Romans 16 Lecture 54 Personalities Around Paul

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS (54)
Analytical Commentary on Romans

ROMANS 16

PERSONALITIES AROUND PAUL (1)

Audio Lecture is now available for members: Paul's letter to the Roman Christians: Lecture 54
http://www.bripodcasts.com/Romans/Lecture54.MP3

Copyright © BRI/IMCF 2018 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

"Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance" -- W. Clement Stone

"Truth is not decided by a show of hands" -- modern axiom

I hope all of my students have a real love of history. For, this particular address is largely based on history as well as on theology. But both will be based on the biblical narrative. It is important to be reminded of the world the existed in the first century of our era which saw the rise of Messianism in Judaea and the Galil, with the advent of Our Lord Yeshua, and the reasons why the Zealot underground revolutionary movement sprang forth at his birth. We also need to realise that we have not been told the whole story about the family of Yeshua, and the involvement of Shaul (Saulus) and the astonishing role which he played in the spread of the Yeshua revolution.

We shall see as we progress through Romans 16 just how interlinked were the participants in the Yeshua Messianic Movement in family, and extended family, circles. The original Yeshua movement was a family affair, and again we have been denied information concerning the very depth and degree of Herodian involvement in that same family.

There may well be a number of surprises in store as we travel back into the Second Temple Period milieu and make our fresh acquaintance with the various personalities around Rav Shaul.

THE KEY PHRASE IN ROMANS 16
Romans 16 usually possesses little in the way of academic interest to scholars as it is viewed as a document that is simply filled with salutations and greetings and acknowledgments along with the mention of people for whom these greetings are intended. A lengthy list indeed. But the chapter is of value to us due to the fact that it is the CONCLUSION to all that has painstakingly gone before. Indeed, the entire epistle is centered in and constellates around the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah and the originator and the means of our SALVATION. Therefore, we ought to immediately take note of the key phrase recurring right throughout Paul's conclusion.

Romans 16.2 - That you receive her in the Lord.
Romans 16.3 - My helpers in Messiah Yeshua.
Romans 16.7 - Who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Messiah.
Romans 16.8 - My beloved in the Lord.
Romans 16.9 - Our helper in Messiah.
Romans 16.10 - Salute Apelles approved in Messiah.
Romans 16.11 - Which are in the Lord.
Romans 16.12 - Who labour in the Lord... which laboured much in the Lord.
Romans 16.13 - Rufus chosen in the Lord.
Romans 16.22 - I Tertius... salute you in the Lord.

IMCF REMAINS 'NEW COVENANT' & NON-TRINITARIAN
We in IMCF are students, pupils of the New Covenant which was signed, sealed and delivered to us by the Messiah, and ratified in his shed blood. The New Covenant is entirely NEW. It is not a Renewed Covenant but a New Covenant. Originally, this lecturer was very much a convert to the arguments for a Renewed Covenant but over the years further personal research carried the day with the restoration of the NEW Covenant.

As to charges concerning Trinitarianism I have a few words to say. There are attacks upon me as a lecturer from those who on the one hand erroneously think I teach tritheism and, on the other hand, there are those who are seemingly gratified that I find Christ as the second Person of the unwholesome non-biblical Trinity doctrine. This confusing situation is due to the fact that I sometimes make use of the term Triune to be the best descriptor of the awesome unlimited expansive Deity we worship and adore. Certainly, that God was in Messiah is not a doctrine that leads to theories of incarnation and trinity it is an acclamation of praise of a Presence that leads to a wholeness, a new creation, a new humanity, and a new manner of living.

The call of the Lord Yeshua is not a call to be religious. It is equally not a call to escape life's traumas, to find security, to even possess peace of mind. All of these things are invitations to a life-contradicting idolatry. The call of Messiah Yeshua is a call to be fully human, to embrace insecurity without building protective fences, to accept the absence of peace of mind as a requirement of humanity. It is to see that God is the experience of life, love and being, who is met at the edges of an expanded humanity.

Isaiah was the prophet through whom God spoke these words: "I the LORD am doing a NEW thing! Even now they are being birthed. Shall you not know it?" (Isa 43.19).

Understand this! I do not teach new Truth, but a FRESH revelation of Truth. Nothing new but all things original.

Question: Why do we read God's Word? Many reasons. One must be so that we can become educated enough to WALK in it. As we progressively repent of everything that displeases God, Our Lord encourages us from His Word that He will reveal more Truth to us as a reward for our industry as HisHer new intellectuals.

In Psalm 36.9 we read, "In your light we see light."

