But where did Marcion's theology come from?andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 1:48 amThe most obvious explanation for the omission of the baptism of Jesus by John in Marcion's Gospel is IMO that Marcion found it theologically unacceptable.RandyHelzerman wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2023 8:01 amI have to admit, its a pretty good case. *Something* has to explain the lack of John's baptizing Jesus in Marcion's Evangelion, and this is as good of a theory as I've ever heard.
Andrew Criddle
I'd like to hear what you have to say about the whole case I've put forward.
Proposition:
The canonical opening of the Gospel of Mark has been modified from the original form of the narrative. The original form of the narrative would have read something more like:
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.
2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way,
3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight,’ ”
4 so John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And the whole Judean region and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him.
In those days Jesus came down from heaven. As John was speaking he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove. 11 And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” The Spirit asked John, "Do you know who I am?" "You are the Holy one of God who has been sent from heaven." But the Spirit did not want his identity to be revealed yet.
12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him. John testified about all he had seen to the priests and the scribes. They feared what John had to say, so they had him arrested.
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way,
3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight,’ ”
4 so John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And the whole Judean region and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him.
In those days Jesus came down from heaven. As John was speaking he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove. 11 And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” The Spirit asked John, "Do you know who I am?" "You are the Holy one of God who has been sent from heaven." But the Spirit did not want his identity to be revealed yet.
12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him. John testified about all he had seen to the priests and the scribes. They feared what John had to say, so they had him arrested.
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
This proposition requires a lot of justification. I've arrived at this from cross referencing material across Mark, John, Luke, the Ascension of Isaiah and testimony about the claims of Marcion and other so-called heretical Christians.
Irenaeus and other hierologists would have us believe that there were Christians who plainly believed that the Jesus of the Gospel stories was a Spirit who had come from heaven. Yet, Irenaeus and other hierologists also claim that such beliefs are unfounded and a corruption of the plain truth that can be read in their Gospels. These so-called docetic beliefs are entirely unfounded or the result of people being misled by Satan.
My view has long been that such beliefs need to be explained. They had to have come from somewhere, and we should expect that there was some reasonable basis for such claims. Most likely there was a version of the Gospel narrative that plainly described Jesus descending from heaven. Now, I'd long thought that maybe there was some original story that began with the story of the Transfiguration on the mountain, and that Mark had added on a lot of opening material to an original story that actually began around Mark 9. But, I think there are a lot of reasons to believe that the canonical Gospel of Mark is a revised version of an earlier narrative that opened with John witnessing the descent from Jesus from heaven.
So here is the evidence I've gathered to support this so far:
1) Every narrative we know of about Jesus begins with the spontaneous appearance of Jesus in the presence of John. Yes, both Matthew and Luke provide opening birth narratives, but even in these stories, the ministry of Jesus begin with a spontaneous appearance of Jesus to John.
2) The Parable of the Sower. The Parable of the Sower identifies four types of people, which I discuss here. The first of these are, "ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them."
Who could this be talking about? We could simply read this parable as just a general statement about any old people. But the parable makes much more sense if it is read in relation to specific individuals who are used as example within the story itself. Who, then would this first person be? If the one being tempted by Satan is Jesus in Mark 1, then it doesn't make any sense. But if the one being tempted by Satan in Mark 1 is actually John, then this parable now makes sense in relation to the story. This is especially true given that in Mark 1 we are told that John is preparing the path for Jesus and the temping by Satan is immediate. It would appear then that the Parable of the Sower is given when it is so that the reader can recognize who the first character was supposed to and then be on alert to identify the remaining characters.
3) The arrest of John in Mark has always seem quite perplexing, because it comes out of nowhere and is unexplained. Why was John arrested? We don't learn about it until Mark 6. This is always explained away as simply, "one of Mark's quirks". But what if "Mark's quirks" are the product of editorial revision instead of Mark being a bad story teller. In fact, the explanation of John's arrest in Mark 6 appears like an inserted digression. I suspect the whole account about Herod and John is a later modification of the original story.
4) The opening of the Gospel of John:
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
...
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
...
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
If John is derived from a pre-canonical version of Mark, then this opening can be seen as having been based upon the original opening of Mark, in which John is described as a witness to the descent of Jesus. The writer of John is revising the narrative to claim that Jesus "became flesh" in opposition to the original story in which is remains a Spirit. But the writer is only disputing that he became flesh instead of remained Spirit, he isn't disputing that he was witnessed coming into the world from heaven by John.
