are to conclude that rabbinic sources generally refer to Western Aramaic as 'Syriac' (just as, according to Josephus Ant. 1144, the Greeks call the Arameans "Syrians"?), then the term 'Arameans' may need to be restricted to the non-Jewish inhabitants of Babylonia alone.[Sacha Stern, Jewish identity in early rabbinic writings p.18]

The identification of Jewish Aramaic as Sursi is evident from contemporary references in the Mishnah too. R. Judah HaNasi declared "No one should speak Sursi in Palestine. Let him speak either Hebrew or Greek!" (Sotah 49b)

As such one can only expect that the term which Irenaeus translates as the 'Gospel of the Hebrews' into the Greek language was originally 'the Gospel of the Sursi.' The same would be true of other Aramaic references which are (strangely) translated as 'Hebrew' in the received texts of the NT (John 19:20).

Indeed the Peshitta seems to anticipate this when it substitutes the word 'Greek' and 'Gentile' for 'Syrian' throughout the Apostlikon:

Jews demand miraculous signs and Syrians look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Syrians, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Syrians, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.[1 Cor 22-24]

and again:

Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Syrian; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Syrian [Rom 2:9 - 10]

Was Syrian a technical term which perhaps meant or was related to the class of 'proselyte'? Perhaps but for the moment it is enough to say SINCE the 'Gospel of the Hebrews' is almost always taken to mean 'the Aramaic gospel' I think there is a possibility that the text was never identified by the Jewish-Christians by this title but more likely 'the Sursi Gospel' owing to the fact that Aramaean not only meant Babylonian but ALWAYS an 'outsider' and even - an enemy to Israel (aramy is frequently used to designate 'Rome' owing to self-censorship on the part of the scribes).

Origen references what he calls the 'Gospel of the Hebrews' on a number of occasions. He obviously used it as his preferred text. Origen was also a saris (a self-castrated man). A Sursi gospel would clearly have a second meaning of the 'gospel of the castrated' or the 'castrated gospel.' Jastrow compares it to the meaning of the Greek apokopos.

I wonder if the term had a double meaning that was known to Origen and his secret community of Christian eunuchs which included - according to Severus of Al'Ashmunein - the Patriarch Demetrius himself!

And Now to Prove There Really is a Sucker Born Every Minute ...

A Jewish nonprofit group whose leader was accused of fabricating dramatic stories about rescued Torahs has reached a deal with Maryland investigators forbidding it from publicizing such stories about sacred scrolls unless it can prove them.

Md. restricts Torah rescue claims

Original Story - Rabbi to the Rescue: Menachem Youlus is called the Indiana Jones of Torah recovery and restoration. But there are doubts about his thrilling tales.

The agreement ends an investigation into the Rockville-based Save a Torah and its driving force, Rabbi Menachem Youlus, often described as "The Indiana Jones of Torah Scribes."

The probe followed a January Washington Post Magazine article that raised questions about Youlus's stories of rescuing Torahs hidden, lost or stolen during the Holocaust. In one story, Youlus claimed to have found a Torah hidden under the floorboards of a German concentration camp barracks years after the buildings had been demolished. In another, he described digging up a mass grave in the Ukraine and finding a Torah wrapped in a "Gestapo body bag."

The Torahs were restored by Youlus, who owns a Jewish bookstore in Wheaton, and then sold to more than three dozen Jewish congregations and organizations, including Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Chinatown, Temple Isaiah in Fulton, Shaare Tefila in Silver Spring and several congregations in the Baltimore area.

Under the deal reached this month with Maryland authorities, Save a Torah "will only describe where a Torah is found . . . if there is documentation or an independent verifiable witness to such history." The agreement was signed by the offices of Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and Secretary of State Richard Morris and by Richard Zitelman, president of Save a Torah.

Voice mail and e-mail messages left for Zitelman and Youlus were not immediately returned, but the group began an internal probe after The Post's article ran. Its statement about the probe, which is on the group's Web site, says independent investigators "found no evidence to contradict any information provided by Rabbi Youlus to the purchasers of his Torahs." But the investigators, who examined 11 Torahs, also noted in their report that they could not verify the stories about how the Torahs had been found and rescued.

Asked whether the probe had found evidence of fraud, Gansler spokeswoman Raquel Guillory said only that the investigation is over and that the agreement "addresses all the concerns our office had and clarifies how the company will do business going forward."

The man who pushed for the investigation, Menachem Rosensaft, a vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, said Wednesday that he was disappointed that no one was charged but that he thought the agreement makes it clear that Youlus is a con artist.