Students! Never be content with receiving a SECONDHAND revelation of the Truth. Many Christians join organisations that proclaim themselves to be God's true church or God's remnant people. Then they discover, too late, that there is a process initiated to GOVERN everything you read and even think about. And let's not overlook the existence of menacing Thought Police who appear at every conversation we may be having with brethren, and then who rush all possible aberrant views as informants to the exposure of the nearest minister or Elder of the congregation to which we may belong.

This process goes right AGAINST the promise of Yeshua who stated that the holy Spirit the FREE Ruach HaKodesh would come and instruct us in RIGHT KNOWLEDGE in education. Listen! I had no choice in being CONSCRIPTED into this present ministry. Frankly, as I have mentioned many times, I was quite happy where I was over 40 years ago! Then SUDDENLY I found myself restoring the lost first-century Jewish thoughtform back to the biblical revelation that God was raising up a RESTORED Jewish thoughtform and a teaching ministry and I came to a realisation that God works intimately through weak human agencies to which He has given the GIFT of teaching in an educational way.

HOW QUALIFIED ARE WE TO RULE WITH CHRIST... NOW?
Disobedience REMAINS THE GREATEST HINDERANCE to the revelation of Truth.

And, really, why should God reveal MORE truth to us if we are not OBEDIENT to the truth we ALREADY have been given?

How QUALIFIED does God want us to become in this our LAST and FINAL physical life on Earth?

God is not looking for CLEVER students to support His Work, but clean students.

God is not looking for TALENTED students for His Work, but available students.

God is not looking for PEOPLE-PLEASERS but for God-fearing students.

God is not looking for SELF-ASSUMED students, but God-dependent-only students who possess a passion for God and His GLORY.

God is not looking for students WHO CAN WRITE A THESIS on evangelism. God's looking for students with a burdened heart for the spiritually lost who will go out to where they are, love them, pray for them, weep for them, witness to them, and be involved with their lives, and give their lives for the lost if necessary.

None of this ought to surprise us if we know Christ. We either are involved as a way of life in witnessing and winning people to Yeshua we witness to any and all for only the heart of the Firstfruit will be activated by our service to them in such a ministry or we are disobedient and don't qualify to be a follower according to Mt 4.19. Yeshua clearly said: "Follow me and I will make you fishermen of men."

Are we faithfully following Yeshua? And are we conscientious and particular as to the way we use our bait to catch fish?

We had a student who, some years ago, decided to evangelise someone she thought was open to the Spirit of God and she printed out a dozen or so hardcore articles I had written and gave them to the woman. She never heard from her again. Her actions, although well-meaning, were just like a fisherman throwing all the bait overboard without a fishing line and hook to attract and catch a fish.

So we again proceed in our examination of Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians and we have arrived finally at Romans 16. This is a most important chapter in Paul's epistle. Some students are delighted to skip over the list of names recorded here in this chapter. They do so to their own disadvantage. The list of names are very enlightening indeed for they teach us a great deal about the very early history of the Messianic Movement of the mid-to-late Second Temple period.

WHAT MOST DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THE SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD
There is little doubt in my mind that when the normal "run of the mill" 2018 Western Christian considers the contents of Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians that he or she perceives the first century Roman believers as a community very much like the current Christian community to which he or she presently belongs. This misconception is largely due to the fact that they are (generally) woefully ignorant when it comes to a background comprehension of the Roman-dominated Second Temple Period in the area of biblical education.
 
Certainly, there exists a dearth of any profitable teaching ministry in existence today in the churches of this world. Oh, education does exist but it is fairly obvious that it is limited to the higher levels of religious academia and that the essences of an authentic teaching ministry have not filtered down to the masses who have been reduced to worshiping and praising as enthusiastic pew-warmers in the Sunday-morning Hallowed Halls of Non-Think. Prolonged emotional choruses, with the anticipated prerequisite exercise-inducing waving of arms, have largely taken the place of intelligent thought-provoking sermons, and what reasoned teaching does actually emanate forth from the pulpit has too often been reduced or watered-down to a sorry state of promulgating a 25 minute social and/or prosperity gospel.

The church today finds itself caught in a monumental spiritual crisis. There are many true believers scattered in myriads of modern and historic denominations and there exist many more outside the churches exiled for all the right reasons but also alienated from any authentic source of spiritual nourishment and they face a bleak future spiritually for how can such a person GROW in the knowledge of God and in an understanding of heavenly matters without that vitally imperative holy Spirit-organ of relevant guidance? The holy Spirit created an educational teaching ministry for the ekklesia, and we Christians are the ones who have virtually jettisoned it from our services. As to an appreciation of the Second Temple Period, professing Christians are both programmed and conditioned by their current subjective experience of Christianity to make the common mistake of applying their own western Christian life and cultural values to the time period when Yeshua and Paul and the rest of the apostles walked the earth. In their myopic view nothing really has changed from that age to this one in Christian affairs. The Rebbetzin and I have both been confronted by this bizarre attitude and appraisal.

