Note: Mishmarot and Young Priests

[Charles Wilson]

While I was researching for several of the current Posts, I found this interesting datum concerning young vs. older Priests:

Jewish Encyclopedia, "TEMPLE, ADMINISTRATION AND SERVICE OF..."

"The priests were divided into twenty-four patrols ("mishmarot"), which were changed every week. The patrol was quartered partly in the Chamber of the Flame and principally in the Chamber of the Hearth, both of which were on the north side of the inner court ("'azarah"). The latter chamber was a capacious one, surmounted by a dome. Half of the chamber extended outside the court to the "ḥel," a kind of platform surrounding the courts, which was considered as secular, in contrast to the sacred premises within, where the priests were not allowed to sit down, much less to sleep. A fire was always kept burning in the outer extension, at which the priests might warm their hands and bare feet. Here also they might sit down and rest for a while. At night the elder priests slept here on divans placed on rows of stone steps one above another. The younger priests slept on cushions on the floor, putting their sacred garments under their heads and covering themselves with their secular clothing (Tamid. i. 1).

Of course, we find "cushions" explicitly mentioned in Mark:

Mark 4: 38 (RSV):

[38] But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care if we perish?"

Mark 14: 15 (Moffatt):

[15] He will show you a large room upstairs, with couches spread, all ready

The "Jesus" Character is taken from the Story of a Priest. The Priest was young, as was Peter.

CW

[Charles Wilson]

Another part of this piece stands out:

"The latter chamber was a capacious one, surmounted by a dome. Half of the chamber extended outside the court to the "ḥel," a kind of platform surrounding the courts, which was considered as secular, in contrast to the sacred premises within, where the priests were not allowed to sit down, much less to sleep. A fire was always kept burning in the outer extension, at which the priests might warm their hands and bare feet. Here also they might sit down and rest for a while..."

The entire passage should be bolded and underlined.

Matthew 26: 69 - 71 (RSV):

[69] Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a maid came up to him, and said, "You also were with Jesus the Galilean."
[70] But he denied it before them all, saying, "I do not know what you mean."
[71] And when he went out to the porch, another maid saw him, and she said to the bystanders, "This man was with Jesus of Nazareth."

Mark 14: [54], 66 - 68 (RSV):

Edit Note: [54] And Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest; and he was sitting with the guards, and warming himself at the fire.
...
[66] And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the maids of the high priest came;
[67] and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him, and said, "You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus."
[68] But he denied it, saying, "I neither know nor understand what you mean." And he went out into the gateway.

Luke 22: 54 - 55 (RSV):

[54] Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house. Peter followed at a distance;
[55] and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them.

John 18: 15 - 18, 25 - 26 (RSV):

[15] Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. As this disciple was known to the high priest, he entered the court of the high priest along with Jesus,
[16] while Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept the door, and brought Peter in.
[17] The maid who kept the door said to Peter, "Are not you also one of this man's disciples?" He said, "I am not."
[18] Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves; Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.
...
[25] Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said to him, "Are not you also one of his disciples?" He denied it and said, "I am not."
[26] One of the servants of the high priest, a kinsman of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, "Did I not see you in the garden with him?"

In Matthew, Peter begins the scene sitting outside in the courtyard. Note verse 71: "AND when...". Does this denote a gap in the narrative? Whatever, when he goes OUT to the porch, ANOTHER maid sees him.

Edit Note*: Mark has Peter sitting:
"Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest; and he was sitting with the guards".

Then: "...one of the maids of the High Priest came" and, after a moment, Peter, "Went out into the gateway".

Luke tells a part of the Story where Peter is seated:

"...and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them.

Peter is sitting. This must be in the "Secular" part of the construction.

Now, to John. The interplay between that characters in verses 15 - 17 should be Analyzed. As far as this Thread goes, Peter is brought in from a place he could sit to a place where he must stand:

"...they were standing and warming themselves; Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself".

Entirely consistent with the requirements. Further, verse 21 talks of "One of the servents of the High Priest, a KINSMAN...". "Kinsman" was the highest Rank of the Ordered Greek Court, which Herod adopted midway through his reign. With the requirement that those inside must stand, this too is consistent.

We now have a Place and a Movement of the Characters. Peter is outside where he can warm himself while seated. He is invited into the Chamber. "The priests were divided into twenty-four patrols ("mishmarot"), which were changed every week. The patrol was quartered partly in the Chamber of the Flame and principally in the Chamber of the Hearth, both of which were on the north side of the inner court ("'azarah")".

