Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

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Giuseppe
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Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

Post by Giuseppe »

So Georges Ory (''Marcion'') notes the same strange silence about Paul in the Gospel of the Pauline par-excellence:
Tertullian was not sure of this date; he wrote "for such is the assertion of Marcion" (C.M. 4/7) whereas he had previously retained (C.M. 1/15) in the twelfth year. It can therefore be considered that this date (which indicates the period from August 28 to August 29 of our era) is approximate.
Why did Marcion place a historical date at the beginning of his Gospel? This date would mark the descent of Christ a century before the manifestation of Marcion, which would then be around the year 129 AD; the information is interesting but it remains incomplete because we do not understand how a mythical event such as the descent of a god on earth, timeless event, could be dated, that is, become historical.
Only one explanation seems possible; this mythological fact could only be transposed into an episode of history when it was linked to the existence of a man who, according to the belief of the sect, would have witnessed it; the descent of Christ would not have been dated in the abstract, the date would mark the moment when a holy man would have thought to attend, receive a divine message, be the privileged witness and become the true missionary. We would thus have the date not of a fabulous episode but of the illumination of an ascetic, the beginning of his apostolate, the belief of his faithful.
The corrector of Luke took possession of this date and wanted to extend it with an imaginary historical context; he introduced in verse 3/1 the names of Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Anne and Caiphas, John the son of Zechariah, details unknown to Mark and Matthew, but whose purpose was to transform a mythical event into a Jewish history, this connection or correspondence between myth and lived history being commonly felt by primitive peoples, simple people or mystics.
The insertion in Luke alone of these "historical" characters was to prepare their entry into the scene for later, at the moment when the Passion was added to the original text.
In addition, we may suspect our narrator of having had an ulterior motive to substitute for the descent of Christ on earth the hearing of a heavenly voice by John the Baptist. "The word of God was addressed to John in the wilderness." But what was that voice saying and really talking to John? What is known about this is different; the celestial voice pronounced the famous phrase "You are my beloved son" but she addressed Christ (Luke 3:22).
Marcion's corrector used a stratagem to use in favor of John the Baptist a divine phenomenon that did not concern this "precursor" unknown to the primitive text.
In any case, Marcion would not have accepted this transposition of the central event of his gospel, nor this change of character. If the divine visit he had celebrated had taken place on that date and had been received by someone, it could only (apparently) be by the great apostle Paul whom he venerated and of which we know that he saw and heard Christ.
St. Paul announced that he had been "chosen by God from the mother's womb to carry his Son in him and preach his gospel" (Galatians 1/15); a phrase which could inspire a beautiful account of the nativity of Paul! He also said, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gen. 2:20). In his Epistle to the Philippians (1/20) he wrote "now as always Christ will be glorified in my body." He also confided to his adepts, "I know a man in Christ who is fourteen years old ... was delighted to the third heaven" (He Cor 12: 2), a sky that was precisely the sky of the good god and the Christ of Marcion. As Irenaeus says (III, 13, 1) "only Paul knew the truth because the mystery had been revealed to him by manifestation." Although the account of the Acts (22 / 6.11) was distorted by a Judaizing corrector (7), it testifies to a belief in the appearance of Christ on Paul on the road to Damascus. Let us not forget that, according to Esnik, Jesus chose St. Paul as human assistant, revealed the conditions of salvation and sent him to preach his gospel.
(my bold)

So the entire idea of an man adopted/possessed by God is only functional to the same function of a John the Baptist or of a Paul: to witness the descending of Jesus Christ in a precise date of the History.

The idea that Jesus descended on the Cosmos never seen by people or demons is very the oldest idea among all.

It was replaced by the idea of a first human witness: the man Jesus himself, distinct from Christ.

It was replaced by the idea of a first human witness distinct from both Christ and Jesus: John the Baptist, in clear opposition to Paul.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

Post by Giuseppe »

The idea of a man Jesus distinct from the spiritual Christ descending on him is so strictly linked with the idea of a distinct human witness of the event (call the latter ''John the Baptist'' in absence of other alternatives) that I am inclined to see for that only reason the Gospel of Mark as a later reaction to Mcn. In other words, just as the same ''precise'' date about Tiberius, the only presence of John the Baptist in the incipit of the Gospel is synonymous -- eo ipso -- of adoptionism/separationism related to that Gospel.

There is no possibility at all of saving the originality of only John the Baptism but not of the baptism: John means baptism, and baptism means separationism.

I may go so far to wonder even: if the historical John the Baptist wasn't a Baptizer in the Real History, then ''Mark'' would have found other historical ''witness'' to the separationist/adoptionist event, even if he was forced to describe it not in the form of a baptism.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Re: Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

Post by Giuseppe »

Note the embarrassing generality of the separationist event (when described in the form of a baptism). The logic is the following: since John the Baptist baptized so many Jews, then he would have baptized also the man Jesus. So the man Jesus found himself baptized by the Spiritual Christ only in virtue of the his doing a so comon action as so many other Jews: to be baptized by John. Where is the originality of the man Jesus here? Nothing at all.