The truth is that the philosophical temperament and psychological worldview of the early Messianic believers in the Lord Yeshua was at total variance to the modern Christian temperament and psychological worldview as particularly noted in our contemporary sectarianism in its western Protestant forms (among these forms consider JW's, SDB's, SDA's, Armstrongism, Christadelphianism, various pentecostal Church of God Holiness movements etc). In contradistinction, the primitive Nazarene community was alive in its expectant triumphant militancy. They were on notice for the sudden overthrow of Roman civilisation with the awesome advent of the Kingdom of God. They were prepared at an instant notice to be caught up to meet their descending Lord and to seize and occupy positions of governmental authority. They were (due to their Qumran links) expectant that the final cosmic War between The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness was soon to eventuate in their own lifetimes.

Recall that the original assemblies were largely aligned with the Zealots (see 2 Peter, Jude), and that Christ himself had notable insurgents among his hand-picked twelve apostles: Simon the Zealot (Lk 6.15; Acts 1.13), Judas the Sicarii, and James and John the sons of Zebedee known as "Sons of Thunder" indicative of their non-passivity. Consider too the fact that Yeshua the Nazarene King of the Jews was nailed on a tree for treason along with two insurrectionists lestai, revolutionaries.

The followers of Yeshua were decidedly not pacifists. The Lord recommended his disciples purchase swords (Lk 22.35-38) and on another occasion spoke of bringing bloodshed and war -- a sword on this earth (Mt 10.34). Yeshua himself stated, "If my kingdom were of this world, THEN WOULD my servants fight" (Jn 18.36 cf Mt 26.52; Rev 13.9,10).

The 144,000 Israeli warriors listed in the Apocalypse were revolutionaries against Rome who were not then, after the census, permitted to launch hostilities! There were not allowed! God really was making a point! That the 144,000 are Zealot warriors is implicit in the fact that Rev 7.4-8 is a census of the tribes of Israel. Such a census in Israel was invariably a reckoning of the military strength of the entire nation (See Num 1.3,18,20; 26.2,4; cf 1 Chron 27.23; 2 Sam 24.9; 1 Chron 21.5). All scholars realise that only males of military age were head-counted.

Basically, the early Christians were firebrands, passionate in their sacrificial worship of Israel's God, and fanatically zealous for their coming King fervently eager for the sudden appearance of the Messianic Kingdom of God. A total contrast to the weak, lukewarm, effeminate Christians who meekly attend Sunday worship services and sing sweet songs losing themselves in a hyper-emotional Wonderland of unintelligent ecstasy.

Let's reassess our moorings by glancing at the following restored chronology. (I would at this juncture recommend our students once more peruse the contents of our lecture series on the Gospel of John especially Lecture 10: The First Sign. Water into Wine, which relates to the Fourth Philosophy of Josephus Flavius.

3/2 BCE Yeshua is born. Star over Beit-Lechem. The original Zealots alerted to the 65-year Immanuel prophecy.

I BCE Death of Herod. (Herod did not die in 4 BCE.) First Zealot uprising.

6 CE Rome internationalises Jerusalem. Second Zealot Uprising.

27/28 CE Fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar (Lk 3.1). Yeshua baptised by Yochanan the Immerser as a Just One.

30 CE Crucifixion of Yeshua by Rome for treason.

54 CE Nero takes the throne.

54-68 CE The length of Nero's reign.

58/59 CE John takes first journey into the Lord's Day.

60/61 CE Laodecia destroyed in massive earthquake. (It was still thriving when John wrote, Rev 3.14-32).

62 CE Assassination of James the Just, brother of Mashiach, and alternative High Priest of Qumran. Zealots run (Habakkuk 2.2) with John's final 7-year EndTime scenario. They organise the coming Uprising working to the two time-tables of Daniel the prophet with John's additional emphasis in respect of two three-and-a-half-year segments (or the final seven year period of earth history).

64 CE Burning of Rome. Neronian persecution against Messianist Christians begins.

65/66 CE Jerusalem Nazarenes, breaking with Zealots, flee to Pella and other regions in Jordan. Lower priests stop Temple sacrifices for foreigners: resultant war with Rome. Yeshua's return as Messiah anticipated at conclusion of the second three-and-a-half-year term.

70 CE Messiah fails to return. Destruction of Jewish Commonwealth. Apocalypse discarded; John stands discredited as a false prophet by the Jewish masses. Nazarenes try to explain away the prophetic failure of John.

81-96 CE Domitian Emperor of Rome; John disappears after redacting Apocalypse. Takes second journey into the Lord's Day.

