Like valleys that stretch afar, like gardens beside a river, like aloes that the LORD has planted, like cedar trees beside the waters. Water shall flow from his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. God brings him out of Egypt
And then - if we follow the text - we see that when Balak gets frustrated with Balaam's vision, Balaam actually brings forward an even clearer vision of what for early Christians must have been the understanding of Jesus the divine hypostasis coming to the Eretz Israel:
"And now, behold, I am going to my people; come, I will let you know what this people will do to your people in the latter days." And he took up his discourse, and said, "The oracle of Balaam the son of Be'or, the oracle of the man whose eye is opened, the oracle of him who hears the words of God, and knows the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down, but having his eyes uncovered: I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh: a star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab, and break down all the sons of Sheth. Edom shall be dispossessed, Se'ir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed, while Israel does valiantly. By Jacob shall dominion be exercised, and the survivors of cities be destroyed!" ... And he took up his discourse, and said, "Alas, who shall live when God does this? But ships shall come from Kittim and shall afflict Asshur and Eber; and he also shall come to destruction." Then Balaam rose, and went back to his place; and Balak also went his way [Numbers 24]
The immediate context of course is arguably Joshua's impending conquest of Eretz Israel. Yet later Jews and Christians clearly remember an argument which connected Balaam and his prophesy with Jesus the Son of God.
So how was this concept in Numbers 24 further developed in the Common Era into the familiar Christian concept of the 'kingdom of God'? There really can be only one answer - the description of Joshua's crossing of the Jordan and capture of Jericho in the Samaritan Book of Joshua. It is only the uncontrolled tendency of Christian scholars to develop fanciful theories out of their own imagination (basically to save their inherited Euoprean theology) that stands in the way here.
We have already demonstrated this in our previous posts but let's take note of John MacDonald's argument with respect to the so-called Samaritan Prayer of Joshua which Houtsma notes "is unquestionably one of the oldest Samaritan hymns and which stands in close connection with that ancient Samaritan Book of Joshua" (E. J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam p. 125). As MacDonald notes "God is styled King, admittedly, in the Defter several times, but reference to a kingdom of God occurs only once in that collection. This is in the Prayer of Joshua, an important and probably ancient prayer in the oldest part of the Defter (C. p. 4), and it is mentioned by Abul Hasan (C. pp. 7)." The Defter once again is the oldest part of the surviving Samaritan liturgy and so MacDonald (The Theology of the Samaritans p. 75) notes:
It is obvious that knowledge of God, derived from the perception and contemplation of his creation, must lead to the concept of God as King, not in any 'royal' sense as in the human situation, but as a supreme being to whom all is subject. Everything ordered, planned and sustained by him must clearly be under his dominion.
The Lord is King and the universe is witness! We turn our faces nowhere but towards thy kingdom. We praise thee, O God, for the universe is thine. Praise be to the God of heaven, the God of the earth, the God of the universe (Prayer of Joshua, C. pp. 4.28-5.9, 15, 17-18).
The point I am trying to make once again - rather briefly as I wait for another meeting to begin - is that the 'Secret Gospel of Mark' with its 'mysteries of the kingdom of God' standing so close to a crossing of the Jordan on or near Nisan 10 (the date of Joshua's original crossing), the subsequent appearance at Jericho and the celebration of Passover before a soon-to-be destroyed city, demonstrates how much more original the material in the Alexandrian text is than our canonical texts.
I think something of Mark's original purpose is being demonstrated here. Western theologians have only learned from their ancestors the art of reading Jewish scripture badly. The kingdom of God is a core messianic concept in both Judaism and Samaritanism. The basic idea would have been that what happened with Joshua was a foreshadowing of what was to come. The fact that gospel features someone with the same name as Joshua instructing someone else into the 'mysteries of the kingdom of God' means that this person was ultimately receiving the understanding of how this ancient prophesy of Balaam was being fulfilled in the modern age - an age which, let's not forget saw the scepter pass from Judah.
The fact that Josephus can devoted only a few lines to the imposter Theudas's crossing of the Jordan and his audience immediately recognizes this acts messianic portent. It must have been the same for Mark in his original gospel too. The underlying point is that LGM 1 was not some 'throw away' part of the original narrative. It was very, very significant as it explained how it was that Christianity itself explained how it fulfilled the ancient messianic prophesies.
