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Who Lies Sleeping?

The Cult of Joshua 1

William B Smith and the Pre-Christian Jesus
Why Jesus?
Justin Martyr On “Jesus”
Views of Other Church Fathers

Abstract

The Jews might have had a cult of a god or demi-god named Joshua. Joshua was an old cult name for God, evolved from the idea of a Jewish saviour or messiah based on the Persian Saoshyant. The Joshua who “returned” with Zerubabel was a mythological personification of the saviour Joshua showing the eschatological significance of the “return” portrayed to the “returners”, the Persian colonists. The name Iesous (Jesus), throughout the Septuagint, was the Greek translation of the Hebrew name Jehoshua or Joshua. Jesus is Joshua—in Greek—and, in the original Acts and Hebrews, the scriptural Joshua is called Jesus. Most modern Christians do not know this, so what was clear to the first Christians is obscure to modern ones. Christian clergymen are not keen to make it known that Jesus is Joshua because their flocks might come to see that Jesus was not as unique as they make out, and it might seem he was trying to be Joshua!

William B Smith and the Pre-Christian Jesus

Some critics of the supernatural Christ have argued for a century that there was a cult among the Jews of a god or demi-god named Joshua. William B Smith found evidence from such sources as the Great Paris Magic Papyrus that a reverence for the name Jesus or Joshua began before the Christian Jesus ever lived. Jesus/Joshua was an old cult name for God, an invention of the Persian so-called diaspora, and evolved from the idea of a Jewish saviour or messiah based on the Persian Saoshyant. The Joshua who “returned” with Zerubabel might have been a mythological personification of the saviour Joshua meant to signify the eschatological significance of the “return” to the “returners”, the Persian colonists. Smith wrote in 1911:

The doctrine concerning Jesus was a pre-Christian one, a cult which at the meeting of the centuries (100 BC to 100 AD was widespread among the Jews and especially among the Hellenists, more or less in secret and veiled in “mysteries”… From the beginning Jesus was nothing other than a divinity… namely as the redeemer, the guardian, the saviour.

This saviour had not had an earthly life but was one to come. The novelty of Christianity was the claim he had! Smith thought “Joshua Messiah” (Jesus Christ) was already a cult name among Jews long before the crucifixion of Jesus Barabbas. It is not at all far fetched, indeed less so today, now that the Persian influence on Judaism is getting clearer and clearer. But, it is a proposal hard to settle definitely because Jews long ago tried to expunge any trace of it and Christians have played the Joshua record but at their own speed.

The Persians already had the concept of a saviour, the Saoshyant, who would come to redeem the world. So, there is nothing peculiar in thinking that Judaism had the same concept right from its inception. It is not in dispute that they had it, but, for how long, and the degree of divinity in it, is. Christians claim their Jesus as the expected Jewish messiah, and gave him the messiah’s name and title—unless they are both titles. Their view is that a genuine son of God died on the cross beginning the cult of Jesus Christ. Smith says such a cult already existed. The Christian claim was simply that the pre-existing god appeared on earth in the flesh, and his death by hanging was the redeeming act. Smith’s idea is compatible with the Christian claim, except for Christians, who want their idea to be uniquely revealed by God, in which case no Jesus Christ could have been known before he appeared on earth. Christians will accept that a messiah was proclaimed in the Jewish scriptures they renamed the Old Testament but they will not accept that anyone could have begun to worship this messiah before he actually appeared.

The Christians are on strong ground in that direct evidence of a pre-Christian Jesus cult is thin. Circumstantial evidence is easily dismissed by Christian believers immune to persuasion even when it does not impact in any way on their faith. Yet, circumstantial evidence is evidence. More recently Robert A Kraft has gathered some of the clues available and published them in Ioudaios of June 1992.

The central piece of evidence cited by Smith was from the Great Paris Magic Papyrus, line 3019, which names Jesus as a god of the Hebrews in a list of divine names cited in an exorcism formula. Critics of Smith’s hypothesis say the list is too late, being from the Christian era. Indeed, it is dated at 300 AD, but the argument is that the papyrus copies magical charms certainly from a much earlier date. Adolf Deissmann, whom Smith cites in his own favour, demurs in that the word “Hebrews”, when used in this period, always meant Palestinian Jews, not Diaspora Jews, as it does too in the Acts of the Apostles, and this detail refutes Smith’s hypothesis because he thought the “Joshua Messiah” cult had arisen in the Diaspora among Hellenized Jews.