That the Messianic Zealots were in association with the Messianic Christians is a point established in the writings of Jude and 2 Peter. The Zealots (and John the apostle) were oriented around an obscure 65-year prophecy found in the scroll of Isaiah that was to be fulfilled at the end of days. I have written extensively on this perception. What we need to relate to is that Our Lord Yeshua presents himself as our great sinless High Priest of a New World Order right at the time when the Zealots were gathering sympathy for their cause from amongst the young priests in the lower ranks of the compromised Levitical priesthood. The High priesthood had become so corrupt it had taken steps to commit THEFT of God's TITHES and many of the lower priestly ranks, totally dependent on those same tithes of produce, perished as a direct consequence (Ant., 20.8.8 cf 20.9.8; 20.10.2).

This was the last straw as far as the Temple's lower priestly service was concerned. They reacted by canceling the sacrifices for the emperor Nero (which action was both backed and fueled by the Essene Zadokite faction at Qumran) which triggered the Zealot Revolution! It was during this period that Kefa (Peter) and Judah (Jude) wrote their letters advising restraint in relation to taking sides between the highly corrupt Roman appointed Herodian High priestly caste and the Zealot-backed lower Levitical priesthood. Josephus records the momentous upheavals that rent the country apart at the seams. Josephus himself had been involved up to his neck in the Uprising but saw it in his interests (survival) to turn traitor and the rabbis have never forgiven him.

It is singularly astonishing that while ministers of religion and Christian historians have scanned the works of Josephus they have invariably overlooked the number of occasions he made mention of the apostles. True, he never referred to them under this appellation, but he did mention a xenophobic Simon (who had an assembly of his own in Jerusalem) and who was a moderate Zealot involved in agitation against Agrippa 1 & ll even banning king Agrippa ll from entry into the Temple and even from Jerusalem itself. This Simon had a very accurate knowledge of Torah (See Wars, esp. Bks 6 & 7; Antiq., 19.7.4.). I will return to this identity in our next lecture.

Simon and his associates are especially considered by Josephus as Innovators. They belong to a Messianic alternative priesthood which was very active in promoting an anti-Herodian agitation and insistent upon the termination of sacrifices on behalf of foreigners. The most important foreigner despised by the priesthood was Nero Caesar!

Remember, the first Zealot Uprising occurred in 1 BCE around the death of Herod. (Herod did not die in 4 BCE as argued now for centuries. This dating has to be adjusted according to the latest findings in biblical chronology in relation to the first appearance of the Bethlehem Star and a little known eclipse in 1 BCE brought to the attention of the world in a popular way by the late Dr Ernest L. Martin.)

Yeshua had been born 3/2 BCE at a time when a star hung above Bethlehem, firing the Zealot final countdown of Isaiah's mysterious 65-year prophecy which foretold the destruction of an apostate Ephraim (a symbol of a corrupt Herodian Judaea under Roman control). With the destruction of Ephraim the Davidic Messiah would appear to rule the world. There can be little doubt that the Apocalypse of the priestly John later fueled their Messianism. The prophecy for the appearance of the star can be located in Numbers 24.17. Josephus describes the focus on the star to have been the moving force behind the Zealot Uprising. It is also mentioned in columns xi-xvi of the Qumran War Scroll.

YESHUA THE ZEALOT KING
About 4 or 5 million Jews lived in Judaea and Galilee, Egypt and Mesopotamia and an equal number more were scattered right throughout Rome's Mediterranean Empire, and this has been called a dangerous powder-train which could be sparked off by revolt in Judaea. From 6 CE onwards, as I have taken plains to explain in our previous lectures on this subject, more and more Jews joined the (original) Zealots who were determined, with God on their side, to boot the pagan infidels out of God's Holy Land and back to the shores of Italy. Yeshua told them in unavoidable terms that if they had the faith to accomplish such an end to Rome's rule it would be like telling a great mountain to be sent crashing into the sea that is, Rome to retreat back to Italy in the Mediterranean!

"When the disciples saw this, they marveled and asked, How did the fig tree wither so quickly? Truly I tell you, Yeshua replied, If you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into the sea, it will happen" (Mt 21.21).

The Zealots were especially active in Galilee and in the year of Judaea's annexation their founder Judas the Galilean proclaimed himself the King-Messiah and led a massive revolt which, by being quickly crushed, went underground simmering for sixty long years before it burst forth again in full, flaming revolution.

The Zealots were circumspect in their estimation that they were living in the last days when Immanuel was expected to reveal himself, seeing his star (Num 24.17) rise in the heavens (in 3/2 BCE) and associating it with an obscure prophecy by the prophet Isaiah concerning an unfulfilled 65-year period which would see the destruction of Judaea as an apostate state (Isa 7.7-9), and the advent of the Messiah as a result of Zealot faithfulness to that Messianic figure and in their expectation of the coming of the Messianic Kingdom of God.

