Christianity
The Exorcisms and Healing Miracles of Jesus Christ
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Tuesday, January 23, 2001; Sunday, 07 May 2006
Medical Use of Oil
Oil was traditionally used to consecrate priests, prophets and kings. Aaron, Saul, David, Solomon and even Jesus Christ, allegedly, were anointed with oil in this way. King David was anointed with Holy Unction by the high priest while dancing before the Lord with all his might. Anointing by pouring aromatic oils on people as a token of honour is an ancient custom in the East. Anointing with perfumed oil was in common use among the Greeks and Romans as a mark of hospitality to guests. And modern travelers in the East still find it a custom for visitors to be sprinkled with rose-water, or their head, face and beard anointed with olive oil. The ceremony of anointing with oil to impart some fancied spiritual power seems to have been extensively practiced by the Jews and primitive Christians, and still more anciently by various oriental nations.
Oil also was also used to consecrate places and instruments of worship. Joshua anointed the ten stones he set up in Jordan and Jacob the stone on which he slept at the time of his great vision. The early Christians anointed the altars and even the walls of the churches just as images, obelisks and statues had long been consecrated in the orient.
In his epistle, the apostle James, surely an Essene, recommends the use of oil:
Is any sick among you, let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.James 5:14
Elsewhere, Jesus is anointed mysteriously by an unknown woman and he commends her for her enterprise. Yet, the Essenes rejected the practices of the Sadducees and regarded oil as a defilement. The Essenes will have used water not anointing to consecrate their own priests and princes. How are these to be reconciled with the New Testament if James and Jesus were Essenes?
The point is that James quite explicitly recommends the use of oil in medical treatment. Prayers were also used medicinally because no one would be cured except by God. The Jews anointed the sick on the Sabbath day just as James recommended. This accords with the treatment of the sick in India and elsewhere several thousand years ago. Anointing the sick, with prayer and other ceremonies, was esteemed in nearly all the Eastern religions long before the birth of either Jesus or James. The medical use of oil would have been normal among the Essenes but oil used as a cosmetic as the Roman and Greeks used it would have been regarded as impure. The Essenes admired work as noble and therefore regarded sweatiness also as noble, as a sign of a labouring man. To hide sweat with perfumed oil was disgraceful. For Essenes the body was cleaned not by oil but by the daily ritual lustrations in water.
The medical use of oil by Essenes helps us to understand the anointing of Jesus in the gospels (Mk 14:3-9). As it stands, this story is mostly a fabrication of the early church, as Jesus’s lack of modesty proves. It is designed to predict once more the death of Jesus, the Son of God and to symbolize his messiahship. Nevertheless, that the poor are mentioned implies that the story might have a genuine Essene root—the expression: “For ye have the poor with you always”, sounds traditional. What Jesus obviously meant was that the poor would be the ones accepted into the kingdom which was, of course, an everlasting kingdom. The poor, the Ebionim, would last for ever—no one else would. Jesus was not expecting anyone to be around this world for long so “always” had to pertain to the coming kingdom.
The anointing seems pointless except to provide a basis for:
She is come aforehand to anoint my body for the burying.Mark 14:8
From this, it is easy to see how the story developed. Dead bodies in those times would be laid out, anointed with oil or perfume. Jesus rose from the dead before the women were able to lay out his body properly. Some pious Christians might have been upset to think this, and this story filled a non-existent gap. Jesus is anointed as a dead man while he is still alive. If it were intended as an anointment for burial, it confirms that Jesus had lost control—proving the Romans had retaken the city. Also the messiah was one who is anointed as a king and, hitherto in Mark’s account, Jesus had not been—it had to be done symbolically before he died. Lastly, the analogy of the breaking of the vessel with the breaking of Jesus’s body was added. The expression “preached throughout the whole world” betrays a gentile Christian outlook. The main other giveaway, apart from the obviously prophetic references, is the use of oil. Josephus tells us that Essenes did not use oil and we have seen that their coronations were aqueous ceremonies not unctuous ones.
Christians always regard the spikenard as a perfume, even though it is described correctly as an ointment, and so fail to realize that it is for the leper not for Jesus. In fact, nard is an oil from the plant Nardostachys jatamansi which is a member of the valerian family. Its active constituents include camphor and patchouli. Certainly it is used as a deodorant but is also used medicinally and in aromatherapy. It was used as a vapour for depression and as a sedative, and externally for skin conditions—rashes, boils, abscesses, fungal skin infections like ringworm, acne, weeping eczema, cold sores and impetigo—in other words the conditions considered in those days to be leprosy!
What then is at the core of the story? Clues are the leper, the very expensive oil and Jesus’s statement about the poor. Unless Bethany was a leper colony, Jesus could not have been dining with a leper. Nor would he anyway—leprosy was unclean. Either leper is a code word or the event did not happen in reality. For the rabbis, leprosy in the Jewish scriptures was often a euphemism for spiritual uncleanness or immoral behaviour, not necessarily for a physical ailment. If Simon was a leper, it was because he had been a vigorous opponent of the Nazarenes, but had converted. He might have converted secretly so that he was a sort of double agent. Perhaps he was the man who procured the upper room or the foal and the ass. It is not unusual for clandestine organizations to use code to cover their operations. Perhaps Simon’s code name “leper” gave Jesus the cue for a story. We have noted that Essenes disdained the use of oil, and since they were “the poor” they would not have wasted their money on this expensive stuff. The conclusion of the story is that “the poor” will have everlasting life. Plainly, it is another kingdom parable that Mark has used for his own purposes.
Only someone who was very wealthy could afford a box of nard. It would take a day labourer a year to earn enough money even if he saved everything he earned. The woman was therefore the wife of a rich man and the leper was the rich man. Note that the beginning of the story is ambiguous—it is not clear whose head received the ointment. Having been diagnosed with the disease the rich leper was ordered from the city according to the law expressed in Leviticus 13:46. If the rich man was a High Priest he would also according to Leviticus 21:21 have lost his job. His wife buys nard and visits him in the leper colony to anoint him with the expensive ointment hoping to effect a cure. The poor lepers murmur against her, saying the money could have been put to better use on behalf of them all. Jesus’s conclusion is that the money is unimportant—the poor (the lepers) would live forever but the rich man (the High Priest) would not live forever despite his expensive treatment.
In Luke’s overelaborated version (Lk 7:36-50), the leper disappears but Luke adds a non-cryptic mini-parable about two debtors being forgiven. The message is that the one forgiven the greater debt had more reason to be grateful. The link with the parable of the rich leper is that he had every reason to be immensely grateful if, through repentance, he were accepted into the kingdom.
In verse 7, Jesus says he will not always be with them, an apparent contradiction of everything that a Christian believes. Mark was, of course, reminding his readers of Jesus’s forthcoming physical death but forgot his everlasting spiritual life which is supposed to be far more important.
Ailments as Essene Code
The key to understanding the exorcisms and healing miracles of Jesus is the appreciation that the Essenes disguised almost everything they did in a coded language. It is not unusual for resistance forces to use code to prevent the occupying forces from understanding their intentions. It is a necessity. The Essenes considered themselves prophets who could discern God’s signs in the scriptures of his Appointed Times. They were brought up scripturally and thought scripturally, so that when it came to deliberately confusing the Roman enemy, they simply used a scriptural code. This was seen simply as a continuation of their comprehension of signs in the law and the prophets.
The point about speaking in an arcane scriptural code is that Jews would understand but foreigners would not. Jews would understand the coded allusions but no one not brought up as experts in the Old Testament and the Apocryphal books would have no chance of understanding. This is what was meant when Jesus spoke in parables. The minority of Romans who understood Aramaic or Hebrew could hear what Essenes were saying but would not understand it.
