stephan huller

I stumbled across this just today:

For those who have ears to hear, let him hear.

stephan huller

More info:

http://books.google.com/books?id=8a7...page&q&f=false

stephan huller

So, let's understand for a moment why it was that the Frankists built their tradition around this passage:

Everyone seems to agree there was a secret interpretation of this passage involving pretending to go along with the religion of Rome dating back to the last revolt against Rome. I wonder ... http://books.google.com/books?id=HlY...ection&f=false

The Samaritan title given to 'the one who comes' is Ta'eb developed from the same root (= to repent). The Frankist interest in this passage is not strange. Indeed the idea that the messiah would come from the Roman (religion) appears throughout medieval literature (look at Nachmanides's debate three hundred years before the Frankists). Frankism brought to the surface a number of curious beliefs within Judaism which effectively became purged thereafter. It is very, very strange. I have always been inclined to think that this notion of Christianity as a 'stage' in salvation (= repentance) was a very old belief in Judaism - going back to the beginning of the Common Era.

If it agrees with the Samaritan usage it is bound to be very, very old. Sadducean.

Jesus's death on the cross is clearly a sign of penance (a belief which gets Basilides into trouble with the later Orthodoxy). Look again at the first hymn of Marqe with the repentance associated with crucifixion. I suspect this was mandated by the Roman government at the end of the first century.

The 'white people' (= non-Jews) in the Empire did not share this 'need' for repentance after the revolt against Rome. This original interpretation of the Cross faded away. The Frankist tradition also preserves the original 'crypto-belief' of other Jewish sects throughout the ages.

Iskander

These are some alternative translations of Isaiah 21. 11, first verse:
The “Dumah “Pronouncement
The oracle concerning Dumah
Oracle on Dumah

None of these translations mentions Roma.
Is the word Roma important?

stephan huller

Edom always equals Rome in the rabbinic tradition (allegedly because Esau was the rival of Jacob who is Israel)

Yet the exegesis of this material is striking because it was used to justify (pseudo?) adoption of the (Roman) Idumean religion = Christianity as a sign of outward repentance

Only then the messiah will be manifest (= after the crypto repentance associated with worshiping the Cross

It is traditionally assumed that Jacob Frank the (false) messiah “invented” these ideas to (mis)lead Jews into Christianity (and with it accepting him as the messiah). The problem with that argument is that most of these beliefs are ancient. Jews were very interested in this material and used most of the pieces which make up the whole Frankist argument

The argument against Nachmanides by his converted Jewish opponent is that the rabbinic sources including the Talmud supported Jews embracing Christianity (!)

This is why I am very interested in the find in Afghanistan

stephan huller

And since I rarely talk about these things, only from a Jewish perspective (or Samaritan) does Christianity make any sense. The gospel makes sense as a (proto) Frankist text. God gave the Jews/Judas the cross as a vehicle of repentance to hasten the arrival of the messiah

No one ever asks - how was the gospel interpreted in 71 CE? A neo-Frankist has no difficulty reconciling the existence of God with the tragic events of the Holocaust.

Isaiah 21:11 - 12

Iskander

Words can be made to mean anything people in authority choose them to mean. Rabbis are such people in authority.


Dan Cohn-Sherbok says this of the Shabatean Movement and of Jacob Frank:


Shabbatai declared that he was the Anointed of the God of Jacob .This action evoked a hysterical response—a number of Jews fell into trances and had visions of him on a royal throne crowned as king of Israel.

During his stay in Istanbul he was imprisoned but the prison became a messianic court: pilgrims from all over visited him in prison to join in messianic rituals and ascetic activities.


Eventually the Turks gave him the choice between conversion to Islam or death. He chose conversion and the name of Mehemet Effendi.

Many of his followers remained faithful to him, excusing his conversion or denying that he had converted to Islam—they said it was a phantom who had taken on his appearance, the messiah himself had ascended to haven

The followers that excused his apostasy argued on the basis of Lurianic kabbalah that there were two kind of divine light...


A number of groups continued in their belief that Shabbatai was the Messiah including a sect, the ‘dissidents’(Doenmeh), which professed Islam publicly , but nevertheless adhered to their own traditions.

Marrying among themselves, they eventually divided into sub-groups which violated Jewish sexual laws and asserted the divinity of Shabbatai and their leader Baruchia Russo.

In the eighteenth century the most important Shabbatean sect was led by Jacob Frank (1726-1791) (who was influenced by the Doenmeh in Turkey. Believing himself to be the incarnation of Shabbatai, Frank announced that he was the second person of the Trinity.


Eventually Frank and his disciples were baptized

Cohn-Sherbok does not mention Isaiah 21.11 in his book, Judaism

stephan huller

Massa Dumah

Duvduv

Author Pawel Maciejko wrote a very interesting book recently called The Mixed Multitude (or via: amazon.co.uk) on Jacob Frank and the Frankists.

Iskander

Have you read it?