5) This is further supported by other passages in John, to wit:
John 3:31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. 33 Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. 34 He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.
Here the Gospel of John testifies to having been derived from an earlier version Mark in which Jesus clearly came "from above".
6) The opening of John does not say that Jesus came from Galilee, it simply has Jesus go to Galilee:
John 1:43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.
This fits better to a reading of Mark in which Jesus is not from "Nazareth of Galilee". Mark reads:
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him.
...
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God
...
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God
The Gospel of John does not say that Jesus is from Galilee. It implies it, with what is an apparent late revision.
7 After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. 2 Now the Jewish Festival of Booths was near. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing, 4 for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 (For not even his brothers believed in him.) 6 Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.
This is similar to the editorial revision found in John 3:
22 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the region of Judea, and he spent some time there with them and baptized. 23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was abundant there, and people kept coming and were being baptized. 24 (John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.)
In the Gospel of John, John the Baptist is not actually arrested. In fact, its not totally clear that John was arrested at all in the original version of Mark even, I'm just going along with it in my initial reconstruction for simplicity. I would conclude that John had been eliminated from the story by Mark 4, so it is possible that he was indeed arrested in the original version of Mark, but there are other possibilities as well, yet I'll just leave it alone for now.
6) The beliefs of the heretics:
Close on their heels follows Apelles, a disciple of Marcion, … The Law and the prophets he repudiates. Christ he neither, like Marcion, affirms to have been in a phantasmal shape, nor yet in substance of a true body, as the Gospel teaches; but says, because He descended from the upper regions, that in the course of His descent He wove together for Himself a starry and airy flesh; and, in His resurrection, restored, in the course of His ascent, to the several individual elements whatever had been borrowed in His descent: and thus-the several parts of His body dispersed-He reinstated in heaven His spirit only. This man denies the resurrection of the flesh.
—Against All Heresies; Tertullian, 3rd century
—Against All Heresies; Tertullian, 3rd century
Now a person might say that these men, and those who hold a different opinion, are yet near neighbors, being involved in like error. For those men, indeed, either profess that Christ came into our life a mere man, and deny the talent of His divinity, or else, acknowledging Him to be God, they deny, on the other hand, His humanity, and teach that His appearances to those who saw Him as man were illusory, inasmuch as He did not bear with Him true manhood, but was rather a kind of phantom manifestation. Of this class are, for example, Marcion and Valentinus, and the Gnostics, who sunder the Word from the flesh, and thus set aside the one talent, viz., the incarnation.
—Discourses; Hippolytus, 3rd century
—Discourses; Hippolytus, 3rd century
But Jesus being derived from that father who is above the God that made the world, and coming into Judæa in the times of Pontius Pilate the governor, who was the procurator of Tiberius Cæsar, was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in Judæa, abolishing the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who made the world, whom also he calls Cosmocrator. Besides this, he mutilates the Gospel which is according to Luke, removing all that is written respecting the generation of the Lord, and setting aside a great deal of the teaching of the Lord, in which the Lord is recorded as most dearly confessing that the Maker of this universe is His Father.
-Against Heresies (Book I, Chapter 27); Irenaeus, 2nd century
-Against Heresies (Book I, Chapter 27); Irenaeus, 2nd century
So where did these ideas come from? Irenaeus chalks all this up to "absurd" and "ridiculous" ideas, lies, and corruption of the "true Gospels". But it would make more sense if these ideas came from earlier versions of the story which Irenaeus was unfamiliar with. Irenaeus assumed or was led to believe that the versions of the stories he was reading were the originals.
7) Why was John a figure about whom so much was written? Was not John such a heavily used figure because John was supposed to be the one who witnessed the descent of Jesus from heaven? This John was only later said to have baptized Jesus and there was confusion about who this John really was. There must have been a rivalry between John and Paul over who saw Jesus, with Marcion taking the view that Paul was the only one to see Jesus descend from heaven. Thus in Marcion's Gospel John doesn't witness the descent of Jesus.
8) Nazareth as a late addition to give Jesus a home town? BeDuhn notes: "The Evangelion apparently had “Jesus” without the epithet “the Nazorean” (most Greek manuscripts) or “the Nazarene”(D, OL)."
Of course all of this perhaps creates as many questions as it potentially answers. If this proposal were true, then why isn't there more definitive evidence of it? One thing I would say is that its pretty clear that the writers we hear from aren't very reliable, in part because they seem to be missing a lot of information and working from assumptions. It doesn't appear that these writings were commonly available at the local library.