"Those stories are not just fantasies but desecration of memories," said Rosensaft, a New York law professor. "You have well-meaning people who think they are commemorating victims of the greatest atrocity in history and instead have really turned out to be victims of a scam."

Rabbi Shoshana Hantman, who paid $6,000 for a Torah for her tiny congregation in Westchester, N.Y., also questioned why there were no sanctions or punishment and why the agreement doesn't note whether Youlus and the nonprofit will still be allowed to accept donations.

"We were hoping that he would have to either shut down his operations or stop accepting donations," Hantman said. "That would be our main concern, if he's still taking donations for what is essentially a bogus operation."

Over the past several years, the group has raised between $250,000 and $300,000 a year, including money from boys and girls making donations in honor of their bar and bat mitzvahs.

Hantman said she no longer believes that the Torah she purchased was found in a mass grave in the Ukraine, as Youlus told her. "But it hasn't changed our feeling about our Torah," she added. "We love it, no matter where it came from."

Staff writer William Wan and Post Magazine contributors Martha Wexler and Jeff Lunden also contributed to this report.

A Story on the Throne of St. Mark

The story appears here. I am glad that interest is being generated in this discovery I made in Venice. For me, it is like I uncovered an archaeological treasure hidden away in one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world! You know there was a time when I had crazy Evangelicals telling me I was 'reading into the symbolism' when I claimed that there were depictions of angels blowing shofars? Anyway, it's good that people are learning about this amazing ancient relic which connects Christianity to its original roots in Judaism in Alexandria.  If only we could rediscover the rest of the church - the Martyrium of St. Mark - where this object originally resided.  Maybe we will!  Let's wait until next year ...

50th Anniversary of Johnny Mathis' "Kol Nidre" Celebrated at Skirball, August 19

Original Story Here  LOS ANGELES, Calif.--In 1959, Johnny Mathis released “Kol Nidre"--the Aramaic prayer traditionally intoned at the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement--as a 7-inch single. Yes, that Johnny Mathis, best known for his romance-inducing, back-seat drive- in make-out music, who recorded over 130 best-selling albums.

In 2010, right around Yom Kippur and Johnny Mathis' 75th birthday, the single will be re- released as the cornerstone of Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations, a 15-track compilation curated by the critically acclaimed Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation and featuring tracks by the likes of Billie Holiday, Eartha Kitt, Jimmy Scott, Lena Horne and Nina Simone.

Mr. Mathis will take the stage at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles to receive an award and retell the lost story of how he came to record his belting version of “Kol Nidre." His appearance at the Skirball, where the Idelsohn Society exhibition “Jews on Vinyl" is currently on view, takes place August 19, as part of an evening long concert program, Jews on Vinyl Revue, featuring Hedva Amrani, Fred Katz and Sol Zim.

The story of the single is also the subject of a short documentary film at the centerpiece of an exhibit opening August 26 at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Based on the Black Sabbath compilation, the massive show will feature iPad apps crafted by Idelsohn Society member Courtney Holt, President of MySpace Music.

The Idelsohn Society was started by four record-collecting dumpster divers who sought vinyl gold in the nooks and crannies of thrift shops and flea markets across the country. The disc that birthed the entire project came to them by mail in a battered box stuffed with musty albums and singles: a 7-inch version of “Kol Nidre" by Johnny Mathis, backed by the Percy Faith Orchestra. The Society simply had to know more.

They soon discovered that the single was a European release from his 1958 album Good Night, Sweet Lord, a long player that featured such devotional classics as “The Rosary" and not one, but two versions of “Ave Maria." The Hebrew poem “Eli, Eli" and Yiddish favorite “Where Can I Go?" also sneak on, but it was Mathis' “Kol Nidre" that blew the Society members away. Mathis' rendition is simply majestic. By the end of the track, his signature sobbing sound, so seductive on hits such as “Chances Are" and “Gina," reduces even the hardiest of listeners to tears.

What also captivated the Society, beyond the singular beauty of the song itself, were the questions the record posed about process. How and why, at the height of popularity, would an African-American legend take the time to master Aramaic, Hebrew and Yiddish, and record tracks in those languages on a major label release?

Obsessed, and not to be denied, the group reached out to Mr. Mathis in the course of creating Black Sabbath and he was generous to indulge their line of questioning. They went to his home in Los Angeles to film him telling the story behind the recording, a story that involved a Christmas album; Mathis' mother; a Jewish bandleader, Percy Faith; a Jewish producer, Mitch Miller; and Mathis' memories of growing up and sneaking into temples to hear the great cantors.