The logic is the same why Jesus has to be a Zealot, an failed apocalyptic prophet, a magician, a rabbi, [insert anything you desire] in the eyes of modern historicists: why Josephus describes these classes of people.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Re: Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

Post by DCHindley »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 10:12 amSo Georges Ory (''Marcion'') notes the same strange silence about Paul in the Gospel of the Pauline par-excellence:
Tertullian was not sure of this date; he wrote "for such is the assertion of Marcion" (C.M. 4/7) whereas he had previously retained (C.M. 1/15) in the twelfth year. It can therefore be considered that this date (which indicates the period from August 28 to August 29 of our era) is approximate. Why did Marcion place a historical date at the beginning of his Gospel? ...
I am confused. :scratch: (naturally, "of course"™)
RSV Luke 3: wrote:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar ... 2 ... the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness 3 and [subsequently] he [John] went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ... 21 ... and [subsequently] when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased."
ANF Tertullian Against Marcion Book [1] wrote:15 ... since you [Marcion] have said that he [Christ] has a creation of his own, and his own world, and his own sky; ... whatever is the (created) substance [the physical world, including the heavens], it [Christ's created world] ought at any rate to have made its appearance in company with its own god [that is, Christ].

But now, how happens it that the Lord [Jesus Christ] has been revealed (revelatus) since the twelfth year of Tiberius Caesar, while no creation of His [in addition to the creations of the Demiurge] at all has been discovered up to the fifteenth [year] of the Emperor Severus [that is, Tertullian's time of writing, and which disproves M's assertion that Christ is an uncreated god separate from the Demiurge] ...
ANF Tertullian Against Marcion Book [4] wrote:7 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius (for such is Marcion's proposition) he "came down to the Galilean city of Capernaum, ..."


"Twelfth year" is apparently what the ANF translator, Peter Holmes, found in the Latin edition of Oehler (1853), or possibly that of Semler (1769-1776). There is no footnote to explain what "twelfth" means. The edition of E. Evans, Tertullian Adversus Marcionem, (1972), used for the Latin text in the BibleWorks ANF user-created module, has "anno XV" (= 15th). However, "fifteenth" might be an emendation suggested, or adopted, by one or more of these editors.

A solution to the fact that Holmes had translated "twelfth," without feeling a need to explain it, might have to do with the fact that Christ was "revealed" in the 12th year. What does "revealed" mean? Could the revealing of Christ have occurred before the descent of the Dove at Jesus' baptism by John?

DCH :goodmorning:
Giuseppe
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Re: Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

Post by Giuseppe »

DCHindley wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:08 am
A solution to the fact that Holmes had translated "twelfth," without feeling a need to explain it, might have to do with the fact that Christ was "revealed" in the 12th year. What does "revealed" mean? Could the revealing of Christ have occurred before the descent of the Dove at Jesus' baptism by John?

DCH :goodmorning:
Very interesting. :thumbup: You are surely better than me in deriving the implications of this. Can you make them more explicit?

Was the reference to the ''15° year'' a proto-catholic interpolation, being the Christ revealed three years before according to Marcion, in the 12° year?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

DCHindley wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:08 am
ANF Tertullian Against Marcion Book [4] wrote:7 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius (for such is Marcion's proposition) he "came down to the Galilean city of Capernaum, ..."


"Twelfth year" is apparently what the ANF translator, Peter Holmes, found in the Latin edition of Oehler (1853), or possibly that of Semler (1769-1776). There is no footnote to explain what "twelfth" means. The edition of E. Evans, Tertullian Adversus Marcionem, (1972), used for the Latin text in the BibleWorks ANF user-created module, has "anno XV" (= 15th). However, "fifteenth" might be an emendation suggested, or adopted, by one or more of these editors.
The Latin text from Roger Pearse's site has this:

At nunc quale est ut dominus anno xv1 Tiberii Caesaris revelatus sit, substantia vero anno xv iam Severi imperatoris nulla omnino comperta sit?

1 anno xv M: a xii R edd.

So the earliest extant manuscript (codex Montepessulanusm, century XI) has 15. The 12 comes from the Beatus Rhenanus editions of 1521 and 1539: http://tertullian.org/articles/evans_ma ... 3sigla.htm.
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Re: Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

Post by Secret Alias »

It is worth noting that when Clement cites - what appears to be - the gospel of Luke there is no mention of 'descending':

And in the fifteenth year, in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zacharias." And again in the same book: "And Jesus was coming to His baptism, being about thirty years old," (Strom 1.23)

I strongly suspect the descent was at baptism not when it is claimed in Adv Marc.
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Re: Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

Post by DCHindley »

Could the difference be explained by whether one counts Tiberius' reign by the start of his co-regency with Augustus or the start of his sole regency a couple of years later?

