Some Interesting Leads to Follow With Respect to the Person of Morton Smith

I don't know why I am throwing this out there. Maybe someone wants to follow this stuff up and report back here. Here is what came out of calls this week:

• a claim that Morton Smith was married which an eyewitness claims to have heard from W D Davies of the Union Theological Seminary.  I have also been told that Morton Smith once laughed off this rumor when it was brought to his attention. 
• the earliest gossip I have found which identifies Morton Smith as a homosexual comes from 1973 and was related to the publication of Jesus the Magician. 'Mortie's book reflects what went on in his mind' said by David Noel Freedman
• Morton Smith was respected by all but liked by few.  He lived in a tidy and very neat apartment in New York by himself.  All his acquaintances were fellow academics. 
• I am certain I have found Morton Smith's female love interest and quite possibly a clandestine lover.  Still working on developing that but it is a very tricky business. 

There's more but I have to go take care of family business right now. 

A Note to Self While Carrying Out My Research Today

Have been on the phone for most of the afternoon doing phone interviews for the new book on the Mar Saba controversy.  One thing that is becoming increasingly clear.  In order to write an interesting book you have to write a compelling narrative.  Yet to write a compelling narrative you have to be able to explain the motivation of the central characters and therein lies a serious difficulty.

For it is far more difficult to make sense of Morton Smith than cracking the context of the Letter to Theodore as a second century Alexandrian text. I think that's why all the 'hoaxers' focus so much attention on Smith. He is an enigma. But not all enigmas are bad. Indeed enigmatic things, things which lie hidden and protected from the outside world through a hard outer shell once boiled and 'cracked' are very tender and soft on the inside. Case in point - most varieties of crab.

Jesus Announcing that He Has a Baptism 'to Baptize In It' Immediately Preceding the Question of the Rich Youth (Mark 10:17 - 31)

We have already noted that the Question of the Rich Man necessarily appeared at the beginning of a new year. This is reflected in the Arabic Diatessaron as well as other sources. We surmised that the first part of the gospel narrative dealt which Jesus announcing and then once the narrative went into the 'second part' (i.e. the New Year) all the things 'prophesied' in 'part one' finally came to pass.

Now if someone were to question - what are the things that were prophesied in the 'first part' of the gospel which are finally revealed in the second, the obvious answer is the Passion of Christ (cf. Mark 8:31 - 33 etc.):

He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!”

Yet it must be also recognized that in Ephrem's Diatessaron and other 'super gospel' narratives another act fulfilled in the new year was Jesus's baptism of the disciple he loved:

'I have a baptism, to baptize in it; and how shall I endure until it is accomplished?'

Of course the saying appears here in the Pistis Sophia in a slightly different form in the canonical gospel of Luke and again later in the canonical gospel of Mark.  As Mary explains it references Jesus as baptizer not baptized - "Thou wilt not remain in the world until the baptisms are accomplished and purify the perfect souls."

It is interesting to note that the equivalent of this saying is placed in the Arabic Diatessaron in section 27 - a mere ten short lines before the new section which we noted begins the new year:

I am come to cast fire on the earth. What will I that it burn?' I have a baptism, to baptize in it; and how shall I endure until it is accomplished?

Interestingly Ephrem interprets the two lines as a reference to a spiritual form of baptism, where 'fire' represents the Holy Spirit:

Two words again our Lord spake—which in one voice agree in unison:—He said, “I am come to send fire,”—and again, “I have a baptism to be baptized with.”—By the fire of Baptism is quenched the fire,—that which the Evil One had kindled:—and the water of Baptism has overcome—those waters of contention—by which he had made trial—of Joseph who conquered and was crowned [Hymn 7.7]

Yet the original saying - or at least an earlier variant of it - was that Jesus had come to baptize not 'be baptized with.'  As we have noted at length elsewhere there are persistent reports from the time of Irenaeus that a sect associated with Mark understood these sayings to point to another baptism beside that associated with John the Baptist (Irenaeus AH 1.21.2; Anonymous Treatise on Baptism 14,16)

I think the placement of this saying just before the Question of the Rich Youth cannot be coincidental (Diatessaron 28).  Indeed even more significant perhaps is the fact that while Irenaeus attempts to prove the error of the heresies by pointing to Mark 10:38's reference to the baptism as being yet unaccomplished:

“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

It is worth noting that in Ephrem's parallel reading in the original Syriac Diatessaron the saying concludes with 'Can you drink the cup I drink' or:

And Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am to drink? (section 30)

This must have been the reading of the Alexandrian 'mystic' gospel of Mark too which explains why Irenaeus identifies the 'redemption' baptism of the Marcosians as taking place in the same section of Mark chapter 10 (AH 1.21.2)

The point I want to stress again to my readers is the unrecognized 'dividing line' before and after the Question of the Rich Youth. All the events of Jesus's ministry before the Question of the Rich Youth represent the announcement of the 'year of favor.' All things that happened in 'Part Two' of the narrative take place in the Jubilee year.

More on that later ...

Shutting Down All the Humanities Departments As a First Step to Improving the Study of the Mar Saba Document

Given the recent 'success' of the Secret Mark conference in Toronto ('success' being defined by the organizers as attracting fifty people besides the ten panelists) I thought I might ask an important question which will help define the study of the Mar Saba document into the future.  Do humanities scholars really have more integrity than the rest of us?  I ask that of course because the history of the document as been quite sordid ever since its discovery.  What I mean by that of course is that whether you are someone who promotes the 'hoax hypothesis' and feels that a scholar as well respected as Morton Smith could have forged one of his discoveries or if you are someone who defends the authenticity of the Mar Saba document and feels that the text has suffered as a result of a 'vendetta' against it or Morton Smith on behalf of conservative evangelicals - the humanities as a whole have come out looking rather badly.

I happen to think that the only way things will get better after we shut down the all the humanities departments in all the universities or at least 'outsource' the study of the document to China or some other country that might have developed a better crop of scholars when compared with those in North America.

The one bit of good news that comes out of the Secret Mark conference is that Timo Paananen is blogging again. Indeed one may even hope that given salainenevankelista.blogspot.com massive popularity in Pakistan we might hope for Timo to be an ambassador of sorts not only for the humanities but for western culture in the sensitive business of relations between Christian and Muslim cultures.

