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Luke Knew Isaiah's E.L.S.: A Theory

by Louise Banner Welch

162 pages; Spiral coil; includes charts; catalogue #05-3184; ISBN 1-4120-8218-8; US$16.40, C$18.86, EUR13.47, £9.43

Can you defend your faith against the arguments of other religions? Do you shudder when others accuse the Bible of being fictitious? Food for thought exists!

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About the Book

About the Author

Excerpts

About the Book

If it can be shown that the Gospel of Luke uses Isaiah's ELS, one first needs to ask what Isaiah's Equidistant Letter Sequencing is. Beginning with a verse in Isaiah, Yacov Rambsel notes that names, words and phrases are spelled out from a particular verse. The ones this study is interested in are from Isaiah. For example, the same number of letters can be counted to spell the name Mary: for example, MxxxAxxxRxxxY. His work applies to the Masoretic text of Isaiah, not the others. Why would scribes do this? It was essential that scribes (often non-readers) have a way to determine if letters had been left out or added and where. Jews were known to have many festivals. As a program lists a Cast of Characters, the names may have indicated responsibilities. Levites lived in levitical cities, and they had specific duties and times of service. Isaiah's ELS may have told them more than it tells readers today.

Nevertheless, beginning with a verse from Isaiah, Luke takes the name therein and attaches it to the testimony of that witness. The most likely occasion was the trial of Pontius Pilate in 37 c.e. It really did not happen because Tiberias died just before the eyewitnesses arrived. However, Pilate's life and career were at issue. Was 'Christianity' a sect of Judaism or a pagan religion? Someone with the capability of Seneca the Elder combined notes from all the witnesses and organized them into the same sequence as topics in the Pentateuch. John Shelby Spong and Evans have noted that the present Gospel of Luke is arranged in that manner. This would have been done before Seneca the Elder's death (forming parts one and three of this study).

Seneca's wife was a Christian. His sons were all called Lucius Annaeus Seneca. The first renamed Gallio was adopted and was judge when Paul was tried. He needed to know who said what. His second brother Seneca the Younger or Secundus interviewed the eyewitnesses again. What he wrote forms part two of this study. The third brother Mela at Sinope inherited the unpublished manuscript. One Marcion of Alexandria must have had access to it. His contribution was to chop out anything he considered Jewish. Upon his death, the full manuscript called the Alexandrian Papyrus was 'found'.

By assuming that the present Gospel of Luke is a jigsaw puzzle, the secret can still be unraveled by those who know ELS. Languages often have past, present and future as part of the communication. In this study, Jesus is compared with those known to be Jews. Seneca called this an enconmia, and he taught others to write them. These have ten parts, recalling five points on this hand and five on that. The third part has to do with the future which makes sense to those who consider Mosaic Law unchanging and eternal. There are the Ten Commandments. The second part deals with personal information about the eyewitness. For the sake of order, words are taken from the Lord's Prayer. The Gospel of Luke can be reassembled.

Reference to Yacov Rambsel's book, His Name Is Jesus, gives the names of thedisciples and of persons important to the gospel. In the Masoretic version, they are almost all spelled out. He then gives the words, phrases and other names that can be spelled out ELS from that person's verse. Recalling how many Jews were named Mary, parents may have named children for the words associated with a name. If this works so that all parts of the Gospel of Luke are used, it does not matter that a parable or example is used by more than one person. In a trial, it is good to have witnesses agree. Then as Rudolf Bultman suggested, the editor blends the witness's words. Luke 'doctors' the words by adding a clue from the ELS system to tell which witness said what.

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About the Author

Reverend Louise Banner Welch studied under Dr. William Farmer at Southern Methodist University. He challenged the class to solve Q. The present work does not solve Q, but it redefines the search for Q.Her interest in trials and testimony was developed in Delaware where her husband Dr. Edgar Welch taught ethics in a law school. She is retired from being a teacher of English in the Texas Public School System and from being a minister in the United Methodist Church. She is th mother of John Calvin Goodloe and Mary Louise Goodloe Dykes by another marriage.

She has two children, four grandchildren, five great grandchildren and two great great grandchildren. She enjoys teaching an adult Sunday School Class, collects blue glass and likes garage sales.

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Excerpts

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