This is a different Story. How does a Country Bumpkin with a Galilean accent get back and forth into a Sacred Area? He doesn't. This Peter is different from the "Peter" idealized the NT. He is, at the 4 BCE Passover a child,, either the son of a Priest or is a Priest-in-Training.

CW

PS*: Originally I had, "Mark finds Peter below in the Courtyard with no mention of whether Peter was standing or sitting." This is incorrect.

[Ben C. Smith]

Another part of this piece stands out:

"The latter chamber was a capacious one, surmounted by a dome. Half of the chamber extended outside the court to the "ḥel," a kind of platform surrounding the courts, which was considered as secular, in contrast to the sacred premises within, where the priests were not allowed to sit down, much less to sleep. A fire was always kept burning in the outer extension, at which the priests might warm their hands and bare feet. Here also they might sit down and rest for a while..."

The entire passage should be bolded and underlined.

Matthew 26: 69 - 71 (RSV):

[69] Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a maid came up to him, and said, "You also were with Jesus the Galilean."
[70] But he denied it before them all, saying, "I do not know what you mean."
[71] And when he went out to the porch, another maid saw him, and she said to the bystanders, "This man was with Jesus of Nazareth."

Mark 14: 66 - 68 (RSV):

[66] And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the maids of the high priest came;
[67] and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him, and said, "You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus."
[68] But he denied it, saying, "I neither know nor understand what you mean." And he went out into the gateway.

Luke 22: 54 - 55 (RSV):

[54] Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house. Peter followed at a distance;
[55] and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them.

John 18: 15 - 18, 25 - 26 (RSV):

[15] Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. As this disciple was known to the high priest, he entered the court of the high priest along with Jesus,
[16] while Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept the door, and brought Peter in.
[17] The maid who kept the door said to Peter, "Are not you also one of this man's disciples?" He said, "I am not."
[18] Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves; Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.
...
[25] Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said to him, "Are not you also one of his disciples?" He denied it and said, "I am not."
[26] One of the servants of the high priest, a kinsman of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, "Did I not see you in the garden with him?"

I puzzled over some of these details and one other here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1429&p=58807#p58807. Not that I have come to any firm conclusions, but... there it is, for whatever it may be worth.

[Charles Wilson]

Ben --
One note on your Post:

The Day of Atonement was changed - http://www.franknelte.net/article.php?article_id=42 - evidently some years after the death of Herod, so that people would not have to Fast 2 days in a row. This may have been an active problem during the Time that we study.

The "Three Jewish Watches" do, I believe, play a part in this Tableau. Archelaus, Passover of 4 BCE, etc., etc...

The point of this, I would guess, is that the Story of Peter at this moment has been breathed on for effect.
Would Mark et. al. have known about this other than redacting what is front of them?

One more piece to the puzzle and I'm not sure where it fits. It certainly places some unusual pressure on my views. I believe the POV to be correct but Timelines are somewhat malleable... It is puzzling.

Thank you very much,

CW

[Charles Wilson]

Teeple sees the Passages in John as coming from "G" = "Gnostic".

Howard Teeple, The Literary Origin of the Gospel of John, https://www.amazon.com/Literary-Origin- ... ple+howard


"Some of the speech material comes from a written source. It contains written features not found in the writing of either the editor or the redactor. One feature in particular is prevalent enough and distinctive enough to prove the existence of the source G: the possessive adjective, with the article repeated with both the adjective and the noun, occurs in John 29 times, and every occurence is in G. The fact that this construction never occurs in S, E, or R demonstrates that it is in a source and the source is not S." (Emphasis iin original)

Well...Note that Teeple does not have a "Signs Gospel" placed in the G sections. If the Source is early (and Aramaic!) it is different than the posited Signs Gospel. This would imply that any (if possible) Aramaic Translations of a Story of "Peter at the Fire" were translated by someone who used the article rigorously and was not a part of the "Signs Group" which may have had documents written for the deification of the Flavians.

With this, we find that there appears to have been a Construction: Mark is (mostly) smooth and was written after the Empty Tomb. Mark is found wanting and that LE is appended after a line is cut from the end (See: Turton who suggests that the ending was like something something found the Gospel of Peter:

"It was the last day of the feast of the unleavened bread and many people were going out, returning to their houses since the festival was over."

The Truncation was known and other endings were posited, perhaps based on geographic location? Paging Stephan Huller...

John, is much more Cut and Paste (See: Raskin, Christs and Christianities, who sees John and Mark literally as copying from a common Document.) John gives the "Standing" part of the Peter Story and this opens up the exquisite clue :

"One of the servants of the high priest, a kinsman of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, "Did I not see you in the garden with him?"

