spin

After a reasonable few paragraphs we get to this paragraph which seems to be pulling a rabbit out of a hat. These thoughts on the original name of Meir don't really seem to come from what precedes them and don't seem to reflect rabbinical tradition.

(Here is Erub 13b:

One taught: His name was not R. Meir but R. Nehorai. Then why was he called ‘R. Meir’? Because he enlightened the Sages in the halachah. His name in fact was not even Nehorai but R. Nehemiah or, as others say: R. Eleazar b. Arak. Then why was he called ‘Nehorai’? Because he enlightened the Sages in the halachah.

)

Working backwards I find this: "I think that this idea is explicitly confirmed by the example of Elisha b. Abuyah who seems to have a separate tradition associated with him which seems to anticipate Marcionitism." So "his reputation" is that of "Elisha b. Abuyah", but "[s]urely his reputation was preserved by "Meir" (which isn't even his name either)". I have difficulty understanding the development of the thought: are you saying that Elisha b. Abuyah's reputation is preserved in the figure of Meir or that Meir has preserved the reputation of Elisha b. Abuyah?

Then, in what respect do you think that Elisha b. Abuyah anticipates Marcionitism? I'm still too in awe of the rabbit to comprehend your statements clearly.


spin

stephan huller

Jastrow cites Erub 13b (v. Rabb. D.S. a.1 note) ' ... his name was R. Meir but R. Mayesha.' I thought it was interesting to remind people of Meir's relationship with Abuyah. Elisha b Abuyah is a fake name. It is clearly designed to shelter the identity of the 'heretic' (a heretic again whose opinions are curiously cited in the Mishnah) and then it is equally curious that his student is only remembered through titles (Light, Illuminator) rather than his actual name. Mayesha could be his actual name (it is the closest sounding of all the 'real' names to Meir). It could also be a title - 'savior.'

Abuyah's reported attitude toward the Sabbath (riding a horse on the Sabbath etc) is reminiscent of Epiphanius's story about the Marcionite fasting on the Sabbath because they hated it so much they wanted to have nothing to do with it.

We aren't getting the full picture from either our Jewish or Christian sources. I see much commonality between the principal heresies of the Jewish, Christian and Samaritan traditions to wonder if the dominant orthodoxy of the period 70 - 135 stretched across the divide of each traditional community - i.e. were Jews, Samaritans and proselytes all under one roof and the rabbinic tradition the persecuted 'minority'?

The Mishnah for instance is a collection of accepted interpretations. The Pharisees may be understood to have 51% of the vote but other interpretations from other traditions are included including the 'heretical' one associated with Abuyah. Again, how did Meir attain such a prominent position within the second century reconstituting Jewish tradition if the Abuyah position wasn't somehow influential?

Another example of what I am taking about

On one occasion the fourteen of Nisan fell on a sabbath. The Benei Bathyra forgot and did not know whether or not the Passover overrides the Sabbath. They said 'is there anyone who knows whether or not the Passover overrides the Sabbath?' They were told, 'there is a certain man who has come up from Babylonia, Hillel the Babylonian by name, who has studied with the two greatest men of the age, and he knows whether or not the Passover overtakes the Sabbath." [Tosefta Pes. 4:13]

Critical things to see here.

The Benei Bathyra were intimately associated with the Herodians and Agrippa in particular. It’s impossible to believe the bit in the Talmud about the Passover occurring on the Sabbath and the Rabbinic authorities not knowing what to do if you’re expected to believe at the same time that they hadn’t suddenly made it up (cf. Search for the Origins of Judaism by Etienne Nodet (a very uneven work, but accurate on this bit). By saying “made it up” I mean “taken it over from some other group as a replacement of previous practice”.

We even can't count the numbers of fourteenth of Nisan's that fell on a Sabbath in the Second Temple period. The whole premise is so idiotic there has to be something deeper beneath the surface - i.e. a general 'forgetting' of the Torah during the later rule of Agrippa by the Jews themselves.

