4 possible scenarios for the Earliest Gospel

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Giuseppe
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4 possible scenarios for the Earliest Gospel

Post by Giuseppe »

There are four possible scenarios for the Earliest Gospel, to my knowledge:

The people believe that Jesus is Christ and they kill him The people believe that Jesus is not Christ and they kill him
Jesus is really the ChristJudaizersProto-catholics
Jesus really is not the Christ MarcionitesGnostics

Note that according to the proto-catholic Acts, Peter remembered to the Jews that they had killed the Christ, surely by ignorance about the his messianic identity. Not in virtue of an irrational hate against the Christ (i.e., knowing in advance that he was the Christ).


Stantibus rebus, Which was the view of the Earliest Gospel?

I am inclined to follow Rylands insofar he says that in the Earliest Gospel the Jews themselves killed Jesus just as they knew that he was the Christ.

This view is found in Mark 12:1-11:
12 Jesus began to use stories to teach the people. He said, “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it and dug a hole for a winepress and built a tower. Then he leased the land to some farmers and left for a trip. 2 When it was time for the grapes to be picked, he sent a servant to the farmers to get his share of the grapes. 3 But the farmers grabbed the servant and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Then the man sent another servant. They hit him on the head and showed no respect for him. 5 So the man sent another servant, whom they killed. The man sent many other servants; the farmers beat some of them and killed others.
6 “The man had one person left to send, his son whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
7 “But the farmers said to each other, ‘This son will inherit the vineyard. If we kill him, it will be ours.’ 8 So they took the son, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
9 “So what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those farmers and will give the vineyard to other farmers. 10 Surely you have read this Scripture:
‘The stone that the builders rejected
    became the cornerstone.
11 
The Lord did this,
    and it is wonderful to us.’”
The problem with this view is that it assumes that Jesus is the ''last'' of a series of old prophets, surely an anti-marcionite view.

Therefore I have still to decide which is the earliest view for the First Gospel, between Marcion and Judaizers. The other two views are surely later.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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