This tale is just one of many told on Black Sabbath, which includes:

Billie Holiday's “My Yiddishe Momme," from a private recording made in 1956 when she was visiting the New York home of clarinetist Tony Scott, in which she drains the maudlin from Sophie Tucker's classic version, and rides the song like it's a wave of ache.

Eartha Kitt's “Sholem." Kitt was a deft polyglot schooled in at least nine languages including Yiddish. Sung by observant Jews on the Sabbath (the full title is “Sholem Aleichem: Peace Be Upon You"), the song dates back to the Kabbalists, first showing up on the page in 17th century Prague. But the chorus is also a common on-the-street greeting and Kitt mines both meanings here, even throwing in a bit of “Hava Nagila" for good measure. Her “Sholem" is not really a cover, more a mash-up: part old-school hymn, part street dictionary, part Jewish greatest hits, and part “Introduction to the Greetings of the Globe."

Lena Horne's “Now." Horne went to Israel in 1952 and was taken by what she called “history-in-the-making in a brand-new country." She visited kibbutzes and a camp for Yemenite children, where she saw “terribly oppressed people of color, people just emerging from the kind of bondage Negroes have been struggling so long to emerge from." Nearly a decade later, Horne decided it was the right time for her to leave RCA Victor and start singing more overtly political songs. Broadway vets Adolph Green, Betty Comden, and Jule Styne wrote her “Now!," an incisive rant against civil rights abuses that Styne composed to the otherwise joyous tune of “Hava Nagila." Horne performed “Now!" at a pair of benefit concerts at Carnegie Hall (she co-headlined with Frank Sinatra) and then cut it as a single. Santiago lvarez, an experimental Cuban filmmaker used the song as the score to his own “Now," a landmark 1965 newsreel collage of Black civil rights struggles that is considered a classic of Cuban cinema.

The Idelsohn Society's aim in this collection is to re-examine the recordings, the stories behind them, and the messages they communicate about the complex relationships between the African-American and Jewish communities in the post-war period.

The album Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations is available online Sat., Aug. 14, 2010.

The concert with Hedva Amrani, Fred Katz and Sol Zim, and Mr. Mathis accepting the Idelsohn Award, takes place as part of the Sunset Concerts series at the Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., on Thurs., Aug. 19, 8 p.m.; free, but seating is limited and there are no reservations. Parking at the Skirball is $10 ($5 for cars with at least three people). (310) 440-4500

The “Jews on Vinyl" exhibition at the Skirball is now open and runs through Sept. 5.

Yom Kippur is Sat., Sept. 18

Iraq’s last Sabeans take sad New Year dip in Tigris

Original Story Here - BAGHDAD: Sheikh Alaa Aziz was saddened by the sight of only a handful of fellow Iraqi Sabeans in simple white cloths dipping in the muddy waters of the Tigris in an ancient purification rite for their New Year.

“It’s a real tragedy to see our community being whittled down like this,” said the sheikh, the deputy leader of the Sabean minority which has an MP in the Iraqi parliament.

“Before, we would have crowds of people in the water from dawn till dusk,” he said.

“Here we are in the early afternoon and there’s nobody left already. It’s really sad, everybody is emigrating,” he said at Tuesday’s ritual on the Tigris riverbank in the Jadriya district of central Baghdad.

Also known as Mandaeans, the Sabeans traditionally speak a variety of Aramaic, the language of Christ.

They call Adam their prophet and revere John the Baptist – “saba” is Aramaic for baptise, “manda” means knowledge.

They trace their roots to pre-Christian times and some scholars believe the sect was a heretical branch of Judaism that spread south through the land of the two rivers, or Mesopotamia, in the second century AD.

At the start of the 1980s, they numbered more than 100,000 in Iraq but the community was already on the decline during the Iran and Kuwait wars waged by Iraq’s now executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

Already the community had been cut to no more than 35,000 members when the US-led invasion of 2003 toppled Saddam, with Sabeans spread in six cities: Baghdad, Arbil, Diwaniyah, Kut, Amara and Basra.

Today their numbers are estimated at around 5,000.

“We are a part of Iraq, and Iraq is a part of us,” said Sheikh Aziz, who was also dressed in white cloth and carrying a long cane in his hand.

“We have the same history, the same past and the same future, and we want security and stability to return to this country so that all the members of our community can reunite like one big family.”

Even their leader, Sheikh Sattar Jabbar al-Hulu, was not in the Iraqi capital for this week’s New Year rituals, which run for three days to mark the creation of the world.

He was with his family in Australia, home of the world’s largest Sabean community.

