The Madness of Middle Earth

Breathing in the heady scent of orange blossom, I realized why Jericho was named the fragrant city.

It was the spring of 1977. My family and I had traveled there from Dammam on the Arabian Gulf, driving up the old Trans-Arabia Pipeline, then over the desert to the Azraq oasis that Lawrence had once used during his campaigns, and on to Amman. After a brief sojurn in there at the Philadelphia, and visits to Gerash, Petra, and Damascus, we arranged visas and took a taxi down to the Jordan where we went across at the Allenby Bridge into occupied Palestine.

I had not thought of it for a long time since, until reading an article in the September 12th London Review of Books about the Essenes.

The past came flooding back...

There was a white owl roosting in the broken stones of one of the remaining towers of the Bronze Age city living its life among the cracks and fissures and, no doubt, plundering the modern Palestinian town for rodents. I saw to the south, Qumran with its Dead Sea settlements and the caves where the potsherds and scrolls were found in 1947 and further south, Masada, Sodom, Gommorah and, where the Kidron valley turns east, visited the Greek Orthodox monastery, Mar Saba, clinging to its southern face like a swallows nest

A contentious part of the world for more than present reasons...

Joan Didion reminds us in her White Album that James Albert Pike, Bishop of California, and ex-Episcopalian, met his dusty death here while driving out into the desert with his third wife and a bottle of Pepsi (for hydration) in a hired car with the objective of finding more scrolls.

Madness. Buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Jaffa.

As with the history of the scrolls. Found when the area was still controlled by Jordan, Catholic academics had initial control over all research, refusing access to Jewish researchers. John Allegro published and terminated his academic career with "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross" based on his scroll research and philology of proto-Akkadian. I found the book curiously arcane, a bit like a Middle Eastern Finnegan's Wake, associating the mystery religions, including Christianity, with the use of Amanita Muscaria for inducing visions of God. I note, btw, that Robert Graves, the poet, also documents use of the same. See Judges 15:4... Finally in 1967, the West Bank as it became known, was overrun by the Israelis and their academics finally had access.

Madness. Hallucinogens and academic exclusivity.

First century Palestine was an interesting society. Influenced by Hellenistic culture, the Old Testament, or Tanach, was translated into Greek. There were essentially five groupings of Jews -- Hellenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes. The apostle Simon was a Zealot and maybe Jesus himself, whereas the missionary Paul was a Hellene and a Pharisee. It was in this mix that Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity developed and the Essenes and Zealots were swept away during the insurrection that destroyed the Second Temple and Masada. Masada which has been mythologized to heroic status more in remembering the Nazi Shoah than the Roman occupation. Masada will not fall again. Poor reasoning for creating a nation state, but understandable.

Madness. The seeding and diaspora of Christianity and Judaism.

In Mar Saba, our swallows nest, there are letters which reference portions of Mark's gospel which have been omitted in the present Christian Bible because of the superficial implication of inappropriate behavior of Jesus. Censorship seemed to begin early. The omitted passage to be inserted between Mark 10:34 and 10:35, reads:

"And they came into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and said to him 'Son of David, have mercy upon me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And straightway, going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway,going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And, going out of the tomb, they came to the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth came to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan."

Madness. The shame and uneccessary censorship of orthodoxy.

...while on that other side of the Jordan, six hundred years later, and many times, a merchant from Mecca traveled by this middle earth, this lowest point of the Rift-Valley system. Maybe he glanced up at the saltiness of it all, noting the pillar that was called Lot's wife. Maybe he had time in Damascus to hear arguments about the Trinity and the nature of God and Jesus as defined by various learned treaties. He needed a simpler faith to replace the worship of meteorites and local gods. He regarded Jesus (Isa) as a prophet but believed he survived his staged execution by the Romans. He formed his thoughts into a revelation, the Quran and Islam was born.

So, we were at the geographic turning point. Bubbling sulphur and salt. Philosophy, orthodoxy, myth, heresy, and religious ferment were palpably present. Joshua, Mohammed, Josephus, Rahab, Jesus, Bishop Pike, John the Baptist, Allegro, and Lot's wife. All here.

The Madness of Middle Earth.