Kim Paffenroth notes Jesus, in Matthew, is twice acclaimed Son of David as he practices his final healings in the temple—he heals “the blind and the lame” (Mt 21:14). When David conquered Jerusalem, he mockingly called his enemies “the blind and the lame”:
David had said on that day, Whoever would strike down the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, those whom David hates. Therefore it is said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.2 Sam 5:8
David killed the blind and lame and excluded them from Jerusalem. Jesus cures the figuratively blind and lame to admit them to the New Jerusalem. Why then do Christians insist these people were physically blind and lame? The exorcisms and healing miracles have been understood as miracles because their real meaning was coded and gentile bishops deliberately chose to ignore the code, even if they knew it. It suited them that their new god proved his worth by miraculously healing people of disabilities and disease. In fact, he healed them of resignation and discouragement. Many Jews had given up. They thought God had gone and left them in the lurch, prey to a succession of foreign invaders. Jesus showed them they were wrong and, through building up their hope for freedom, healed them of their religious apathy and national despondency. In fact, he won them over to the cause of Jewish nationalism—only God could rule God’s people.
The different disabilities and ailments meant different types of problem but not the physical ailments that they seem. Thus Luke, in his story of Zacharias the elderly priest, tells us that dumbness meant disbelief. Blindness, palsy, leprosy and so on all meant different types of dejection or collaboration with the foreigner. A palsied man was one who had rejected the law of Moses. A leper was possibly a member of the priestly ruling class. A blind man was an apostate from the Jewish faith. In the non-canonical Book of Thomas the Contender, Thomas Didymus, the Twin, refers to sinners as “blind men”.
When Jesus spoke in his arcane language in synagogues and public places, he either persuaded people to join his crusade or he met with implacable opposition from Jews who considered any attempt to defeat the Romans as crazy. The first group had been healed. The second group were described as having an unclean spirit. The danger was that they would expose the Nazarenes to the Roman authorities, so the unclean sprit had to be exorcised. And so it was—with a beating from the disciples.
These ideas are illustrated here with reference to some of Jesus’s miracles and exorcisms as described in the earliest gospel, Mark’s.
The Unclean Spirit
Mark (Mk 1:21-28) describes how, in the synagogue at Capernaum, Jesus astonishes his audiences by his authority, a word which can also be translated as power. This is one of the more subtle clues to Jesus’s leadership in the gospels. We get the impression it means he knew what he was talking about but reference to Ecclesiastes 8:4 gives the true meaning:
the king’s word hath authority, and who may say unto him, What doest thou?
Authority or power is code for a king. The audience understood that Jesus was a leader claiming the authority or power of a king. By doing so he was automatically defying Roman authority.
An excitable man realizing that Jesus was claiming the power of a king and fearing reprisals by the Romans and their puppets for the crime of Laesae Majestatis calls out:
Let us alone! What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know what you are claiming—you are saying you are the Holy One of God.
Christian commentators tell us that the unclean spirit was a demon—a demon speaking perfectly sensible Aramaic in a synagogue! Can anyone today give credence to such a scene? The man was not a demon or possessed by one—he had simply inferred that Jesus meant to face up to the occupying forces and, disapproving of it strongly, remonstrated with Jesus. He wanted no further retribution from the Romans. He used the plural, “Let us alone”, not meaning that there were many unclean spirits, but that many Jews realized the power of Rome and feared the consequences of resistance. Unclean spirit is code for an opponent of the Nazarenes. Sticklers for precise translation should note that the Greek translated, “unclean”, could better be translated as “malicious” or “spiteful”.
Jesus, according to Mark, exorcises the devil. In reality, because the Nazarenes were not ready to have their aims declared openly in case the Romans or Herod should hear of it, Jesus rebuked the man, sternly ordering him to shut up, “Hold thy peace”. In Luke 4:35 the devil(!) throws the man down in their midst—not the disciples, but the devil, according to Luke! The unclean spirit tearing him eventually came out with a loud cry. The Greek implies strong emotions like terror and fear for life—scream of fear would be a more accurate translation. The man feared the blows of the disciples who had knocked him down and shut him up with a beating. Luke sees all of this is too obvious in Mark and hastens to add, “and hurt him not!”
The Nazarenes would not have been troubled at manhandling a man they understood to have an unclean spirit. In the War Scroll we find:
Cursed be Satan for his sinful purpose and may he be cast out for his wicked rule. Cursed be all the spirits of his company for their ungodly purpose and may they be cast out for all their service of uncleanness. Truly they are the company of darkness, but the company of God is one of eternal light.
Those with unclean spirits were of the company of darkness and had to be cast out. The Damascus Rule specifies that every man who preaches apostasy under the sway of the spirits of Satan shall be judged according to the law for those possessed by a ghost or a familiar spirit. Leviticus 20:27 orders that a man or woman possessed by a spirit shall surely be put to death. The Damascus Rule also quotes Nahum 1:2:
God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth, the Lord revengeth, and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.
These were sufficient reason for the Nazarenes to take a firm line with such opponents. The kingdom might be at stake. They could hardly murder people in the streets without raising a hue and cry—eventually raised anyway—but they could hand out admonitory beatings. For them the cosmic battle for the kingdom had started. The crowd were amazed at the urgency of Jesus’s teaching of the coming kingdom and his assertiveness in silencing his opponents.
This incident of the unclean spirit demonstrates correct interpretation. Taken literally it seems that Jesus’s aim was to assist the mentally and physically sick—though it seems horribly arbitrary a priviledged few should be cured while many more were left to suffer. Accepting that Jesus was an Essene, it is easy to be misled by Josephus who records the Essenes’ searches for cures by investigations into roots and stones and by using drugs from plants. They had a reputation as healers, but they were interested in the well-being not mainly of the body but of the soul. Now in Luke 13:32, we find Jesus explaining his strategy:
Today and tomorrow I shall be casting out devils and working cures; on the third day I shall reach my goal.
The third day of God’s kingdom was when the heavenly built temple descended to earth and the righteous were resurrected to reign over the saved (Hosea 6:2). Jesus obviously was not curing people of physical sickness believing the heavenly kingdom had a ban on the diseased. He was curing them of moral sickness because the heavenly kingdom had a ban on sinners. Even more explicitly, later in Mark, we find:
It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick. I did not come to invite virtuous people but sinners.Mark 2:17
Jesus tells us the sick are sinners. He was not treating the physical or mental sickness of the people but the sickness in their souls, and this verse proves it. All of the healing miracles need reinterpreting in this light.
Palestinian Jews were dispairing of the fate of the chosen people. Many foes of the Nazarenes openly collaborated with the occupying forces. Others feared reprisals. Both would have been strongly averse to anyone risking further trouble with the authorities. Mark (or Peter) could not put any of this explicitly so it was written allegorically, though the meaning is remarkably transparent. A demon was code for a doubter or opponent of the messianists which had to be driven out with a beating, illnesses were moral and spiritual sickness, helplessness and cowardice. In The Scrolls a thanksgiving hymn of the Essenes is explicit, “lying lips shall be dumb”—a diseased spirit is depicted as a physical affliction. Isaiah 35:3-7 expresses it perfectly, and links it unequivocally with messianic expectations:
Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing. On God’s terrible day of vengeance He will save the just. They need fear not. The blind shall see, the dumb shall speak and the lame shall walk.
