Deconstructing Mark's Structure As A Purposeful And Historically Informed Synthesis Of Sectarian Beliefs

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yakovzutolmai
Posts: 296
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 6:03 am

Deconstructing Mark's Structure As A Purposeful And Historically Informed Synthesis Of Sectarian Beliefs

Post by yakovzutolmai »

Taking Mark as the most original text of extant gospel narratives, I wanted to apply my other historical research to deconstruct the sources and intent in including them.

To begin, here is my view on the sectarian content feeding Mark:
  • John the Baptist as Oannes. Given the seven sages tradition of Babylon and its connection to Enochian mythology, the sea/fish divinity of Syria, and so forth, John the Baptist is almost obviously and completely an expression of Assyrian cult practice. Considering Adiabene as a center of Mandean and Manichean traditions, this isn't even controversial speculation. We have to take the baptizer movement (called Sabean, and therefore confused with Sheba) as nothing more than Assyrian or Babylonian religion in Galilee. The coming out of water, the dove, the concept of the Holy Spirit. The fishermen weaving nets. All clearly the Dea Syria cult or a version of it. From Ashkelon to Edessa to Adiabene.
  • Therapeutae. Anything having to do with healing. There is also a particular emphasis on Jesus as a spiritual entity and agent of salvation or personal redemption. Assuming this comes from Alexandria, and incorporates Serapian elements.
  • Messianism. Anything about the heavens opening, Israel triumphant, armies, trumpets, eschatology generally. Probably the Jewish mercenary cult associated either with Babylonian Jews or probably the Oniad Egyptians. The Oniads would also incorporate Egyptian cult teachings in their messianic concept, AKA Adam Kadmon, Ammon the hidden one, the repair of the world, the order of the cosmos.
  • The "James" cult which synthesizes the Oannes and Messianic cults as a later evolution. Particular focus on astrology.
  • Naturally, Pharisaical and Sadducaical traditions oppose the Alexandrian sect.
Here are the historical sources:
  • The family of Simon Cantheras. His brother Joazer is the Syriac name similar to Andrew. This is Simon and Andrew. The children Eleazar and Martha are Lazarus of Bethany's household.
  • The children of Zebedee. This is Izates and Monobazus of Adiabene. Monobazus was head of the national cult of Adiabene, and keeper of mysteries and sacred idols. This is where you get language such as weaver (Anileus and Asineus, Mary), or even weaving fishing nets. The fisherman language also invokes the Oannes cult. They are of course Assyrian Jews. Salome or Mary Salome is therefore also Helena of Adiabene, and evidence has her also as the daughter of Herodias.
  • Theudas is the baptizer in the wilderness who loses his head, and is plausibly Izates due to his date of death.
  • The Jamesian period and Jewish War, including the temple's destruction and certain zealot leaders. For example, Simon bar Giora as Peter, Josephus as Joseph of Arimathea.
  • Judas of Galilee (Gamala) as Zamaris/Monobazus, father of Izates and Monobazus, also Jacimus the Captain of Bathyra. The holy family, and also caricaturing the family as "Sicarii" traitors to Jesus.
What Mark seems to be doing is taking the Babylonian and Messianic traditions, using what seems to be source material from those sects, and building a Therapeutaic narrative around it. Various periods of history are invoked, to associate all relevant persons to those two other sects with the preferred narrative. Finally, there also seems to be an attempt to hide dirty laundry - specifically related to Herod Agrippa II, Berenice and Tiberius Alexander - by providing an alternate, parallel narrative to what must have been common rumors.

The conclusion probably is that this was crafted by the household of Clement to advance Alexandrian, Therapeutic Judaism as the dominant proto-Christian sect. Here's the deconstruction:

Mark 1 - Jesus is a literary figure representing the Therapeutaic angel walking in history. Simon and Andrew are Beothusians representing the Messianic cult. James and John are Anileus and Asineus (Izates and Monobazus) representing the Babylonian, Iohannite, baptizing cult. They are called to serve Jesus the Therapeutic. John as the abstracted baptizer, personification of the cult, blesses Jesus as greater. Dea Syria announces herself as Elijah's Holy (Jewish) Spirit, and blesses Jesus as her representative. Jesus then demonstrates his purpose: to heal.

Mark 2 - More healing and clarifications against Pharisees and Sadducees.

Mark 3 - Organization of 12 apostles, supplanting the Jamesian system with this new Therapeutaic Christ and distancing Jesus from the Holy Family. Subsuming other sectarian figures of note into the new system.

Mark 4 - Sower parable as proselyte Judaism, Jesus as world healer calming the storm rather than world remaker.

Mark 5 - More general powers to heal. In general, the path of Jesus's ministry is irrelevant. It is a literary and symbolic journey. Nazareth was likely Nasara, the Jamesian city likely Bathyra.

