Nomina Sacra: Their Origin and Usefulness

[Stephan Huller]

Yes and I have the highest respect for you and many members of the forum. If I seem adversarial I also apologize. I do think you and a few others and myself genuinely are trying to make sense of things. I wonder whether having a filter built into my posting habits would allow me to rethink some of my aggression. You know an hour long 'delay' built into troublesome posters - just to allow them to rethink acting on their impulses.

[Stephan Huller]

And there is something to the idea that Joshua was the heir of Moses and the messiah was the successor to Moses. I can't deny that there is something logical to the basic idea here - viz. that just like 'Joshua' was the heir of Moses the messiah would be called Joshua. Nevertheless there are some things against the idea. I've listed a few of them most notably that no one ever identifies the coming one as being named Joshua. A result of Jews and Samaritans 'self-editing'? Maybe. But also Joshua lived to a 110 and Moses a 'full' 120 years. Joshua was subordinate to Moses. Maybe in the present would Moses was superior to Joshua but in the one to come Joshua would be superior to Moses. Maybe.

Maybe there was some Joshua-expectation. Robert Kraft develops the idea that the Samaritans might have held this view. He's not very knowledgeable about Samaritan sources. I can tell you that the idea almost appears in the last chapter of the Asitar. But still its not there and it doesn't explain how you get from the Samaritans a culture who don't expect a 'messiah' to the rote identification of 'Jesus Christ' which exists in Christian sources.

I can't help but get stuck on the Marcionites because here you have the parallel (a) rejection of the title of 'messiah' for Jesus and (b) the rejection of Joshua/Jesus as a name for ISU. I have to confess that not knowing a lot about the Marcionites allows me to develop speculation about the Marcionites which I wouldn't be able to do if we had better sources. But do we have crystal clear evidence that the Marcionite ISU is the Hebrew Ishu. I think so. In Apelles identification of ISU as the 'fiery angel' of the Pentateuch. People will counter that Apelles doesn't represent 'pure' Marcionitism. But I say what do we really know about the Marcionites. Why is Apelles called a 'Marcionite'? I think the Church Fathers couldn't reconcile the one report with the other so they made up another story (a familiar trope) that heretics couldn't stop making shit up.

There is other stuff too. And then the whole thing about IS being Hebrew IS the angel who met the Patriarchs. One difficulty in my theory - I will tell you - is that Eesh is spelled with three letters in later Biblical Hebrew aleph-yod-shin. But originally it was aleph-shin. In gematria that a difference of ten (311 compared with 301. 301 is the numerical value for the 'other god' el nakar.

[Bingo]

Where is this fucking Joshua expectation that Robert Kraft pretended existed somewhere but he could never quite demonstrate that it existed?

Here.

Deuteronomy 34:10
No prophet ever again arose in Israel like Moses, who knew the Lord face to face.

Why would the author go out of his way to emphasize that “No prophet ever again arose in Israel like Moses” if there was no controversy on the issue?

And if there was a controversy, then which biblical character might be a fitting candidate?

[Stephan Huller]

But that's not necessarily logical. Stating 'I've got the biggest dick in town' doesn't necessarily mean that I know of someone better endowed than myself. I might actually have the biggest dick in town.

[Stephan Huller]

In fact I would argue that stating 'I've got the biggest dick in town' couldn't only be said by someone who was pretty confident of his endowment.

[Stephan Huller]

And since the whole thing in the Bible is a fiction (the characters only having reality in the imagination of the original author) it is impossible that there was another (rival) claim. Joshua is a fake name = "Yah is salvation". A literary fiction. 'Joseph' and 'Moses' were artificially developed from an Egyptian names - Thutmoses, Osarseph. The latter for obvious numerological reasons (345). The story is bullshit. The closest thing to truth is what is found in Manetho. As such Ezra (the author of the Pentateuch) was not echoing a 'real life' tradition that Joshua was better than Moses.

[Stephan Huller]

And the Samaritans go so far as to echo this over and over. No one is better than Moses. No one is better than Moses. Did they 'invent' this idea or was this the original tradition of the author of the Pentateuch. Answer: the original tradition of the author of the Pentateuch. He thought Moses was the greatest. Joshua was a subordinate figure.

Now could someone have come along and 'got the idea' that the awaited one of Israel was going to be named Joshua. You'd think. It makes sense sort of. But strangely there is no evidence for it before Christianity. And why doesn't Moses enter the Promised Land. Is this a reflection of oral tradition? Or perhaps the knowledge that the entry didn't take place immediately? Or was it a set up for the 'secret' expectation that the coming one would be named 'Joshua'? Again if the latter was true, why isn't there evidence for this in any of the Israelite traditions? Can we really go back to a conspiracy theory (i.e. that the Jews and Samaritans and Karaites and Mandaeans all 'wiped out' their literary traditions in the face of Christianity's ascendency?

[Stephan Huller]

And still there is the problem that there is definitely no evidence for a 'Joshua angel.' Yes Jesus in Greek equals 888 and the number was significant to Israelites. Marqe 'finds it' in the first words of the Greek text of the Song of the Sea (he tries to connect this to the first two word in the Aramaic text which = 88 and the first word in the Hebrew text which = 8 or אָ֣ז. But could early Jews have been 'swayed' by finding this number in a 'profane' text of the Pentateuch? Could this have meant that Joshua was god or that there was a god named Joshua? No.

[Stephan Huller]

And lest we forget (or ignore it) 'Jesus' or 'Joshua' does not mean 'Savior.'

[Bingo]

But that's not necessarily logical. Stating 'I've got the biggest dick in town' doesn't necessarily mean that I know of someone better endowed than myself. I might actually have the biggest dick in town.

Yes, it is completely logical – even when the conclusion is wrong.

Methinks you are confusing inductive reasoning with deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning allows for a conclusion, while deductive reasoning demands a conclusion.

I am not suggesting that Deuteronomy 34:10 demands ‘Joshua worship’. I am only saying that Deuteronomy 34:10 allows for ‘Joshua worship’. - It’s what we might expect to see if some folks worshipped Joshua. In law its called circumstantial evidence.

On the other hand – you have failed to explain why a person might say, “I’ve got the biggest dick in town” for no apparent reason at all - even when it’s true.