“Many members of our community have been killed, robbed or threatened. Fear is driving down our numbers,” said Uday Salam, 28, after submerging his head in the water three times “to purify the flesh, the soul and the spirit.”

“It’s mostly the young who are leaving,” said the Iraqi army officer.

In the upmarket district of Jadriya, where Saddam’s ministers used to have their homes, the Sabeans have a temple with a cross on the roof covered by white cloth to symbolise purity.

“Since 2003, about 800 members of our community have been killed because we have nobody to protect us. They have been killed by Al-Qaeda, other militias or mobsters,” said Seif Rifaat, 20, the community’s spokesman.

Their skill as goldsmiths has also made them targets. In April 2009, armed heists on two Sabean-run jewellery shops in Baghdad left seven dead, including three Sabeans.

The origins of the sect remain a mystery. According to their leaders, the religion was born in Mesopotamia, displaced to Jerusalem and then returned to its country of origin.

Now the Sabeans are scattered from Iraq to Australia, with communities also in Iran, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany. – AFP

Potential Donor Profile: Jeff Modisett

Harry and I are in the process of filling all sorts of grants for public funding for our effort to raise money to remove all the sand from the Martyrium of St. Mark, the original 'gnostic' church of Clement of Alexandria. We also hope to find the lost temple of Alexandrian Judaism near by in the waters.

I thought I would keep my readers appraised of some prominent members of society that I am in the process of hitting up for donations. I have been googling any possible patrons to help raise the $60,000 necessary to pay for the underwater expedition. I tried approaching all sorts of academics who might have an interest in this discovery but - surprise, surprise - scholars are not a wealthy lot.

That's why I am so intrigued with what I read about Jeff Modisett, a partner at Bryan Cave LLP whose success led to the following interview in the Los Angeles Business Journal:

What do you read?

I have found myself in recent years to be really fascinated with religious history. I’ve spent a lot of time reading, whether it’s the Gnostic Gospels, or “Evolution of God” by Robert Wright, or a lot of Karen Armstrong, like “The Battle for God.” It’s kind of a way of satisfying a part of me that used to get that satisfaction in church.

Why specifically religious history?

OK, fair question. The honest answer is that my youngest son became obsessed with a videogame called “Civilization.” So he started asking me all these questions about the beginning of civilization, the history of the Middle East, the Roman Empire, and it just got me thinking about it.

What’s the most interesting thing that you’ve learned?

The most interesting is to see the direct correlation between the growth of particular religions and politics. You know, why were the Muslims in Spain? And why were the Jews in Spain, and why were they driven out? In other words, a country has a particular religion now, yes, in part because of their belief in that religion, but you can’t remove that from the political history of that area. I mean, where would we be today if Constantine had not adopted Christianity? What if Henry VIII hadn’t changed the Catholic Church in England to the Church of England?

Do you practice now?

Oh, we experiment. We’ve gone up to some of the churches in the South Bay area where we live. I’ve also taken my son to the Lake Shrine up here on Sunset. It’s more of a spiritual enclave. The yogi masters, they don’t necessarily reject Christianity or Buddhism or Hindu. They try to see the commonality of religion.

Do you consider yourself a believer?

Still asking questions. There have been a lot of things written by Elaine Pagels, who’s an expert in Gnostic Gospels, and I think the idea there is you keep asking questions and looking inward for God, instead of outward.

Did you use to go to church regularly?

When I was in elective office. (Laughs.) We loved the church we went to in Indianapolis. It was a Methodist church and the minister there was the brother of Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, who was one of my inspirations in politics.

Are you saying you went more because of politics than personal belief?

No, not necessarily more. I think it’s fair to say that it just added to the experience.

Is it hard to balance work life and family life?

Yeah, but no harder than it is for anybody else. There are times when work suffers and there are times when family suffers, and you try to make sure that between the two that you err on the side of giving time to the family if you can.

Any interest in going back to public office?

Not really, because I found other ways to have an impact, and I still do work with attorneys general on a daily basis. And here in California you can spend $10 million on a primary and still not win. It’s just not feasible anymore.

JEFF MODISETT

TITLE: Partner

FIRM: Bryan Cave LLP

BORN: 1954; Windfall, Ind.

EDUCATION: B.A., UCLA; M.A., Oxford University; J.D., Yale University

MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSON: Earl Wysong, his high school social studies teacher. “He taught me to think for myself.”

CAREER TURNING POINT: Returning to Indiana to work for Evan Bayh’s gubernatorial campaign.

PERSONAL: Lives in Manhattan Beach with his wife, Jennifer, and two sons, Hunter and Haden.