Both the Zealots and the primitive Messianic Christians saw Yeshua as their Messiah and coming Redeemer redeeming men from the physical control of Rome. As I have emphasised in a previous lecture in this series (Romans Lecture 37) the end of the Roman world would be the time of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness and fragments of Zealot material make mention of the expected return of the Messiah at that critical and crucial time. The ONLY Messiah that could have returned would have been a Messiah that had previously visited the planet. Here is evidence that the Zealots were followers of Yeshua. The sons of light would come into a final conflict with the sons of darkness initiating the rapid return of the Messiah from the heavens. It is stated in 2 Baruch 30.1.

"And it will come to pass after these things, when the time of the advent of the Messiah is fulfilled, and he will return in glory, then all who have fallen asleep in hope of him shall rise again. And it will come to pass at that time that the treasuries will be opened in which is preserved the number of the souls of the righteous, and they will come forth, and a multitude of souls will be seen together in one assemblage of one thought, and the first will rejoice and the last will not be grieved."

As to this latter reference from the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch parts of which appeared around the same time as John's Revelation, this is not an expectation of the first advent of a Messiah, but is a direct statement of a return. The Zealots were very much expecting YESHUA to return as the Messiah!

It is John who informs us of the fact that when Pilate sent his troops to arrest Yeshua on the Mount of Olives he dispatched an entire detachment of Romans to seize the Messiah (Jn 18.2,12). The Greek word for detachment as it appears in John's Gospel is speira and a speira consisted of 600 hand-picked battle-hardened soldiers including 66 cavalry. The term could equally apply to Roman auxiliaries of between 500 and 1000 armed men. Whatever the figure may have been, at the least we are looking at 500+ Romans dispatched to arrest one lonely, single, non-threatening man we are led to believe was a harmless gentle rabbi who taught religious heresy in a sermon in which he mentioned the beatitude "Blessed are the cheesemakers"! Stretch our minds as widely as we can, this would hardly seem to be the case, when we also take into consideration that John specifically mentions a commander of the troops (Jn 18.12). Again, in Greek, this is chiliarchos -- chilios a thousand and archo to rule. He was no less than a commander of 1000 men and one of 6 tribunes attached to a legion. This reveals the vital importance which Tiberius Caesar himself placed on the investigation, surveillance and arrest of Yeshua.  

YESHUA'S FEMALE FRIENDS
Paul's informative list of acquaintances and one or two mysterious friends in Romans 16 is only equaled by the mention by a Gospel writer (and one singularly associated with Rome i.e., Mark) of Yeshua's Herodian connections. Now, I readily admit that in this matter some heavy detective work is needful, and there are unavoidable occasions in uncovering connections that we can easily and rapidly drift into the ocean of sheer speculation. But this makes our task all the more enjoyable in its challenge. Take for instance the mystery of the women at the cross (the bloodied tree of Golgoleth). You may well ask What mystery?

Well, Matthew mentions, and gives us a list, of women who were near Yeshua as he struggled for life and breath and whose excruciating suffering was eventually terminated by a Roman spear (Mt 27.55,56).

"Many women were also there, looking on from a distance; they had followed Yeshua from the Galil and had provided financially for him. Among them were Miriam Magdalit, and Miriam the mother of Yaakov and Yosef, and the mother of the sons of Zavdai."

Strange that Matthew Levi would mention by personal name two women but is very silent, uncomfortably silent in respect of another woman simply spoken of as the mother of her two sons (James and Joseph) while the same narrative especially and specifically mentions their father Zebedee.

Why? Who was this woman?

Mark informs us. Mark remember was the Gospel writer who penned his text for Roman Christians as Peter's amanuensis (secretary). It was this same John Mark with whom Paul had serious issues. This is mentioned in the Lukan Acts 13.13. The tension-filled issue finally severed Barnabas (Bar'Nabba) from Shaul, or Saulus (Acts 15.37-39). We never hear of, or from, Barnabas again.

But Mark, writing Peter's Gospel for Roman Christians, specifically reveals the identity of the mysterious wife of Zebedee.

"There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Miriam Magdalit, and Miriam the mother of Yaakov the younger and of Yosef, and Salome. These used to follow him [Yeshua] and provided for him when he was in the Galil; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem" (Mk 15.40,41).

Women were a main body in Yeshua's entourage notice that it was not just a few female disciples but many women who accompanied the Messiah and it was they who provided for him in both financial matters (Lk 8.2,3) and in the provision of meals and other especial needs. They were both acknowledged and accepted as co-equals with the men the Lord chose as talmidim. The NT is the most pro-female literature ever to come out of the Second Temple period in all the world!

