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affiliation with the nation in which they lived. However, Josephus claimed that the "Alexandrian Jews" fought with the Samaritans in Egypt regarding whose temple in Palestine was "according to the law," the one at Jerusalem or that at Mt. Gerizim. According to Josephus, who was a Jew and, therefore, not a Samaritan, the case was pled before Ptolemy (6347 BCE), who decreed the Jews the winners and had the Samaritan representatives executed. While "the Jews," or Judeans, thus may have been powerful within Alexandrian Judaism, they were not so within the Alexandrian mystery school, since, as noted, the "Jewish" Therapeuts were in large part Nazarenes and Samaritans, both of whom were enemies of the Judeans.

In the second century CE, after the destructions of both 70 and 135, increasing numbers of zealous Jews, Samaritans and other Israelites migrated to Alexandria and joined the mystery schools, jockeying for position not only with each other but also with the non-Judaizing Gnostics, becoming ever more influential on the Gnostic effort. At that time, the salvationist literature started to become Judaized and Hebraicized, with the infiltration of the Yahwists and Joshua cultists, including and especially the Zadokites or Sadducees. In fact, the Zadokite-Therapeut connection is apparently confirmed by the use of the specialized "pentecontad calendar" by both groups.22 The Zadokite- Therapeutan "Jews" were in fact Hellenistic, as opposed to traditionalist. However, within the Alexandrian school also were Judeans, such that the "Jewish" factions continued their centuries-long internecine squabbling. Yet, at this point, it was either do or die, because, according to Josephus, many of the Judeans had been wiped out, requiring various compromises from those within the Alexandrian school that shaped the gospel story. In this way, their combined efforts eventually produced the savior cult to top them all.

Why Make the Solar Myth into a Jewish Man

The question is not whether or not Jesus and his religion were created but why: Why was the ubiquitous solar myth turned into a "Jewish" man? As reflected in the Bible, the Israelites, particularly the tribes of Judah and Levi, considered themselves the chosen people of God and the spiritual leaders of mankind (Deut. 7:6). They were a "priestly nation" who had determined that other nations should serve Israel or utterly perish (Is. 60:10- 12). The Israelites claimed that they had the right to kill the males of the enemy nations "but the women and the little ones, the cattle, and everything else . . . you shall take as booty for yourselves." (Deut. 20:13-14) In fact, throughout the Old Testament the god of Israel repeatedly commanded "his people" to exterminate other cultures and to commit genocide. The Israelites also insisted that they had the right to lend money with interest to the "foreigners," but were not to do so with their "brethren" (Deut. 23:19-20). As Larson says, "The Chosen People were to bind themselves together by bonds of mutual solidarity, but all others they might deceive and exploit at will." 23

This supremacist mentality continued into the Christian era and can be found in the intertestamental literature, which includes the apocryphal and pseudepigraphical Jewish texts, as well as in the Dead Sea scrolls, one of which, the War Scroll, an evidently Judean text, calls for the destruction of the "Kittim," or "sons of Japheth," i.e., the Aryans, in this case the Romans. As another example, in the Jewish apocryphon Fourth Esdras, written after the destruction of 70 CE, the fanatical author bitterly complains to the Lord:

jA)s for the rest of the nations which are sprung from Adam, you have said that they are nothing and are like spittle.... And now, Lord, behold, these nations . . . rule over us and devour us. But we, your people, whom you called your first-born, only-begotten, chosen, and beloved, are delivered into their hands. If it was for our sakes that the world was created, why do we not possess it as our inheritance?la

Larson elaborates upon the grandiosity of