One must be careful in positing "Really, REAL Events" in all of this - Hycanus had his ear cut off by the Parthians, rendering him ineligible for the Office of High Priest. The focus, however, is forced back to the real, on-the-ground Story.

I certainly invite comment on this.

CW

[spin]

Of course, we find "cushions" explicitly mentioned in Mark:

Mark 4: 38 (RSV):

[38] But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care if we perish?"

Mark 14: 15 (Moffatt):

[15] He will show you a large room upstairs, with couches spread, all ready

The "Jesus" Character is taken from the Story of a Priest. The Priest was young, as was Peter.

CW

Another dependence on translation (and translation shopping at that). The relevant word in Mk 4:38 means "pillow" ("a little for-the-head thing") and there is no word for "couch" in Mk 14:15. Moffatt's reading is interpretive.

[Charles Wilson]

Thank you, spin.

Not much anger from my end on your points (See: "Rope through the eye of a needle" and "My God, my God, for this was I spared?"). One way of looking at what I see is to examine alternatives to the accepted Orthodox Story Line to see if there is something else there. Translation Shopping? The Greekies made it a basis to their creation of the NT, it appears.

I still believe that there is something there and I haven't found an argument against this POV yet (especially early Mark. See: "Man with the Withered Hand", "Woman with the 12 Year Issue of Blood", "Jairus' Daughter", Old Man by the Pool" from John et.al.) Further, the Math finds Immer on Duty at the critical 4 BCE Passover and the 9 CE Passover and the Word Play for all of this is telling.

One point in possible agreement with your ideas finds the young Priests sleeping on their "Uniforms" (What would the better word be here? ) If the word was "pillow" then the Text is making another point. I can deal with that, like "The Man Carrying the Water Jar" - "The Man..." may be a shadow for all we know. The greater point is: "Is there another Understanding of the Texts and Data that is consistent and that points to a reasonable Understanding of the Culture from which the Stories came?"

I believe the answer is "Yes". The Hasmoneans, Alexander Jannaeus, Queen Salome (NOT Alexandra) and on and on and on. All are in the NT. The early Church KNEW the Truth but the drive to develop a New Religion (An Empirical Fact) meant that you could work in the Roman Court by day and promulgate New Christian Dogma at night. Or maybe you could be one of the few who survived the Destruction of the Temple - like Zakkai - and provided Texts that left clues as to real state of affairs.

The Transvaluations took care of the rest. As I have said, there are Atheists who believe that Jesus was the Son of God, who does not exist. The Thesis I look at is Falsifiable and yes, the arguments are based on Probabilities, not Certainties. Like everyone else here.

There was a Priest who should have died in the Death at Jerusalem in 4 BCE. He didn't . We've seen this before, BTW. If, for example, you had stated that nobody could have survived the Firebombing of Dresden, you would find a very psychologically scarred Kurt Vonnegut, quietly stating, "I was there...". Or:

"Help the bombardier!"
"Help the bombardier!"
"I'm the bombardier, I'm the bombardier.
I'm alright, I'm alright."
"Then help him, help him..."

And Snowden lay dying in back...
***

The Romans could have written a story from whole cloth but there was a Reason, an Arrogance that demanded that a Story of a Priest and a child from the Mishmarot Settlements of Jabnit and Meiron should be dismembered and rewritten for the Glory of the Flavians. No one, NO ONE looks at the Mishmarot Groups in Galilee.

Mark 9: 42 (RSV):

[42] "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

Did anyone ever throw a giant millstone into the sea? (Aramaic: "Millstone of a donkey...")
Yes, of course. Herod did.
But...No need to look at that is there?

Mark 1: 7 (RSV):

[7] And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.

What could that POSSIBLY mean?

CW

[lsayre]

Does the reference to the outer courtyard of the temple as "hel" correlate in any way with the English word "hell"? Or is this merely coincidental?

[spin]

Does the reference to the outer courtyard of the temple as "hel" correlate in any way with the English word "hell"? Or is this merely coincidental?

Probably just coincidental.

Hell is ultimately derived (as are all Germanic cognates) from an Indo-European root (KEL-, to cover, conceal) that is also behind the Greek apocalypse and the Latin "occult", both about covering. Oh, and "hall" (a covered place) and valhalla.

[Charles Wilson]

The original epic "Metropolis" (Fritz Lang, 1927), was shown 7 times before being turned over to Paramount for editing for the US market. Channing Pollock cut about a quarter of the movie. The main sequence that gives reason for the antagonisms between the main characters was cut because the name "Hel" might have confused American Snowflakes into thinking that "Hel" was a naughty word.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dCltRRufmo