Robert said
I’ve always used the analogy of Mark’s gospel being like Oliver Stone’s movie about JFK. A real life hero, mourned and loved by many, is idealized and mythologized into a much greater hero than he was in real life. He was planning on ending the Vietnam War, which would have eliminated all of the turmoil that plagued the 60s and 70s so he was opposed and killed by a massive conspiracy of many evil powers that wanted to profit from war. There’s a germ of truth and suspicion that has grown into a much more epic story of bigger-than-life hero opposed by a monstrous conspiracy of evil. It’s such a good story that I’m still tempted to believe it even despite all of the historical inaccuracies and exaggerations that have been documented in Oliver Stone’s movie. Mark was every bit as good of a story teller in the dramatic media of his day as Oliver Stone is today.
That’s a good analogy for a historicists. I usually went with the usual deification of Julius Caesar and other Kings close to gods.
Also, on using Abiram, it seems at least a fairly neutral source in these arguments. It tends to be more inclusive than exclusive, which obviously helps my parallelomania find dots to connect in imaginative ways.
But it’s not deciphering Biblical names to prove the hostoricity/nonhistoricity of the literature.
Oh yeah. Simply my poor use of the English language there. It’s my presumption based on the idea that the Elisha story is more archaic, mostly being seen as an Israelite narrative. But Elisha has a scene where the Kings of Adam, Israel, and Judah are aligned to fight Edom, but Elisha will only speak to them based on the fact that the JudahiteKing is in need. So Elisha seems written pro Judah.
At any rate, I did try to edit one of my above comments to apologize for the misrepresentation of Elisha as an archaic form of Jesus, but the edit did not save and my break was over, lol.
I am not saying that Elisha is definitely not an archaic form of Jeshua. I am just saying there is no evidence I know of except that El as a separate god predates Yahweh in Canaanite pantheon. That of course does not mean the mythical Elisha had been dreamed up yet.
Pointers: What are the authors telling us to pay attention to here?
Just before Elijah is introduced, the curse laid down by Jesus son of Nun is fulfilled concerning Jericho.
As Elijah travels to his… ascension… he reverses Jesus Nun’s conquest trail.
To begin his healing ministry, Elisha travels the same trail as Jesus Nun and the reverse of Elijah.
These pointers seem to form an inclusio around Elijah’s ministry. The author seems to be reminding the reader of the story of Jesus Nun. The reason Elisha only has the beginning inclusio may be the same reason Elisha is a healer rather than a powerful swordsman like Jesus Nun. Elisha’s story must have been rewritten. Remember Yahweh’s promises to Elijah concerning Hazael, Jehu and Elisha? Almost none of that gets fulfilled. Elisha is supposed to slaughter those who escape Jehu with the sword. Yet the Elisha we see in the Bible is old before he sends someone to anoint Jehu, who’s slaughter then commences. So the order is transposed. Also the bible we see is peaceful, so he doesn’t slaughter anybody with a sword.
So in the bible we have today there is a stark contrast between the violent Jesus Nun and Elisha (ElJesus?). If Elisha was rewritten from violent to healer, then the original author of Elisha, writing about a violent prophet that would fulfill the promise made to Elijah, may have been alluding heavily to both Moses (in Elijah) and Jesus Nun (in Elisha).
One miraculous similarity between these all these characters is the crossing of the river. Jesus Nun, Elijah, and Elisha all cross the Jordan River on dry land, and Moses crosses the Red Sea on dry land. There are many sturdies on the similarities between Moses and Elijah. Some of these include fleeing from the king, to Horeb, hearing Yahweh, seeing Yahweh, pleading with Yahweh, and receiving a promise from Yahweh. Also simply the name Elijah, meaning El is Yah, parallels the message to Moses that Yahweh is El in Exodus 3:14.
Clearly Healer Elisha does not parallel the violent exploits of Jesus Nun. Healer Elisha captured an entire army by blinding them. He feeds them and releases them. Would Violent Elisha have slaughtered this Aramean army in the original version? Healer Elisha is called upon to save the 3 armies in the desert so they can attack Moab. He provides water. Would a violent version have simply personally led that campaign himself, only to be faced with the prospect of the king’s son being sacrificed on the city walls?