God will save only the just—the righteous—others had to be cured of their dumbness and blindness—their rejection of the Essene route to the kingdom. All of Jesus’s healing miracles are metaphors for removing fear and improving morale so that the children of Israel might be saved—in short recruiting people to the Nazarene cause, the defeat of the oppressors and the proclamation of the kingdom of God.
For those who read on a few verses, the connexion of this part of Isaiah with the Essenes is unmistakeable. We find that in the wilderness waters shall break out, and an high way shall be there called the way of holiness, but the unclean shall not pass over it nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon, but only the redeemed shall walk there, and they shall return to Zion bringing everlasting joy. This could only be a description of Qumran. The Essenes followed the way of holiness, preparing a high way in the desert that the redeemed could walk, their opponents among the Jews being the unclean, and their gentile opponents being ravenous beasts.
Also relevant here is the passage in 2 Samuel 5:4-10 where king David begins his reign aged 30 years, just as we surmise Jesus had done from his coronation by John the Baptist. David’s first trial is to take Jerusalem by defeating the Jebusites who are so defiant that they say to David:
you will have to get rid of us all, even the blind and the lame.
But David was single minded and ordered:
smite the lame and the blind that are hated of David’s soul. Then we’ll see why they say, There are the lame and blind; he cannot come into the city.
The Essenes could not accept that king David would kill cripples so they read it allegorically. The lame and blind were adversaries, not disabled people.
The Damascus Rule asserts that:
No madman, lunatic, simpleton, or fool; no blind man, maimed, lame or deaf man, and no minor shall enter into the community, for the angels of holiness are with them.
Unfortunately the scroll is damaged and the passage is ambiguous. On the face of it, Essenes believed the physically sick and infirm were already saved and under the protection of the angels of holiness—they did not need special attention. The disabled and afflicted were better off as they were because they were already saved—why then cure them and lead them into temptation? However, if the coded meaning is read then the scroll is simply stating the obvious—that sinners would not be admitted as Essenes because the angels of holiness were with the community. Wrongdoers had to repent sincerely and then they would no longer be afflicted.
We can disregard the angels of holiness being with sinners and the remaining possibility is that the community counted the physically afflicted like sinners as not eligible for the kingdom. If this latter were true and Jesus’s cures were a deliberate refutation of it, why are Essenes not explicitly mentioned in the gospels to expose their false position as the Sadducees and Pharisees are? And why would Essenes provide rules for the welfare of the old and sick?
We have to conclude that Jesus’s healings are not what they appear in the gospels. Healing miracles were code. Jesus was intent on winning over people’s hearts.
Before and since the gospel period, not least by Christians, beatings have been used ostensibly to drive out demons but in practice to punish or silence. Evidently it happened here. It works very well. Whether you are outspoken because you have a devil or not, having it driven out will make you consider your words more carefully. The clergy say the demons responsible for illness and uncleanness were supernatural enemies of God which Jesus had to drive out. Enemies they were to the Nazarenes—albeit not supernatural ones—who tacitly or flagrantly supported the foreign rulers of the land—God’s land. These people also disapproved of messianists who had caused a lot of trouble over the years by proclaiming a Jewish kingdom—as Jesus wanted to do. Once you accept that Jesus was intent on liberating God’s land, it immediately becomes clear why his enemies had to be silenced—the unclean spirits of opposition had to be driven out lest they betray them.
Jesus’s fame as a king, one who spoke with authority, spread. The crowd plainly recognized this but unlike the unclean spirits they were not appalled by the idea. Jesus is not declared a king except by his enemies. His friends use scriptural code—the circumlocution that he spoke with authority or power, meaning, for those that had ears to hear—not gentiles who did not know the scriptures—that he was a king or rather a potential king, a prince or Nasi.
When Mark (Mk 1:22) writes that Jesus was teaching not as the scribes he is virtually admitting that he was an Essene or a Zealot. The scribes were mainly Pharisees. Most of the priests were Sadducees who had little philosophy other than the atoning sacrifices of temple worship and would never have spoken against the status quo with which they were entirely satisfied. Of Josephus’s four philosophies of the Jews, only the Essenes and the Zealots are left. From the Qumran literature the Essenes were fanatics for the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth—from Josephus the Zealots also were fanatics for a Jewish kingdom of God on earth, and actually fought for it. The gospels tell us that Jesus opposed scribes, Pharisees, priests and Sadducees but taught of the imminence of God’s kingdom. He was an Essene and a Zealot.
Though Jesus is often teaching in Mark, the author tells us little about the doctrine. It seems Mark still expected the apocalypse—gentile converts were led to believe that the judgement day was at hand—still! Thus the content of the teaching was unimportant. Furthermore the teaching might have been too Jewish for the gentiles of Rome, AD 70. The earliest gentile converts would generally have known little about the Jewish religion and would not have had the scriptures at hand. The apostle to the gentiles, Paul, was not interested in the work of Jesus, only his death and resurrection. Mark, or his subsequent editors, was a Paulinist despite the tradition which associates him with Peter. Mark had to explain Jewish habits where they inevitably arose but his main object must have been to keep the message simple. A few decades later the very interest created by the earlier Christians in Jewish tradition would have opened up the market for longer and more Jewish accounts like Luke and Matthew respectively.
The incident of the unclean spirit is at the very beginning of Mark’s gospel immediately after Jesus had recruited his first disciples. Either the disciples knew precisely what was needed of them from the start or Jesus already had reliable disciples as he plainly needed, to be as bold as this. Jesus had the authority of the Essenes behind him and would not have set out on his task unaccompanied. Peter, James and John were probably already Essenes—perhaps village Essenes not monastic ones—and sent out with Jesus to began the task of winning over Jewish sinners.
A Leper
The first healing miracle was when, having recruited Simon and Andrew, Jesus and his companions repare to their house where Jesus lifts a fever from Simon’s wife’s mother (Mk 1:29-31). According to Luke 4:39, Jesus rebuked the fever, implying that he addressed the woman sternly. Though initially skeptical (having a fever) and refusing to do anything to help them, she becomes a convert to the Nazarene cause and she ministered to them.
This vignette explains perfectly the code of illness as opposition. Plainly, the mother in law would have been distraught at her daughter’s husband leaving to join a band of militants. She would have opposed the whole scheme vehemently but she had a stern talking to and, like Gorky’s mother, she was won over and joined them in the end.
Next Jesus cures a leper telling him to offer in the temple what Moses prescribed for his cleansing—a strange thing for someone to suggest who, the clergy tell us, abrogated the law of Moses.
Leprosy was a new and most feared illness—it had only arrived in Israel about a hundred years before (the leprosy of the Old Testament being a general term for a variety of ugly skin diseases like ring worm and psoriasis)—and, of course, was incurable making this a remarkable miracle. The corresponding passage to this in Luke 1:40-45 says it took place in a “certain city” and the passage above from Mark implies it was in a city because afterwards Jesus could “no more openly enter the city”. But a leper had to avoid human habitation and had to live in the desert, calling out “unclean, unclean” if anyone approached—they were not allowed into cities. This proves that the leper here was no leper in a medical sense or that these cities were not cities.
Luke has leper behaviour right in Luke 17:12 where the ten lepers stay at a distance and call out to Jesus to cure them, but the story of the ten lepers is a Christian invention not Nazarene tradition, the point of it not being the cure but the ingratitude of the nine Jews who were cured compared with the Samaritan—it is another version of the parable of the good Samaritan. Both only appear in Luke and their aim is to discredit Jews while hyping up gentiles (represented by the Samaritans). The myth of Jesus was also growing in stature so the earlier cure of just one leper seemed insufficient for Luke.
