James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (17 page)

In any event, the episode ends inconclusively enough with: ‘
and they
(seemingly inclusive of Simon
Magus
)
preached the Gospel in many villages of the Samaritans
’ (8:25). However this may be, ‘
Philip
’ then turns into the protagonist of the conve
r
sion of
the Queen
’
s eunuch
before suddenly dematerializing – ‘
the Spirit of the Lord took Philip away so that the eunuch ne
v
er saw him again
’ (8:39). ‘
Having been found at Azotus
’ – modern-day Tel Aviv – once again,
he
‘
preached the Gospel in all the cities
(inclusive probably of
Lydda
)
until he came to Caesarea
’ (8:40), where he seems to have been going in the first place since he had there ‘
four virgin daughters who were prophetesses
’ (21:9)!

For his part Peter follows ‘
Philip
’ and he, too ‘
passes through all
’ (9:32 – whatever this means). Nevertheless he actually does ‘
go down to the Saints that lived at Lydda
’. While there, however, what he is doing – in place presumably of the crucifi
x
ions occurring there in both Josephus and the
Talmud
– is rather
curing
‘
a certain
’
paralytic
with the name of Virgil’s hero in
The Aeneid
, ‘
Aeneas
’, ‘
who had been lying in bed for eight years
’ (9:33; sometimes it really is hard to refrain from laughing). Because ‘
Lydda was nearby Jaffa
’, the Disciples, having heard Peter was there, invite him to come to Jaffa to raise ‘
a certain Disciple named
Tabitha
’ – female because the form in Aramaic is feminine – ‘
which being interpreted means
Dorcas
’ (now ‘
g
a
zelle
’ in Greek!), who had ‘
become ill and died
’ (9:36–38). This is all supposed to be taken seriously.

But to go back to Simon’s Samaritan origins, which Acts seems unaware of or, at least, never makes clear – we must rather wait for the Pseudoclementines and Churchmen like Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, and Eusebius to clarify these.
40
In the Pseudoclementines, Peter becomes the hero of a whole string of confrontations with Simon
Magus
north to Lebanon and Sy
r
ia, but
beginning with this one in Caesarea
.
41
For its part, Acts 8:10 in the midst of what for it is a first confrontation in Sama
r
ia even describes Simon – like ‘
Elchasai
’ – as ‘
the Power of God which is Great
’. However this may be, its emphasis throug
h
out this whole fantastic
and certainly unhistorical episode
(if it is historical, it has been tampered with) on ‘
Power
’ and ‘
laying on of hands
’ – both cornerstones of ‘
Mandaean
’ tradition – is
nothing less than startling
.
42

Nor can there be any doubt as well that the New Testament is inordinately sympathetic to individuals of a ‘
Samaritan
’ background as opposed to a ‘
Judean
’ or ‘
Jewish
’ one.
Over and over again in the works of early Church heresiologists we hear about individuals from a Samaritan cultural milieu being the recipients of John the Baptist’s teaching and its offshoots – the implication of the curious Mandaean notation for John the Baptist of ‘
as-Sabi
‘
ibn Yusufus
’ in the first place.
43
In the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
, for instance, both Simon
Magus
and an individual named ‘
Dositheus
’ – both also later portrayed as heads of ‘
sects
’ of their own just as ‘
Ebion
’, the Ebionites, and ‘
Elchasai
’, the Elchasaites – are portrayed, as we saw, as
S
a
maritan Disciples
of John the Baptist
.
44

Dositheus
, also seemingly referred to in Josephus as ‘
Doetus
’ or ‘
Dortus
’ (and the head supposedly – according to the heresiologists – of his own sect ‘
the Dositheans
’
45
) is evidently one of those crucified in the disturbances between Samaritans and Jews at Lydda.
46
He also seems to reappear in the ‘
Dortus
’/‘
Dorcas
’ story in Acts 9:36–43 above where Peter resurrects someone in Jaffa he calls ‘
Dorcas
’ – ‘
Tabitha
’ a ‘
Doe
’! As Acts 9:43 expresses this in its own inimitable way – again using the language of ‘
a certain
’: ‘
and he
(
Peter
)
stayed many days in Jaffa with a certain Simon
’, but now the ‘
Simon
’ the text is talking about is not
Simon Magus
but allegedly ‘
Simon a tanner
’! This occurs in Acts, right before the orthodox
Simon
’s ‘
tablecloth
’ vision where, it will be recalled, Peter gets
Paulinized
,
learning to call
‘
no man profane
’, and just following Peter’s brief sojourn in the same
Lydda
– a town we just heard about in the
Talmud in connection with the crucifixion of
‘
the Messiah ben Joseph
’ and in Acts, the scene of Peter’s
curing of another
‘
certain
’
paralytic
,
so curiously named
‘
Aeneas
’,
by invoking the name of the Messiah Jesus
.