So we clearly have pointers, where the author seems to be directing our attention at Jesus Nun. Then the second inclusion may fail simply because a violent Elisha – mirror of Jesus Nun and fulfillment of the promise to Elijah – was rewritten as Healer Elisha.
So I finally straightened a few things out:
Elisha is a theophoric switch from the name Yehoshua (Jesus). Theophoric switches in a name are valid in the Bible as we see in the name Eliakim being switched to Jehoiakim later in 2 Kings.
But why? I am not sure. There are some clues. Elijah, his master, has a name meaning something like ‘El is YHWH’ and the assistant, Elisha has a name that is a theophoric switch from being Joshua (Jesus). Clearly there is a message about equating YHWH with El.
After reading Dennis MAcDonald’s book on Mimesis, I tried it on the Old Testament Jesuses theories. This is what I came up with.
The foundational narrative is the Moses-Jesus narrative. Sometime later two other narratives were written based on this Moses-Jesus narrative. One was the Elijah-Elisha narrative, which strongly follows the Moses-Jesus narrative, inverting more than imitating it.aAfter all, Elijah’s name inverts Exodus 3:14, ‘YHWH is El.’
The other is the story of Jeremiah. The Jeremiah story is supplemented by Zechariah 1-8’s Jesus son of Jehozadak.
There are two more books that reuse the Moses-Jesus narrative, and those are Ezra and Nehemiah. However, these two books seem to be a little anti-Jesus, in my view. Ezra steal Jehozadak’s (the father of Jesus) rightful place in the Levite genealogy. Nehemiah sends two of Jesus’s descendants in high places out of town.
So, in Judean literature there were a series of Moses-Jesus narratives, and these narratives were rewritten, along with the Absalom son of David narrative, to create Jesus of Nazareth. These sources, along with David MacDonald’s notes on usage of Homer, completely make up Jesus of Nazareth as a fictional character!
You may think there is still room for a real, historical Jesus, but check this out. The time period that Mark sets Jesus of NAzareth in is 40 years prior to the fall of Jerusalem. This matches the time period (40 years) prior to the fall in 586 that Jeremiah began preaching and was rejected by his hometown Anathoth. This also matches the time period prior to the hanging of the king of Jerusalem by Jesus son of Nun, that Jesus son of Nun was rejected by the Israelites and threatened with stoning.
How can these be coincidences? Mark set the time period based on the destruction of Jerusalem and prior prophet-Jesus myths!
The foundational narrative is the Moses-Jesus narrative. Sometime later two other narratives were written based on this Moses-Jesus narrative. One was the Elijah-Elisha narrative, which strongly follows the Moses-Jesus narrative, inverting more than imitating it.
= = =
Explain how Moses-Jesus comes before Elijah-Elisha.
Since Jesus comes after Elijah and Elisha.
Moses-Jesus son of Nun narrative. Jesus = Joshua, the names are artificially separated. In Hebrew the names are identical. In Greek they are identical. But Joshua is a transliteration of the Hebrew and Jesus is a transliteration of the Greek.
So the author of Elijah-Elisha imitates and inverts Moses-Jesus.
What if you are a fan of Russell Gmirken’s idea that Exodus and Deuteronomy are likely written after 300 BCE? I asked him, he thinks Elijah-Elisha are very Greek characters.
Me? IDK. Whatever time period, it does seem to me that Elijah-Elisha did come after the Moses-Jesus narrative.
Happy black Friday!
The roots are tribal life. The law of Abraham was all about tribal life. The law of Moses is a later state government centered around a temple and king without a prison system.
Tribal life is where from Islam begins. They didn’t have a state government yet.
God created the heavens and earth and all the creatures of the seas, air, and land. It was the angels who created mankind, not God. The angels created mankind as the image of God, that’s why the angels and mankind go to war against God.
So the concept of Jesus predating the Hebrew Bible was almost never addressed by me in any post.
There are theories that Moses leading the people out of Egypt was a later change from simply YHWH leading people out of Egypt.