The same pattern shows up in Samaritan sources. I think that the original convergence orthodoxy is reflected in the statement about Simon Magus "he came down as the "Father" in respect to the Samaritans, the "Son" in respect to the Jews, and the "Holy Spirit" in respect to the Gentiles." The formula I am suggesting is certainly present here.

Also, there are reports that the each of new Palestinian orthodoxies that emerge in the late second century were fusions of two hostile traditions with one getting 51% of the vote. Look at Clement and Origen and the Alexandrian tradition as an example having to accept Peter and Rome as superior. You hear Copts grumbling about this to this day. Among the Samaritans for instance we find 'Dustan' (Dosithean) prayers in their common prayerbook (even though Dositheus is officially a wicked heretic) and Dosithean formulas adopted in the official orthodoxy. One tradition ultimately swallowed up the other but allowed the minorities to define some aspects of faith. In Christianity it was the Alexandrians determining the date of Easter for example.

spamandham

Somewhat unrelated, but why was circumcision not also seen as a disqualifying blemish ... or was it?

stephan huller

Spin,

I think I found the missing link between the Jacob and castration rituals in earliest Christianity. Clement of Alex. represents the whole Christian life as an ἄσκησις (Strom. IV. 22) and calls the patriarch Jacob an ἀσκητής (Paedag. I. 7). How else can that be explained unless Peniel is interpreted in the way I have suggested?

And He most manifestly appears as Jacob's instructor. He says accordingly to him, "Lo, I am with thee, to keep thee in all the way in which thou shalt go; and I will bring thee back into this land: for I will not leave thee till I do what I have told thee." He is said, too, to have wrestled with Him. "And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled with him a man (the Instructor) till the morning." This was the man who led, and brought, and wrestled with, and anointed the athlete Jacob against evil. Now that the Word was at once Jacob's trainer and the Instructor of humanity [appears from this]--"He asked," it is said, "His name, and said to him, Tell me what is Try name." And he said, "Why is it that thou askest My name?" For He reserved the new name for the new people--the babe; and was as yet unnamed, the Lord God not having yet become man. Yet Jacob called the name of the place, "Face of God." "For I have seen," he says, "God face to face; and my life is preserved." The face of God is the Word by whom God is manifested and made known. Then also was he named Israel, because he saw God the Lord. It was God, the Word, the Instructor, who said to him again afterwards, "Fear not to go down into Egypt." See how the Instructor follows the righteous man, and how He anoints the athlete, teaching him to trip up his antagonist.[Paed. 1.7]

I seriously want to thank you for pushing me to find this. This is better than I could have ever expected. Jesus's name is Chrestos in the Marcionite tradition. That Greek word can be connected through LXX with the homiletic root of the name Israel - yashar. This answers everything with regards to the context of Alexandrian castration rituals. I even think it explains the conclusion of LGM 1 "And after six days Jesus told him what to do, and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan."

You may think that the last point is a stretch. And even I have to concede that it is still only a theoretical possibility. Nevertheless, the idea that Jacob's experience at Peniel was at the ultimate core of Christian asceticism is here presented. This could only be so if the wrestling with the angel Jesus had some affect on Jacob's fecundity.

ph2ter

Donkeys are interesting.
The Mari tablets describe the sacrifice of a young donkey as part of the ritual for concluding a treaty. The traditional language of "entering into a covenant" was "to kill a young ass" in the Mari texts. "The notion of killing a donkey foal in order to seal a treaty between two parties is connected with the Hebrew phrase kerat berit ("to cut a covenant"), meaning "to make a treaty“. The cutting probably means that the violator of a covenant will be “cut off”.
God's request of Abraham to circumcise himself and all males in his household, reflects a type of "cutting a covenant". That is, Abraham's descendants bind themselves to God by a "cutting" of the foreskin.