The symbolism in Mark’s cure is that the man had not been cured. Jesus had warned him you are not to say a word to anybody but the new convert exposes him—he will not be cowed. Consequently, Jesus could not enter any town openly but stayed outside in desert (that is “deserted”, lonely) places (Mk 1:45) hiding not from his own supporters but from Herod’s soldiers who came to him from every quarter. In Luke 5:16, Jesus prayed in the lonely place. The occasion is obviously that described previously, but here the behaviour is linked explicitly to Jesus being exposed by the leper.
The towns Jesus frequented are only hamlets and villages anyway, so he is obviously seeking refuge in the hills as a guerrilla. He is one of the barjonim. He dared not be known openly making his claims and gaining his recruits. He tells all his recruits to keep quiet, is cautious enough to hide in the hills when needed and has to keep to the hills when one of his converts fails to keep quiet. From the beginning, he was a semi-outlaw and Mark makes this absolutely plain. By speaking with authority he was challenging the authorities and even though he did not claim to be the messiah at this stage, those who had ears to hear knew what it was all about. Jesus insists that they keep it to themselves until the time is right.
Many manuscripts say almost the opposite of “moved with pity” in verse 41—they say “moved with anger”. All three synoptics follow Mark in having Jesus effect his cure by putting forth his hand and touching him—a euphemism for hitting him. The scriptural usage of “putting forth a hand” or “stretching out a hand” frequently means to kill or destroy. And both of the verbs in verse 43 are too weak. The verb for “sent away” in the Greek is the same as the verb “drove out” used of demons. “Straitly charged” is better translated as “angrily commanded”, matching the codices that describe Jesus as being angry. It seems that the leper is like the first unclean spirit met by Jesus, a fanatical opponent and Jesus and his disciples treat him similarly. The man however takes his revenge by exposing Jesus.
But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.Mk 1:45
In the light of the later pericope of Simon the leper, it seems that a leper is Nazarene code for a high priest of the unclean Jerusalem temple. It probably stems from the detailed instructions in Leviticus 13:1-14:57 for the diagnosis, treatment and ritual cleansing of leprosy which had to be done by the priests. The Essenes permitted Levites to carry out certain priestly functions but in the Damascus Rule specifically exclude them from applying the law of leprosy. Since only priests could handle leprosy cases and the Jerusalem high priests were as unclean as their polluted temple, priests—particularly high priests—were lepers.
A Palsied Man
In his chapter 2, Mark introduces the conflicts with the Pharisees, casting some doubt on its veracity. Christians say Jesus’s ministry was entirely peaceful and worthy, filled with healings, miracles and the driving out of demons. yet he finished up crucified. Here is a problem for the gospel writer which Mark begins to solve in Chapter 2 (Mk 2:1-3:6) by showing that he was set up by the Pharisees who did not like him, though the ordinary folk did. The alert reader will however have noticed that when Pilate offers to release Barabbas or Jesus at the climax of the story, it is the crowd of ordinary folk who choose the robber for release not Jesus. It is all contrived.
In chapter 2, Mark puts five anti-Pharisee stories together to make his case. They must be inserted because Jesus is not anxious to keep his messianic secret as he is in chapters 1 and 3, rather assuming the mantle of messiah and the emphasis on unclean spirits in 1 and 3 is missing. Possibly Mark, in an earlier draft, put the stories together as a later chapter, perhaps preceding the passion narrative, and then he or an editor decided to bring the opposition out early in the story and so moved them forward.
This chapter logically ends at 3:6 with the Pharisees and the Herodians plotting together, an unlikely combination. It opens with another conversion allegorized as a paralysed man on a pallet let down through the roof into Jesus’s presence. Plainly this pericope does not logically follow the previous one because Jesus is back in Capernaum, even though it is a dangerous place to be.
The different afflictions might have different political meanings and in this context the palsied man was a bad sinner from the Essene standpoint—like the leper, a Sadducee. This is signified by the pallet which was used to lift the village priest to a roof from which he would offer prayers to God. Essenes, who considered themselves to be priests, prayed at dawn as if in supplication to the rising sun and in Acts 10:9 the apostle Peter goes up onto a housetop at dawn to pray. He is behaving as an Essene and therefore as a priest. In the next two verses of Mark, Levi, suggesting a priest, is recruited—surely the same man.
The Greek words used here are “paraluo” and “paralutikos”, compound words made up of the preposition para, meaning “near”, and words which mean being “broken”, “loosened” or “enfeebled”. Here the biblical Greek has to be read literally. Who are those who are breaking or loosening or nearly breaking or loosening and thereby enfeebling the law of Moses? The answer is the Hellenized priests. The metaphor is strengthened by the implication of their nearly breaking down the partition wall in the temple which separated the court of the gentiles from the holy parts of the temple. They were keen to relax age old distinction between Jews and gentiles to bring in more wealth.
Since the Essenes were sticklers for this distinction—foreigners had to become Jews before they were accepted into the order—the collaborationist Sadducees could hardly be expected to be welcomed into the Nazarene band of insurrectionists. But Jesus, again demonstrating his authority—all Jews were God’s people—forgives his sins, meaning he offered him the chance of repentance and baptism, allowing him into the Nazarene movement. We may assume that the faith spoken of in Mark 2:5 meant belief in the coming kingdom which would allow the palsied man to join the elect upon receiving baptism.
Mark comes to the real point of the story for him. He uses the incident to introduce the dispute between the orthodox Jews (the scribes, lawyers, doctors and Pharisees) and Jesus. Nearby, Pharisees say it is blasphemous for a man to forgive sins. It has long been believed that the Jews of the time felt only God could—from Isaiah 43:25—so the dispute, from the orthodox Jewish standpoint is valid. In 2 Samuel 12:13, Nathan forgives David’s sin but does so with the authority of God. However in a scroll fragment from Qumran (The Prayer of Nabonidus) we find a gazer, a Jewish healer in captivity in Babylon, forgiving sin. Daniel cures the king, Nabonidus, (Nebuchadnezzar, less correctly in the Book of Daniel, where it is God who does the forgiving) who recalls:
I was afflicted with an evil ulcer for seven years. A gazer pardoned my sins.
This story is important because healing is effected without scandal or blasphemy by forgiveness of sins—among Essenes men could forgive sin. Curing the paralytic, Jesus says:
My son, your sins are forgiven.
Jesus does not blaspheme when he forgives sins because it does not imply that he is divine. Essenes accepted it but not Pharisees though, two centuries later, rabbis agreed that sins had to be forgiven for someone to be cured of an illness.
The forgiveness of sins is on earth because the kingdom expected was to be on earth. If sins could only be forgiven in heaven then there could be no kingdom of God on earth as the Essenes expected. Nevertheless, as Matthew often writes, though a kingdom on earth, it would be a kingdom of heaven—a perfect kingdom.
If the anti-Pharisaic verses 6 to 10 are omitted, the passage reads better. They have been inserted later to discredit the Pharisees but those who would have been upset by the incident were the man’s fellow Sadducees outraged that one of their own should go over. Moreover, the reaction of the scribes to the miracle is not described as would be expected if it were part of the original story. And finally Jesus reads the thoughts of the Pharisees by telepathy in the inserted lines—an editor was giving him god-like abilities.
The expression “uncovered the roof” is a mistranslation into the Greek of the Aramaic which would have read “descended from the roof”. Luke 5:19 has, “let him down on his couch”. “Uncovered the roof” suggests the removal of tiles and Luke states so specifically, whereas Palestinian roofs, unless this was a rich man’s house, were flat—Jesus was one of the poor and would not have been in a rich man’s house. Mark was writing for gentiles who, in the wider Roman Empire, would have been more familiar with tiled roofs. Matthew, writing for Jews, knows that they will connect the scene with a priest praying on a housetop and misses out the lowering from the roof altogether.
