Messianic Math [Part Two]

Every once and a while at this blog I attempt to dig a little bit into the truths that actually founded Christianity. Of course I don't mean attempting to prove that there was a historical Jesus. What difference does it make whether Jesus was a living man?

These people just don't get it.

Christianity was something developed in the consciousness of the real messiah of the tradition - Mark the evangelist. Whether Jesus was a man, a monkey or Metatron really should make little or no difference to us.

Christianity was the development of Mark's attempt to become the successor to Moses. We needn't have any interest proving whether or not there was a historical Jesus any more than we do that there really was a column of glory leading the children of Israel out of Egypt.

The way that one finally understands the origins of the Christian paradigm is by going back to the original mystical truths that were known to the earliest generations of believers. There can be no doubt that the crossing of the sea was the ultimate source for Christian baptism. The epistle to the Corinthians makes this explicit in chapter ten. But how many 'experts' in the fields of New Testament and Patristic scholarship have any idea what the original beliefs of the ancient Hebrews actually were? Not many I am afraid. Indeed there is a whole undiscovered continent awaiting our exploration.

In a previous post I mentioned that the head of the living Samaritan tradition - the late first century Marqe son of Titus - makes reference to an early Alexandrian tradition which noticed that the number eight stood at the head of the Song of the Sea. Marqe cites both the Hebrew and Greek translations of the opening words of the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1):

Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD

Marqe in Mimar Marqe II.7 starts with the first two words in Hebrew

אָז יָשר

and then in Greek:

τότε ᾖσε

Marqe then points out in how many different ways the number eight can be demonstrated as being present here starting with the Aramaic form of 'then' in the Targum:

טטעַ

This has a value of 88 (= 70 + 9 + 9)

Then he points out that 'then' in Hebrew אָז has a value of 8 (= 7 + 1)

Marqe also keeps mentioning the Sabbath and the start of Creation but no one has ever been able to figure out what the great kabbalistic secret he is revealing to his readers. I am certain he is interested in the very Christian understanding of the 'revelation of the ogdoad' - i.e. the number 8:

אָ + ז = 8
ט + ט + עַ = 88

Now Marqe must have noticed than 'then' in Greek i.e. τότε only adds up to 675:

675 = τ (300) + o (70) + τ (300) + ε (5)

But the whole phrase 'then sang' in Greek actually adds up to the magical number 888:

888 = τ (300) + o (70) + τ (300) + ε (5) + ᾖ (8) + σ (200) + ε (5) = 888

I happened to revist this tradition tonight and wondered whether this magical number 888 also appears somewhere in the Hebrew version of the Song. I suspect early Christians would have used this to justify their baptismal practices. I looked at the first few words in Hebrew and found nothing. But then I started thinking that it might be more appropriate to find the 888 at the end to signify the end of their journey. Sure enough I started counting backwards from the last letter and there it was:

כי בא סוס פרעה ברכבו ובפרשיו בים וישב יהוה עלהם את מי הים ובני ישראל הלכו ביבשה בתוך הים

40 + 10 + 5 + 100 + 6 + 400 + 2 + 5 + 300 + 2 + 10 + 2 + 6 = 888

In other words, in the same way as the ancient Hebrews have always believed that the Egyptians were drowned in the sea, the end of the Song of the Sea has the magic number - the number 888.

Now why does this matter? I think early Christians were using this to demonstrate the idea that baptism - the ritual imitation of this historical event - represented the union of man with God.

Take the well known mystical mathematical formula 345 + 543 = 888

The name Moses or Mark has a numerical value of 345 = M (40) + Sh (300) + H (5) - or - Mark M (40) + R (200) + Q (100) + H (5).

The Jews and Samaritans have always been obsessed with the number 345. They also were very aware that the mirror image or palindrome of that number - 543 - represented the highest power in the Jewish godhead - אהיה אשר אהיה 'I am that I am.'

I started thinking about the traditions of my ancestors and I remembered that in studying the weekly Torah-portion, they read each verse shnaim mikra ve'echad targum ("twice in the [Hebrew] original and once in [Aramaic] translation." The acronym for this custom is shemot, which means "names."

Shemot is it itself is the name of the second of the Five Books of Moses (Exodus). In the Torah-portion Shemot, Moses is born, receives his name, and asks God to reveal to him His Name, the Name of redemption (Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, "I shall be that which I shall be," which equals 543, the "mirror image" of Mosheh = 345).

As I have shown from the Samaritan writings themselves last month, Mark the Samaritan (Marqe) used the LXX to show that the number 888 appeared at the beginning and the end of the Song of the Sea.

Why was he so interested in this number?

I demonstrated that according to the Samaritan exegesis the Lord of Glory entered the sea and had fire mingle with the water to ultimately glorify the ancient Israelites. Now I am starting to wonder whether the original Samaritan concept - long before the advent of Christianity - was that God Almighty became one with Moses:

345 + 543 = 888

That's why the number 888 appeared at the beginning of the song. 888 is an expression of the concept of mortal and immortal uniting in one body. (Eph 2.14 - 16)