“Are you the king of the Jews?” as anti-marcionite question

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: “Are you the king of the Jews?” as anti-marcionite question

Post by Giuseppe »

Stuart wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 9:51 pm

BTW, I don't think you will find the magical "first Christian beliefs" with the original Gospel.
Never meant do that. The Gospels are only propaganda, so by definition a betrayal of the reality. Clearly the killers of Jesus were identified with the Jews because of a radical opposition against the growing threat of the Judaizers.
Maybe we are saying the same thing:
This is because when the Gospels were first written, the major sects we know about in the 2nd century already existed and competed. It was evangelism that "kicked it up a notch" and caused the explosion of writings that became the New Testament.
What I want to find is the Earliest Post-70 Propaganda that triggered the explosion of the late Gospels. I am identifying that trigger in an Earliest Passion Narrative that accused the Jews of having killed a mysterious Jesus Son of the Father who was not the Jewish Christ.


Whereas the proto-Gospel you mean (by talking of Terapeutae etc) is immune from the sectarian conflicts post-70.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Stuart
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Re: “Are you the king of the Jews?” as anti-marcionite question

Post by Stuart »

Giuseppe wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:05 pm
Stuart wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 9:51 pm

BTW, I don't think you will find the magical "first Christian beliefs" with the original Gospel.
Never meant do that. The Gospels are only propaganda, so by definition a betrayal of the reality. Clearly the killers of Jesus were identified with the Jews because of a radical opposition against the growing threat of the Judaizers.
Maybe we are saying the same thing:
This is because when the Gospels were first written, the major sects we know about in the 2nd century already existed and competed. It was evangelism that "kicked it up a notch" and caused the explosion of writings that became the New Testament.
What I want to find is the Earliest Post-70 Propaganda that triggered the explosion of the late Gospels. I am identifying that trigger in an Earliest Passion Narrative that accused the Jews of having killed a mysterious Jesus Son of the Father who was not the Jewish Christ.


Whereas the proto-Gospel you mean (by talking of Terapeutae etc) is immune from the sectarian conflicts post-70.
Wrong on both accounts.

The Theraputae are a type of sect which vanished. But I think they match a model possibly for the early Christian or Joshua/Jesus communities. Being monastic they were in close quarters and intense in their study. Like the Theraputae they spread across the Mediterranean in the Greek speaking world, at the edge of cities like Alexandria, the Pentapolis of Cyrenaica, Antioch, Ephesus, Loadicea, Philippi, Athens, perhaps Sinope and so on. If Christianity evolved from one of these types of communities, and spread it monasteries, or took over existing ones as a new philosophy, then diversity would be quickly achieved, by virtue of time and distance. Each community would have it's own leaders and it's own interpretation.

I imagine a situation where these communities were in modest conflict, but not too serious, as a result of this divergence on the story and interpretation of Jesus. But when one of the monks evangelized with this Gospel (the legend of which becomes Paul, as perhaps a Marcion stand in), it changed the situation dramatically, as new "lay communities" of ordinary people began to pop up and adhere to one particular monastery/sect Gospel and system. This sparked a response from what hitherto fore was a mild disagreement and escalated it to incendiary rhetorical bomb throwing. This caused a major change in the structure and organization of the movement. Going from one of monkish devotion to that of evangelism (hence the exhortation in 2 Timothy 4:5, where being a minister meant evangelizing!). In effect the movement changed from one of contemplation to one of activism. And as with politics today, when contemplative discussion gives way to creeds for activism, things get ugly.

The Escalation which occurred was both personal political and also literary. By way of hyper activism, necessary for competitive evangelism, the understanding of the origins and philosophy were lost. Creeds and polemic debate replaced it. Internal opponents caste as antichrists. This spiral probably took less that two generations to be in full force. (If you live in the United States, you have seen it play out in the degeneration of our political discourse, with the rise of tribalism, Blue and Red, constantly claiming evil of the other. )

What we cannot guess is how long the movement incubated before it erupted with evangelism in the mid-2nd century. This monastic origin, and outside Palestine, would explain why it was invisible to the real Jews, or rather the Palestinian Jews. You wont find a Jewish Jesus conflict. It didn't exist, it didn't happen. The conflict with the real Jews did not begin until the late 3rd century when the Roman State began looking for a unifying force to counter the diversity tearing it apart, which saw Christianity, Manicheanism, Judaism, and Paganism vying for ultimate primacy.

Thus your look for a Jewish conflict at the origin will always be elusive. You will find yourself relying on 4th and 5th century myths, often passed down as church history (really lore and legend passing as history), which are themselves the political propaganda product of the battle for religious supremacy, ultimately decided after the death of Julian the Apostate.

[personal speculation]
Personally, I think one aspect of it is real, Barabbas could well be a reference to the Jewish rebel Bar Kokhba, as the earthly king, as opposed to Jesus the heavenly king ("my kingdom is in heaven"). That is not to say Barabbas == Bar Kokhba, but rather as the one released by the Jews, he is a stand in for the concept of an earthly kingdom, and the early readers would be aware of his fate, and by implication anyone who called for such a Jesus. By the time the first church fathers popped up in the Severan era, this association was a lost memory, and the concept of Jesus having only a heavenly kingdom was the view of all the surviving sects.