Indeed it is amazing enough that after a six month absence from blogging Timo managed to draw all sixty people who attended the Secret Mark conference to sky rocket his Alexa ranking from zero in April to a ranking more than twice as high as this blog.  Maybe that's because most people will only trust someone who is enrolled in a doctoral program at a respected university.  Maybe it's because Timo's posts are so much more insightful and have a special appeal to the people of Pakistan.  Indeed when we do a search at alexa.org for Timo's site we get the following information:

salainenevankelista.blogspot.com

Salainenevankelista.blogspot.com 

Salainenevankelista.blogspot.com has a three-month global Alexa traffic rank of 3,361,902, and the site has attained a traffic rank of 41,508 among users in Pakistan, where almost all its audience is located.

3,361,902 Alexa Traffic Rank

41,508 Traffic Rank in PK

19 Sites Linking In

Now I want my readers to absorb how incredible it is that a site which deals with an obscure document from recent Christian apocrypha (and a text which my mother would misidentify for the title of a Three Musketeers book) could have its entire audience located in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.  And look at the bald statement at the Alexa summary - "the site has attained a traffic rank of 41,508 among users in Pakistan, where almost all its audience is located." Almost all of the readers of Timo's blog are located in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.  That is simply incredible.

It is owing to the incredible popularity of salainen evankelista that I think we should make Timo Paananen not only the ambassador for a new era of integrity with respect to the scholarly study of the Mar Saba document but moreover, a cultural ambassador on behalf of the West to the entire Muslim world.  If Timo can accomplish this sort of fanatical following at the heart of the Muslim world, just think what he could do with more pressing difficulties.

For in order to fully comprehend the accomplishment that Timo has achieved let's compare his statistics to those of the official government website of the nation of Pakistan itself for a moment.  It has only a slightly better ranking than Timo's site (36,135 as compared with 41,508):

pak.gov.pk

The Government of Pakistan 

About The Government of Pakistan (pak.gov.pk): About the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, its component departments, the economy, cultural heritage, tourism, the Kashmir conflict and the latest press releases.

Pak.gov.pk's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 648,026. The site has attained a traffic rank of 36,135 among users in Pakistan, where roughly 83% of its audience is located, and visitors to this site view 1.4 unique pages each day on average. Pak.gov.pk has a relatively good traffic rank in the city of Islamabad (#3,225). The site's content places it in the “Government” category of websites.

648,026 Alexa Traffic Rank

36,135 Traffic Rank in PK

416

You see this is why Tony Burke was so correct in only showing respect to 'professional scholars' and limiting the participation in his little gathering (otherwise known as 'a field trip for Tony Burke's students') to 'accredited academics.' You see members of the rabble like you and me can't be trusted with this text. We have to be very cautious to limit debate and meaningful dialogue to those who have been properly developed in the institutions of higher learning. Otherwise all the dishonest people would corrupt the study of the text with their untrained eye.

It seems so obvious to me now. Everything is going perfectly well in the study of the Mar Saba document. It's not the system that's to blame - it's those of us out in the general public who with our unrefined sensibility can't help but think we should padlock all the humanities departments in all the universities.

It's like the old joke - what do you call a hundred lawyers up to their neck in sand? Not enough sand. What do you call ten thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. (Unless you are an environmentalist; then you would consider this indiscriminate dumping of hazardous waste) ...

Against Morton Smith's 'Libertine' Interpretation of the Letter to Theodore

I can't tell you how worthless Morton Smith's interpretation of the context of the Letter to Theodore is. He may have been 'one of the great historians of religion' or whatever else they say about him, he may have written his thesis on tannaitic parallels with the gospel but I don't think understood Judaism and because of that he missed the boat on the Letter to Theodore.

Judaism is slavery. Christianity was originally conceived as its awaited redemption. This is the only starting point to make sense of how one tradition developed from the other. I really don't care what white people say about 'Jesus the Jew' and the other nonsense they develop in the universities. I stand above them both in terms of authority and living experience.

So it is that when we go through the contents of the Letter to Theodore it is obvious that we are standing very close to ground zero in Christianity. In other words, the Carpocratians or whatever name they actually identified themselves by, are really promoting a Jewish redemption theology. It's the Church Fathers like Clement who misrepresent the freedom associated with the sect.

I mean these aren't things that most people know about because most people will fall asleep reading the writings of the early Church Fathers after a few a sentences. It would be like parachuting into a partisan debate in Bulgaria. You have one side saying all sorts of horrible things about the other with only a grain of truth at the core.

Let's go through the argument that Clement develops against the Carpocratians step by step shall we. We start with the mention that the sect has:

unspeakable teachings [to Theod. I.2]

The word here for 'untouchable' can refer to something holy or wholly despicable. Clement is probably turning around an original reference to the sacredness of the 'mystic' gospel of Mark and the teachings of the sect. The point is that he is turning around a Carpocratian statement about sacredness into something to prove them despicable.

This 'turning around' of ideas associated with heresy is a common practice among the Church Fathers and in the writings of Clement of Alexandria particularly. In Stromateis Book Three Clement turns around a Carpocratian interpretation of Mark 10:17 - 31 as a proclamation in favor of religious communism into an exaggerated claim about the sects interest in having ritual orgies and the 'sharing of bodies.' As Ferguson in his translation of Book Three notes Clement has to stoop to using Epictetus's complete misrepresentation of the Platonic ideal in the Discourses to get there. Yet the point again is that we have to recognize that there is a pattern of misrepresentation in the writings of Clement. The Letter to Theodore is by no means an isolated example of this.

To this end we see the clearest statement of the actual context of the Carpocratian notion of 'redemption' in the sentence that immediately follows in Clement's letter:

For these (i.e. the Carpocratians) are the "wandering stars" referred to in the prophecy, who wander from the narrow road of the commandments into a boundless abyss of the carnal and bodily sins. [to Theod. I.3,4]

Obviously the first part of this statement is a reference to the statement in the Book of Jude regarding heretics who will corrupt the primitive Christian agape with sexual license (the whole sentence in Jude reads "They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever"). Clement is using the authority of Judas, the supposed bishop of Jerusalem and brother (or relative) of Jesus to condemn these heretics. But that shouldn't mean that we simply accept the claims that develops about their beliefs.

The second part of the sentence is critical here:

[those] who wander from the narrow road of the commandments into a boundless abyss of the carnal and bodily sins

The point is that these Carpocratians are alleged to have effectively argued - the gospel means freedom from the Law - and their 'redemption' is now alleged to have included ritualized sexual license. Yet I want to stress again that we needn't accept any of these claims as 'fact.' The only common point of agreement likely was the business about 'the gospel meaning freedom from the Law.'