In Aramaic, “son of man” either meant “man” in general, “mankind”, or it meant “I”, being a polite circumlocution—“this son of man”. The clergy took the meaning whenever Jesus used it, as he did often for reasons of modesty, to be the supernatural “one like unto the Son of man” of Daniel’s vision (Dan 7:13)—God’s redeemer coming on a cloud. The son of man here simply means man in general and not Jesus himself in some supernatural sense. The gospels themselves prove the point. In Mark 8:27 Jesus says:
Who do men say that I am
In the same passage in Matthew 16:13, we have:
Who do men say that the son of man is?
In Matthew 10:33 the “son of man” of Luke 9:26 is replaced by “I”. The expression “sons of men” occurs in the Master’s song of blessing in the Community Rule meaning simply “mankind”.
The Withered Hand
At the beginning of Mark chapter 3, Jesus heals a man’s withered hand on the sabbath, incurring the wrath of the Pharisees who join with the Herodians in a plot against him. Pharisees and Essenes did not dispute that the law had to be broken if it were necessary to save life on the sabbath. Here though there seems to be no life at stake. The conclusion is that the nature of the living and dying in Mark 3:4:
And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?
was spiritual so the references here are to the coming kingdom and its concomitant judgement when sinners would die and the good be resurrected into the kingdom.
Semites recognize the hand as a symbol of a power and, therefore, of a ruler. Later in Mark, we have the phrase “the right hand of power”. A man with a withered hand is powerless. In the Master’s blessing of God in the Community Rule are the expressions:
He that is everlasting is the support of my right hand…
and
His might is the support of my right hand.
“Thy right hand” was also to be inscribed on the banners of some of those engaging in the apocalyptic battle described in the War Scroll. Luke 6:6 specifies that it is the man’s right hand that is withered!
For the Essenes the War Scroll tells us:
Thy mighty hand is with the poor.
Mark’s miracle is really a parable in which Jesus is illustrating the return of power to Israel but it has been garbled in the author’s determination to make it into a sabbath day healing to invite Pharisaic wrath.
Jerome gives an additional detail about this incident. He quotes from the gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use. The man with the withered hand pleaded:
I was a mason seeking a livelihood with my hands. I pray thee, Jesu, to restore mine health that I may not beg meanly for my food.
The mason is allegorically Israel, which had lost the power of its right hand in being occupied by Rome, and was reduced to begging crumbs from the foreigner. If the people repented, God would restore their power through the poor and they would be able to build a new house for the Lord.
One of the Talmudic names used for the Essenes was the “banaim”, a word derived from the Hebrew for “stones” (abanim) and which means “masons”. “Banim” means “sons” or “children”—both coming from a word meaning “to build”. So “banim” was a pun on “banaim” and explains the gospel use of the word “children” to mean the saved—the “banaim” seek to save the “banim”. In Mark 6:3, Jesus is described as a carpenter and, in Matthew 13:55, his father is so described. S Campbell gives an interesting gloss on the Greek word used in these passages and usually rendered “a carpenter”. The word is “tekton” and is found nowhere else in the New Testament. Yet, in modern Greek, “tekton” means a mason!
In the scriptures, a mason was linked with the building or renewing of the temple. The original context is lost but Jesus’s parable could have referred to David hiring masons to build the temple (the task which was carried out after David’s death by his son Solomon). Jesus might have told a kingdom parable based on 1 Chronicles 22:2:
And he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God.
David’s masons necessarily were foreigners, the nomadic Hebrews knowing nothing of such skills. The Essenes were determined it would not be so this time. Relevant here is the laying of the precious corner stone which for the Essenes meant themselves. The full quotation from Isaiah 28:14-18 puts a whole set of concepts into juxtaposition:
Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet. And the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
The meaning of the precious corner stone to the Essenes is explained in the Community Rule:
The council of the community shall be that tried wall, that precious corner stone, whose foundation shall neither rock nor sway in its place. It shall be a most holy dwelling for Aaron, with everlasting knowledge of the covenant of justice, and shall be a house of perfection and truth in Israel that they may establish a covenant according to the everlasting precepts, atoning for the land, and witnessing the judgement of wickedness. And there shall be no more iniquity.
Essenes were the bridgehead of the kingdom of heaven on earth. The scornful men that rule this people which is in Jerusalem, the Sadducees, are swept away by the scourge of God’s vengeance as he introduces His kingdom, founded on the precious corner stone—the Essenes—with judgement the line and righteousness the plummet, and the waters overflowing the hiding place.
Here we get both the masonic and the baptismal metaphors rolled into one. It is interesting that when Herod started to rebuild the temple in 19 BC he trained a thousand priests as masons so that they could rebuild the forbidden parts of the building, like the holy of holies, without needing to pollute it with unclean hands. The Essenes might well have seen this as a sign of the times—priest-masons were being called to build the Jerusalem temple. Soon the real priest-masons would get their orders—but not from Herod—from God.
Matthew 12:11-12 introduces an analogy of a sheep falling into a pit which he says the followers of the Pharisees would rescue on the sabbath. It is true that Pharisees but not Essenes would help a stricken animal on the sabbath. For Essenes it was expressly forbidden. Only when the life of a man was in danger did they lift the prohibition. On restoration, however, the parable has nothing at all to do with the sabbath and the apparent dispute with the Pharisees is revealed as entirely invented including the quoting of a true reference to Pharisaic law.
Nor can the Pharisaic plot (Mk 3:6) have been hatched by the Pharisees, who had little influence in Galilee, if that is where it occurred, and would not have allied with the Herodians It was really hatched by the Sadducees, the party of the priests. The Herodians seem to have been supporters of the Herod family and therefore collaborators since the Herod family were Roman puppets. The natural allies of the Herodians were the Sadducees who were also collaborators and, though the Pharisees were little better in practice because they preferred a path of little resistance, Sadducees makes more sense here.
A reconstruction of the parable before it was changed into a sabbath healing would be on these lines:
A certain mason was stricken and his right hand did wither. He was unable to practise his trade and his children hungred. And he prayed to the Lord, saying: I was a mason seeking my bread with mine hands, and for my sins mine hand hath withered; now my children hunger. Lord, forgive me my sins for I repent my vanity and deceit. And the Lord saw that he was sincere and said to the man: Stand forth and stretch forth thine hand; and it was made whole like as to the other. Then saith the Lord God: Go thou to Zion, and there thou shalt lay for me a stone, a foundation which shall not rock or sway in its place, for thine hand is now whole. And that foundation shall be an house of perfection and truth in Israel forever. And thou shalt inscribe it: who trusts will fear not; for this is my covenant with mine elect. The man did as the Lord commanded, and he did build a house of perfection to the Lord. And the house was the foundation of a great kingdom. In like wise shall the right hand of power be restored to Israel, and God shall build a kingdom, and the scornful men in Jerusalem shall be swept away. And judgement shall be the line and righteousness shall be the plummet.
The Syro-Phœnician Woman
In this incident, Mark unusually indicates a major change of scene. Jesus has gone to the next country, gentile Phœnicia. Many pious Jews of Palestine considered gentile countries unclean in themselves, but since the Essenes in the Damascus Rule provide for life among gentiles we can deduce that Jesus would have been comfortable living in such a country because Essene ordinances ruled how it should be done.
He does no teaching and addresses no multitudes. In Mark, there is no mention even of the disciples though Matthew tells us some were with him. Jesus is in hiding. Mark says so explicitly, writing:
He entered into a house, and would have no man know it, but he could not be hid.
