Secret Alias wrote: ↑Sun Jun 10, 2018 1:47 pm
Also Celsus's 'Jew' does mention bits and pieces of a gospel ending but no confirmation as far as I can see of the sending out of the twelve:
Do you imagine the statements of others not only to be myths, but to have the appearance of such, while you have discovered a becoming and credible termination to your drama in the voice from the cross, when he breathed his last? Jesus, while alive, was of no assistance to himself, but that he arose after death, and exhibited the marks of his punishment, and showed how his hands had been pierced by nails. Who beheld this? A half-frantic woman, as ye state and some one else of those engaged in the same sorcery (καὶ εἴ τις ἄλλος τῶν ἐκ τῆς αὐτῆς γοητείας).
So I get the following details from the gospel of Celsus's 'Jew'
1. the voice from the cross when he breathed his last
2. exhibited the stigmata, his hands pierced with nails
3. witness by a female
4 . witness by an important male
It is difficult to see what gospel this is.
The voice from the cross:
Matthew 27.46, 50: 46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” .... 50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.
Mark 15.34, 37: 34 At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” .... 37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last.
Luke 23.34a, 43a, 46: 34a But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” .... 43 And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” .... 46 And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Having said this, He breathed His last.
John 19.26-30: 26 When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He says to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then He says to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour the disciple took her into his own household. 28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, says, “I am thirsty.” 29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth. 30 Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
Peter 5.19: 19 And the Lord screamed out, saying: “My power, O power, you have forsaken me.” And having said this, he was taken up.
Could be any or all of them, perhaps.
The exhibition of wounds:
Luke 24.39: 39 “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans 3.2: 2 And, when he came toward those around Peter, he said to them, “Take, feel me and see that I am not a bodiless demon.” And straightway they touched and had faith, being convinced by his flesh and by his blood.
John 20.20, 27: 20 And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. .... 27 Then He says to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
Peter 6.21 also mentions the nails being drawn from the body as it is being taken down from the cross, but the gospel ends before it gets to any resurrection appearances to the disciples.
The witness of a frantic woman I imagine would be Mary Magdalene:
John 20.11-18: 11 But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; 12 and she sees two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. 13 And they say to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She says to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and *saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus says to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she says to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” 16 Jesus says to her, “Mary!” She turned and says to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means, Teacher). 17 Jesus says to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene comes, announcing to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and that He had said these things to her.
She and the other women are said to have witnessed the crucifixion, the burial, and the emptiness of the tomb, but I find nothing about any of them witnessing the exhibition of wounds.
The other person, presumably a man, might be Peter, of course:
Luke 24.33-34: 33 And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them, 34 saying, “The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.”
Or it might be Thomas, who in the gospel of John is given a special audience with the Lord in order to examine his wounds.
Hard to tell.
My best guess would be that Celsus, who is aware of multiple gospels, accessed them already as a textual bundle, since Christians tended either to group the separate gospels into single manuscripts (the fourfold gospel) or to create harmonized versions of multiple gospels (Justin's harmony, the Diatessaron, possibly the gospel of the Ebionites, and so on). So he does not distinguish between the different gospels any more than Justin does. But also, the texts themselves have been changed over the years, "in order to answer objections," as Celsus might say. So he might have access to recensions of which we are unaware.
That the special appearance to Peter — foreshadowed in Mark 16.7, announced both in Luke 24.34 and in 1 Corinthians 15.5, summarized by Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans 3.2, and perhaps alluded to (albeit out of turn) in John 21.15-19 — is given no more than a foothold in our gospel narratives is surprising. My best guess is that it formed part of the lost ending of Mark, where it originally held pride of place. But that ending was lost or suppressed (or both), leaving textual debris instead of a coherent narrative of the event.