I want to stress again that Judaism is and was nothing more than a cult of slavery. I say this as an authority. I am not getting my information from a 'course' in university but from personal experience. If you are observant you can't do certain things, you can't eat certain things, you can't govern your life with any degree of independence. It's enslavement and don't let any Jew tell you otherwise.

In ancient times the slavery was especially severe for proselytes who really had no rights to speak of and were treated - for lack of a better word - like shit by the Jewish authorities. Christianity according to the Marcionites (Tertullian Against Marcion 3.21) was an appeal of liberation directed at the oppressed proselyte population within Judaism. This explains finally why Tertullian developed an original treatise against the Jews (An Answer to the Jews) and the Marcionites (Against Marcion Book Three).

The point is that we can't afford to be so misguided as to confuse the differing characteristics that appear in Patristic refutations of the various sects and the actual beliefs and characteristics of the sects themselves. People will tell me that the Marcosians and the Marcionites can't be one and the same sect because the report of Irenaeus with respect to the Marcosians (AH 1.13 - 21) is so different in tone and character from Tertullian's information about the Marcionites. But this utterly moronic. Both sects represent traditions attached to someone named Mark who identified the awaited 'redemption' from Judaism as being present in the gospel immediately before or around Mark 10:35 - 45 (i.e. Salome's request for the enthronement of her sons). This can't be coincidental.

The problem of course is that ninety nine percent of the people studying and interpreting the writings of the Church Fathers believe that these people were inspired by the Holy Spirit. That kind of belief is not going to help in developing critical interpretations of the subject matter.

So getting back to the characterization of the Carpocratians as a bunch of sexually depraved lunatics and the Marcionites as a bunch of Jew-haters, a lot of this develops as a result of careless reading on the part of the modern interpreters of the Patristic source material. Yes, the Marcionites ultimately rejected the authority of the Law and the prophets. But that doesn't mean there was any personal animus in this decision. Like many messianic movements within Judaism there was certainly a belief that when the messiah comes the authority of the Law ends. In the same respect there are many examples of licentious sects within messianic Judaism. The coming of the messiah is always linked to the 'redemption' of the Jubilee.

The thing you can't allow your eyes to divert from is the fact that the term gospel literally means 'the announcement of the Jubilee.' This is the underlying formula that leads to the reports of antinomian exegesis within Marcionitism and sexual license associated with the Carpocratians. It would not appear not at all unlikely to me that the two sects used a common gospel - in short, the 'mystic' gospel of Mark.

A Must Read Post at Markus Vinzent's Blog

I was one of the first to tell you about Markus Vinzent's blog and his new book. Now you can see why this is big news. In his latest post Professor Vinzent is comparing the Marcionite gospel with Luke and Mark (you see why German scholarship is light years ahead of the stupid North American variety). Who cares about the Secret Mark conference. Seriously. It's scholars like Vinzent who are going to change the world. But remember - Vinzent's greatness is easily explainable. It's not coincidence that he is set apart from the other crud. He can speak and read German. That's what it all comes down to (and not like when north Americans tell you they 'understand German').

It is in the German language where all the meaningful scholarship on Marcion has been developed for the last century and a half. It will always be that way because Germans are quite frankly superior intellectually to everyone else. I'm not hinting at a racial superiority of course. I had relatives in Dachau and Auschwitz for God's sake. But the German language is simply more precise and scientific. All the greatest thinkers in my opinion have always been German speakers. I think it comes down to German being a superior communication medium.

I better quite while I'm ahead ...

Why the Experts Have Lost Exclusive Rights to Make Pronouncements About the Mar Saba Document (And Think Anyone Will Give a Rat's Ass)

The York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series is starting in Toronto today and I have to admit that I have had mixed feelings about the event for some time now.  I happen to know that some very interesting things are going to emerge from this conference and I thank the organizers for making this happen.  Nevertheless as pathological as this might sound to many - I think that I and people like myself - deserved to have a voice at the conference too.

I can't speak for the organizers of course but it is apparent from the way they arranged its grueling schedule that the time slotted for questions will occur about an hour after everyone will get a headache from hearing about Secret Mark and want to go home.  I really think I have stumbled upon the proper exegesis of the Letter to Theodore.  I hope to prove that the text demonstrates quite clearly that St Mark wrote his gospel with the Book of Joshua on his mind.  I believe this is the most plausible and reasonable interpretation of the text that is out there.  Yet the organizers of the conference certainly didn't think so and will never accept this idea, this even though I am a graduate of the university which is hosting the event (I had such beautiful hair back then).

Now I have to admit that I do have a propensity for emotional outbursts. My Greek language skills are not up to the level of many at the conference. I do not hold a degree in a field that has anything to do with early Christianity or the study of the Bible. As anyone can tell you who attended Glendon College during my four years there I spent most of my time hitting on women and hanging around the cafeteria. I went into the academia inheriting unrealistically high ideals about the nature of higher learning and walking away being in favor of closing all the humanities departments.

So enough about me (I remember Ingrid Hjelm, the wife of noted Biblical scholar Thomas L Thompson, treating my contempt of Biblical scholarship as a sign of a psychological disorder). If it wasn't for the fact that I come from a tradition of heretics that dates back to at least the eighteenth century, I suppose I wouldn't even be entitled to an opinion in Canada.  But let's turn around the original question.  What do authority do any of the people on this panel have to determine the authenticity of the Mar Saba document?  It's just a chance for these people to gather a forum 'to be heard.'

Here's what I say.  Professional scholarship have lost exclusive rights to the Letter to Theodore.  They had fifty years to get their act together and they just simply blew it.

I was reading an interview with Morton Smith from 1973 which someone posted somewhere on the internet. My opinion about Smith have changed somewhat over time.  As I have developed my own interpretation of Secret Mark - i.e. as proof that the gospel genre developed from the Book of Joshua - I now blame Morton Smith for the 'shroud of controversy' that hangs over the text.

Smith's interpretation of the document is plainly stupid.  To argue that a text that makes no mention of magic is really about magic exemplifies in many ways the worst qualities of modern scholarship.  I ask myself now, why couldn't he just have translated the damn text at the earliest date possible - let's say 1960 or something and then subsequently pen his misguided interpretation of the material any time thereafter?  Wouldn't that have save us this last twenty years of studying in the wilderness?

As Watson notes in his recent article, the effort of the last generation of 'hoaxers' has been to embarrass the document, embarrass those who use it and shame those who might want to know more about it.  Yes of course - it's always bad to have malice guide scholarly investigations.  But wouldn't the Mar Saba document's difficulties have disappeared if it wasn't Morton Smith that discovered it?

