stephan huller

I know Kraft. He's contact me at my blog over his friendship with Morton Smith. Yes Joshua is clearly the successor of Moses and thus potentially messianic. A lot of what Kraft says about the Samaritans are fanciful. Eulogius says that there were Samaritan messianists who took an interest in Joshua but this must mean only that they believed the successor to Moses already came in the person of Joshua son of Nun. In other words that there will be no messiah. Joshua only lived to 110 which may have implied he fell short of the glory of Moses (which is the modern Samaritan belief - even Marqe who lived much later is superior)

John Kesler

Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8.

John Kesler

One thing that may help you is that the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, written in Greek (though maybe originally in Hebrew), is also known as The Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach. See also here:

stephan huller

A book almost excluded from the Jewish canon and clearly a favorite of at least some Sadducees and Clement of Alexandria in particular. He ranks Ecclesiastes 'holy Scripture' almost as many times as the Pentateuch in the Instructor which is odd. I think that the temple of Jerusalem is called 'beth saida' (= house of demons) in the original gospel (cf. John 2 and the beginning of the Marcionite gospel according to Ephrem) because of a reference in Ecclesiastes 2:8. In other words, Clement may have known a tradition where the author of the gospel (Mark?) was influenced by terminology from Ecclesiastes.

jakejonesiv

Hi John,

You have noticed a very important point. Notice how the various English translations can't decide whether Hebrews 4:8 applies to Jesus or Joshua. Well, what is there was an identity between the OT Joshua and the NT Jesus?

The name of Joshua son of Nun in the Septuagint is Iesous. The name of Jesus in the New Testament Greek is Iesous. Thus Jesus=Iesous=Joshua. One could, in a very real sense, read about Jesus in the Septuagint before ever there existed any New Testament texts. The English translations obscure this fact. To point out how profound this is, it is only necessary to substitute “Jesus” into the Old Testament translations.

We find in the beginning of the Exodus tale, The Angel of Lord was to lead the Israelites to the promised land, and this same Angel was to bear the name of God never before revealed. The very name of God himself, which would make this name (Jesus) the highest name anywhere.


This is profound. The Angel of the Lord, named Jesus, was to lead the Israelites to the promised land. Jesus is declared to be the secret, never before revealed, name of God. And it is Oshea, renamed Jesus, who allegedly does accomplish this work. This was declared "mysteriously" through Moses (Justin, Trypho 75). "For if you shall understand this, you shall likewise perceive that the name of Him who said to Moses, 'for My name is in Him,' was Jesus."


We shouldn't view this as a mundane, prosaic name change. The ancients though that when one took a new name, that individual took on the very nature and being associated with that name.

In "De Mutt. Nom.", 21 (On the Change of Names, Chapter 21), Philo wrote: "... changes the name of Hosea into that of Jesus displaying by his new name the distinctive qualities of his character; for the name Hosea is interpreted as "what sort of person is this?" but Jesus (Ieosus) means the Lord's Salvation (soteria kyrion) being the name of the most excellent possible nature."

We are coming very close to a Divine Joshua.

We find the name change also in Phillipians 2. Christ receives a new name (Jesus) after he ascends to heaven.
"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given
him a name which is above every name: That at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven,
and things in earth, and things under the earth;"
Phillipians 2:9-10.

The epistle to Hebrews 4:8 says, “For if Jesus (Iesous) had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day.” This day have been automatically have been understood to mean the Day of the Lord announced by the prophets (Amos 5.18 and elsewhere), that to in Revelation 22:20 (“Amen! Come Lord Jesus”) it is still expected and even in Isaiah 49:22-23 to the people of Yahweh a day of national satisfaction had been promised.

Although the land of Canaan for Israel was a resting place, in this nevertheless their supreme good had not been lain; it was for this reason a temporary rest only. The true resting place is heaven, so the expected deliverer Jesus is yet to come.

To Moses the LORD had said: “I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put my words in his mouth”. (Deut. 18: 18; vgl. Acts 7.37.) Iesous of the Jewish scriptures accomplishes that deliverance. A reflection of this is found in Matthew 1:21 “you shall call his name Iesous, for he will deliver his people from their sins."

The fourth gospel has Iesous to say: “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me” (John 5:46). Certainly Moses wrote of Joshua/Jesus the son of Nun, this exposes the identity.

Jake

stephan huller

The change of name from Oshea (LXX) to Jesus is clearly the point of departure for the divine Jesus angel. In Hebrew the added letter is yod which has a value of ten of course. The number ten is highly significant. It is the first letter of the tetragrammaton and there is a very, very old tradition that Christians marked themselves with the tetragrammaton (literally scratching their skin) with these letters to perfect their flesh. The idea could have arisen that a man became divine by following the transformative ritual performed on Oshea to make him 'Jesus.' It is worth noting that Secret Mark does not make specific which of the two men (i.e. Jesus or his disciple) crossed the Jordan (like Joshua). The initiation could well have been the means by which divine man-Gods were established.

As noted Joshua lived to 110 and Moses to 120. A highly significant mystical 'fact' for Semitic people. Moses was without question holier than Joshua. One can't dance around this fact too much.

jakejonesiv

True, but we know the New Testament writers used the Greek versions of the Old Testament.

jakejonesiv

It is worth noting that nothing in my observations rely on Secret Mark, which I doubt.

Jake

jakejonesiv

Joshua completed the work that Moses couldn't. :dancy:
Nor should we ignore that Joshua was allegedly in constant contact with the divine, even more so than Moses!

Stephen, I think you are overlooking something. What you say about Moses is agreeable to the normative Judaism. But if Moses and the law of Yahweh was the end of the story for everyone, then the figure of Jesus Christ would never have arisen to supplant them. (Plus you have underestimated the Samaritan influence).

John Kesler

Are you confusing the Hebrew Bible's Ecclesiastes with the subject of my post, Ecclesiasticus.