Even when he returns to Galilee in Mark 9:30 he does so in secret. There can be no misunderstanding this. Jesus has plainly been forced to flee with only a few companions, presumably to escape Herod’s soldiers, as Luke tells us (Lk 13:31 where the warning comes from a Pharisee!). Mark is keen to depict this as a missionary journey to preach to gentiles but he has very little to work with because it was untrue. Biblical Greek scholars note these sections as unusually opaque even for Mark.
Why cannot Jesus be hid? Because a certain woman heard of him. Jesus is in hiding but the woman has easily found him, a strange contradiction which even Mark appreciates—the woman cannot have been a stranger. Yet she is described as a Greek woman, specifically she is a Syro-Phœnician “by nation”—apparently a gentile—and wants Jesus to cure her daughter of an unclean spirit!
Matthew 15:22 peculiarly calls her a “woman of Canaan”, an absurdly anachronistic description—Canaan had not existed for centuries. Earlier in Mark, Canaanite (or properly, Cananaean) meant one of the Canaim—she is a supporter of the Zealots, a Jewish nationalist. Indeed, the woman is a Nazarene herself—that is why she knew where Jesus was, though he was supposed to be hiding—as is evident from the story, but explicit in Matthew where she addresses Jesus as the “son of David”, acknowledging him as king of the Jews. In Mark, this declaration in public would have made her, as well as her daughter, an “unclean spirit”, but, because Jesus was hiding, speaking to her privately in a safe house, she was publicly betraying no secrets.
If she was a Nazarene, she must have been Jewish—a proselyte, a gentile convert to Judaism, which is why Mark says she is Syro-Phœnician “by nation”. Her daughter, however, who was not a child, remained antagonistic to the Jewish religion, and particularly to the Nazarene cause, and perhaps threatened to expose Jesus. The woman was distressed that her daughter’s opposition risked Jesus’s safety. The disciples in Matthew want her sent away (Mt 15:23) because “she crieth after us”, apparently meaning the woman, but really meaning that the daughter was betraying them.
Unmoved Jesus makes his views of gentiles crystal clear:
Let the children first be filled, for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.
Dogs were unclean flesh eaters banned from the temple (Ex 22:31) and Jews commonly called Pagans ”dogs” because they considered them and their habits as unclean. The Essenes called gentiles “dogs”, code for their enemies, like “the deaf” and “the blind”. Jesus also uses his “bread” metaphor again—it is the staff of life, and therefore the symbol of the kingdom to come. But only the children of Israel can partake of it. It is too precious to cast to the dogs—an outrageous insult in scritural times (1 Sam 17:43; 2 Kg 8:13) and still—gentiles like her daughter.
However, Mark 7:27 says:
Let the children first be filled
implying that, at some stage, gentiles will receive the bread of life. This reflects the view among the Essenes that some gentiles would be saved and would be ruled in peace by God’s children in the kingdom. Other early writings of the New Testament such as Acts 13:46; 18:5-6 still retain the view that the gentiles are called only after the Jews. Even Paul writes (Rom 1:16):
To the Jew first, and then to the Greek.
Knowing this, the woman impresses Jesus with her understanding and her humility when she rejoins:
Yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.
In fact, in verse 7:27, Mark uses the diminutive ”puppies” (kynaria) not ”dogs” (kynoi) and Christians desperately latch on to this to pretend he is speaking kindly to the Greek woman. Yet calling a woman a ”little bitch” rather than a ”bitch” is scarcely endearing. This was, in fact, a common habit of Hellenized Greek speech and here was undoubtedly insulting. The truth is that Mark was not a fluent writer and elsewhere used the diminutive. He refers here to the Children of Israel with the diminutive “the children”.
He concludes that she finds her daughter laid upon a bed with no more devil in her. Like the others she would have been silenced with a beating and threatened with everlasting death. Jesus thinks it sensible to move on quickly!
Jesus said, in the sermon on the mount (Mt 5:45):
God made the sun rise on good and bad alike and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust,
which means everyone deserves equal treatment by each other and should love each other, just as God does—and so the church has taught until today though few take any notice. Jesus’s teaching was to love everyone—but only as long as they were Jews!
In interpreting the gospels, the rule is that a statement which contradicts the later teaching of the church is a fossil of the original Nazarene doctrine. Conversely a statement which supports the later church but contradicts the doctrines of Judaism at the time is safer considered a Christian editor’s “improvement”. When Jesus says his work is for the Children of Israel alone we can accept it as the truth, for why should a Christian editor want to insert something so contrary to the message of a church trying to get gentile converts. It could only be there because it was there in the first place—it would not have been added. When he says his message is for gentiles also, we incline to the view that an editor of the later gentile church has thought it important to insert this message.
Glimpses such as these show that the real Jesus was a Jewish nationalist. He did not believe that God had abandoned the Jews in favour of Graeco-Roman “hoi polloi”. He gave his life believing that God was about to establish a new Jewish kingdom which would rule the earth. The sermon on the mount was addressed to repentant Jews being admitted to the Nazarene order—the elect of God’s kingdom. In it, Jesus says:
Give not that which is holy to the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and rend you.Matthew 7:6
The dogs and swine of this proverb are unclean animals—they signify gentiles. Historically, Jews had been badly treated by gentiles and had no reason to trust them. Essenes hated them, and this expression is an expression of that hatred. Here he unequivocally states that gentiles, described as swine and dogs, are not fit for the holy.
On the same theme, he told his apostles:
Do not go among the gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, rather make your way to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.Matthew 10:5
That these commands go against the church’s later teaching suggests that they are genuine, and indeed the Acts of the Apostles confirms them in the case of the family of Cornelius. Cornelius was a gentile godfearer who sought an audience with Peter. Peter replies that Cornelius, as a godfearer, must know it was against the law of Moses for a Jew to mix with gentiles. In this case, though, God had told Peter, in a dream, it was all right (Acts 10:28). So, though Jesus supposedly taught that Jews and gentiles were equal, Peter apparently did not accept it until God told him in person!
In Acts 11:19, even the Hellenizing faction of the Nazarenes had no intention of preaching to the gentiles, proving that Jesus could never have directed his message to gentiles:
Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phœnice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.
The clergy have tried to make out that it was the fictitious tribe of Judaizers who tried to forbid the Christian message back to gentiles but here in Acts is proof that even the Hellenizing Nazarenes preached only to Jews.
The whole episode of the Syro-Phœnician woman is curiously similar to that related in 2 Kings 17:1-24 when Elijah, also fleeing into Phœnicia to escape the ire of king Ahab, cures a widow’s son. It seems odd that Luke, who is keen to depict gentiles as being acceptable to Jesus’s ministry, does not use this incident. The reason is that it appears in the sections of Mark accompanying the second feeding which Luke evidently rejected as being a spurious reflexion of the first.
A Dumb Man
Jesus returns from Tyre to Galilee by way of Decapolis a route which required him going also through, Iturea, the country of Herod Philip, the half brother of Herod Antipas of Galilee. He is travelling the long way round, going down the east side of the Lake and entering Galilee from the south. In Decapolis, he cures a deaf-mute:
And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech.
Though the man is apparently deaf and dumb, which would suggest opposition to the band in Jewish territory, it cannot simply be this because in a gentile country support could hardly be expected. Evidently the man was refusing to give the Nazarene band information, but they forced it out of him. That is why he was taken away from the crowd privately. The War Scroll has a line in a victory hymn:
He has lifted up in judgement the fearful of heart and has opened the mouth of the dumb that they might praise the mighty works of God.