Of course hindsight is twenty twenty.  We can't pick our parents and ancient lost manuscripts can't pick the people who discover them.  I don't believe for a minute that Morton Smith forged the document and I don't think that the controversies that have followed Mar Saba 65 are unknown to other major major discoveries of manuscripts in the field of Biblical scholarship.  Just look at the battles which erupted over the rights to have access to the Qumran texts. Look at the pettiness that emerged with respect to the Gospel of Thomas. 

Scholars in the field of the humanities don't seem to live in the same world with the rest of us. The isolation that spending too many hours in the library impressed onto their brain crept into their hearts and their souls.  Let's face it.  No one but a worm or a rat would want to climb the garbage dump that is life in a humanities department.  When they finally 'make it' of course they take on the worst qualities of the nouveau riche.  These former slugs want to cultivate a culture of 'elitism' to disguise their former subterranean lifestyle.

So it is that we're told that they're having a Secret Mark conference in Toronto.  But they want to limited it only to those who play the scholarly game.  You can see it in the recent exchanges between conference organizer Tony Burke and Timo Paananen (whom I adore). Tony apologizes on Timo's blog:

BTW, the goal of the event was to bring together North American scholars on the text. Had we the desire (and the money) to bring in international scholars, we certainly would have invited you also.

Of course as as I said earlier, I think Timo would be a great addition to any conference on Secret Mark. But let's be honest - there is someone who is even more deserving.  I am talking about Roger Viklund whose series of online articles debunking Stephen Carlson's alleged "forger's tremor" is really what changed the tide on Secret Mark scholarship.

But Tony Burke doesn't write to Viklund that he'd be invited if the conference was open to people outside of North America.  Of course he's not invited.  Roger's not one 'good people' who have decided to devote their lives to masturbatory studies in the university. Yet it was Viklund who debunked the central claim in favor of forgery, the one that all those who wanted to write off the document used to help write off the document for many years. His efforts will likely never get recognized by the history books.  Instead we'll hear about Scott Brown and Stephen Carlson and the rest of the elites.

I have learned to embrace Scott Brown's research and even come to accept him as a great contributor to the discussion.  Yet I have to note that he exhibits these same elitist tendencies as the rest of them.  Scott barely even gave Roger a mention in his recent BAR article even though it was Roger who ultimately discovered the straw which broke the camel's back of the forgery proposition.

Yet what I am telling you know is that it was we bloggers - Roger, Timo and myself - who really changed the history books.  It was the freedom which only exists in the blogosphere which allowed those who weren't deemed worthy of participating in these elitist forums to transform the way that the world looked at the Mar Saba document.  People like Tony Burke don't care much about the common man and it shows in the ultimate success of this conference which you see shine forth in Burke's muted confession in his most recent post:

The first York Christian Apocrypha Symposium (featuring the Secret Gospel of Mark) takes place in just a few days. Everything is in place for the event and we hope for it to go off without a hitch. We should have an audience of about 60 people, which is respectable for our first event in the series. I will blog fairly regularly (for a change) over the next few days to let everyone who could not attend know how it is going (or went). To whet your appetites for Friday's papers, visit Timo Paananen's Salainan evankelista blog for a discussion of the symposium and an update on recent on-line scholarship on the text.

Also, we have created a facebook page for the series (search for "York Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series"). I hope you will "like" it.

Wow a Facebook page.  I heard that's what the young people think is 'cool.'  Maybe a small portion of the sixty losers who decided to endure this Secret Mark marathon will 'friend' us over here.

Sixty people. That almost equals the number of birthers who were convinced by the release of the long form of Obama's birth certificate.  Well, you reap what you sow as they say.  But you just wonder - do people like Tony Burke 'get it'?  If they don't I will explain it to them.

The world has changed.  The experts have lost exclusive rights to make authoritative pronouncement about something they used, abused and through away.  As we noted there is blame to pass around everywhere.  Morton Smith should have simply translated the text and shared it with everyone when he first discovered it instead of developing an irrational sense of ownership to the point that he became identified as its author. Those who rightly rejected his ludicrous interpretation of the text should also have been able to separate his exegesis from the text itself.   Indeed they should have stopped themselves from crossing the line by making a personal attack against Smith the basis for a claim against the authenticity of the discovery.

But in the end we can blame the organizers of this conference.  If they really set out to make this a small, insignificant gathering that's fine by me.  I am just glad I didn't shell out a thousand dollars for a weekend in Toronto.  I am sure many of you were thinking of going but in the end also decided it just wasn't for you.  People organizing a conference such as this in the future will have to decide who their audience is and whether it is worth losing it in order to flatter the very people who poisoned the well with respect to 'Secret Mark.'

So let me send a message to the organizers of today's conference.  You no longer have the authority to make pronouncements on Secret Mark.  Your day has come and gone.  We the general public will not allow you to pretend that your little cabal represents the last word on the authenticity question or any other question with respect to the Letter to Theodore.  You lost the right to make authoritative pronouncements on the very text you have bungled and neglected for twenty years.  You ape the example of Morton Smith, trying to make a name for yourselves rather than let the document speak for itself.  Indeed you failed to invite the one man who might bring Clement to life for your audience - Bogdan Bucur - a recognized authority on the Alexandrian writer who lives within a car ride of Toronto.

The bottom line is that we need more Clement of Alexandria and less modern scholarship. You can all try to make a name for yourselves but at the end of the day it just gets in the way of us hearing Clement speak.

And isn't that what real scholarship is supposed to be about?

How Secret Mark Helps Explain Why the Gospel Was Originally Called 'the Gospel of Jesus'

We have been talking about the structure of the 'gospel of Jesus' and noting how the narrative from Mark 10:17 - 31 bears a striking resemblance to the conquest of the Holy Land in the Book of Joshua. This can't have been a mere coincidence. I know there is always hostility to 'source criticism' in Biblical studies especially when there are so many people arguing for all kinds of crazy theories about pagan and mythical 'sources' for the gospel. Nevertheless it is impossible to argue that anyone claiming to be the messiah could have done so without referencing or making the case that he fulfilled core Biblical narratives.   In short, to argue that Mark developed 'the Gospel of Jesus' narrative from the account of Joshua in the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua is hardly a scandalous assertion.  I'd argue that right at the outset, without presenting a single bit of evidence it not only 'has a lot going for it' as it were - it becomes a highly probably theory of how the kind of sources the original gospel writer would have drawn from, period. 