Event
Full years of reign from co-regency
Yr
Tiberius made co-regent with Augustus (10/23/12) 10/23/12-10/22/13 1
co regency 10/23/13-10/22/14 2
co regency n/a n/a
Death of Augustus n/a n/a
Tiberius named head of state n/a n/a
sole regency 10/23/14-10/22/15 3
sole regency 10/23/15-10/22/16 4
sole regency 10/23/16-10/22/17 5
sole regency 10/23/23-10/22/24 12
sole regency 10/23/24-10/22/25 13
sole regency 10/23/25-10/22/26 14
sole regency 10/23/26-10/22/27 15
sole regency 10/23/27-10/22/28 16
sole regency 10/23/28-10/22/29 17
sole regency 10/23/35-10/22/36 24
Death of Tiberius 10/23/36-03/16/37 25
Length of Rule 24 yrs and 143 days x


Event
Full years of reign from sole rule
Yr
Tiberius made co-regent with Augustus (10/23/12) n/a n/a
co regency n/a n/a
co regency n/a n/a
Death of Augustus n/a n/a
Tiberius named head of state 09/17/14-09/16/15 1
sole regency 09/17/15-09/16/16 2
sole regency 09/17/16-09/16/17 3
sole regency 09/17/17-09/16/18 4
sole regency 09/17/25-09/16/26 12
sole regency 09/17/26-09/16/27 13
sole regency 09/17/27-09/16/28 14
sole regency 09/17/28-09/16/29 15
sole regency 09/17/29-09/16/30 16
sole regency 09/17/30-09/16/31 17
sole regency 09/17/35-09/16/36 22
Death of Tiberius 09/17/36-03/16/37 23
Length of Rule 22 yrs and 179 days x


Period of time
Accession Yr system from coregency
Non-Accession Yr syst from coregency
Accession Yr system from sole rule
Non-Accession Yr syst from sole rule
10/23/12-12/31/12 Acc Yr 1 n/a n/a
01/01/13-12/31/13 1 2 n/a n/a
01/01/14-08/18/14 incl incl n/a n/a
08/19/14-09/16/14 incl incl n/a n/a
09/17/14-10/22/15 incl incl Acc Yr 1
01/01/14-12/31/14 2 3 1 2
01/01/15-12/31/15 3 4 2 3
01/01/16-12/31/16 4 5 3 4
01/01/23-12/31/24 11 12 10 11
01/01/24-12/31/24 12 13 11 12
01/01/25-12/31/25 13 14 12 13
01/01/26-12/31/26 14 15 13 14
01/01/27-12/31/27 15 16 14 15
01/01/28-12/31/28 16 17 15 16
01/01/35-12/31/35 23 24 22 23
01/01/36-12/31/36 24 25 23 24

DCH

PS: Sorry, this table was not originally designed for comparing 12th years and 15th years, and didn't transfer well to BBCode, so I had to divide & conquer. But you get the idea.

Edit: Oopsie! Corrected a date range in all three tables.
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Re: Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

Post by Ged »

Tertulians 12th year is the same as Marcions 15th year when we realise that Marcion (and Luke) were counting from the coregency date. AD 26 is a better fit with other historical data too.
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Re: Why Jesus descended ''in the 15° year of Tiberius'' ?

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 9:59 am It is worth noting that when Clement cites - what appears to be - the gospel of Luke there is no mention of 'descending':

And in the fifteenth year, in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zacharias." And again in the same book: "And Jesus was coming to His baptism, being about thirty years old," (Strom 1.23)

I strongly suspect the descent was at baptism not when it is claimed in Adv Marc.
The word "descended" (κατῆλθεν) is present in our received text of Luke 4:31. Tertullian paraphrases for his argument, hence "proponit eum descendisse in civitatem Galilaeae Capharnaum" for "et descendit in Capharnaum civitatem Galilaeae."

We see the same Latin and also Greek word used for descending in Luke 9:37 descendentibus illis de monte (κατελθόντων αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους).

The issue for Tretullian is the interpretation of κατῆλθεν. Hence his words proponit eum descendisse - "he (Marcion) proposes, that he was to have descended ..."- utique de caelo creatoris, in quod de suo ante descenderat. "of course meaning from the heaven of the Creator, to which he had previously descended from his own." (that is descended or "he came down" from his own heaven then the Creator's heaven into Capernaum).

From Thayer's: κατέρχομαι means "to come from a higher place to a lower place." If you break it into it's constituent parts, you see κατά means "down from" + ἔρχομαι means to "go from one place to another" and metaphorically interestingly "to come into being, arise, come forth, show itself" or "be known." This word κατῆλθεν works perfectly for the Marcionite interpretation.

Besides Luke 9:37 settles the issue, there was no difference in the wording (e.g., such as Matthew 8:1, Καταβάντος δὲ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους, as some suggest). The text was as we know it in 4:31.
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