The magical words Peter is depicted as uttering here, are illustrative: ‘
Aeneas
,
rise up
,
Jesus the Christ has healed you
’ (9:34), as they may point the way to a solution of many of the historical problems raised in this book. What we are trying to say here is that ‘Jesus (i.e. ‘
the Saviour’) the Christ
’ may originally have been
part of a magical formula
, invoked in such healing a
t
tempts in a Hellenistic milieu and around which many of these miracle tales then came to be fashioned. It also, of course, takes the place of the crucifixion of ‘
the Messiah ben Joseph
’ – whose counterpart this ‘
Joshua
’ most certainly was – here at Lydda according to the
Talmud
.

Certainly the
Taheb
traditions among the Samaritans have something to do with all these relationships but, in the writer’s view, they also have something to do with the Gospel presentations of stories about Pontius Pilate and Jesus. The name ‘
Jesus
’ itself has to be seen as related to the ‘
Taheb
’ who was, in fact, just such a ‘
Joshua
’ or ‘
Jesus
redivivus
’ (Joshua being the scion of the principal Northern Tribe of Ephraim). So does the title ‘
Son of Joseph
’, from which the Talmudic ‘
the Messiah ben J
o
seph
’ is derived – ‘
Joseph
’ being the patronymic hero of the North. In particular, this is true of Joshua’s tribe, Ephraim (the preferred son of Joseph according to the blessing of his father Jacob in Genesis 48:13–20), all of whom were seen as ‘
Sons of Joseph
’
par excellence
.

Though surviving Samaritan tradition is difficult in the extreme to penetrate, what does emerge is that there is a ‘
Redee
m
er
’ figure referred to there as ‘the
Taheb
’ – from this, possibly, the curious ‘
Disciple named
Tabitha
’, whom Peter is pictured as resurrecting after she had already ‘
been washed
’ in Acts 9:37–41. If true, this is an incredible transformation, once again, poin
t
ing up the
modus operandi
and mischievous dissimulation embodied in New Testament narrative of this kind.

We have already seen that the term ‘
the
Taheb
’ actually would appear to mean ‘
the Restorer
’ and what this
Joshua
redivivus
or ‘
Restorer
’ was supposed to restore was the Mosaic legacy as represented by the figure of
Joshua
– ‘
Jesus
’.
47
In fact, this is something of what Josephus portrays when he presents ‘
the tumult
’ in Samaria that was so serious that it really did end up in
Pontius Pilate
’
s recall from Palestine
.
48
This is highly underestimated and a rare occurrence even in view of the brutality shown by other Roman governors. In this episode, an individual, obviously supposed to be ‘
the
Taheb
’ (though Josephus never actua
l
ly calls him this), is clearly trying to present himself as a ‘
Joshua
’ or ‘
Jesus
redivivus
’, since he wishes to lead a massed multitude up to Samaria’s ‘
Holy Mountain
,
Mt
.
Gerizim
’ where Joshua had originally read the Mosaic Law to the assembled tribes (Jos
h
ua 8:33–35).

The way John the Baptist is presented in Josephus, whose effect on the crowd (which ‘
seemed prepared to do anything he would suggest
’) at
almost precisely the same time
is comparable in almost every way.
49
What the Samaritan ‘
Impostor
’ prevails on the crowd to do is to
restore
‘
the sacred vessels
’, presumably of the Temple, that had allegedly been ‘
deposited in that place by Moses
’.
50
But, as Josephus portrays it, these crowds, which had congregated ‘at
a certain village called Tirathaba
’ were now set upon and slaughtered by ‘
a great troop of horse and men
’ commanded by Pontius Pilate.

Others were taken alive, ‘
the principal and most powerful of whom
’ Pilate ordered to be crucified just as Christian trad
i
tion considers its ‘
Jesus
’ to have been.
51
These must have included the individual claiming to be ‘
the
Taheb
’ unless he managed to escape. There is no comparable story in the received Josephus about Pilate’s interaction with Jewish or Samaritan crowds and a Messianic ‘
Restorer
’ or ‘
Redeemer
’ figure, whom he cruelly and brutally crucified and for which he was ultimately actua
l
ly recalled, unless it be this.
52

Nor can there be much doubt that we have in these activities the kernel of events being transformed in Acts’ picture of Peter’s encounter with ‘
a certain
Tabitha
which interpreted is
Dorcas
’ and, in Josephus, probably ‘
Dortus
’ or ‘
Doetus
’. Such ove
r
laps of ‘
the Taheb
’ story – including the common denotation ‘
Son of Joseph
’ – with that of the ‘
Jesus
’ or the ‘
Christ
’ make it seem pretty certain that there was some original or underlying version of materials about this ‘
Son of Joseph
’/‘
Taheb
’ persona
l
ity, owing its origins to and based upon Samaritan originals, that went into the Gospels. But further than this it is impossible to go.