I have shown the way the earliest references in the Church Fathers to the Joshua-Jesus parallel developed their ideas from Philo of Alexandria.  While it is typical of New Testament scholarship (which generally dismisses an Alexandrian origin for Christianity) to ignore the influence of Philo over this core concept in Christianity, I think this state of affairs is most unfortunate.  For Clement of Alexandria in the Letter to Theodore makes perfectly clear that at least one draft of the 'Gospel of Jesus' (cf. Mark 1:1) was written in Alexandria.  Was Mark influenced by Philonic conceptions of a mystical kabbalistic hypostasis named Ἰησοῦς (and thus having a numerical value of 888) or embodied in the tenth letter of the alphabet (i.e. yod or iota) which originally came upon Oshea of Moses's original college of 'the Twelve'?  I certainly think so.  Indeed I know so now.  I can't see how the evidence can be refuted.

Already Irenaeus makes plain that a group of 'heretics' - likely originating from Alexandria and associated with a 'Mark' who claimed to be a mystagogue and to alone know the truth about Ἰησοῦς emphasized the kabbalistic interpretation of both the name and the numerology associated with it from the time of Philo.  I have also noted in previous posts that the Samaritan writings of a 'Mark' of unknown provenance but likely Alexandria betrays a similar interest in the number 888 and 10 from words and phrases in the LXX version of the Pentateuch. 

The point of course is that New Testament scholars typically only draw from what they call 'reliable sources' when they reconstruct their models for how 'Mark wrote the original gospel.'  As such, given the low estimation that these 'reliable source' have for the 'Marcosians' and Samaritans - almost all of whom are 'Fathers' of the Catholic Church and thus opposed to this 'heretical' interest in numerology - their reconstruction of the motivation and even the personality of the historical 'St Mark' is fundamentally flawed.   Indeed the reason I say this is not because I 'like' the heretics but because again Philo's kabbalistic interpretation influenced all early discussions of the Joshua-Jesus paradigm even supposedly 'orthodox' Church Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen and Eusebius. 

Indeed I find it horrifying that scholars can just push to the side the basic understanding that emerges from these sources with respect to the very origin of the concept of the 'divinity' of Ἰησοῦς.  In other words, Bruce Chilton, Craig Evans and a host of other 'popular' evangelical scholars can write book after book about 'the Jewish Jesus' and emphasize his birth from a mother, his brothers and his mortality without even so much as acknowledging that there was this other tradition firmly founded in the earliest Patristic witnesses and going back to the apostles and even before the advent of Christianity which basically said that Ἰησοῦς - the figure revered in the Church since the Passion was really the Divine Name and not a human being per se.

I know these people are going to pounce on that last statement and say that no Church Father would ever have publicly acknowledged that Ἰησοῦς was just the Angel of the Presence, or just the divine Word or the like but it is impossible to argue that this understanding is lurking in the darkness.   I see no evidence that Clement actually believed that Ἰησοῦς was a man born to Mary.  We have demonstrated over and over again that this earliest representative of Alexandria perfectly witnesses the traditional emphasis on the divinity of Ἰησοῦς which was well established in later periods. 

Of course it should be obvious to anyone that if we had access to the Christians of Alexandria before Clement and before the age when the Church of Rome began to assert itself, we would see the complete liberation of the Ἰησοῦς hypostasis understanding.  This understanding is grounded in Philo's claim that Ἰησοῦς was given to Oshea as reward for his loyalty to Moses and his adorning of the name was likened to putting on new clothes or taking a purifying bath.  I see the same conception also in the work known to scholars as Pseudo-Philo in its account of Joshua taking on his name Ἰησοῦς.

We are told by James Charlesworth that "Pseudo-Philo exists in eighteen complete and three fragmentary Latin manuscripts, all apparently of German or Austrian origin.  The oldest are dated to the eleventh century, while the most recent are from the fifteenth century."  Charlesworth dates the text to the first century CE and everyone has always assumed it goes back to a Greek exemplar and possibly a Hebrew original.  The section we are interested resembles the gospel insofar as Joshua thinks that Moses has died and God comes to him and comforts him by telling him:

Moses is dead.  Take his garments of wisdom and clothe yourself, and with his belt of knowledge gird your loins, and you will be changed and become another man. Did I not speak on your behalf to Moses my servant, saying, This one will lead my people after you, and into his hand I will deliver the kings of the Amorites?

And Joshua took the garments of wisdom and clothed himself and girded his loins with the belt of understanding. And when he clothed himself with it, his mind was afire and his spirit was moved, and he said to the people, Behold the first generation has died in the wilderness because they have spoken against their God. And behold now, all you leaders, know today that if you proceed in the ways of your God, your paths will be made straight. But if you do not heed his voice and you become like your fathers, your affairs will be spoiled and you yourselves will be crushed and your name will perish from the earth. And where will the words be that God spoke to your fathers?

For even if the gentiles say, Perhaps God has failed, because he has not freed his people - nevertheless they will recognize that he has not chosen for himself other peoples and done great wonders with them, then they will understand that the Most Powerful does not respect persons; but because you sin through pride, so he took away his power from you and subdued you. And now rise up and set your heart to walk in the ways of your Lord, and he will guide you.

And the people said to him, Behold we know today what Eldad and Modad prophesied in the days of Moses, saying, After Moses goes to rest, the leadership of Moses will be given over to Joshua the son of Nun. And Moses was not jealous but rejoiced when he heard them. And from then on all the people believed that you would exercise leadership over them and divide up the land among them in peace. And now even if there is conflict, be strong and act manfully, because you alone are ruler in Israel. On hearing these words Joshua decided to send spies into Jericho.

And he summoned Kenaz and Seeniamias, his brother, the two sons of Caleb, and he said to them, I and your father were sent by Moses in the wilderness, and we went up with ten other men. And they came back and spoke badly about the land and discouraged the heart of the people, and they and the heart of the people with them were discouraged. But I and your father alone fulfilled the word of the Lord, and behold we are alive today. And now I will send you to spy out the and of Jericho, Imitate your father, and you also will live. And they went up and spied out the city. And when they brought back word, the people went up and attacked the city and burned it with fire.

I know this is very difficult parallel for some people to see but that is only because they been fed 'baby food' regarding the gospel for most of their lives. I am now giving them the metaphorical 'strong meat' of understanding.

