Hillman's Mantra, the Core Interpretation of the Arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane
Through many months of carefully constructing his picture, piece by piece, from a wide variety of textual sources, Hillman has come to his own conviction that
“Jesus Christ was arrested with a naked kid in a public park at 4 am in the morning screaming, ‘I’m not a child-trafficker!’”
This has become an oft repeated mantra throughout the seasons of Lady Babylon, as his interpretation of Mark 14:51-52, drawing also from verse 48 where Jesus asked a question of the religious leaders, the armed mob and temple guard arriving with Judas to arrest him.
And Jesus answering said to them, "Are you come out with swords and clubs as against a robber(?), to arrest Me?"
He is often heard to add two more reinterpreted partial quotations to the end of his mantra, but their faithfulness to the actual texts is highly questionable. He adds a phrase insinuating that Jesus molests young children and that he did not want to be scandalized
There are several words and phrases in the mantra which I will cover in much greater detail in other pages on this website and will indicate, accordingly. However, reading the four accounts of the gospels of the scene and its preceding and succeding dramas does give the fuller, context for the events at Gethsemane."
"Jesus was arrested" - true
"With a naked" (Gk, gumnos) false - he was clothed when he was with Jesus! He was wrapped about in a large linen cloth (the type used as a grave shroud like they wrapped Jesus' corpse in (identical word, sindōn, in Mk 14:51-2 and 15:46). It is not a drug soaked "linen bandage." Ammon INVENTS a novel definition of gumnos as "privates" - never attested, anywhere: there are four possible Greek words for privates: . Gumnos is in fact rarely translated even as "naked" - more often it means "lightly clad" in an undergarment.
"boy" - False. Neaniskos is never a grade school age kid ... Eg, the rich young ruler is called a neaniskos who had independent autonomy over his financial affairs. There is no textual record of neaniskos being translated as a pre-pubescent child. Rather, all contextual translations decribe a neaniskos as a male aged from teen to 20-5 even up to 40 according to Pythagoras. I examine the word in more detail on another page. Why does Ammon claim all twelve apostles are children? There is a reference in John 21 (in a later added fabricated post-resurrection account) where Jesus calls the disciples paidia, "little children," and a few occasions where he calls them tekna, children. This latter designation is one of relationship, not age difference. Grown adults are still called children of their parents. Similarly, the relationship of parent to child can illustrate that of teacher to pupil. Ammon even calls his own Satanic Congregation "my children." Peter was married, owned a fishing boat, ran a fishing business with his brother Andrew, partnered with two other men, James and John, and paid taxes. All of these are facts from the texts. Matthew (aka Levi) was a tax collector and owned a house where he threw a feast for his other tax collector friends and Jesus. The twelve were not children.
"in a public park" - False. Gethsemane ("olive press" in Hebrew) is a natural cave on the slopes of the Mt of Olives where olives were crushed and pressed to extract oil for use in the temple. Archeology done there in 1956 while the Franciscans were renovating their shrine, also revealed a Mikvah for the workers' ritual bathing before Temple oil processing.
"at 4 am in the morning" - False. It wasn't the "witching hour" before dawn, but early in the night soon after their evening meal - hence Jesus' surprise that they were already fast asleep. A substantial number of people were awake and active, again pointing to it being an evening arrest. They took him to trial with a lot of people still awake and active in the courtyard, as there would be on eney evening, not some unearhtly pre-dawn hour.
"Screaming" - False. Jesus is bewilderingly expressing surprise at the totally unnecessary armed mob, elders and temple guards coming to arrest him and 11 men (and the young man in the white cloth) with 2 swords between them, as if they were a dangerous heavily armed gang!
"I'm not a child-trafficker" Lēistḗs has never been defined as "child trafficker," even if it should have been that a lēistḗs (meaning pirate only in Clessical Greek) did sometimes transport the children stolen for slave use. Hillman has imported a novel definition that is both invalid and doesn't belong either in Koine Greek, nor in this context. What Jesus said was referring to the false accusations of the chief priests that he was an insurrectionist trying to liberate the Jews (as several before him had also attempted and been crucified in punishment) and to make himself into a king in defiance of Caesar (Lk 23:1-2, 14). Lēistḗs - a thief by violence, or outlaw, brigand became defined 114 times by Josephus as a rebel/insurrectionist when the gospels were being written. This identification of rebel with the word,
Additionally, even if Jesus were a trafficker, he was a native Aramaic speaker trained in Jewish schools, not Greek. Whatever word he might have said in Aramaic would never be translated into lēistḗs with Hillman's illegitimate meaning of "trafficker," because andrapodistēs (1 Tim 1:10) is the common Greek word for trafficker. Furthermore, his words to the mob are not an admission of guilt. Jesus never was a lēistēs however it ought to be defined, for it was a false accusation. He was never put on trial for any sex crimes or trafficking, but as "King of the Jews" leading a rebellion against Rome. Lēistḗs and Hillman's interpretation of this scene is the key foundation stone for his entire narrative and corruption of Jesus as a pederastic drug-fuelled gang leader of child traffickers performing a mystery rite to gain aionic life and the power to prophesy. Nevertheless, critical analysis reveals it has no lexical credibility, whatsoever.
Additional Supporting information
Professor James Tabor's work tracking the historical Jesus suggests that there is a strong influence from the Essenes in his teaching and the practice of the early Jesus community. They had an initiation by water baptism - distinct from Jewish ritual cleansing - and were then dressed in white linen. This continued into early church history where initiates were baptised naked and given a white linen cloth to wrap in as they emerged. This is still a practice of the Mandaeans, whose ancestry has been connected to John the Baptist, allegedly a relative of Jesus and a possible connection to the original Jewish community assembly in Jerusalem headed by Jesus' brother, James the Just. Both this assembly and that of the Essenes practiced an Egalitarian community lifestyle where all goods were signed over to the community and given to the poor among them so that they had everything in common.
When Jesus called the rich neaniskos to sell all, give to the poor and follow him, it can be interpreted as an Apostolic calling on the young man to be initiated as a disciple of the inner circle. At that time, he was unable to respond. But it's possible that he did change his mind and search out Jesus during that final week. Jesus knew Judas was about to betray him and wanted to have twelve witnesses. It's entirely plausible that Jesus had just baptised this young man to replace Judas. The unusual evening timing for this ritual was not that it was a shameful secret rite, but expediency in the short tome between his betrayer's departure and reappearance with the arresting party.