Salome! Now that is a name that is recognised by all Christians and Jews those familiar with erotic literature and Hollywood movies if not the text of the NT Scriptures. Now this Salome may or may not be the girl who danced away the poor life of God's mighty prophet John the Immerser, the cousin of Yeshua. But it is intriguing to my mind that Matthew refuses to name her, just as he refused to name Bat'sheva in the genealogy of Yeshua (Mt 1.6). She had a reputation that was not entirely kosher!

Mark, who penned Peter's Gospel to the Roman Christians, again does not hesitate to mention her by name precisely because of her Roman-Herodian association.

"When the sabbath was over, Miriam Magdalit, and Miriam the mother of Yaakov, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him" (Mk 16.1).

Salome was the wife of Zebedee and therefore was also the sister of Miriam the Mother of Yeshua. Notice it now:

"But standing by the cross of Yeshua were his mother, his mother's sister [Salome], Miriam the wife of Clopas, and Miriam Magdalit" (Jn 19.25 See also Amplified Version).

The Living Bible translation has it as: "Standing near the cross were Jesus mother, Mary, his aunt, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene." His aunt was Salome, Miriam's sister. This made Miriam royal blood indeed!

What do we know about Salome? We know that Salome had a very keen interest in rulership and Governmental authority and certainly desired that her two sons would be granted seats of honour on either side of the Lord Yeshua ruling in his promised Messianic Kingdom of God (Mt 20.20).

Matthew mentions Salome as the daughter of Herodias (and as a consequence the sister of Miriam) by Herod Philip (Mt 14.6) and was originally married to Philip the Tetrarch of Trachonitis (her paternal uncle) and then again to Aristobulus, king (or sub-king) of Chalcis a town on an island off Greece. Aristobulus is named by Paul in Romans 16.10. The apostle Paul was related to this same Jewish-Edomite royal family. Again, this Salome is the daughter of Aristobulus' father's sister Herodias. Aristobulus's father was Herod Philip! Rabbis insist that Rav Shaul was Jewish with an Idumaean blood line.

Early Christian traditions speak of Miriam as also having a royal as well as priestly parentage. That she gave birth to the Messianic Pretender (and I intend "Pretender" in the original sense of the word) caused Herod the Great no little grief! Are we beginning to piece together some of the jigsaw puzzle that has eluded scholars for centuries? Miriam was related to Herod!

Yeshua's ministry was also to some extent a family affair. He was cousin to John the Immerser, and the apostles James and John were also his first cousins. Regarding the latter Salome the wife of Zavdai (Zebedee) and Miriam were sisters. The Jewish Christian historian Hegesippus informs us that Yosef (the stepfather of Yeshua) was the brother of Clopas (Cleopas) therefore James the Less one of the twelve apostles was a cousin too (Mt 10.3; Mk 2.18; Lk 6.15). Clopas and Alphaeus is recognised by biblicists as the same person as both names extract from the Aramaic name Chalphai. The vast majority of scholars agree with this assessment. Yeshua must have known his cousins from childhood which would help explain to a large extent their trust and confidence in him. Indeed, when you think about it, isn't it rather odd that as Yeshua passed on by certain people and said, "Come, follow me" that they got up instantly to follow him... a perfect stranger? They did so because they already knew him!

James, the brother of Yeshua, became the alternative High priest at Qumran, and the leader of the Jerusalem ekklesia. Another brother of Yeshua, Judah, contributed to the NT corpus with a small letter bearing his name.

Not only so, but Joseph of Arimathea also known as Joseph of Glastonbury and the man who gave Yeshua his grave, was the uncle of Miriam. [There is a myth circulating on the internet that the Talmud tells us that this Joseph was the younger brother of Joachim the father of Miriam. While there are hundreds of thousands of web-sites that have mindlessly repeated this story I cannot locate one single reference in the entire Talmud to substantiate it.] In any event as a direct consequence he would have been the great-Uncle of Yeshua. He also just happened to be the Minister of Mines in the Roman government. Cornwall in England was a chief mining district and well-known in the Roman empire for the extraction of tin along with other metals. Because of his political loyalty to Yeshua, Joseph spent some time in a Roman prison a tradition incorporated into the Gospel of Nicodemus.