When you really look at the gospel narratives it is uncanny how similar Jesus and Moses appear when you compare them with what is universally regarded by Jews with respect to the 'job' of the messiah. Moses does not enter the Promised Land in the same way as Jesus appears to fail with respect to appearing as the fulfilment of the ages of expectation of the messiah who was 'the king of Israel.' While Moses does not end up being crucified of course, I would argue that the new information that we are given with respect to Jesus's initiation of a chosen disciple into 'the mystery of the kingdom of God' parallels the laying of hands of Moses on Joshua in Deuteronomy 34:9. The notion that Joshua "was full of the spirit of wisdom" from this ordination has been transformed by the reference to the image of clothing and the reference to the "transformation into another person."

I want to stress to my readership that both references are extremely significant to earliest Christian literature. Not only is baptism always identified as 'unclothing' and 'reclothing' oneself with the spirit but it also worth noting that it finds an uncanny echo in the Diatessaronic Transfiguration narrative which borrows a similar description from Luke:

And after six days Jesus took Simon Cephas, and James, and John his brother, and brought them up into a high mountain, the three of them only. And while they were praying, Jesus changed, and became after the fashion of another person; and his face shone like the sun, and his raiment was very white like the snow, and as the light of lightning, so that nothing on earth can whiten like it. And there appeared unto him Moses and Elijah talking to Jesus.

There are a great many things we should say about this narrative but most importantly it should at least considered that the original author of the gospel knew of the Pseudo-Philonic narrative or something like it and has now foreshadowed the coming transformation of the angelic power Ἰησοῦς into another person - or if you prefer the language of the prologue to the gospel - the Word becoming flesh. 

We should remember that the earliest 'heresies' did not think that Ἰησοῦς was a man.  His coming to earth represented - as we have seen - the return of the angelic hypostasis Ἰησοῦς that transformed Oshea, the chosen one of the Twelve, into the second Moses.  It is worth noting that in Ephrem's Diatessaron the voice from heaven clearly acknowledges not our familiar praise of a single man Jesus - viz. "This is my beloved Son, whom I have chosen; hear him" - but as we see in many other early Syriac witnesses the two figures illustrated in the transformation display - i.e. "My Son and my beloved."

There can be no doubt that this originally was a foreshadowing of the chosen disciples baptism and reception of the Ἰησοῦς entity. In other words, the original gospel writer was reworking the lore surrounding Deuteronomy 34:9 as we just saw but with respect to a baptism ritual connected with Joshua's ultimate crossing of the Jordan on the 10th of Nisan. This is the principal reason I believe the Letter to Theodore is authentic - it supports an underlying appropriation from the tradition surrounding Joshua the Son of Nun to facilitate the establishment a 'successor to Jesus the Son of God' after he appeared crucified in Jerusalem during the Passover of 30 CE.

There are only minor differences here. The most obvious being of course that while Jesus tells his disciples about his 'death' quite publicly, he only takes one chosen disciple for ordination in private. Yet the question of why the ordination should be moved to the date of Joshua's crossing of Jordan needs also to be addressed. The original 'laying on of hands' by Moses to Joshua the son of Nun occurs at the end of the year before the crossing into the Promised Land. In the gospel of Jesus which Clement claims Mark wrote in Alexandria the ordination occurs at the beginning of the new year. We must now inquire what reason could there be for Mark to make a complete departure from the original narrative of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua.

The most obvious answer to some might be that 'real events' were dictating Mark's narrative writing. In other words, Mark had to report the ordination as occuring in Nisan because that's when it actually happened. That may well be the case of course but I think there is another layer to the appropriation that we should start to address here and complete in our next post.

We have noted that the Vatican copies of the Diatessaron have a marginal note from some scribe familiar with the Diatessaron traditions which said basically that the Question of the Rich Youth (Mark 10:17 - 31) represents 'the second part' of the narrative. We have been specualting for a while now that the reason for this is that Mark 10:17 - 31 actually took place on the first of the first month of the Hebrew calendar. In other words, the rich youth has come of age (i.e. twenty) and has to give his half shekel to the temple as required by Jewish law (Exodus 30) and wants to know as a hitherto obedient Jew whether or not this act with assure him of 'redemption' (ἀπολύτρωσις) the very term followers of Mark used for the baptism ritual that preceded Mark 10:35 in their gospels.

What I will now suggest in my next post is that not a single New Testament scholar has bothered to notice that the Samaritan understanding of the term besora - universally regarded as the original corresponding to for 'gospel' in Aramaic (cf. Isaiah 52:7) - associates it with the Hebrew concept of 'the year of Jubilee.' In other words, the break which occurs before Mark 10:17 - 31 corresponds to the new year which is a jubilee (cf. Luke 4:17 - 21). This is why Jesus goes into a synagogue at the beginning of his ministry in 'part one' of the gospel - i.e. the year before the Jubilee and reads from Isaiah chapter 61. Every single knowledgeable commentator on this section including the current Pope of the Catholic Church recognizes that this a reference to the Jubilee which will be ushered in at Jesus's crucifixion (cf. also Irenaeus's discussion of its citation of Isa 61:3 among the followers of Mark and their emphasis on a one year ministry of Jesus).

What people haven't put together yet of course is how the idea of an original 'Gospel of Jesus' limited to a year long ministry for Jesus and written by Mark at Alexandria necessarily explain why Jesus ordination of a succesor differs from that of Moses' original 'laying on of hands' of Oshea in the first day of the eleventh month. As we read of what remains of the Samaritan Book of Joshua:

At the completion of the hundred and nineteenth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, of the life of our master Musa the prophet- peace be upon him- God revealed unto him in the plain of Mab (Moab), that he should lay his hand upon the head of Yush'a, the son of Nun, the spiritual man; meaning by this, that he (Moses) should give him (Joshua) information of the profound secret, and revealed to him the vision of his dream and the science of knowledge, as much as he was capable of bearing; by the which his heart would be strengthened and his spirit perfected and his soul elevated, and the rule over the creatures (the children of Israel) be rendered easy unto him; and that he should also inform him of the Name, by which he should put to flight hostile armies, and by which a nation that no country could contain and whose numbers were countless might be confounded. And He ordered him(Moses) to set him (Joshua) before el-`Azar (Eleazar) the imam- peace be upon him- and to assemble unto him (Joshua) the people of learning and knowledge with the nobles and rulers, and ratify a compact with him, and make a new covenant with him, and invest him with the kingly authority, and install him in the rule over all the children of Israil.

We shall demonstrate in our next post that Mark is still arguing that all of what happened to Oshea with respect to receiving the Ἰησοῦς spirit was a prelude for what would happen in the messianic era.   Indeed, as we have noted this description of the 'mystery of the kingdom of God' was incorporated into longer Mark's original baptism narrative.  It also needed to do so in a Jubilee year according to a very specific theological purpose.

