Bethany and The Mount of Olives

The Gospel texts use the phrase "nigh to Jerusalem" (or "the city") to describe both the location of the Crucifixion (John 19:20) and Bethany.  The Hebrew terminology that likely equates to implies approaching the East Gate.  And we're also told Bethany is by or on the Mount of Olives in Mark 11:1 and Luke 11:29, and Matthew 21:1.   Zechariah 14:4 is an important verse to remember here.  Also Luke 19:37.

My initial post on the Mount of Olives Crucifixion model has become kind of incoherent as I added updates to it because of my abandoning the theory and then coming back to it.  I now just made a post on another blog that mentions why I'm abandoning the Crucifixion at the site of Solomon's Temple view.  So I decided to make a new post on it.  But I won't really be retreading too much, and want to also talk about other subjects related to Bethany.

What's interesting about how this connection of Hebrews 12:11-13 to Numbers 19 is how it specifically makes the Red Heifer a type of Christ.  Most references to "without the camp" in the Torah are just as where the bodies of sacrificed animals were burned, only the Red Heifer was actually killed "without the camp".  And it's now been archeologically confirmed that the Mount of Olives is where the Red Heifer was killed during the Second Temple period.

What's interesting is The Red Heifer is female, so it's another example I can add of The Hebrew Bible using a female as a type of Christ.

The seven days for purification of Numbers 19:18-19 and 31:19 could correlate here to the seven days of Unleavened Bread, on the third of which I believe was The Resurrection, the 17th of Nisan.  I'm unsure what Resurrection narrative event to place on the 7th day of Unleavened Bread, a possible option is the Doubting Thomas story with a different interpretation of when John 20 was counting 8 days from.  Or maybe that day is when the other dead were resurrected fulfilling Matthew 27:50-53.

But speaking of the timeline, Bethany is relevant to an issue of it.  When did Mary of Bethany anoint Jesus?

As much as on other issues I view John's Gospel as the least chronological, in this case John 12 clearly tells us how many days this was from the Passover and the Triumphal Entry, placing it on the 9th of Nisan in my chronology, and probably a Sabbath, the last Sabbath before the Crucifixion.  Matthew 26 and Mark 14 flash back to this event right before Judas goes to see the Priests because it's largely the reason for his betrayal, Luke 22 does not record this event.

Some might try to argue this is a separate similar event, and I do believe Luke 7's anointing incident was a very different event.  But I'm pretty sure this argument with Judas happened only once.  Some might object citing how the woman is unnamed in Matthew and Mark's accounts, but Matthew and Mark don't mention Martha or Mary of Bethany by name at all.  Luke never records this event but introduces us to sisters named Martha and Mary in Luke 10.

But on the subject of identifying different women.  I don't think Mary Magdalene can be identified with Mary of Bethany for two main reasons.  One, Magdalene is defined as part of the Galilean ministry in both of Luke's references to her while the Bethany sisters stayed in Bethany.  Second, Mary of Bethany wouldn't have come to anoint Jesus body on Sunday morning since she knew that was taken care of, Jesus defined this anointing as for His burial.

Lazarus whom Jesus resurrected was a brother of Martha and Mary of Bethany.

I don't think he's Simon the Leper because I don't think he had any major diseases right after being risen.  If Simon the Leper was a relative he was probably their father or an uncle or maybe grandfather. 

I'm interested in the theory that Lazarus was the same as the Beloved Disciple, but I have reason to suspect that Disciple was named John whether or not he's the same as the John of the 12.  Maybe Lazarus would have taken on a new name after being made effectively an adopted son of Mary. Or it could be Lazarus is a nick name based on how it's used in a parable in Luke 16. 

But let's return to the Torah.  "Without the Camp" isn't just the location of where the Red Heifer was killed and dead animals were burned, and sometimes sinners were stoned (maybe Stephen was martyred here too).  Exodus 33:7 also placed a Tabernacle of Meeting here, something many people are uncomfortable with is that there were two Tabernacles.  When I theorized that there were two Ark of the Covenants I suggest this other Tabernacle was where the other Ark of Deuteronomy was kept.  This other Tabernacle was primarily where YHWH met with Moses.

So maybe Jesus lodging in Bethany in the house of Martha and Mary also fulfilled that typology. 

And I could revive an observation from my abandoned theory about the Crucifixion being where Solomon's Temple was.  That the Hebrew word that almost always refers exclusively to The Ark, is used of Joseph's Coffin in the last verse of Genesis. So maybe Jesus Tomb equates to where the second Ark would be in relation to the Second Temple.

I wonder now if the traditional location of the Valley of Hinnom/Gehenna could be wrong and it was on or at the foot of the Mount of Olives?  We know the Mount of Olives is where Solomon set up his Idols to Chemosh and Moloch/Milcom, so it makes sense that would be where later Kings were sacrificing to Moloch in 2 Kings 23:10, 2 Chronicles 28:3 and 33:6 as well as Jeremiah 7:31-32 and 32:35.  Jeremiah 19:2-6 says that the valley of Hinnom is by the entry of the East Gate.

So that being where the bodies of sacrificed Animals were burned adds new meaning to it becoming an idiom of Hell.  And Tophet, a name linked to Hinnom in many of the above passages, is used interestingly in Isaiah 30:30-33.

The notion that Gehenna could be identified with the very site of the Crucifixion, has an interesting Universalist symbolism to it.