The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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Secret Alias
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Re: The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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The pervasiveness of the translations which render the Hebrew 'unction' might have something to do with it.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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Secret Alias wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 12:52 pm Clement (implicit) and Origen can identify Agrippa's death as being predicted by 9:26. But not Jesus. Even though this is the only place the word 'messiah' is actually used in the whole OT. But how can early Christians blab on about 'the Christ' and 'Christ was crucified' and 'the prophets predicted this' but somehow ignore that 9:26 mentions 'Christ,' he was killed and was no more and its relation to the destruction of Jerusalem but fail to make a connection. As I said, it leaves me dumbfounded. Something's not right.
I agree; it is a bit strange.
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Re: The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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But it is amazing how we agree that 'Joshua' was adopted by the man who starts the gospel. That makes me happy. I think all the talk about 'the kingdom of God' and heaven have something to do with Joshua. While Philo explicitly says Moses was a king (I remember that from Meeks) I am pretty sure the Samaritans deny this and say kingship started with Joshua. Although I don't know when the earliest place this is written is to be found. It's not in Marqe https://books.google.com/books?id=PUcwD ... ns&f=false. I am sure of that. Seems to be implied in Eulogius's statement that the Samaritans identify Joshua as 'the Christ.'
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Secret Alias
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Re: The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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I found this in Hjelm:
In Samaritan Chronicles, the judges are called "kings." They are 13 in number including Joshua and they reign for 260 years together with 6 high priests. The good conditions from Joshua and Eleazar continue and we find no accusations of apostasy, no punishment and no deceitful kings similar to MT's Abimelech. It is only after the death of Samson, we find the deterioration that leads to the first split ...
So as old as the Samaritan Book of Joshua. Other passages:
And He ordered him(Moses) to set him (Joshua) before el-`Azar (Eleazar) the imam- peace be upon him- and to assemble unto him(Joshua) the people of learning and knowledge with the nobles and rulers, and ratify a compact with him, and make a new covenant with him, and invest him with the kingly authority, and install him in the rule over all the children of Israil.
when the people of Israel address Joshua:
The congregation of the children of Israil answered him, while crying out, weeping and humbling themselves before God, and casting their souls into His hands, saying: "O our master and our lord, we hear and will obey the command of God- Mighty and Powerful- and of His true and faithful Prophet, and also thy command, O king, and the command of our imam and our rulers, and there will be no opposition to what ye order, and no deviation from what ye say either to the right or to the left, nor from whatever our master Musa, the Prophet- peace be upon him- has ordained, and there shall be no rejection of a single part of it; and whoever shall rebel and deviate, and act treacherously, let upon him be the Curse and Wrath, for after this manner did our master Musa, the Prophet- peace be upon him- agree with us and impose conditions upon us, and put us under oath, and covenant with us, and offer up for us the sacrifices, and we answered him as we have answered you. And God is the witness over us in this, and He is our sufficiency and bountiful Protector."
and again:
And we journeyed unto them from the mountains, and we had but just reached the vicinity of the camps, when there came forth unto us three or four men, and each of them took hold of one of us, and fetched us into the presence of the new king, who had been invested with the kingdom as successor to Musa the Prophet- the best of peace be upon him. Now his companion was merciful who lifted not up his glance to any one
Notice Moses is the Prophet, Joshua the King. And again directly spoken of Joshua:
When Yush'a, the king, heard the statement of the spies, he sent forth the leaders, to proclaim throughout the army that they should proceed in the journey, having with them provisions for three days, and also to say in the proclamation:
And again:
And the Liwanites (Levites) proclaimed with loudest voice: "Praise be to God of Gods, and Lord of Lords, to Whose commandments, animate and inanimate things are obedient, and the heavens and the earth and the seas and the rivers and all that therein is. There is no God but He, and no kingdom lasts but His kingdom, nor any power but His power, nor any sovereign except under His sovereignty. Perish whoever deny Him and believe in another than He, for He is the God. And the children of Israil did as the king commanded them. And the cloud was lifted up, on the first (day) of the first month ...
and again:
And when the people came out of the Urdun (Jordan) they observed the commandment, and took the twelve stones from under the feet of the priests, and each man wrote his name upon his stone, and the king also took a similar stone.
and again:
When it was morning of the day of which mention has already been made, Yush'a the king, and all the army, came before the temple, and he made chiefs present themselves before el'Azar, the imam- peace be upon him,- and upon him were the jewels. And the jewel which was inscribed with the name of Yahudah (Judah) grew black; and he, in succession, presented the tribe of Yahudah, in its companies, name by name, before the jewel; and it grew black at the family of Zarah (Zerah), the son of Yahudah, And the man at once presented himself and stood before Yush'a the king. And the king said unto him: "O man! Lift up thy face to the King of the heavens and earth, and know that He knows secrets, and, O, woe be to the one who imagines that he can conceal from Him anything, or cover up from Him a matter. So now confess as to how you have sinned, and what you have taken of the devoted thing; for God has become angry with His people on your account."
And on and on. It would appear then that the Samaritan understanding of Joshua as 'Christ' as reported by Eulogius is intimately connected with the Book of Joshua.
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Secret Alias
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Re: The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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Pummer on Justin and the Joshua-Christ typology https://books.google.com/books?id=dhDlz ... 22&f=false
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MrMacSon
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Re: The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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[italics mine]
Giuseppe wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 11:09 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:50 am ... the point is that the name "Joshua/Jesus" could be the means by which our hero received the "name above all names."
why "Jesus" (="YHWH saves") and not "John" (="YHWH gives grace"), then?
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 11:13 am Because of the eschatological expectations, like I already said: he was (supposed to be) Joshua redivivus, a Messiah ben Ephraim, and so on. That a Joshua narrative was in play* seems implied by Theudas wanting to part the river and the Egyptian wanting to knock the walls down.
*'a Joshua narrative' was 'in play' where? among whom? when? Cheers.
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Re: The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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I would argue the Samaritans. The Samaritans had a version of the Book of Joshua where Joshua is specifically and repeated identified as 'the king of Israel.' It would stand to reason that if Jews though that Elijah could come back that it is at least possible that some Samaritans might have been capable of sustaining an expectation for a Joshua redivivus.
It is true that Merx (Merx however inclines more to Joshua redivivus, "denn der Ta'eb ist geringer als Moses") and Hilgenfeld were led to some extent at least to their interpretation of the Taheb as Moses or Joshua redivivus, by their taking Taheb as redivivus and not conversus as Gesenius had shown the meaning to be (see Cowley, The Samaritan Doctrine of the Messiah, in Expositor, Vol. 1 (1895), S. 161-174.
Also the summary in Crown:
in the revolts against Byzantium in 484 and 529 the Samaritans crowned men as “king” (מלכה)*. H. G. Kippenberg has suggested that these people were expected to fulfil the role of “Joseph מלכה”, a term which occurs in Memar Marqah and a couple of hymns in the so-called Durran cycle found in the Defter*. This name originally designated the Samaritan people as a whole as the “possessor” (no?n translating “possessor” rather than “king”) of the land in general and Mt. Gerizim in particular. However, there would also seem to have developed an expectation of the appearance of an individual carrying the “wreath of Joseph” and restoring the Samaritans' possession of their land and shrine.[1]