So much for the family of Yeshua. There is a further note we ought to consider in the light of his family's royal lineage. One of Yeshua's close female assistants who toured with him as a disciple during his ministry was a woman who was married to King Herod's Chancellor the man who managed Herod's finances, Cuza (Lk 8.3). While some versions of the NT attempt to pass this man by with hardly a footnote of interest, Cuza (or Chuza) was an Herodian Government official. And, interestingly enough, an ossuary was recently found bearing the inscription "Johanna, granddaughter of Theophilus, the High Priest" (see D. Barag and D. Flusser, The Ossuary of Yehohanah Granddaughter of the High Priest Theophilus, Israel Exploration Journal, 36, 1986, 39,44). This Theophilus ben Ananus was the brother-in-law of Kayafa (!) and a member of one of most wealthy of Jewish families in the Second Temple period of Jewish history. He may well have been the same Theophilus to whom Luke (Paul's physician) dedicated his Acts. His son Jonathan sired Johanna. Also of interest is the fact that Johanna was an eye-witness to the resurrection of Yeshua from the dead (Lk 24.10).

By his own admission, Paul himself was not an isolated member of his family to become a Christian. Other of his relatives are mentioned by him as living in Rome and who were Messianic believers.

"Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who were also in Messiah before me" (Romans 16.7).

Andronicus and Junia appear to some scholars to have been husband and wife, Junia being a feminine name and she is called by Paul an apostle (although some may argue the toss in this case as to grammatical construction relative to interpreting of note among the apostles). Whether or not they were a married team, in any event Paul calls them both kinsmen, family members, relatives. In another place (Acts 23.16) we read Luke's mention of Paul's sister and her son who warned him of impending danger. Other relatives are mentioned in passing in Romans 16.21. Yet another family notoriety is specified in Romans 16.11. I will come back to this one in our next lecture.

ENTER PHOEBE
This milieu of a Second Temple period of Messianic agitation birthed Paul. He had written a highly sensitive document that was to serve as a circular correspondence to the not-as-yet-formed ekklesia of Roman Christians a persecuted, largely Jewish minority aligned with faith-filled Gentiles who were all held in suspicion by the pagan Roman multitudes who had a madman over them reigning as emperor of the world. This was Paul's world. And this Epistle to the Roman Christians introduced them to the emissary Paul describing himself as a slave of Yeshua the Messiah, the Emperor (Romans 1.7 See Kenneth Wuest's comments in his Wuest's Word Studies From the Greek New Testament, Vol.1.,1973, Romans in the Greek New Testament on Romans 1.7). The Jew Yeshua was being publicly denominated by this headstrong Jewish apostle as the Emperor of the World, denigrating and excluding Nero Caesar. This was nothing less than an official PUBLIC act of treason and that in writing with his own name proclaimed to all as the author of this startling document!  

Paul knew that eventually his ms would see the light of day and be studied by many Romans converted or otherwise. This work of Paul's would definitely put Nero Caesar on high alert nevertheless Paul did not avail himself of the Roman imperial postal service which he could not trust. Rather than have the contents of his large correspondence scrutinised upon possible interception by Roman officials before the ekklesia would receive it, Paul selected a trustworthy lady as his personal courier to seek out the Christians. Phoebe was intending to travel to Rome on a matter of business in any case indicating that she may have been quite wealthy as a landholder, or a merchant and this is grasped from Paul's request to the Christians gathered there "to assist her, as becomes saints, in whatsoever business she has need of you" (Rom 16.2). As Renan remarked, "She bore in the folds of her robe the whole future of Christian theology" (see Marvin Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, 1887, 3:177).

Her name was Phoebe. It means bright or radiant and (in first century parlance) would indicate someone who had been involved in a mystery cult prior to becoming a Christian. Notes the late scholar D. Edmond Hiebert, professor emeritus of New Testament at Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno, California, "Phoebe in Greek mythology was the name of Artemis, goddess of the moon. Since loyal Jews avoided the names of pagan deities, it seems obvious that her parents were non-Jewish. But her name also makes it clear that Gentile converts did not feel impelled to renounce such pre-Christian names, for they had lost for them their pagan religious significance..." (Personalities Around Paul, 1973, 197).

In any event, the reason Paul forwarded his epistle by hand with his special, trusted, personally selected agent becomes apparent in Romans 16 this concluding section of his letter lists the names and identities of the prominent Christians (indeed, his fellow participants) living and working in Rome itself Rome, the very centre of Beast power and worship. He even mentions in Philippians 4.22 that there were converts even IN Caesar's household. He is especially cautious in not mentioning them in the context of Romans 16.