Circumcision was a sign of the warning-- 'if you do not keep the covenant I will cut you and your descendants off'. What more graphic reminder of having yourself and your descendants cut off than the circumcision of the organ of generation, from which descendants come? The covenant sign symbolizes the curse sanction. In the death of Christ God enacted the the curse sanctions of the Mosaic covenant on Jesus. And here is the crucial point---once the curse sanction has been enacted, the covenant is over and done with. It is abolished and finished. It is fulfilled and done away with. It becomes obsolete. This is made perfectly clear in the NT at various junctures.
The job of Jesus, as Gal. 4 says that he was born under the Law to redeem those under the Mosaic Law out from under that Law. (Ben Witherington)

The Phoenician myth connects sacrifice of the firstborn son of Kronos/Elus named Iedoud also with the commemorative practice of circumcision. "But on the occurence of a pestilence and mortality Kronos offers his only begotten son as a whole burnt offering to his father Uranus and circumcises himself, compelling his allies to do the same".
And again in connection with the sacrifice of the firstborns among the Jews donkey reappears:
Exodus 13:13 Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.

So if Witherington is right then the crucifixion of Jesus should have some link with the castration, because someone who breaks the old covenant of circumcision must have his genitalia 'cut off'.

In deride label mentioned by Tertullian: DEUS CHRISTIANORUM ONOCOETES the third word onocoetes never occurs elsewhere in Latin literature. Nor is it quite certain what it means. Scholars who have studied the matter concur that the first two syllables, ono-, represent the Greek word onos, meaning "ass," and agree that the remainder of the word has something to do with sex. Belgian scholar Jean-G. Priaux, starts from the premise that the meaning of the unusual word must have been immediately apparent to Tertullian and other bystanders and within the plausible vocabulary of an arena lout. Comparing the word with vulgar sexual terms used by other authors of the period, he comes to the conclusion that the onlookers probably understood the label to be a play on the word 'embasicoetas', a synonym, more or less, for the words cinaedus and asellus. All three words refer to male prostitutes or libertines who offer their services to men and women. The special denotation of the unique term onocoetes, then, would have been a male prostitute equipped like a donkey. Related visual images from roughly the same period confirm the sexual overtone of the anecdote. (Richard W. Bulliet)

Alexamenos graffito shows a man with a donkey's head crucified on a T-shaped cross beside the awkwardly written words in Greek: "Alexamenos worships God."
Wünsch conjectures that the caricature may have been intended to represent the god of a Gnostic sect which identified Christ with the Egyptian ass-headed god Typhon-Seth.
There exists a myth how Set poked out Horus's left eye so Horus cut off Set's testicles.
A (donkey) man on the cross is pictured from behind, probably with the purpose not to show his genitalia.

Toto

The source for this claim about the Phoenician myth seems to be Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel.

See p 83 of Abraham on Trial: the Social Legacy of Biblical Myth (or via: amazon.co.uk) By Carol Delaney which can be previewed on google books

stephan huller

After citing the passage from Clement where Genesis 32 is said to be the basis to Christian askesis I started wondering whether it is also the context for the first addition to Secret Mark. First Genesis 32 notice the dusk to dawn framework:

After he had sent them [his wives, servants] across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

Jacob first sends away his companions at a time when there was still enough time for them to travel 'across a stream.' This means that the wrestling narrative takes place from dusk to dawn.

Now the first addition to Secret Mark:

in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.

The obvious parallels - (a) two naked men (b) together dusk to dawn (c) followed by a crossing of a river into the Holy Land. The inference that something sexual was going on between the men ignores the fact that it may well have been a symbolic reference to the wrestling of the Peniel narrative.

Clement already assumes that Jesus is the angel in Genesis 32. Again, I don't think that there is any reason to believe that Jesus and the neaniskos were actually wrestling any more than we should believe that they were engaged in a sexual activity. The text makes explicit that Jesus was initiating the youth into a mystery. The symbolic allusions to Genesis 32 are to tell us that it is a castration ritual. I have always found it curious that the narrative ends with the ambiguous 'he' getting up and crossing the Jordan - is this Jesus or the neaniskos?

It is interesting to note that in Homeric times athletes engaged one another in loin cloths. It was only after Orsippos's victory (720 BC) that nudity was introduced.