[1] see Kippenberg 265 ff. Compare already Merx, pp. 41, 43, 49, who explained the idea of Joseph the King from the notion that the Taheb would be Joshua redivivus and thus come from the House of Joseph.
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Re: The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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MrMacSon wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 3:00 pm [italics mine]
Giuseppe wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 11:09 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:50 am ... the point is that the name "Joshua/Jesus" could be the means by which our hero received the "name above all names."
why "Jesus" (="YHWH saves") and not "John" (="YHWH gives grace"), then?
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 11:13 am Because of the eschatological expectations, like I already said: he was (supposed to be) Joshua redivivus, a Messiah ben Ephraim, and so on. That a Joshua narrative was in play* seems implied by Theudas wanting to part the river and the Egyptian wanting to knock the walls down.
*'a Joshua narrative' was 'in play' where? among whom? when? Cheers.
By whoever was behind those symbolic acts attempted by Theudas and the Egyptian. If you are asking for which exact groups held such views, here is Stephan's guess:
Secret Alias wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 3:06 pm I would argue the Samaritans. The Samaritans had a version of the Book of Joshua where Joshua is specifically and repeated identified as 'the king of Israel.' It would stand to reason that if Jews though that Elijah could come back that it is at least possible that some Samaritans might have been capable of sustaining an expectation for a Joshua redivivus.
It is true that Merx (Merx however inclines more to Joshua redivivus, "denn der Ta'eb ist geringer als Moses") and Hilgenfeld were led to some extent at least to their interpretation of the Taheb as Moses or Joshua redivivus, by their taking Taheb as redivivus and not conversus as Gesenius had shown the meaning to be (see Cowley, The Samaritan Doctrine of the Messiah, in Expositor, Vol. 1 (1895), S. 161-174.
The Samaritans did claim a Josephite and Jesuine heritage. There were also probably Galileans who would have shared such northern inclinations. It is hard to tell for certain, since these would be people from the lower classes, whose viewpoints are pretty consistently reflected only indirectly in the historical record.
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Re: The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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Another point to note is that the Samaritan expectation of the Ta'eb has that he will live 110 years, the same as Joshua:
The time of favour has been well described by Vilinar.30 It prevailed until the end of the priesthood of Uzzi, contemporary of Eli, during which time, according to the (p. 169) Samaritan book of Joshua and the chronicle of Abulfath, Israel (i.e. the Samaritans) enjoyed great power and kept the law. Joshua is described as a great king conquering all the enemies of God and his nation by more or less miraculous means. Then came the Fanuta31 or time of displeasure, under which the nation still labours. Its beginning was marked by the disappearance of the tabernacle and of all outward signs of Divine favour, 260 years after their entry into Canaan.