The scrolls from Qumran might support a synthesis of the two views. A sect of Palestinian Jews might have had the idea of a messiah god before the Jews of the Diaspora had it. They show that first century Judaism was anything but monolithic in belief, as the Christians and Rabbis have made out. The Persian influence was much stronger than anyone in the last two millennia had thought, so Judaism then was not as rigidly monotheistic as its derivative religions like to think they are. So, the line in the Great Paris Magic Papyrus could have been an original reference to a belief among some Palestinian Jews, as well as Diaspora ones, that Jesus was a god.

Why Jesus?

Whatever remains of this old tradition must have left its mark in the Jewish scriptures. Early Christians quickly saw their messiah had the same name as both Moses’s general who succeeded him as leader of the Israelites, and the mysterious high priest in Zechariah, a scriptural book full of Christian precedents. The name Iesous (Jesus) was used throughout the Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures, the Septuagint, as the Greek translation of the Hebrew name Jehoshua or Joshua. Jesus is Joshua—in Greek—and in the original Greek of Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8 the scriptural Joshua is called Jesus. Most modern Christians do not know this simple fact, so what was clear to the first Christians is obscure to modern ones. Christian clergymen are not keen to make it known that Jesus is Joshua because their flocks might come to see that Jesus was not as unique as they like to make out. It might look as though Jesus was trying to be Joshua!

The principal Jesus of the Old Testament is Joshua son of Nun who led Israel into the promised land after the death of Moses. Earlier, in Exodus 17:8 he commanded the Israelite army against Amalek, leader of the Amalekites, while Moses, Aaron and Hur watched the battle from a nearby hill. When Moses raises his arms, it is surmised from his sides to make a cross of his torso and arms, the battle favoured Israel but not otherwise. Joshua eventually defeats Amalek but not decidedly, and Moses tells Joshua of Yehouah’s promise that Amalek would ultimately be blotted out, Amelek therefore serving the role of Satan in the scriptural cosmogony.

Later in Exodus, we find Joshua on Sinai with Moses (Exod 24:13, 32:17) and ministering in the “Tent of Meeting” after Yehouah speaks to Moses (Exod 33:11). Moses changed Joshua’s name from Hoshea (Osea) (Num 13:16 ff), and Joshua and Caleb alone of the twenty spies encouraged the conquest of Canaan (Num 14:6 ff). He was divinely chosen and dedicated for the task of leading Israel into the land and distributing the land to the tribes (Num 27:18 ff; 34:17). For this latter role, he received the “spirit of wisdom”, like Moses (Dt 34:9), and the commission of Yehouah (Num 27:18; 34:17). Thus Joshua and Eleazer (or Phineas, in some traditions) replace Moses and Aaron as the civil and priestly leaders of Israel. A Christian commentator has noted that in the book of Joshua, Joshua is effectively a second Moses.

In Deuteronomy 18:15, Joshua is the “prophet like Moses” and his successor. Almost immediately the priestly author of Deuteronomy 34:10 denies this in the closing passages of the Pentateuch writing, “no prophet like Moses has arisen”. There may also be some relationship here to the protecting and guiding “angel” of Exodus 13.20, who leads God’s children out of the desert into their promised land, who somehow bears God’s “name”.

The lesser Jesus of the Old Testament is Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priestly associate of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah during the “return” of the Jews from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple. In what seems to be an investiture, he stands before the Angel of the Lord, with the adversary, Satan, opposing him. The Lord rebukes Satan and Joshua is addressed as “a brand plucked from the fire”. He is told to remove his filthy clothing and to put on apparel prepared for him by the Lord. The angel challenges Joshua to walk in the way of Yehouah then promises:

Hear now, O Joshua the high priest… for behold, I will bring forth my servant the ”Branch”.

Here the Branch, “zemach”, is the equivalent of “Netzer”—Greek, “anatole” meaning a rising or sprouting. In the following context, the Branch seems to refer to Zerubbabel, and in 4.14, the seer receives a vision of “two olive branches” which symbolize “the two anointed ones that stand by the Lord of the whole earth”—apparently Iesous and Zerubbabel. A little later, the seer is told to make a crown and set it on the head of Iesous the high priest, and to say to him:

Behold a man whose name is Branch (“anatole”, rising)—he shall rise out of his place and he shall build the temple of Yehouah… and shall sit and rule on his throne, and the council of peace shall be between them both.