Anyone who wants to make a donation please contact me at stephan.h.huller@gmail.com and I will direct you to Harry's organization the Hellenic Institute for Ancient and Medieval Alexandrian Studies.

Google funding for discovery of ancient texts online

Original Source Here - A University of Southampton researcher is part of a team which has just secured funding from Google to make the classics and other ancient texts easy to discover and access online.

Leif Isaksen at the University's School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) is working together with Dr Elton Barker at The Open University and Dr Eric Kansa of the University of California-Berkeley on the Google Ancient Places (GAP): Discovering historic geographical entities in the Google Books corpus project, which is one of 12 projects worldwide to receive funding as part of a new Digital Humanities Research Programme funded by Google.

The GAP researchers will enable scholars and enthusiasts worldwide to search the Google Books corpus to find books related to a geographic location and within a particular time period. The results can then be visualised on GoogleMaps or in GoogleEarth. The project will run until September next year.

"We are very excited about the potential of this project," said Leif Isaksen. "Up to now many ancient texts have been accessible only at elite institutions or have been very hard to find; now a much wider range of people will be able to discover them. This work will really help open up the field and lead to many further projects."

ECS will work on a Web Service and Web Widget for the project. This will make it possible for Webmasters to add links to the ancient texts within their websites, enabling the public and researchers to search for them easily. The Widget will also be embedded in the Hestia (Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Imaging Archive) and Open Context projects.

Leif Isaksen is completing a PhD at Southampton with Dr Kirk Martinez (ECS) and Dr Graeme Earl (Archaeology) on integrating archaeological data using Semantic Web technologies. “Google’s recent acquisition of Freebase, the Semantic Web encyclopaedia, means there is a range of exciting possibilities for convergence in the future,” he said.

Latest Kabbalistic Discovery - the Great Cosmic Snake (דרקון) Has a Numerological Value of 360

דרקון comes from the Greek word δράκων (dragon/snake) but interestingly when you transliterate the word into Aramaic the being has the name numerological value as the number of days in the solar year.

Someone in antiquity must have noticed this.

Much folklore worldwide depicts a great serpent that encircles the world. In this case where the snake swallows its own tail to form a circle, it is known by the Greek term Ouroboros, although the symbol first appeared in Ancient Egypt.

The First Hymn of Marqe ben Tute (Mark the son of Titus)

I will introduce the First Hymn of Marqe with a personal story. I didn't find the hymn, the hymn found me or more precisely - my Samaritan friend told me about it after he learned about my Agrippa theory. 

It all began in a Denny's restaurant in Florida (I think it was in Melbourne but it must have 2005). I was with my Samaritan friend. He had just ordered grilled fish from the menu (for dietary reasons). After hearing my usual round of stupid questions he stopped me and said there was something I ought to know. It was this hymn. He recited it to me but his English was so bad I couldn't make out all the nuances. It wasn't until a few years later when I managed to get my friend Ruairidh Boid to figure out what the Samaritan was on about. 

He actually took the time to translate all the important parts of the hymn. The comments that follow are his. I should say that Samuelsson's thesis about the inherent ambiguity with regards to old crucifixion references is applicable here. Both the Samaritan and the Samaritan expert take crucifixion to be the context of the hymn but the terminology reflects the ambiguity of the times. 

The original comments comments from the translator Boid after my request:

(a) The only hymn of Marqe’s I could find that fits what you said is no. I. This is recited in part on every Sabbath and every Festival. Notice this. At some time it must have been laid down that it had to be recited constantly. It will take me some time to translate. It has 22 verses, each with seven lines. 22 x 7 = 154.

This hymn speaks of death and destruction in the present, wrought by estrangement from the will of God, and urges a reversal of behaviour. One verse could be taken as referring to executions, depending on how you understand one word. This is the fifth verse. Other verses might refer to this, but not directly.

“As a consequence of the sins we have committed, we are afflicted (or punished) with the TShNYQYH. [Look up the root ShNQ in Jastrow]. We can’t blame your goodness. All the blame is on us, since we ourselves have made ourselves perish. If someone goes and hits himself, who can rescue him?”. 

Tashnîqayyå is the definite plural of T Sh N Y Q tashneq from the root Sh N Q. Ben-Hayyim is not at all convinced that it always means strangulation.

(b) The hymns translated by Kippenberg are from the collection called the Durran. They are very old. These are the hymns that talk about a very recent rejection of wrong religious practice or perhaps wrong doctrine.

(c) There is a lot of work to be done on the Samaritan liturgy. Life is too short.