The connexion of these two doctrines with that of the Taheb is obvious. It is the restoration of this original prosperity and of Divine favour which will be effected by the Taheb, the restorer. He is, perhaps primarily, (for are not the things of this world of first importance?) a temporal king, who shall restore the kingdom to Israel: and this is the meaning of our second extract in speaking of a first kingdom (that of Joshua), and of a second kingdom (that of the Taheb). But he is also a prophet who shall restore the religion of Moses, so that the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Mount Garizim: and this is the meaning of our former extract in describing the rehabilitation of the tabernacle and its services. The kingdom will be restored, but this is intimately connected with a return to righteousness, and since righteousness implies a previous repentance and pardon, the consideration of the matter fitly forms part of the Atonement service. "Quicunque vult salvus esse," whoever would help to hasten the advent of the Taheb, before all things it is necessary that he repent, for the kingdom is at hand. That seems to be the argument.

The time of the coming of the Taheb is uncertain. "Oh that mine eye might have seen him," the desire of the (p. 170) nation, says Abisha. "May the child who is born attain to (the time of) the Taheb," says Marqah.32 And again in one of the most recent compositions, only found in a Bodleian MS., it is clear still that of that day and that hour knoweth no man, for the writer (Pinhas b. Isaac, still living) says, "May ye return to favour, and the Taheb arise among you"; and farther on, " May the Taheb arise speedily, and may mine eye see his days." Speculation on the matter was natural, but apparently not countenanced by the doctors.
The source for the 110 year tradition - https://books.google.com/books?id=F5Y3A ... 10&f=false
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MrMacSon
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Re: The name change to Jesus/Joshua.

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Secret Alias wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2019 3:06 pm I would argue the Samaritans. The Samaritans had a version of the Book of Joshua where Joshua is specifically and repeated identified as 'the king of Israel.' It would stand to reason that if Jews though that Elijah could come back that it is at least possible that some Samaritans might have been capable of sustaining an expectation for a Joshua redivivus.
It is true that Merx (Merx however inclines more to Joshua redivivus, "denn der Ta'eb ist geringer als Moses") and Hilgenfeld were led to some extent at least to their interpretation of the Taheb as Moses or Joshua redivivus, by their taking Taheb as redivivus and not conversus as Gesenius had shown the meaning to be (see Cowley, The Samaritan Doctrine of the Messiah, in Expositor, Vol. 1 (1895), S. 161-174.
Also the summary in Crown:
in the revolts against Byzantium in 484 and 529 the Samaritans crowned men as “king” (מלכה)*. H. G. Kippenberg has suggested that these people were expected to fulfil the role of “Joseph מלכה”, a term which occurs in Memar Marqah and a couple of hymns in the so-called Durran cycle found in the Defter*. This name originally designated the Samaritan people as a whole as the “possessor” (no?n translating “possessor” rather than “king”) of the land in general and Mt. Gerizim in particular. However, there would also seem to have developed an expectation of the appearance of an individual carrying the “wreath of Joseph” and restoring the Samaritans' possession of their land and shrine.[1]

[1] see Kippenberg 265 ff. Compare already Merx, pp. 41, 43, 49, who explained the idea of Joseph the King from the notion that the Taheb would be Joshua redivivus and thus come from the House of Joseph.
Cheers Stephan. Where is the first quote from?

