86 EARLY WISDOM GOSPELS
served, and Eleazar was one of those reclining at the table with him. Then
Miryam took a pound of spikenard ointment, pure and precious, anointed the
feet of Yeshua, and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was full of the
fragrance of the unguent.
Yehuda of Kerioth,^41 one of his students, who was about to betray him,
said, "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii^42 and given
to the poor?" But he said this not because he cared about the poor, but because
he was a thief and he was the keeper of the money box and was removing what
was dropped into it.
So Yeshua said,
"Let her be, so she may keep it for the day of my burial.
The poor you always have with you,
but me you do not always have."^43THE HIGH PRIESTS PLOT TO KILL ELEAZAR
Then a great crowd of Jews learned that he was there, and they came, not only
because of Yeshua but also to see Eleazar, whom he had raised from the dead.
But the high priests planned also to kill Eleazar since because of him many of
the Jews were going away and believing in Yeshua.YESHUA ENTERS YERUSHALAYIM
On the next day the great crowd that came to the festival heard that Yeshua
was coming to Yerushalayim. They took palm branches and went out to meet
him and, as in Psalms, they cried,
"Hosanna!
Blessings on him who comes in the name of the lord,
the king of Israel."^44
And Yeshua found a young donkey and was seated on it just as it is written,- Judas Iscariot.
- Three hundred denarii could be a year's wages.
- Similar stories about anointing Jesus' body appear in Mark and Luke. In Mark, it is the
house of Simon the leper, not Lazarus. The grumbling about the money wasted on anointing
Jesus that might have gone to the poor is voiced by unnamed diners, not Judas. In Luke the
scene is more erotic, there is also a Simon, the speech about the poor is almost the same, and
Judas is not mentioned. - Psalm 118:25-26.