Mark 6a - John the Baptist's death

This is particularly challenging. Much of it is incorrect (Herodias as Philip's wife). We also would expect Theudas as the historical subject and he was past the time of Antipas. We also can conclude that the wars of Antipas and his marriage to Herodias could not have been as sinful as "John" - whose true existence we doubt - proclaims. Antipas's sin was turning out his first wife, and the cause of his war with Aretas. We must also note that the story of how Herodias's daughter convinces Herod parallels the story of how Herod Agrippa won his kingdom from Claudius.

My interpretation is that Herod is actually Herod of Chalcis, following the death of Agrippa. It is Berenice his wife, who secretly has a love affair with Agrippa II, who convinces Herod of Chalcis to permit Rome to go after Theudas. Josephus handles this delicately, not discussing how Fadus comes upon Theudas, only that he does. It is also, we must remember, Tiberius Alexander who replaces Fadus to persecute James and Simon following the uproar caused by the death of Theudas. The Alexandrians are the Therapeutae proselyte cult, and at the time of Agrippa's death the Boethusian Messianics (Lazarus), Agrippa and the Babylonians (Izates), were allied. Agrippa II took refuge and money from the family of Tiberius Alexander, so his alignment would have been the opposite.

If Berenice, via illicit attachment to Agrippa II, through her ambition for the two of them, seeks Theudas's death as a demonstration of Agrippa II's influence over Jewry, then her ambition is in parallel to the last decade's Herodias who had pushed Antipas. Since Berenice was Titus's lover, and Herod Agrippa II and the Alexandrian Jews (Tiberius Alexander especially) so connected to the Flavians, we can easily note the point of embarrassment. I assume it is the transposition of Berenice to Herodias which affects the transposition of Theudas into the time of Antipas and his war. Notably, Herod of Chalcis dies in 48 AD, the same year of the great famine in which Adiabene redeems the status of the Babylonian Jews (the brethren of Antioch) in Jerusalem. We also see Tiberius Alexander be removed. Perhaps this political shift coincided with a quiet assassination in Chalcis. Agrippa II, of course, takes over in Chalcis immediately afterwards.

We can see why Josephus would not write about any of this. We also see how Fadus and Tiberius Alexander are both transposed onto Pilate, who himself was an unpopular leader who both offended Jewry and persecuted charismatic (albeit, Samaritan) figures. Thus is the dating of the literary Christ fixed. I have also been suspicious that Mors Pilati is a tradition built around Tiberius Alexander bringing this Markian Christianity to Rome, the Veronica (Berenice) Icon being the sack in which Theudas's head was carried. We could see this icon being used as a proof of death sent East, creating the Mandylion tradition, then reappearing as Babylonian zealots fall to Titus in the Jewish War and thence to Rome. But that's just speculation.

EDIT: Just read a Neil Godfrey. The head on the platter is from a story of Esther. So we can take that out of any historical consideration. This does support a notion of Berenice using the Agrippa-Claudius trick to pressure Herod of Chalcis to green light the death of Theudas.

Mark 6b - Now that John is dead, Jesus performs acts establishing him as the successor sea sage, the new Oannes. Walking on water, commanding fish.

Mark 7 - Anti-Pharisaical doctrine, more healing, gentile evangelism

Mark 8a - Very important mention of loaves of bread. If Jesus replaces Oannes the sage of the sea, then Jesus feeding with bread means Jesus also is the successor to the Serapian sage of grain.

Mark 8b - Amid succeeding Oannes and Serapis, Jesus provokes confusion among the people. Who exactly is he then? Here Peter - the Jamesian - confirms that who Jesus really is would be the anticipated Messiah. Here the three cults are unified within Jesus, and then recognized by the last of the Jamesians as the final synthesis.

Mark 9 - Here is raw Jamesian language. Transfiguration. Gnashing of teeth. The remaking of the world. The opening of the gates of heaven. Naturally following from the progress of the synthesis narrative.

Mark 10 - This section includes almost what you would call a clarification of law, and I would assume that now that the synthesis of sects is complete, the Therapeutaic law is being espoused. A clarification on Moses.

Mark 11 - We now approach a Jamesian epiphany. Jesus's triumphal entrance and donation of great powers.

Mark 12 - Here is the new law, now that the Kingdom is holding court.

Mark 13 - Christ holding court in Jerusalem is purely symbolic. Now we must discuss the truth of the real kingdom come. The fig tree and other eschatological matters. Therapeutaic eschatology. The distant and uncertain apocalypse, as opposed to the coming and certain one.

Mark 14 - Here Christ prepares to leave, now that the distant eschaton has been revealed, the new law given. Here he must return to his divine station. A Serapian ritual is invoked as Jesus both ritually prepares his mortal self, but simultaneously as priest proceeds to become his divine self. The Alexandrian Jesus is preferred, and the Messianic and Babylonian sages are ignored. The initiate also can enjoy Serapios's divinity in part by repeating the ritual.

Mark 15a - Finally a bow to history, and tying loose ends. Why must the kingdom come? Why did not Christ remain having assumed his throne in Jerusalem? Because the Jews chose Barabbas. That is, the Jamesians. They chose the Jamesian Christ and the Jamesian family (Babylonian God-Kings who converted to Oniade messianic Judaism and plausibly could claim to be High Priests and that generation's "world pillar" Christ king).