In The Scrolls judgement usually means “of the wicked” and, therefore, meant punishment. This captive was deaf because he refused to help them and would not respond to their questions except in an uninformative way—the Greek word translated “impediment” translates properly as “hesitating to speak”—in short, not saying much. The disciples were determined to open his mouth in pursuit of the mighty works of God.
They tortured him into talking. They spat upon him and held his tongue somehow, the gospel says with string, though the Greek actually means fetter—this was not merely metaphorical. Translators of the gospels from Greek into English, faced with words which cannot be accepted in context at their face value, adopt figurative meanings for them however unlikely they might be semantically, when a literal meaning would be correct. Much of the so-called New Testament Greek is distorted Greek—distorted to fit the meanings Christian translators have determined to find.
Almost a trivial example occurs in John where the marriage at Cana is introduced with the phrase, “And the third day”. Theologians seem determined to mistranslate this simple phrase. A frequent reading is “three days later”. The immensely popular Today’s English Version of the New Testament, Good News for Modern Man, translates it as, “two days later”. There is no excuse for this except to mislead. The correct translation is “And on Tuesday”, the Jews and the Greeks alike giving numbers to their days of the week not names (except the sabbath). Tuesday is also for Jews a traditional day for marriage because, in the story of the creation, God twice notes that what he did on Tuesday was good. The refusal to translate it correctly is virtually unintelligible—certainly in the TEV—but seems to be to preserve a spurious reference to the resurrection on the third day. There are more serious examples.
To put your hands upon someone is taken to be a gesture of healing but when you actually put your hands on someone you are more likely to be manhandling them. The earlier incident of the demoniac suggested that torture occurred. This confirms it. He would not talk, so he had a string tied to his tongue and no doubt pulled vigorously, with the threat of cutting it out, and his ears poked. Jesus commands in Aramaic, “Be opened!”, but cognate words in Hebrew mean “draw out” or “break”. Mark disguised it all by making it appear like a magic exorcism and adding the final two verses to match other miracles.
The other gospel writers do not like this miracle. It is too blatantly violent so they omit it. Matthew 15:29-31 substitutes a general description of healing which includes dumb people.
A Blind Man
8:22 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. 8:23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the village; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. 8:24 And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. 8:25 After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. 8:26 And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the village, nor tell it to any in the village.Mark 8:22-26
This miracle could not have taken place in Bethsaida, a city not a village, the word used in the Greek. Herod Philip had renovated Bethsaida and renamed it Julias in honour of Augustus’s daughter, Tiberius’s estranged wife, Julia. The Nazarenes were, of course, barjonim and avoided main towns, especially Hellenized ones like this. Possibly, there was another Bethsaida, but, if so, no one now knows where it was. Most probably it simply means the place where the messianic meal would be held—the house (beth) of food (sayid).
It is suspicious that there is no suggestion of repentance, no hint at the coming kingdom, suggesting that the miracle might not be genuine Nazarene tradition, and the other synoptic gospels omit it.
This miracle is, in the Greek, worded so similarly to the miracle of the deaf and dumb man that it is beyond coincidence. Essentially it is a copy of the earlier miracle except that the first saw a deaf man cured—here it is a blind man. Both are depicted as magic healings but were actually rough treatment. Here the man is spat upon, and Jesus sets hands upon him as before. The gentile bishops have tried to claim the spitting was part of the cure but it is quite fatuous to pretend that the most high God incarnated on earth would go around spitting to effect miracles. Jesus took tha man out of Bethsaida so that his maltreatment would not be observed by others, and having “cured” the man he warns him not to tell anyone. At first the man is only imperfectly cured but a second round of the same treatment fully cures him—again hardly the power of a god.
There is an similar miracle attributed to the Greek god Asklepios who cures a man of blindness and the first things he sees are trees. Here, the reference to “trees” is a hint that the tradition could be genuine. The Essenes were known as “Trees” from Isaiah 61:3:
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.
The point might have been that the blind man refused to recognise the Essenes as God’s representatives—His Trees of righteousness.
A Dumb Spirit
Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit.Mark 9:17
Mark 9:17 begins a healing miracle, differing from earlier ones in that it gives remarkable detail of the symptoms, that the disciples had tried and failed and that the devil could only be cast out by prayer. Jesus asking How “long shall I be with you?” is plainly hindsight and, indeed, verses 18 to 24 look to be overblown compared with other verses and comparable stories, with symptoms unnecessarily repeated, suggesting Christian elaboration and that they contain little of the original. Both Matthew and Luke concur and eliminate the father’s speech which looks added. Both of the final two verses, Mark 9:28-29, are considered by scholars also to be late additions to the original story. The point of the reference (Mk 9:18) to the disciples’ inability to cure is to contrast their lack of faith with the messiah—in Acts they can cure anything that appears before them. It too is added.
In Mark 9:22 appears the detail that the spirit cast the young man into the fire and into the waters. Fire and water are the very elements that purify, implying what is perhaps obvious—that we have a very intractable unclean spirit!
When insertions have been removed, an exorcism miracle remains. These are cases of strong arm tactics by the band and the symptoms here are the same. The story turns out to be similar to that of the Syro-Phœnician woman and her daughter with the sex of the suppliants changed. The epileptic is described as a child but he is more likely to have been a young man over the age of thirteen since in Mark 9:21 the father says he has had the affliction since childhood. He and his father are at loggerheads about the Nazarenes and the father complains about him. The disciples beat the son unconscious so that people think he is dead:
And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him, and he was as one dead, insomuch that many said, He is dead.
Mark’s dominant theme from now on is the resurrection of Jesus and next comes a hint of it—the messiah raising the boy from apparent death just as God would raise the messiah from death itself. The same words are used here in the Greek:
Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up, and he arose.
This then will be a pious addition. In the original incident the man’s son was left for dead. The other two synoptic gospels mention nothing about the youth being as one dead—their authors considering it too transparently savage—and also leave out much more of Mark’s account, because of its barely disguised violence.
Blind Bartimaeus
This is the final healing of the gospel. Jesus cures the blind man, Bartimaeus. For Mark, the symbolism of this is that Jesus no longer hides his position and objectives. He has come out and is openly the metaphorical heir of David—the messiah.
Now blindness is one of the Nazarene code words for a doubter or opponent of the Nazarenes, but he is more than blind. He identifies Jesus as the king of the Jews, an action that hitherto has been coded as an unclean spirit which has to be battered to release it. Here the disciples sternly tell him to be silent but Jesus intervenes and cures him—converts him into a follower. No unclean spirit is mentioned.
Or is it? Mark gives Aramaic words when he wants to disguise something from the uncomprehending gentile Christians, though later an editor sometimes adds a translation. This is the only cured man whose name is recorded in the gospel but here it is not a real name. Mark gives it as “Bartimaeus” and explains that it means “Son of Timaeus”, but by the strangest coincidence Timaeus is the Greek rendering of a word which in Aramaic means unclean!
This remarkable clue shows that this was originally another story of an unclean spirit being driven out of one of the Nazarenes’ opponents by a beating—the blind man begs for mercy. But Mark, anticipating the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, wants Jesus to acknowledge his kingship openly. So he has changed a cleansing into an acceptance by Jesus of his messiahship. Mark chose the affliction of blindness, rather than leprosy or palsy, to symbolize, through its cure, visibility or openness, and to punctuate the end of this section which began immediately after the previous curing of a blind man.
Note that the cured blind man followed Jesus in “the way”, the word that the Essenes had used for their movement long before Jesus appeared on the scene. Such apparently small correspondences prove Christianity’s debt to the Essenes.