I wont defend this concept, just throwing it out as speculation.
[/personal speculation]

I guess what I am saying, is that while Christianity sprang from a Jewish seed, by virtue of isolation from Palestinian Judaism, coupled with time and distance and monastic life, when it erupted there was little or no influence with mainstream Judaism; it had broken long before, and even the monks were not from Jewish families. I understand Galatians 2:14 in this manner, that the Jewish Christians Cephas was bending to were not circumcised Jews. That gives Paul's comments extra poignancy.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Giuseppe
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Re: “Are you the king of the Jews?” as anti-marcionite question

Post by Giuseppe »

Stuart wrote: Wed Jun 20, 2018 12:04 am
I imagine a situation where these communities were in modest conflict, but not too serious, as a result of this divergence on the story and interpretation of Jesus.
While I may accept a condition of relative peace before the 70 CE, I don't think that it is possible to talk, in an early date, of ''divergence on the story and interpretation of Jesus'', since before the 70 CE it is highly improbable that Jesus had a story (I mean: a biography complete of earthly acts and deeds).
But when one of the monks evangelized with this Gospel (the legend of which becomes Paul, as perhaps a Marcion stand in), it changed the situation dramatically
I agree fully. But it is necessary a distinction. If you replace the word ''Gospel' in the your quote with ''aggressive proselytism coming from the Judaizers'' after the 70 CE (evidence in Galatians 1-2, assuming Galatians is post-70), in a context where an earthly biography for Jesus is still missing, then we have a good reason for the Gnostic invention of the Earliest Passion Narrative, with ''the Jews'' (allegory of the Judaizers) killers of Jesus.

The effect of this Earliest Passion Narrative is well described by you in the following terms:
This sparked a response from what hitherto fore was a mild disagreement and escalated it to incendiary rhetorical bomb throwing.
Once we remove the Roman second trial, we are left only with the first Jewish trial of Jesus. What preceded the trial is clearly a late addition (since before the 70 Jesus was not remembered as a teacher or a prophet). So the Earliest Passion Narrative had only the Jewish trial, the death, and only a resurrection scene. Period.


[personal speculation]
Personally, I think one aspect of it is real, Barabbas could well be a reference to the Jewish rebel Bar Kokhba, as the earthly king, as opposed to Jesus the heavenly king ("my kingdom is in heaven"). That is not to say Barabbas == Bar Kokhba, but rather as the one released by the Jews, he is a stand in for the concept of an earthly kingdom, and the early readers would be aware of his fate, and by implication anyone who called for such a Jesus. By the time the first church fathers popped up in the Severan era, this association was a lost memory, and the concept of Jesus having only a heavenly kingdom was the view of all the surviving sects.

I wont defend this concept, just throwing it out as speculation.
[/personal speculation]
You seem to ignore completely the fact that ''Jesus Bar-Abbas'' was introduced against the previous Gnostic tradition by the Judaizers, as explained by Couchoud. So Barabbas is only another ''titulum crucis'' insofar his function is only to remember the readers that the true crucified Jesus is the ''King of the Jews''.

Too bad the fact that just you, Stuart, don't see this. You who are so able to recognize the theological reason (supporting the Judaizers) behind the titulum crucis in the previous post.

I think the reason you don't see this is the presence of Barabbas in a marcionite Gospel.

But I may well appeal to the so-called ''Stuart's Law'' to explain the (apparently unexpected) marcionite acceptance of Barabbas, pace Michael_BG :

Once an element is accepted as part of the story, rather than drop it if it conflicts with your theology, you flip it to match your theology. This is a spot on observation!

The marcionites could have omitted ''Jesus'' from ''Jesus Barabbas'', or they could simply be not aware of aramaic pun behind ''Jesus Barabbas''.


At any rate, thanks Stuart for the interesting discussion. I think that the the my conclusion is directly derived from the your kind of exegesis applied on the Gospels, even if you disagree with that conclusion and limit yourself only to the (so well justified) premises. :cheers:
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Stuart
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Re: “Are you the king of the Jews?” as anti-marcionite question

Post by Stuart »

Jesus Barabbas and Barabbas achieve the same goal, just as Simon Peter and Peter do. It's a distinction without a difference.

BTW, Couchoud is just a guy, like you an me. And like you and me you can pick a piece here and there that makes sense, and you can discard what you think goes too far or is off course or false assumptions. He makes many, and so I back off that.

There is no real evidence of Jews and Christians in conflict until well past the 2nd century.

As for your insistence upon the 70 AD and passion stories, I think you miss the point. The introduction of a fixed time-space for the Jesus ministry was one of those elements introduced sometime in the 2nd century. If you look at Matthew there are hints of an earlier, version which lacked such elements. It was not Pilate but an unnamed Governor. Marcion's gospel introduced the specific timeline by saying "in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar" replacing what was probably a generic "In those Days" we find in Matthew 3:1 and Mark 1:9, which IMO originally opened the proto-Gospel.

These are elements of "Stuart's Law" you cite. Remove these from your original and you find no specific time-space setting. Your argument is based too much on such elements.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
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