Even in Romans 16 Paul appears to have thrown caution to the wind as he rehearses the names of his compatriots working in that city. This is especially alarming considering his realisation that Rome was always on the lookout for information leading to the identity and then conviction of Christians whom Caesar considered (and not without reason) a threat to his "Deep State." And so the mid-to-late Second Temple Period was awash with Caesar's agents and in Judaea itself Herod's secret police (Livius.org) were consistently vigilant as Josephus verifies (Ant., XV; See also Aryeh Kasher in collaboration with Eliezer Witztum, King Herod: A Persecuted Persecutor. A Case Study in Psychohistory & Psychobiography, 2007, 209, 417). According also to JewishVirtualLibrary.org "Herod had complete authority, and he used it ruthlessly. He established an enormous secret police force, brutally killed anyone suspected of plotting against him, and created Roman peace by slaughtering all dissidents."

Actually, the apostle Peter makes reference to this same surveillance activity of Herod in a passage mistakenly interpreted to speak of the so-called bondage of Jews to the Sinai Torah. Peter is actually referencing Herod's use of the Torah to intimidate the Jewish people during his tyrannical reign (Acts 15.10).

As it stands the text is correct, but our understanding of it is not. Herod and his rabbinic counterparts were utilising the Law in his administration to serve his perverse psychological paranoia. Thousands were put to death under his regime for walking outside the Herodian guidelines of his perfect system in much the same way as the Law will be used by the coming Antichrist to work his will upon humankind in the Great Tribulation just ahead of us now.

Who was Phoebe? From the internal evidence she was a female deacon (deaconess) in the assembly at Cenchreae which was located about nine miles or so from Corinth and which was that city's eastern seaport. While there is some divergence of agreement among scholars about her status, Paul tells us she was a servant of the church. Servant is the Greek word diakonon and Paul does not say she is a servant IN the ekklesia but OF the ekklesia. There really is no argument against her official status, and those who would persist in their protests I would have to deem as being entirely misogynist. The ministries of Paul's female colleague were pursued under the approval and authorisation of the administration of the ekklesia. She was a vital organ of the Body of Christ, and Paul utilised her as such. The passing comment of Paul that Phoebe was a deacon is the very first mention in the NT of the Office of a female deaconess. Paul adds that Phoebe is a patron of many so she was a highly successful and wealthy business woman in her own right.

Further, Phoebe had to travel several hundred miles from Corinth to Rome to hand deliver the document to the Christians committed to her focus. This would have been an arduous and (considering the times) quite dangerous trek to undertake, but Paul knew his woman and entrusted her with his epistle ensuring in her capable stride a successful outcome. As one modern author has put it so succinctly, Phoebe was "obviously more than [a] benchwarmer" (Dorothy R. Pape, In Search of God's Ideal Woman, 1976, 209). Pape does not hesitate to point out that in eighteen places the AV [KJV] translators render [diakonos] minister and three times deacon, but for Phoebe they change it to servant. She adds, "Some of the newer translations have put deaconess, but the Boldreys point out that this is misleading because the separate office of deaconess was not established until the fourth century, long after Phoebe's death. They claim that in the early church both men and women were deacons, and 'the grammar of the word does not even distinguish between 'deacon' and 'deaconess'.... Many have imagined from this that she must just have given him hospitality, done his laundry, and possibly run a soup kitchen, and that she needed a little cash for this. But actually the word translated [in the KJV as] succourer and helper in other versions is the feminine form of prostates (Latin patronus), the title of a citizen in Athens who took charge of the interests of clients, and persons without civic rights. It literally meant one who stands before, a front rank man, a chief, a leader of a party, protector or champion according to Liddell and Scott's lexicon. Phoebe was therefore obviously a woman of means and position and may have acted as Paul's patron. He was therefore asking the men and women believers in Rome to stand by her, and to be at her disposal in any way she required, since she had stood forth as a leader or supervisor. It is the same kind of consideration he asks for other church leaders and elders in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 and 1 Timothy 5:17" (ibid, 210,211).

Samuel Taylor Coleridge says of Romans "I think St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans the most profound work in existence; and I hardly believe that the writings of the old Stoics, now lost, could have been deeper..."

Phoebe made a successful journey, and the evidence for the survival of Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians is in our hands and we are reading from it.

Remember this. Becoming a Christian involves staying with the script much like an actor must stay with previous preparation (admittedly with some improvisation and ad-libbing). Yeshua tells us that he alone is our Author and he has given us our script to follow (Heb 12.2). As we study the Letter of Paul to the Roman Christians Christ is studying us. We should never hope to receive a letter of correction from him. If we did it could read like this:

To Whom It May Concern:

1 You call me The Way... but you don't follow me.

2 You call me The Light... but you don't see me.

3 You call me The Teacher... but you don't listen to me.

4 You call me The Lord... but you don't serve me.

5. You call me The Truth... but you don't believe in me.

Don't be surprised if one Day... I don't know you.


In our following lecture we will come to see that there is so much more to the early Yeshua Messianic Movement than we have ever, until now, realised.

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE 54