Something different. The old Samaritan Hebrew to Aramaic dictionary of the Torah glosses Shilo as “the unsheather of the cross”. Any suggestions? Ben-Hayyim, followed as usual by Tal (who should have copied Ben-Hayyim’s thoroughness and rigour but didn’t) translates “the uprooter of the cross” saying (as a mere guess) that it refers to Muhammad. This makes no sense. How could the rise of Islam have been what took the sceptre away from Judah? The verb shin-lamed-pe usually means to unsheathe a sword, but can mean to take a shoe off or to pull something out of the ground. I think the plain meaning is that the reference is to whoever unsheathed the cross and used it like a sword to take power away from Judah or the Jews, but I can’t work out what exactly is meant.

I hope there a few people here at this site who are aware of the traditional implications of Shilo (not Brangelina baby). The name comes from the important reference in Genesis 49:10:

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shilo comes and the obedience of the nations is his.

The name Shilo is a numerological equivalent of Moses (i.e. they add up to 345) and is usually understood by Jews and Samaritans that the messiah/the one to come will be 'like Moses.' The Samaritans themselves allude to the fact that Marqe ben Tute (Mark the son Titus) was this figure (Mark = MRQH = 345 = Moses). The obvious question that Boid and I have is whether Mark is being cryptically referenced as 'the unsheather of the cross.' I just showed in another thread that Origen drawing from a first or second century Jewish history identifies Agrippa with the both Shilo and the messiah of Daniel 9:26. Rabbinic tradition echoes Origen's interpretation (the Samaritans didn't recognize Daniel). 

In any event without further ado here is Boid's translation of the Samaritan material. If anyone needs clarification about who the scholars Boid is referencing (Kippenberg, Ben Hayyim, Tal) just let me know.

The verses run from the first letter to the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet (i.e. alef to tav). The translated section begins at lamed (l):

Quote:

Hymn I by Marqe ... ל Punishments don’t disconcert the sinner, nor do wounds frighten him. He doesn’t take any notice. The rebel sees himself delivered up to punishments, and finds himself crucified.[1] He turns to his possessions(?) and knows that there is no enjoyment from it. מִ Death can be compared to a Priest making someone drink the Bitter Water of Testing.[2] Woe on whoever is found to have committed sin. Woe on all sinners, since they will be in great distress. The punishments they suffer are the result of all their offences. נִ The soul (or individual) stands dumbfounded. Those living are in great affliction, because the Good has turned his face away from them. If the Merciful does not save, and remember those that love him, all the sinners will bewail themselves, because they are in great distress. סִ The signs tell us that in this generation of ours there is not a single person not in partnership with sinners. The mothers and children, all of whom took part and rebelled,[3] they too are punished with[4] crucifixion.[5] עִ The fact is that by our sins we are the ones that are the murderers, murderers of the silent and those that can speak. Innocent animals or children that have never sinned, or young adults of good descent, suffer for sins they never committed. פִ It is the Age of Disfavor[6] that has brought all this suffering about. The fruit of the womb is stopped, and the fruit of the earth destroyed. Every place is becoming accursed for us. The mouth of punishment is open before, ready to swallow up the baby with the old man. ר Merciful and Good, treat us justly and well as is your nature. We can’t withstand this judgment. A leaf on a tree startles a sinner, so how can we withstand judgment that startles the world? Treat us justly and well, so that we aren’t crucified [6] by punishments[7]

ADDITION: There are some more lines on the same theme in Verse Kaf and Verse Tsade, but they don’t add anything new.