This passage seems corrupted, apparently speaking originally of crowns for both Iesous (Joshua) and Zerubbabel, the two anointed leaders or messiahs. Now it only refers only to Joshua in all known Jewish versions and must be an early redaction. Interestingly, the Essenes did expect two messiahs.

Justin Martyr On “Jesus”

By the middle of the second century, the apologist, Justin of Samaria, was arguing the analogies of the Joshuas and Jesus. Justin knew the connexion between Joshua and the Semitic root meaning “to save”, explaining:

And the name Jesus in the Hebrew language means Soter (Saviour) in the Greek tongue.
Justin Martyr, First Apology 33:7

Justin recognised that Joshua having his name changed from Osea, meaning “salvation”, to Iesous (Yehoshua), meaning “the salvation of God” was why the angel said to the virgin:

Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.
Mt 1:23

Justin knows that Iesous was even a name of God, according to Exodus:

And in the Book of the Exodus, it was similarly proclaimed through Moses, and we have understood, that the name of God himself was also Iesous, which it says had not been revealed either to Abraham or to Jacob. And thus it is said: The Lord said to Moses, tell this people, Behold I am sending my angel before you, to guard you in the way that he might lead you into the land which I have prepared for you (Exod 23:20f). Heed him and obey him, do not disobey him for he will not forsake you, for my name is on him. Who, then, led your fathers into the land? You already knew it was he who previously was called Osea but was renamed by this very name Iesous. For if you know this, also you should realise that the name of him who said to Moses “For my name is on him” was Iesous… And that the prophets who were sent to proclaim divine matters were called angels and apostles was made manifest in Isaiah, where he says “Send me”; and that he who was renamed with the name Iesous became a prophet mighty and great (Isa 6:8) is clear to all!
Dialogue with Trypho 75:1-3:

The reference to the raising up of a “prophet like me”, uttered by Moses, is Deuteronomy 18:15. Justin, discussing Psalms 22, returns to a discussion of the name:

The psalm says “I will declare your name to my brethren…” showing that he was that one through whom also the one called Jacob was renamed Israel and Osea was renamed Iesous, through which name the remnant of those who came out of Egypt were brought into the land promised to the patriarchs. And that he should rise like a star of the race of Abraham Moses indicated when he spoke thus, “a star will rise (“anatello”) from Jacob and a ruler from Israel”. And also another scripture says “Behold a man, rising (“anatole”) is his name”.
Dialogue with Trypho 106.2

Bracketing Iesous, who led the Children of Israel into the Promised Land, and the man whose name is Anatole is not accidental. “Behold a man, Rising is his name” is from Zechariah, where it is linked with the name of Iesous the high priest. Justin knew of the role of this Priestly Iesous. When Justin first refers to Moses’ successor (Dial 113:3, 115-120), he points out that Iesous, not Moses, conducted the people into the holy land, and Iesous apportioned it to those who came in with him. Iesous also stayed the sun. These deeds done in the name of Iesous, for Justin, prophesied the things done by the Lord Iesous.

In the same way the revelation concerning the priest, Iesous, who was in Babylon was a prophecy of the things to be done by the Christian priest and God and Christos, son of the father of All. So Iesous Christos is he from whom and through whom the father is about to make both heaven and earth new. He is the one who will shine in Jerusalem an everlasting light. He is the King of Salem after the order of Melchizedek and the eternal priest of the most high. Justin never comments on the meaning of “anatole” although plainly it is a title of Iesous Christos.

At several places in the Dialogue, Justin mentions the battle with Amalek. It rehearses the ultimate eschatological battle in which God, through Iesous Christos will blot out forever the memory of Amalek, representing God’s opponents. Iesous will conquer “with a hidden hand”.