The event is recorded at Jericho, only twelve miles from Qumran and 17 from Jerusalem. It is quite likely that fellow Essenes from the tented city at Qumran joined the Nazarenes on the final few miles to Jerusalem. On leaving Jericho, two things happen in Luke’s gospel, Jesus calls the head taxgatherer Zacchaeus and then he tells a parable about a man who receives a kingdom. Both stories contain genuine tradition.
The eccentric naming of Jericho twice in the opening sentence suggests that a passage has been moved or excised at an early stage. The most obvious events to insert here are those which refer to payment of tribute or custom because there was a custom post at Jericho as Luke implies with his story about Zacchaeus, the tax collector. Zacchaeus is a collaborator, a man who shelters in a sycomore tree—a fig tree. In the Zacchaeus story, there seems to be an allusion to the fourfold division of the kingdom of Herod, with the assurance that half shall be returned and then the fourfold parts. The Romans had taken half of the Jewish kingdom and now they would be made to restore it to its rightful owners, the poor, God’s righteous.
Judaea was formerly the kingdom of Herod Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great. Archelaus had been ethnarch, a title meaning a king of a half of a kingdom. His two brothers had been given the other two quarters of the kingdom—they were tetrarchs. In a speech, Jesus refers to all this and it has appeared in Luke as the promise of Zacchaeus to yield up half his possessions (two parts of the kingdom—Judaea) and then to restore fourfold—in other words the whole kingdom—all four parts. The reference to Archelaus is confirmed in the next parable of Luke when he appears again.
At this point, the Greek cleverly uses for “defrauded” the word, “sukophanteo”, which gives us the word “sycophant” meaning a “toady” or “flatterer” but which literally means “one who shows figs”. Unless there was a similar pun in the Aramaic, it is doubtful that Jesus could have put it the way the gospel writer did, but Luke puts the meaning over clearly. The ones who showed figs, those who pandered and toadied to the Romans, were the two Herods, Antipas and Philip, who would soon be passing over their respective quarters of the kingdom to make up the fourfold restoration.
Luke, but not the other gospel writers, adds another parable here. Christians think it is a reference to Jesus’s impending death because it is about a nobleman who goes to a far country to receive a kingdom. Their interpretation is that his servants left in charge are Christian disciples who will be punished if they do not use all their abilities to make the kingdom grow in the absence in death of the king, the Christ. Yet the man who would be a king is a tyrant in every respect, and could not be identified with God or gentle Jesus under any circumstances.
Jesus the Essene could not have preached either this parable or the equivalent one in Matthew 25:14-30, the parable of the talents, both of which seem to praise the garnering of riches. Jesus was one of the poor. He despised wealth and considered the wealthy as men of the pit. He could not have advocated rewarding extortioners even parabolically. He could only have preached it as a warning or as an acknowledgement of a wrong to be righted.
The speech is in two related parts which the author has intermixed. One part harks back to the Zacchaeus parable, adding a clue to its interpretation. Extracted it is this. A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called servants and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
This short tale is simply a piece of history. If it is Jesus’s and not Luke’s, it is part of the explanation of the half and the fourfold of Zacchaeus because it tells the story of how the ethnarch, Archelaus, came by his half of the Jewish kingdom, and his relations with his subjects. We know that Archelaus went to Rome to plead for the kingdom of his father Herod from Augustus, the Roman Emperor. The leaders of the Jews sent a delegation begging Augustus to refuse the supplications of Archelaus. Augustus decided to split the kingdom and gave half to Archelaus and the other two quarters to his brothers. According to Josephus, at the first Passover of Archelaus’s inheritance of Judaea on his father’s death he called in a Roman legion to kill 3000 of his subjects. Jesus the Essene had no interest in turning the other cheek to Romans or collaborators like the Herodians. So doubtless the final line of this tale was meant as a reminder of retribution outstanding.
The other tale is a modified version of Matthew’s parable of the talents. Evidently Luke or an editor saw fit to merge them into one. Jesus comments from an Essene view of justice on the treatment meted out by the tyrants notably the taxation system.
The money given by the wicked king to his servants was the total wealth of a peasant—the servants therefore represent ordinary people. While the king is away, some succeeded through extortion to multiply many fold the money they had initially received. Where else but extortion would their profits come from? Pilate, the high priests and the wealthy puppet kings all got their wealth by exploitation. The wicked king returns and rewards the most successful extortioner with a proportionate number of cities to exploit permanently—he makes him a publican. The next one gets a lesser reward but is also made a publican. The last one, representing the remainder of the ten—the majority of the people—struggled to earn a living. He was only able to return the original sum, and says to the king, “I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow”, and the king agrees with him. This tyrant and robber is the man clergymen think is Jesus. The cautious man’s reward was to be impoverished to the benefit of one of the rich publicans. The remaining seven protest to the king that the rich man already has wealth, “Lord, he hath ten pounds”, but to no avail. The king tells them, “unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him”.
The parable was obviously directed at the tax collector, Zacchaeus, possibly meant to be the High Priest (Zacchaeus, meaning “cleansed”—the temple would soon be cleansed) or even the Roman governor (his position is a unique word in the Greek). Jesus was commenting on the injustice of the system that rewarded the dishonest few—the tax collectors—while penalizing the many. He was saying that Zacchaeus and his type had become rich by extortion—otherwise they were no different from anyone else. Now the exploitation would end. It is not coincidence that the same expression summarizes the respective rewards of the righteous and the wicked—the wicked are rewarded in the polluted kingdom of Israel in just the same way as the righteous are rewarded in God’s kingdom on earth. Jesus will have finished with some mention of the reward for the righteous poor in the kingdom. It is the origin of the pie in the sky that Christians have accepted ever since.
In Luke 19:11 the expectation of the multitude surging upon Jerusalem was that the kingdom would appear immediately when they reached the city. One has only to reject the later Christian concept of a suffering messiah coming in peace and realize that the Jewish prospect was of a Davidic messiah, a warrior who would retake the city and set up a kingdom, to grasp that the entry into Jerusalem would be frightening to the administrators and garrison of the city.
Healings of Asklepios
For those who believe the literal truth of Jesus’s healings, are these Pagan healings any the less remarkable?
Cleo was pregnant for five years. When she had now been pregnant for five years, she turned for help to the god and sleep in the holy of holies. As soon as she came out again and had left the sacred precincts she bore a son, who as soon as he was born, washed himself at the spring and walked around with his mother.
A man whose fingers, all but one, were paralyzed. He came to the god looking for help, but when he read the tablets set up in the temple he gave no credence to the healings and made fun of the inscrip tions. But as he slept he had the following dream. It seemed to him that he was playing dice in the temple and was about to make a throw. The god appeared to him, and sprang upon his hand and stretched out his fingers. Then he got up and, still in his dream, the man clenched his fist and opened it, stretching out one finger after another. After he had stretched them all out, the god asked him if he still refused to believe what the inscriptions related, and he said ”no.” ”Well then” answered the god, ”since you formerly refused to believe what is not unbelievable, you shall henceforth be known as the ”Doubter.” When it was day, he came out cured.
Ambrosia from Athens, who was blind in one eye. She came to the god seeking help, but as she went about the temple she mocked at the many records of curse: ”It is unbelievable and impossible that the lame and the blind can be made whole by merely dreaming!” But in her sleep she had a dream. It seemed to her that the god came up and promised to make her whole; only in return she must present a gift offering in the temple—a silver pig, in memory of her stupidity. After saying this he cut open her defective eye and poured in some drug. And when it was day she went forth cured.
