Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Post by Giuseppe »

What opens Revelation, if one ignores the (proto-catholic and therefore later?) incipit with the Seven Messages for the Seven Churches, is a meeting in a kind of celestial ''synagogue'':
4 After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. 3 And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. 4 Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.
(Revelation 4:1-4)

The Celestial Lamb opens the Book of Life and starts to read it.

Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. 2 And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?”But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. 4 I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. 5 Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”
This is surprisingly similar to the incipit of the Earliest Gospel, where the first action of Jesus is to enter in a ''synagogue'':
3:1/4:31 In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar,
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea,
Jesus descended [out of heaven] into Capernaum, a city in Galilee,
and was teaching [in the synagogue] on the Sabbath days;
And they were astonished at his doctrine
,
for his word was in authority.
33 And in the synagogue there was a man,which had a spirit of an unclean devil,
and cried out with a loud voice, saying,
34 Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus ?
art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.
Adv.Marc.iv.7
35 And Jesus rebuked him, saying,
Hold thy peace, and come out of him.
And when the devil had thrown him in the midst,
he came out of him, and hurt him not.
36 And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying,
What a word is this!

for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits,
and they come out.

37 And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about.
(I doubt that the part in red is part of Mcn, since the true cause of the hate of the people against Jesus is not the fact that he has exorcized the possessed man, but the his amazing and surprising ''new'' teaching).

The similarity with Revelation is even more evident in the catholicized version of Luke of what happened in Capernaum/''Nazaret'':
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[f]
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
23 Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
24 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy[g] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Beyond what one thinks about which was really the Earliest Gospel, what I want to say in this thread is that it is someway evident the fact that in both - the Gospels and Revelation - there is an episode where

1) there a meeting of pious people in a sacred place (a ''synagogue'' or in heaven)
2) Jesus opens and read a book
3) all are amazed by what Jesus says.

What is curious is that in another thread I was arrived -- entirely independently from this thread :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: -- to advance the hypothesis that the synagogue in Capernaum was placed in the heaven of the Creator, and not on the earth!
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Post by Giuseppe »

Note the differences:

1) in Revelation the Jesus/Lamb limits himself/itself to read passively a Sacred Book and that Sacred Book was written obviously not by him/it.

2) in Mcn the Marcionite Jesus doesn't read but say only his new Sacred News (=the ''New Testament'').

3) in Luke, in Mark and in Matthew Jesus reads passively the Scriptures (obviously not written by him) but in addition he says that only he can interpret and mean really them, in that precise moment.

Is this the trajectory of a precise theological/mythological evolution ?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Post by Giuseppe »

Note also another surprising difference in the portrait of the people who saw Jesus during his conference:

1) in Revelation, these people are pious elders in the heaven, good people, I mean.

2) in Mcn, these people are pious servants of the Demiurge.

3) in Luke, these people are false servants of the Father of Jesus himself, not good people, I mean.

Is this the trajectory of a precise theological/mythological evolution ?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Post by Giuseppe »

A possible reconstruction of the Origins:

1) the Pillars founded the cult of a celestial Jesus.

2) Paul enters.

3) after the Kitos War: earliest forms of Gnostic Christianities.

4) The Revelation was written against the Gnostics.

5) Marcion wrote the Earliest Gospel against the Book of Revelation used by the Judaizers.

6) all the other Gospels.

7) the rest is History.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Post by Joseph D. L. »

I think you would be interested in Tim Claason's ideal that Mark and Revelation were complementary to each other. The young man in white (Mark 16:5) is the Son of Man (Rev 1:12-16). He also notes the tradition of Cerinthus composing John and his Apocalypse.

I'm not sure if you've seen his old videos on youtube, but Michael Xoroaster's series and ideas about Revelation is truly incredible. He notes how, when taken together, GJohn, RJohn, and GNicodemus, fit like a trinitarian puzzle and comprises the earliest layer of the theology.
Giuseppe
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Re: Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Post by Giuseppe »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Sun Nov 19, 2017 9:40 am I think you would be interested in Tim Claason's ideal that Mark and Revelation were complementary to each other. The young man in white (Mark 16:5) is the Son of Man (Rev 1:12-16). He also notes the tradition of Cerinthus composing John and his Apocalypse.
I find this very interesting, thanks. My problem with Mark as Earliest Gospel is that it seems too much orthodox for my feelings (but the problem is mine, not of Mark, obviously :problem: ) insofar his author served the Jewish God.
I'm not sure if you've seen his old videos on youtube, but Michael Xoroaster's series and ideas about Revelation is truly incredible. He notes how, when taken together, GJohn, RJohn, and GNicodemus, fit like a trinitarian puzzle and comprises the earliest layer of the theology.
apart from my difficulties in hearing a video in English (but not in reading it), I am not interested in anything about gJohn, a very late Gospel, in my view.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Post by Joseph D. L. »