Joshua-Jesus parallels had profoundly affected Justin’s second-century Christian apologetic. He spells out episodes of the career of Iesous Nave and gives an interpretation of the high priest Iesous. In Justin’s remarks about the Blessing on Judah in Genesis 49.10, the messiah is pictured as a second Joshua.:

“A ruler shall not fail from Judah and a governor from his thighs until he comes for whom it is kept. And he shall be the expectation of the Gentiles.” And this is clear that it was not said concerning Judah but concerning the Messiah. For all of us from all the Gentiles do not expect Judah, but Iesous, the one who also led your fathers from Egypt!

Views of Other Church Fathers

After Justin, Irenaeas writes about the power of the name Iesous in Jewish history, and draws a clear contrast between Moses and his successor Iesous, who typifies Iesous Christos. Clement of Alexandria explicitly identifies Iesous Nave with the expected “prophet like Moses”, something only hinted at in Justin. Tertullian accepts the parallels between Iesous Nave and Iesous Christos in Justin, including Moses’ successor being the “angel” of Exod 23:20f.

Near the end of the second century, Irenaeus refers to God’s revelation of the saving name, Iesous, to the sending forth of the spies of Canaan in the power of this name and to Iesous dividing the Jordan, conquering and apportioning the land. It all characterises the origins of Christianity in a mystery cult in which Jesus was the secret name. The cult must have been the Essenes. Irenaeus contrasts Moses and Iesous—it is not Moses, but Iesous who brings victory over Amalek and leads God’s people into the inheritance. Moses gave the manna, but Iesous provided the first fruits of life from the grain of the Promised Land.

Tertullian from North Africa said Moses gave Osea the “pristine name” Iesous, and this Iesous is the “Angel” which preceded Israel in the wilderness, as Justin also claimed. Similarly, the contrast between Moses’ Torah and Iesous’ new law, the Gospel, is found in Tertullian, along with a midrash on the Amalek episode and comments on Iesous’ role in leading Israel into the promised land and in administering the “second circumcision” with knives of stone.

Clement of Alexandria, following Philo, identifies the “Angel” of Exod 23:21 with the divine Logos rather than with the leader Iesous, but also adds a passage already hinted at by Justin when he referred to Iesous as a great prophet—the promise of a prophet like Moses in Dt 18:15-19. According to Clement, the reference to God raising such a prophet signifies Iesous the Son of Nave and, ultimately, Iesous the Son of God.

For the name of Iesous was proclaimed beforehand in the Law in shadowy reference. Whence it prophesied the name of Salvation.

Where did this Joshua Christology start? Is it exclusively the theologizing construction of Christians searching the Jewish scriptures to find precedents for what they believed had come to pass in the person and work of Iesous their Christos? Or was there an expectation in Judaism that the coming Messiah would in some ways fulfil the Iesous role known from Jewish history?

In the the Latin version of the Apocalypse of Ezra (4 Ezra or 2 Esdras), apparently a Jewish apocalypse sandwiched into an otherwise Christian work, we read:

For my son Iesous shall be revealed… and after these (400) years my son the messiah will die… and the world will be turned back to primordial silence for seven days.
4 Ezra 7:28f

Other versions do not write “my son Iesous” but “my son Christos” or similar expressions in Christos. Some say the Latin has a Christian interpolation here, but why should a Christian insert the name Iesous into a reference to the “dying messiah” (of whom we learn more from Rabbinic Judaism, cf below) without rearranging the other details such as the 400 year reign between the messiah’s advent and death? 4 Ezra 12.31ff refers to another messiah, from the house of David, the agent of divine judgement in the last times. This cannot be the same as the messiah in chapter 7 under the name Iesous, for in chapter 7 the judgement following the “primeval silence” is by God himself. The naming of the dying messiah as Iesous could be Jewish not Christian tradition.

The midrash on the battle between Iesous and Amalek, for example, was certainly not a new idea of Justin’s. Already the Epistle of Barnabas, which cannot be dated later than 135 AD in its present form, makes extensive use of this typology. It refers first to the sign of the cross which Moses made while Israel fought (Iesous is not mentioned by name in this proof) and, after a short interval, to Moses conferring the name Iesous on one of the selected spies and commissioning this Iesous to:

Take a book and write what the Lord says, that Iesous the son of God will cut off at the roots all the house of Amalek in the last days.