[1] The word from the root tsade-lamed-bet in Verse Lamed is מצטלבה miṣṭållēbå. It is a perfectly normal ethpa’al participle (to use Syriac terminology) equivalent to the Hebrew hitpa’el. The t.et is an infix. It is the tav of the hitpa’el or ethpa’al which moves to AFTER a sibilant and changes its form to match the sibilant. Here it changes from tav to tsade. Next to zayin it will change to dalet. The only difficulty is the suffix, which in form is either feminine indefinite or masculine definite. The second grammatical interpretation of the suffix gives “The rebel sees himself vulnerable to punishments, and knows that he himself is the one crucified”. The first interpretation gives the meaning, “and knows that his identity is crucified”. The word translated “he himself” or “his identity” can only be interpreted from the context and a grammatical analysis of the components of the word, since the usage here is not attested elsewhere.
[2] I have translated according to the traditional Samaritan etymology and understanding, which is not far from the traditional Jewish understanding. Disregard the mangling by most modern translations. This is water that is drunk to establish innocence. It has a tiny little bit of the dirt of the ground round the Sanctuary in it, as well as something to make it bitter, from memory I think wormwood. A guilty person is afflicted by it. (It was a wonderful device for clearing people of slander). The innocent person unjustly accused is given better bodily and mental and spiritual health by it. (This is one of the hints of resurrection in the Torah, and Marqe seems to have it in mind along with the other meanings). The false accuser who has sworn a false oath or committed perjury or conspiracy is struck by afflictions or even in some cases death. The passage in the Torah is in Numbers. I will look up the reference later. There is a lot of traditional theory not stated in the words of the Torah but agreed on by Samaritans and Jews
[3] tashnîqayya. This is the traditional Samaritan understanding here, but Ben-Hayyim argues for the meaning “burnt up”. The Aramaic verb is apparently from the root tsade-lamed-bet, and this is how the Samaritans understand it. Ben-Hayyim thinks this to be a phonetic variant of tsade-lamed-he-bet in this place, but it seems to me that he is scratching round for alternatives to the traditional understanding because he can’t see the relevance of it
[4] maradu
[5] or 'suffer'
[6] Fanuta a core Samaritan theological concept history being divided into periods of favor and disfavor. 
[7] verb is shin-nun-qof
[8] The verb shin-vav-bet is Hebrew. The Aramaic equivalent is tav-vav-bet. The participle of the Aramaic verb is Ta’eb. I think your question is whether the Aramaic tav-vav-bet occurs. No. In Verse Yod the verb h.et-zayin-resh is used to mean returning to God or repenting. This is the usual Samaritan theological equivalent of the Hebrew shin-vav-bet when writing in Aramaic. The word Ta’eb does not mean someone that repents. It means someone that comes back again. It is used in the the extant texts in the sense of someone that makes something come back again, the Tabernacle or the Ruuta. That is grammatically impossible. In that meaning the af‘al participle would be needed (=Hebrew hif‘il), i.e. metib. This means the original meaning of the return of Moses has been deliberately obscured.

The Jewish History of Justus of Tiberias and Agrippa's Messianic Claims [Part One]

Until you write a published book you can't possibly know what it's like to have the fluid thoughts in your head 'frozen' in a time capsule. It's a very strange feeling. The circumstances surrounding the publication of the Real Messiah were very unusual to say the least. I sent out a random email. The publisher immediately sent an email to me and had me on the next plane to London. The next thing I knew I was with my agent, her boyfriend and the publisher sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun.

While we were talking strangely enough a Coptic priest of Scottish descent came along and asked us a question about something. It was very strange.

In any event, when I look at my book I can't help but feel now that there are many things I would change. Typos that somehow managed to get past the editor. All and all I am quite happy with the book. I can't help get the feeling though that I would have approached matters differently if it were a publisher of academic books, a university press of some sort.

The reason I say this is because I would have liked to emphasize Origen's testimony to a much greater degree. I really think it is decisive. The unfortunate thing of course was that I couldn't get my hands on the Latin version of Origen's Commentary on Matthew. We were rushed and the book had to get to press but I want to take a moment to walk my readers through the implications of this evidence.

If you get a copy of what passes as Origen's Commentary on Matthew you get an English translation of a Greek manuscript that ends prematurely. The Latin continues where the Greek leave off and contains a number of startling references including a variant section of the Rich Youth from the Gospel of the Hebrews (Mark 10:17 - 29) and of course a reference a 'Jewish history' known to Origen which identifies Agrippa as the messiah.

My information of the material comes from Adler and Vanderkam's the Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage which introduces the information in a section which deals with the messianic claims of the Herodian monarchs. We read:

... the tradition about Herod's Ashkelonite background was further proof of his ignoble character. But once infused with Christian content, the tradition of Herod's foreign background and his relationship to Gen 49:10 and Dan 9:24-27 decisively influenced the development of one stream in Christian interpretation of Daniel's apocalypse of weeks. In an apparent allusion to it in his Commentary on Matthew, Origen acknowledges that some interpreters of Dan 9:26 identified the 'coming prince' with Christ. But if Christ had been meant, Daniel would certainly have used the the appropriate messianic title to refer to him. The figure should instead be identified either as Herod or as Agrippa (the latter, he says, on the authority of a 'Jewish history.') In either case, it was with one of these foreign rulers that the oracle of Jacob was fulfilled. [The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage p. 235]

There are a number of starling things which come out of this discussion. It is important to note that Montgomery interprets the material in the same was as Adler [Montgomery The International Critical Commentary on Daniel, p. 399] and places this reference in his discussion of Daniel 9:26. The most obvious is that Origen doesn't make any reference to two Agrippas (as for instance Eusebius would later make from his copies of Josephus). 'Agrippa' is the one Agrippa of the rabbinic tradition - Marcus Julius Agrippa, the king at the time of the destruction of the temple.