I have read that the same can be said for Jesus as presented in the conquest tales. In other words, originally the tale was of YHWH leading the Israelites into the promised land and later the person Jesus was added to lead the Israelites.
Most likely Jesus (son of Nun) stories did not predate some of the oldest works, like the poem of Deborah.
Still, the biblical narrative as we have it today was still being edited into the days of the DSS. Somewhere in there, prior to Sirach’s listing of the various bible characters in the order they appear in our Bibles, the Hebrew Bible can be said to have formed, though probably not yet canonized.
However, like most bible stories, the story of Jesus son of Nun may have existed in some form prior to the forming of the exodus conquest story we have today. My primary evidence for this is a small slice of the exodus narrative featuring Jesus son of Nun. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
This small segment is odd in that the author never introduces Jesus son of Nun, or another important character Hur. This is completely unexpected considering the care with which the various authors reference and/or introduce Jesus. Either as Jesus “son of Nun” or “Moses’s assistant”, throughout the Torah we are expecting to be introduced to Jesus by some sort of description.
This small segment must be from a larger narrative where Jesus son of Nun has already been introduced, and it really does not fit into any other section of the exodus-conquest story we have today. So this different narrative of Jesus son of Nun naturally predates the Torah being put together.
So among the various dates of various ‘scripture having been written, I am not claiming Jesus mythology predates any of them except the Torah (and Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Nehemiah which all seem to show dependence on the Jesus mythology).
I ran across something recently that made me think to get back to this post.
“These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan—in the wilderness, on the plain opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab.” (Dt. 1:1, NRSVUE)
NETS Bible has Red Sea for Suph, as does Brenton’s LXX. The Red Sea convention is for the Yam Suph, either Red Sea or sea of Reeds. Yam means sea and Suph is translated red or reeds. The translation of Suph has a fascinating backstory, but I do not think any of it is relevant here.
“3 In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the Israelites just as the Lord had commanded him to speak to them. 4 This was after he had defeated King Sihon of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth in Edrei. 5 Beyond the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to expound this law as follows:” (Dt. 1:3-5)
So this Suph, is right there by the Jordan. The location can be further refined by several mentions that they across the Jordan from Jericho, on the plains of Moab. The entire action of Deuteronomy takes place in this single location.
Deuteronomy 32:49 “Ascend this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites for a possession;”
Dt. 34:1 Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho…
This location was arrived at in the book of Numbers:
Numbers 22:1 “The Israelites set out and camped in the plains of Moab across the Jordan from Jericho.”
Numbers 26:3 “Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them in the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho, saying,”
See also: Numbers 26:63; Numbers 31:12; Numbers 33:48; Numbers 33:50; Numbers 34:15; Numbers 35:1
This is the place where Jesus son of Nun will cross the Jordan, from the plain of Moab across from Jericho. Yet the first verse says they are at Suph. There is some sort of conflation going on here. Is a later editor meaning to remind the reader of Moses’ crossing of the Red Sea? At the end of the chapter Moses tells of leading Israel back to the Red Sea, and another mention of the Red Sea opens chapter 2. The tale of the Egyptians being swallowed up in the Red Sea is in Deuteronomy 11, so the Dt. here has a good understanding of the connection to the Yam Suph and its miraculous crossing.
Still, I cant get over the feeling a more archaic story of a miraculous crossing at Suph by Jesus has been remade into the Moses crossing the Red Sea. The Jordan is the body of water more intrinsic to Judean culture. It has miraculous powers as seen in the cleansing of Naaman. It is where David forgives those who sinned against him after the defeat of Absalom. It is where Elijah and Elisha and Jesus son of Nun cross over miraculously (And perhaps Jacob and David as well).
The Red Sea, by contrast, is far away. It is not a barrier from Egypt to Israel unless one avoids the (anachronistic here) Philistines for some odd reason. The whole of the exodus story is foreign to the soil of Israel, whereas Jordan is the major river of Israel.
anyway, that is all I got. An implication that maybe there is a possibility that miraculous crossings of the Jordan were the predecessor for the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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