This precise wording of Moses’ commission, although ultimately based on Exod 17:14, probably comes from an early Jewish apocalyptic source adopted by early Christianity. The motif of Moses leaving in Joshua’s care books containing information about the last times is paralleled in pre-Christian Jewish apocalyptic writings. Similarly, the continual warfare between Israel and Amalek and its anticipated eschatological consummation, which we noted already in Justin, are frequent themes in Jewish literature. In this final confrontation between the demonic world of Amalek and Yehouah’s anointed agent, some Rabbinic sources speak of the “dying messiah” or messiah ben Joseph or messiah ben Ephraim! Messiah ben Ephraim fights Amalek, gains the victory, and dies.

Who is this mysterious dying messiah? What is the origin of the concept? What has it to do with this?…

They will look on him (or me) whom they have pierced?
Zechariah 12:10

Presumably the patriach Joseph is the origin of the messiah ben Joseph. The root of this messiah in apocalyptic warfare against Amalek comes from Iesous, of the tribe of Ephraim, fighting Amalek and being told to remember that in a future battle, God would finish the job there begun.

In 1927, Moses Gaster published a translation and commentary on the Samaritan book of the Secrets of Moses or The Asatir, compiled around the end of the third century BC and having affinities with the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, and with some of Josephus’s extra-canonical traditions. In its comments on the Oracles of Balaam (Num 24.17), we find the following passage (10.45):

A star shall arise from Jacob—this refers to Phineas,
And a sceptre shall come from Israel—this refers to Joshua.

Now Phineas was the young priest hero, the grandson of Aaron, who speared a young Israelite and his Midianite girlfriend for having mixed intercourse. In a strand of Rabbinism, Phineas would return in the form of Elijah in the last days of the battle with the false messiah. Here again, as the Essenes had, is a tradition of two messiah’s. In one commentary on the scripture that Phineas “made atonement for the children of Israel”, the rabbinic sources refer to Isaiah to apply to him the passage:

I will divide him a portion with the great. Isaiah 53.12a

In Asatir, Phineas, not his father, Eleazar, and Joshua are pictured respectively as the priestly and royal successors to Aaron and Moses, the priestly and kingly messiahs (Qumran!). The “star and sceptre” passage in later Samaritan literature, however, is applied not to Phineas and Joshua but to the expected “Restorer”, the “Ta’eb”, who fulfils the role of the “Prophet like Moses” promised in Dt 18.15ff. The Ta’eb is a second Moses. He will rebuild the Gerizim Temple and give his law to the world. He will be of the house of Levi or will be accompanied by a high priest from the order of Phineas and will restore the favour of God to his people. The earlier speculation about eschatology looked to the return of Phineas and Joshua, but later they merged into the Ta’eb.

In the “star and sceptre” passage in the Zadokite Document, the “star” is the priestly interpreter of the law while the “sceptre” is the prince of the congregation with military power. Yet by the time of the second revolt the distinction had broken down or had been reversed, for Bar Kosiba received the messianic title “star” (cf 1QM 11:4-6) and we know from coinage, for example, that the name of the priest Eleazer was associated with his in the revolt.

Elsewhere in early Judaism, Iesous was the expected “prophet like Moses”. Clement of Alexandria explicitly noted this and Justin had hinted at it. The later Christian author of the Disputation between Archelaus and Mani defended Iesous Christos and not Iesous Nave as the Mosaic prophet against an opponent who must have thought otherwise. Barnabas refers to Iesous Nave as a “prophet” as do Josephus and Sirach. Philo’s position is ambiguous. Discussing Dt 18:15ff, he interprets it as a reference to a true, future unnamed eschatological figure. Elsewhere he recognises Iesous as a prophet of like mind with Moses.

The Philonic Biblical Antiquities dating from the first century, says at the death of Moses, Iesous puts on the garments of his predecessors’ wisdom and knowledge, and at the death of Iesous, the people mourned the passing of this “swift eagle” and “this lion’s whelp”.

Who now will go and report to Moses the righteous that we have had for forty years a “leader like unto him?”

Iesous has the role of the Mosaic prophet. Earlier Iesous refers to the future expectation of a Prince of Judah.

Page Tags: Jesus, Pre-Christian Joshua Cult, Christianity, New Testament, Bible, Essenes, Christian, Christians, God, Greek, Iesous, Jesus, Jewish, Jews, Joshua, Justin Messiah, Moses, Prophet

Last uploaded: 19 April, 2008.