Proving that Mark 10:17 - 31 Took Place at the Beginning of the New Year

We have just examined the surviving Vatican manuscript of the Diatessaron and noted that this gospel harmony actually divides the narrative of the ministry of Jesus into two. The second part of the gospel begins just before the Question of Rich Youth (Mark 10:17 - 31) where we read in the margin in another hand:

This is the beginning of the second part of Diatessaron, which means The Four. '[Diat.28.1]

Now we should correct ourselves right there and say that this 'Arabic Diatessaron' does not have Mark 10:17 - 31 immediately after these words. In fact we find John 7:2 - 31 in between the beginning of the 'second part' and the Question of the Rich Youth.  I will cite the material in full for those who have never read it before.  The rest of you can just skip down to follow the continuation of my argument:

And at that time the feast of tabernacles of the Jews drew near. So the brethren of Jesus said unto him, Remove now hence, and go to Judaea, that thy disciples may see the deeds that thou doest. For no man doeth a thing secretly and wisheth to be apparent. If thou doest this, shew thyself to the world. For up to this time not even the brethren of Jesus believed on him. Jesus said unto them, My time till now has not arrived; but as for you, your time is alway ready. It is not possible for the world to hate you; but me it hateth, for I bear witness against it, that its deeds are evil. As for you, go ye up unto this feast: but I go not up now to this feast; for my time has not yet been completed. He said this, and remained behind in Galilee.

But when his brethren went up unto the feast, he journeyed from Galilee, and to came to the borders of Judaea, to the country beyond Jordan; and there came after him great multitudes, and he healed them all there. And he went out, and proceeded to the feast, not openly, but as one that conceals himself. And the Jews sought him at the feast, and said, In what place is this man? And there occurred much murmuring there in the great multitude that came to the feast, on his account. For some said, He is good: and others said, Nay, but he leadeth the people astray. But no man spake of him openly for fear of the Jews.

But when the days of the feast of tabernacles were half over, Jesus went up to the temple, and taught. And the Jews wondered, and said, How doth this man know writing, seeing he hath not learned? Jesus answered and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

Whoever wisheth to do his will understandeth my doctrine? whether it be from God, or whether I speak of mine own accord. Whosoever speaketh of his own accord seeketh praise for himself; but whosoever seeketh praise for him that sent him, he is true, and unrighteousness in his heart there is none. Did not Moses give you the law, and no man of you keepeth the law? Why seek ye to kill me? The multitude answered and said unto him, Thou hast demons: who seeketh to kill thee? Jesus answered and said unto them, I did one deed, and ye all marvel because of this. Moses hath given you circumcision (not because it is from Moses, but it is from the fathers); and ye on the sabbath circumcise a man. And if a man is circumcised on the sabbath day, that the law of Moses may not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I healed on the sabbath day the whole man? Judge not with hypocrisy, but judge righteous judgement.

And some people from Jerusalem said, Is not this he whom they seek to slay? And lo, he discourseth with them openly, and they say nothing unto him. Think you that our eiders have learned that this is the Messiah indeed? But this man is known whence he is; and the Messiah, when he cometh, no man knoweth whence he is. So Jesus lifted up his voice as he taught in the temple, and said, Ye both know me, and know whence I am; and of my own accord am I not come, but he Arabic. that sent me is true, he whom ye know not: but I know him; for I am from him, and he sent me. And they sought to seize him: and no man laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. But many of the multitude believed on him; and they said, The Messiah, when he cometh, can it be that he will do more than these signs that this man doeth? [Diatessaron 28.2 - 32]

So we are no standing where we left our investigation in our last post. We suspect that the 'two parts' of the gospel narrative are divided according to the Jewish New Year (i.e. 1 Nisan). Yet the strange placement about a story which took place in the seventh month (i.e. John 7) doesn't necessarily help our argument.

Or does it ...

In our last post we noted that we hadn't consulted a much earlier version of the Diatessaron, the one cited in Ephrem the Syrian's Commentary on the Gospel of Concord. While Ephrem (b. 306 CE) does not cite the entire contents of the Syriac Diatessaron used in Catholic Churches in the Near East he does sketch the order and the contents of the entire narrative. It is universally acknowledged that Ephrem's text is more primitive. Sometimes the material differs markedly from both Arabic Diatessaron and canonical gospels. As it turns out Ephrem's version of Diatessaron 28/John 7 is one of those major variants.

If we read Ephrem's commentary very carefully we can be absolutely certain that his gospel's version of Diatessaron 28/John 7 was actually set before the Passover of Jesus's Passion. In other words, the words Jesus tells his disciples that he is not going to the Jewish Passover rather than the Feast of Tabernacles as all known manuscripts read. Ephrem writes:

"I am not going up during the feast," (var John 7:8) that is to the cross. He did not say "to the feast," but "during the feast." "For, even his brothers did not believe in him. But they were saying to him, No one does anything in secret" [var John 7:5, 3 -4] They were seeking him in order to hand him over. Therefore he deceived them, I am not going up. "But he went up secretly," (cf John 7:10) so that it might be confirmed that they were going to hand him over.

Now I have searched high and low to see if any other scholar picked up what I see in the material.  No one noticed ti before.  Yet as I have already noted, this is not a reference to an appearance of Jesus at the feast of Tabernacles. Ephrem clearly and expressly states that Jesus says 'I am not going to the Passover' i.e. the one in which he will be crucified on the cross. There is no doubt that at least some of the rest of the material in John 7 is retained, but Ephrem knew the passage as preceding Passover rather than Sukkot.

Of course I know that most people's instincts are to say 'well Passover begins in the middle of Nisan' not the beginning.  But the reality is that this was not so true in contemporary Jewish and Samaritan culture.  Exodus 12 as we have already noted connects Passover with the coming of the first month:

This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household [Exodus 12:2,3]

We also saw that Samaritan and Qumran texts originally reflected not only an original significance to the 10th of Nisan but moreover that the first of Nisan was originally the first day of the Ordination Festival which originally lasted until the 8th of Nisan. Indeed we know from the ancient work known as Megillat Ta`anit the first eight days of Nisan were designated as a time of great rejoicing. It has long since disappeared from Judaism along with the importance of selecting the lamb on the tenth of Nisan.