FWWIW, -

Adalbert Merx, Moses Gaster,and John Bowman have all collected parallels, some of them quite striking, between Rabbinic and Samaritan haggadot. Evidently the developing lines of Samaritan and Jewish traditions had more points of contact than the "common matrix" of Torah and pre-exilic traditions emphasized by Macdonald. For present purposes interest lies only in certain specific features of the Samaritan tradition about Moses and about the eschatological redeemer. Where these coincide with certain Jewish traditions, often in such a way that Jewish and Samaritan versions help to explain one another, there is no reason a priori to exclude historical interaction ...

Wayne A Meeks (1967) 'The Prophet-King. Moses traditions and the Johanine Christology', Supplement to Novum Testamentum Vol XIV; p. 217

But [edited], -

(2) the "Book of Joshua," [would seem to be(?) a] fourteenth century chronicle published in an Arabic version in 1848, later discovered and published in Samaritan Hebrew (the English translation of the Arabic has been used here)4

Meeks (1967) 'The Prophet-King', Novum Test Supp., p. 220

4 Oliver Turnbul Crane, trans., The Samaritan Chronicle or the Book of Joshua the Son of Nun (New York: John B. Alden, 1890), 178pp.


.
Joseph and Joshua as Kings

In fourth century sources, references to Joseph's kingship are frequent. In Markah's paraphrase of Exodus 3.7 God says to Moses, "Surely I know about the anguish. The crown of Joseph is cast away and there is none to inherit it." The kingdom of Joseph is the kingdom to which the Samaritans belong:
  • We are the descendants of Joseph following trial. Shall we leave his kingdom? That would not be right !
Among the tribes which were blessed on Mount Gerizim (Deuteronomy 27) were "Joseph and Benjamin who were made great with the crown of kingship." Jacob was glorified because he was buried by "Joseph the king," just as Aaron was glorified by being buried by Eleazar and by "the great prophet Moses" and Moses because he was buried by God himself. In lists of the righteous forebears, Joseph is characterized as "the king,"1 or "the king, the freed one." Again he is eulogized in the words, "0 Joseph the king who was vested with freedom,"3 and Markah says, in a passage that compares Joseph with both Moses and the Taheb, "Joseph came ; so he was recompensed with a kingdom after servitude and those who had oppressed him sought his favour."

From the last three passages, which connect Joseph's kingship with his having been "set free," the scriptural basis of the tradition becomes clear. The reference is to Joseph's liberation from prison in Egypt and his appointment as Pharaoh's vice-regent (Genesis 41), which is interpreted as kingship. But why should this modification of the Joseph story have taken on such significance for the Samaritans?

Adalbert Merx held that the kingdom of Joseph was emphasized because it was from Joseph's tribe that the Taheb was to come, who, in Merx's view, would be a Joshua redivivus. Now it is true that the fourteenth century chronicle "The Book of Joshua" regularly calls Joshua "the king," never "prophet," while it calls Moses only "the prophet," never "king." Joshua is the first of a succession of kings constituting the "First Kingdom." To this "First Kingdom," presumably, corresponds the "Second Kingdom" which is to be initiated by the Taheb. Furthermore Merx quotes some passages in late sources which speak of the Taheb as "Joshua." An evaluation of Merx's argument must await the section below on the Taheb. In the meantime, it can be shown that the emphasis on Joseph's king-ship in the early sources can be more readily explained on another basis than eschatological typology.

The fact that Joseph's kingship is linked with his liberation suggests that in these traditions "Joseph" is an eponym or type for the Israelite nation, that is, the Samaritans, who could speak of themselves, in distinction from the Jews, as the descendants of Joseph or Ephraim ...

... in the Memar Marqah Joshua is only Moses' disciple and successor ( חליף ), and even in the "Book of Joshua" itself when Joshua's investiture with "kingly authority" is described it is made clear that Joshua receives this office not by virtue of his connection to Joseph, but because he is Moses' haliph. In the fourth century, therefore, so far as extant sources can show, mention of Joseph's kingship did not connote a kingship initiated by Joshua, but a kingship which belonged to all Israel (Samaritans), lost in Egypt but restored by Moses.

Meeks (1967) 'The Prophet-King', Novum Test Supp., p. 228-31

eta: Meeks (1967) 'The Prophet-King', Novum Test Supp via https://epdf.pub/prophet-king-moses-tra ... ology.html
Last edited by MrMacSon on Fri Oct 25, 2019 4:13 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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