AW! Epistles
From Shemayah of the Ebionim
Abstract
Wednesday, September 06, 2000
I have been reading your extracts from Barabbas. In recent years we have been reinforced by the writings of Eisenman (I am still reading James, the Brother of Jesus) and others. He has helped publicize the Evyoni view of events. I personally came to the discovery that my beliefs paralleled those of the ancient Ebionites about 15 years ago, after working my way out of Christianity 5 years prior. There had been much written lately concerning all this and we thought that we needed a site to educate, encourage, and receive others. I am familiar with the Qumran documents.
I have Eisenman’s book The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians but have not yet read it. I did not think I would be able to teach you anything about the Essenes but thought you might be interested in the books. The Hidden Jesus is more detailed on the Ebionites and you would enjoy it more than Barabbas which is a broader survey.
The book is a commentary on Mark’s gospel. I think you will like it, Jesus coming out of it as a noble Ebionite figure—in my view—though not divine. I offer explanations for many things that I have never seen explained and I believe that the Essenes deliberately used the limited and confusing vocabulary of Aramaic to obscure what they were saying, so that outsiders, particularly the Greeks and Romans, would not comprehend even if they understood Aramaic. You will understand it better, if it is true, because you seem to have a good grasp of Semitic languages. I have to use a dictionary and try to guess.
An example I came across (which is not in the book) is the expression Fishers of Men, which from something in Davidson’s Hebrew Grammar, could be read as a pun meaning Slayers or Destroyers of men. The meaning was that the unrepentantly wicked of Israel as well as the gentiles would be slain by the Elect on the Day of the Vengeance of God when the Righteous would be saved. But it sounded like a reference to innocent fishermen.
My interest is in historical truth, inasmuch as it can ever be attained. For me Christianity is a 2000 year old fraud. Jesus was a holy man of the sect of the Essenes but was not the divine Son of God the gentile fraudsters made him. I cannot believe that Christian scholars do not know this and think therefore that they are perpetuating the charade so as not to rock the boat.
Perhaps that would not matter if Christians wanted to keep their gullible ideas to themselves but they are incapable of it. Not only that, but there is little evidence that Christianity has contributed much to stability in the last two millennia and a lot of evidence that it has been a cruel bane and a force for evil.
What is even worse now is that its pure selfishness in concentrating on personal salvation is allowing the natural world to be destroyed. We have to do something about this or see our children choke to death.
Thus I hope to propagate a little of the truth about Christian foundations. Is there anything, for example, remaining from the beliefs of the Ebionites that is actually still practiced by Christians? The world would have been much less exploited if everyone had been content to be the Poor as Jesus was rather than digging up the world and turning it into waste heaps.
I am inclined now to the idea of nature as a cosmic mother, but as a metaphor rather than a sentient being that listens to people praying. That, I am afraid, I cannot accept, whether the prayer is to Iah, Apollo or the Great Mother, though it might work if it is to your natural mother or father!
James, the Brother of Jesus is the better book of Eisenman’s. Although I read DSS stuff for years (most second hand though I had some plates, etc.) I was led to believe the committee’s line and did not take them seriously as applicable, my Ebionism was not based on any recent literature and studies.
I have called myself Evyoni—Ebionite—for about 15 years and had the theology/life-view before that 3 or 4 years. I was associated with a group who were sacred name non-Trinitarian, and Torah-centered—but working frantically to keep Paul of Tarsus in his place. They failed in my account. But as you said (someplace) the N’tsarim (’Evyonim) became a branch of the ’Ossim—this is my take. I start with Yahwism, a renewing of the covenant, and the messianic hope. Then I compare to see where alignments exist(ed).
There is a core to my beliefs: simple Yahwistic reformation and a messianic hope, essentially. This precludes anomian, pagan, and trinitarian schemes, and therefore Christianity but also Rabbinic Judaism. It just so happens that the ancient Evyonim held this approach (as I see it) and the Qaraites had similar wishes. Whatever their success (or the lack of it) or later developments, we share similar aproaches and desires.
You would be surprised at how many do know at least the pagan foundations of Xism, but as you say, they have too much to lose. I do not know how very closely joined Yahshua was to the ’Ossim, but will admit there was some affiliation or close similarity, and that these connections have grown more than diminished. Truth Reality serves Yahweh assuming that he is a parameter of reality. But Western religion has added so many of its own parameters that it tends to make well-intentioned scholars feel better off making distance rather than being harnessed up to the Church.
We see little connection between our Community and Xism, and would probably work to end every association. I think you will understand the true Evyoni heart on the difference between the Poor as opposite of greed, and exploitation. Yahweh is Life. We believe he animates us allowing the mechanisms, like a design, to bring us into the world. By the way, Sex is the legitimate, necessary, and enjoyable vehicle (as opposed to prudish, gnostic X scruples).
Xians indeed cannot keep their ideas to themselves and have been a force for evil, and regarding the natural world, I do not read subdue, subjugate the earth, etc. and that direction. To rule over something involves mastery, service, stewardship, understanding. Destroying the earth is destroying ourselves and the work of Yahweh. Destroying creation is an active rejection of the creator. Just as greed perverts the fact of Yahweh’s provision through the resources of the natural world.
Your replies were most interesting. Careful social archaeology of the Essenes 2000 years ago is essential and will doubtless meet with opposition and obfuscation from Christians as it always has. However, while I agree with you that many features of their lifestyle and beliefs seem preferable to those of Christians and Rabbis alike, we must also take care to understand them as they were and not as we might idealize them. By the way, would you mind if I put your correspondence on my web pages.
Feel free to post my correspondence, but warn me so I don’t curse or something!