In my mind there is no doubt that it was this festival which must have been the one that was originally referenced in Diatessaron 28/John 7. There are two very strong reasons for accepting this aside from Ephrem testimony cited above that when Jesus said 'I am not going up to the festival' he meant the Passover. The first is that Clement knew 'the gospel' to have narrated a year long ministry for Jesus. Yet it is well documented that Ephrem (Sermo 13) and the early Syrian Church (cf Abgar, Cyrollinas) shared this view. The point then is that it is simply absurd within a year long ministry to have Jesus go up at the beginning of section 28 of the Diatessaron to have an account of Jesus at Sukkot (which is in the seventh month) and then immediately followed by Jesus answering the question of Rich Youth just before Passover.

Perhaps we should bring back our chronology of events and sayings from the Arabic Diatessaron beginning in section 28 from our last post in order to help explain how Ephrem's earlier Diatessaron differs from it.  Here is the order of material as it appears in the Arabic Diatessaron.  The numbers on the left hand side are just a way to show that one passage follows the other:

1. “This is the beginning of the second part of Diatessaron, which means The Four.” '[Diat.28.1]
2. Historical Marker - Feast of the Tabernacles [Diat 28.2 - 32] John 7
3. Parable of the Rich Fool [Diat.28.33 - 41] Luke 12
4. Question of the Rich Youth [Diat. 28.42 -29.11] Mark 10
5. Rich Man and Lazarus [Diat 29.12 - 26] Luke 16
6. Parable of the Vineyard [Diat 29.26 - 42]  Luke 16/Matt 20
7. Jesus Saying Sheep in the Ditch [Diat 29.43 - 48] Luke 14
8. Saying about Inviting to Feast [Diat 30.1 - 25] Luke 14
9. Continuation of (8) with more material from Matthew [Diat 30.26 - 30] Matthew 22
10. Historical Marker - "And after that, the time of the feast of unleavened bread of the Jews arrived, and Jesus went out to go to Jerusalem. And as he went in the way, there met him ten persons who were lepers, and stood afar off" [Diat. 30.31] John 5.1
11. Healing of the Samaritan leper [Diat 30.32 - 39] Luke 17
12. Foretelling of Passion [Diat 30.40 - 45] Mark 10:32 - 34
13. Question About Enthronement [Diat 30.46 - 31.6] Mark 10:35 - 45
14. Going about the villages of Jerusalem [Diat 30.6 - 14] Luke 13
15. Zacchaeus at Jericho [Diat 31.15 - 24] Luke 19:1 - 10
16. Sees blind man coming out of Jericho [Diat. 31.25 - 35] Mark 10
17. Nearing Jerusalem Parable [Diat 31 36 - 52] Luke 19
18. Jesus enters Jerusalem [Diat 32]

We have already noted that Ephrem's parallel section seems to have (2) as a reference to the approaching of Nisan and the series of festivals that marked that month in the contemporary Jewish calendar.  We have already thrown out (10) because it is simply trying to break up a long section of material from synoptic sources all of which reinforce a ministry of a single year.

The point then is that Ephrem's much earlier Syriac Diatessaron not only reflects a one year ministry for Jesus, it does so with a streamlined text.  Now it has to be recognized that the following represents only passages that Ephrem decided to reference.  There might have been passages that he omitted to saying anything about or were later removed by subsequent editors of the text.  Nevertheless we can be certain that the 'historical markers' (highlighted in blue above were not in the text).  Here is the order in Ephrem's Syriac Diatessaron.  We have inherited the list from the previous ordering and left blank the references that don't appear in Ephrem's Commentary.  The Commentary has (2), (4), (5), (6), (13), (16) and (18) follow in the exact order shown:

1. 
   
2. Historical Marker (Applied to a Festival in Nisan) John 7 
3. 
   
4. Question of the Rich Man 
5. Rich man and Lazarus
6. Parable of the Vineyard
7. 
   
8. 
   
9. 
   
10. 
    
11. 
    
12. 
    
13. The Request of James and John
14. 
    
15. Zacchaeus
16. The Blind Man of Jericho
17. 
    
18. Jesus Enters Jerusalem

The point I want to make here is that Ephrem's Diatessaron clearly follows a chronological ordering which assumes not only a one year ministry but which reflects the idea that the marginal note in the Vatican copy of the Diatessaron likely represents a break at the beginning of Nisan.

The second argument which reinforces this understanding is that we see Matthew 17:25 - 27's reference to the half-shekel temple almost immediately preceding the break in  the Vatican manuscript.  Indeed it is not only the Arabic Diatessaron that does this.  We see for instance in Ephrem's Commentary the following order of material before the material cited above from John 7

1. Temple Tax Matt 17:25 - 27
2. Discussion About Divorce Mark 10:2 - 5
3. Parable of the Ten Drachmas Luke 15:4 - 10
4. Parable of the Two Sons Luke 15:13 - 14
5. Parable of the Unjust Steward Luke 16:1, 4 - 7
6. Forgiveness of Sins Matt 18:21, 22
7. Prayer Alone and in Common Matt 18:20, 10
8. The Galileans Killed By Pilate Luke 13.1; Luke 14.10
9. Parable of the Barren Fig Tree Luke 13:6, - 8
10. Historical Marker (Applied to a Festival in Nisan) John 7 
11. The Question of the Rich Youth

Indeed when you look at this list of narratives there is not a single reference again to an 'act' of Jesus.  They are all either parables, sayings or historical references which have nothing to do with Jesus.  It should also be noted that (6) the discussion of the Forgiveness of Sins uses imagery and allusions which reinforce that the New Year was a Jubilee which we will note in our next post.

The point of course is that Clement of Alexandria - clearly using some 'gospel harmony' of his own or that of the Alexandrian community already connects (1) and (11) in his Homily on Mark 10:17 - 31 Quis Dives Salvetur:

Therefore on hearing those words (i.e. Mark 10:21), the blessed Peter, the chosen, the pre-eminent, the first of the disciples, for whom alone and Himself the Saviour paid tribute, quickly seized and comprehended the saying.

Clement understands there to be only one year to Jesus's ministry and connects the recent payment of the temple tax with the discussion on eternal life in Mark 10:17 - 31.  Clement's student Origen clearly connects the temple tax with the Passover in his Commentary on Matthew 13.

I am now quite certain that in the earliest gospels the Question of the Rich Youth occurred on or near the first of the first month.  The context of the question is - does paying the half shekel temple tax really achieve 'redemption' for the individual?  Jesus's answer is clearly no, you have to give up everything. It can't be achieved with just the giving up of a token amount for the temple.