Mark 15b - Pilate is conveniently available as a figure of controversy, having been disgraced to Rome and not contemporaneous to the gospel's writing.

Mark 15c - The mention of Simon of Cyrene is remarkable. It is both specific, and seemingly unnecessary. Unlike, for example, Luke or Matthew, Mark does not feel the need to deal with too many details of history. As Simon is mentioned to be the father of Alexander and Rufus, I wonder actually if this is Alexander the Alabarch, father of Tiberius Alexander. We can ignore anachronism as this passion probably never happened in history. Could Rufus be Philo? Just pure speculation. I have felt the Therapeutae are influenced by needing a Judaism which does not require the temple in Jerusalem. Cyrene was the most distant of the early Jewish diaspora colonies, so perhaps this is where that doctrine emerged. There's a topic of potential research, as Cyrenaica is home to many particular cults and should their oracular practices be linked to practices of the Therapeutae, it could mean something.

Mark 15d - Josephus bar Matityahu as Joseph of Arimathea. The invocation of Peter as the first and most important character to proclaim Mark's Jesus as Christ conforms to Simon bar Giora as the last Jamesian who was himself killed in Rome and famous to Rome in particular. bar Giora having a purple cloak. Josephus discussing having a friend taken down from the cross while living, finding him crucified between two robbers. There's a theory that this man was bar Giora. Mark is essentially the evidence that this is true, in that Mark chooses to invoke the story of Josephus taking someone down from the cross for Jesus. On the other hand, maybe Josephus took down Jesus ben Gamala from the cross, and Mark is actually pretending to have a historical named Jesus as its ostensible Jesus, though that's doubtful. Bar Giora is a good candidate merely because he actually survived the War. I don't think any of the known Jesus's lived long enough to make it to the cross.

Mark 15e - The humiliating death of Jesus, of course, explains why the world is not ready for the Kingdom just yet. A tempering of messianic expectations through invoking popular guilt and trauma over the destruction of Jerusalem (interestingly, both Pompey and even allegedly Ptolemy I destroyed Jerusalem but perhaps the weightiness of the Jewish religion hadn't taken hold yet). Jesus on the cross also invokes the crucified god, which is a separate mystical doctrine independent of Christological narratives. Take Prometheus, Atlas or Loki. It is a common trope of ancient mythology and probably part of the Egyptian cult which informs the Messianic Judaism of the Oniads.

Mark 16 - The short ending sweetly letting us know that the angel Jesus's traipse through Judean history has come to an end. It is not a redemption or theological statement about what happened concerning man's soul through the cross. Simply, the story is over. The angel Jesus, a Serapis, has returned to heaven leaving no piece of himself or his mortality behind.

Mark in this light becomes a very coherent, purposeful narrative quite different than the others. It is the most grounded in actual history, independent of the hagiographical narrative. We see specific, historical sects corroborated by hundreds of years of sources. The Oannes cult as an expression of what we know through both Berossus and Enoch, with continuity lasting into the third and fourth centuries. The Messianic cult related to corroborated parallels in what we know about both Marduk cults and Egyptian cults, with Onias as a plausible point of intersection fitting well with Boethusians as a political faction of sorts within the Jewish priesthood. The political squabbles of Herodian and Assyrian kings with Alexandrian oligarchs. The silk trade routes as the common theatre for this.

Mark as distinct Therapeutaic doctrine consolidating the two other main cults, rebuffing Pharisees and Sadducees, incorporating historical leaders of the other cults, then framing it through the popular Jamesian system, getting validation from Peter, giving Christ his holding of court and fulfillment of prophecy in Jerusalem, then sending Serapis back to heaven for an indefinite period, handicapping eschatologists. Finally, protecting the households of Clement, Alexander (the Alabarch), and Herod from embarrassment in spite of their role often quite antagonistic against Jamesians in particular.

It is of course just a hypothesis, but I've not encountered any explanations for biblical provenance stronger, in terms of explaining the structure and purpose of the narrative. We also see how the narrative purpose changes with other gospels, focusing less on real history and historical sects, and more on the contrived history and Christ as a Platonic savior. That is, Christ's cross as the intersection of the realm of forms with real history.

If we see Mark as telling quite a different, and more historically informed story, it could almost wrap a bow around historicity discussions.

Well, anyway, casting pearls.
yakovzutolmai
Posts: 296
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 6:03 am

Re: Deconstructing Mark's Structure As A Purposeful And Historically Informed Synthesis Of Sectarian Beliefs

Post by yakovzutolmai »

Just context for this deconstruction.

I believe one could take each line of Mark and in theory, though maybe not extant, find some sectarian practice or doctrine as a direct oral or textual source for that line. According to the structure I've laid out. Otherwise, were we to know the history accurately, each character - if not a cult/mythological figure - has a specific sectarian orientation relevant to history and the synthesis Mark is attempting.

Every last authentic line. Although of course there could be an earlier gospel from which Mark is constructed.
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