If you care, I'll go a head and clock in my own reconstructive time line [this is subject to change with new information and/or theories]:

>Pre-Captivity era: YHWH/Metatron (Judaism) / Elohim/Moses (Samaritanism)

>Post-exile, Second-Temple era: YHWHism mixed with Persian mysticism; many books of the Old Testament are composed; Ezra as Taheb

>Pre-Temple destruction: Hellenistic philosophy; Logos as Angelic figure

>Post-Temple destruction: Eschatology; Logos as Michael; Community of John and James established; Basilides active

>Post-Kitos revolt: Peregrinus active; ur-Pauline/Ignatian letters composed; Peregrinus as Paraclete, supports Hadrian's ruling against circumcision; Ebionite and Nazarean division; Peregrinus travels to Egypt; Carpocrates (Peregrinus) and Cerinthus

>Simon bar Kochba: Ebionites support bar Kochba; bar Kochba defeated, Ebionites extinct; Peregrinus in Rome; mocks Antoninus Pius for reestablishing circumcision; "Marcion's" Evangelion published, along with Antithesis; exiled from Rome

>Proto-Orthodoxy: Peregrinus's death in 157 ad; Justin composes his Apology; Hegesippus composes pseudo-histories of the church (Acts romances); Nicolaitians; Marcionites; Carpocratians; Valentinians; Apellians; Nazareans; Clement of Alexander

>Orthodoxy: Irenaeus/Zephyrinus; unified church under Commodus, Severus; fourfold Gospel established; Celsus's True Word; Tertullian
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Post by Joseph D. L. »

I find this very interesting, thanks. My problem with Mark as Earliest Gospel is that it seems too much orthodox for my feelings (but the problem is mine, not of Mark, obviously :problem: ) insofar his author served the Jewish God.
I think, irrespective of the date of composition, Mark and Revelation do seem to go hand in hand. At one point at least, the two may have been a single text.
apart from my difficulties in hearing a video in English (but not in reading it), I am not interested in anything about gJohn, a very late Gospel, in my view.
He puts together a good case for John (or at least, an Ur-John) relatively early, along with Revelation and Nicodemus. In his model the texts are written as responses to the eclipses of 59 ad and 71 ad. Holding up Rev 6 next to the star chart of the eclipse of 59 ad is almost a perfect mirrour.

I also take John to be one of the earliest texts, and (following Turmel) to be Marcion's actual Gospel.
Giuseppe
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Re: Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Post by Giuseppe »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Sun Nov 19, 2017 10:20 am If you care, I'll go a head and clock in my own reconstructive time line [this is subject to change with new information and/or theories]:
I consider the Cerinthians as the adoptionist/separationist readers of Mark. In reaction to the docetic Jesus of the Marcion's Gospel.
About the Christianity previous to 70 CE, I am inclined to follow simply the Carrier's views about Paul and the Pillars.

My only (relative) originality of view is that I think that after the 70 (or after the 115) the Earliest Gospel was written by Chistians who hated the creator god as the Demiurge. Once you accept the idea that the Earliest Gospel was not proto-catholic, then it had to be written and used by need by the most radical Christians of the time, so that the later proto-catholic politics could co-opt even them under the orthodox umbrella. After all, if the proto-catholics did win, it was just in virtue of their interested compromise with even these more radical Christians (read: by correction of their Gospel).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Is the Earliest Gospel an answer to Revelation?

Post by Joseph D. L. »

My own personal opinion is that prior to the Temple destruction, Christianity did not exist proper, in that there was not the focus of a historical Jesus. Even Pauline Christianity I think did not exist until the time of Hadrian. But I do think that a community of proto-Christians was established sometime after the Temple destruction. However it's focus was purely Jamesian (adherence to Torah, but a mixture of Egyptian gnosis woven into it). The Essenes look as a good primar for this.

The Talmud does hint at the use of an Evangelion by "philosophers" which have been interpreted as Christians relatively early. I'm inclined to think that it was the Gospel of the Hebrews which all other texts (including Marcion's) worked from.
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