Origen seems to imply that 'Agrippa' was not only the mashiach nagid (מָשִׁיחַ נָגִיד) of Daniel 9:26 but the world ruler of Genesis 49:10. Both points resurface in Origen's De Principiis but Agrippa is no longer explicitly mentioned. Of course when we compare the existing Greek and Latin translation of the original material it is clear that the text was constantly being edited to purify it from signs of 'heresy.' So you never know Agrippa might have been explicitly referenced in the original manuscript. It is difficult however not to see that he is in the back of Origen's mind.

After all in the course of discussing Genesis 49:8 - 12 Origen reference what appears to be a contemporary argument made by pagans that Agrippa did not represent the end to the Jewish monarchy. Some would apparently argue that the Imperial appointed 'Ethnarch' represents the continuation of the 'scepter' residing with Judah so Origen writes:

And what need is there to mention also that it was predicted of Christ as that then would the rulers fail from Judah, and the leaders from his thighs, when He came for whom it is reserved (the kingdom, namely); and that the expectation of the Gentiles should dwell in the land? For it is clearly manifest from the history, and from what is seen at the present day, that from the times of Jesus there were no longer any who were called kings of the Jews; all those Jewish institutions on which they prided themselves--I mean those arrangements relating to the temple and the altar, and the offering of the service, and the robes of the high priest-having been destroyed. For the prophecy was fulfilled which said, "The children of Israel shall sit many days, there being no king, nor ruler, nor sacrifice, nor altar, nor priesthood, nor responses." And these predictions we employ to answer those who, in their perplexity as to the words spoken in Genesis by Jacob to Judah, assert that the Ethnarch, being of the race of Judah, is the ruler of the people, and that there will not fail some of his seed, until the advent of that Christ whom they figure to their imagination. But if "the children of Israel are to sit many days without a king, or ruler, or altar, or priesthood, or responses;" and if, since the temple was destroyed, there exists no longer sacrifice, nor altar, nor priesthood, it is manifest that the ruler has failed out of Judah, and the leader from between his thighs. And since the prediction declares that "the ruler shall not fail from Judah, and the leader from between his thighs, until what is reserved for Him shall come," it is manifest that He is come to whom (belongs) what is reserved--the expectation of the Gentiles. [De Principiis 4.1.3]

Origen is strangely placed in a position where he has to defend the idea that Agrippa - rather than ethnarch - represented the end of the Jewish monarchy and as we see in what follows, that he was the messiah naggid of Daniel 9:26 also "and according to Daniel, seventy weeks were fulfilled until (the coming of) Christ the Ruler."[ibid 4.1.5]

Adler's description of the contents of the Latin version of Origen's Commentary on Matthew seems to match perfectly the arguments that Origen makes in De Principiis. They reflect a knowledge of Hebrew that is very rare among the early Church Fathers. Origen is finally acknowledging what Jews have said for centuries - namely that Daniel can only be referring to a secular monarch. The prophesy cannot possibly fit Jesus nor indeed can Genesis 49:8 - 12.

It is terribly unfortunate that I don't have access to the original Latin but Adler includes a portion of it. The first cited refence:

Sed et civitas et sanctum corruptum est cum superveniente postes duces populo illi, sive Herode sive Agrippa (hunc enim dicit esse historia Iudaeorum). (Origen Commentary on Matthew ser 40 (81. 9 - 11) on Matthew 24:15 - 19 [The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity p. 235]

Adler notes that "it is regrettable that Origen fails to specify here the author of the Jewish history" but adds further that Origen repeatedly draws from this source. In another place Origen says 'Refurtur ... ab his qui Iudaicam historam conscripserunt'" (ser. 41 (82. 13 - 15). The one thing I would like to have of course is the original context of these statements. I'd like to know how exactly Origen introduces these ideas to his audience.

Nevertheless when we stop and think the discovery is pretty impressive especially when Adler himself seems to think that Justus of Tiberias is the most likely candidate to be the author of this 'Jewish history.' Alder writes that "although little is known about Justus of Tiberias, it is tempting to trace the story to him ..." While this reference is rather brief, I think that there a lot of circumstantial reasons for thinking Origen is reading Justus's Chronicle and I will present those arguments in my next post.

But just consider this for a moment - whether it is Justus or Josephus, it is undoubtedly a very, very early work which makes the argument that Agrippa rather than Jesus fulfilled the Jewish prophesies. Origen even seems to give tacit approval to these sentiments.

Is it only me who sees the implications of this argument?