Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

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Giuseppe
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Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

Post by Giuseppe »

I find interesting the view given by Kovacs about the real knowledge of the rulers of this age of 1 Cor 2:6-8 and already described by Neil here.

According to Kovacs, the demons knew who Jesus was, only they didn't know the plan of God about the his crucifixion.

So here the archons think they will destroy the 'Lord of glory' by causing his death, but instead the reverse happens: by killing Christ they have sealed their own destruction, a destruction alluded to in katargoumenon (v. 6). ... The archons did not know the hidden wisdom of God, his surprising plan to save humanity through a crucified messiah. They could not guess that the real cause of the cross was neither their own will nor that of the human authorities who condemned Jesus but the hidden will of God

(Apocalyptic and the New Testament: Essays in Honor of J. Louis Martyn, edited by Marion L. Soards and Joel Marcus, 217–36. Sheffield, Eng.: JSOT Press. , p. 223)

It is true that this presumed knowledge (by the rulers) of the identity of Jesus is not found in the Ascension of Isaiah, but from the other hand, AoI is not an apocalyptic text so the ignorance of the rulers about the same identity of Jesus seems to be the reflection of the our current ignorance (our= Christians) about the decline of the power of the same rulers. Paul ''saw'' the coming end just as the rulers saw (and recognized really) the ''Lord of the Glory'', while the author of AoI didn't see the coming end just as the rulers didn't see the ''Lord of the Glory''. Failed apocalypticism becomes, velim nolim, gnosticism.

So the chief effect of this view is that the only witnesses of the crucifixion of the Son were only the demons. Only they were aware that they were killing the Son. They, and the Christians like Paul.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

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Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:09 amIt is true that this presumed knowledge (by the rulers) of the identity of Jesus is not found in the Ascension of Isaiah, but from the other hand, AoI is not an apocalyptic text....
What do you mean? The second half of the work is an apocalypse by almost any definition.

ETA: By almost any definition except the colloquial one whereby an apocalypse is the end of the world. But that definition is not fit for early Christian and Jewish studies.
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Re: Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

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So, if it was an affair only between the demons and the Christians like Paul - virtually the only beings in all the universe who knew that the Christ (just him!) was crucified - , then the possible testimony of other witnesses (who are neither demons nor Christians: for example, a Pilate) was completely useless from the beginning, since it was not a real testimony of the Son but only, at most, of a mere man crucified by the Romans (if this man existed).
Last edited by Giuseppe on Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:33 am, edited 2 times in total.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:23 am
Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:09 amIt is true that this presumed knowledge (by the rulers) of the identity of Jesus is not found in the Ascension of Isaiah, but from the other hand, AoI is not an apocalyptic text....
What do you mean? The second half of the work is an apocalypse by almost any definition.
I mean that, even if AOI is an apocalyptic text, the only possible explanation of the difference between the Paul's view (assuming Kovacs is right about it) and the AoI's view - the fact that in Paul the demons know the victim while in AoI the demons don't know the victim - is that, by the time the AoI was written, the apocalyptic hopes were not so strong as they were for a Paul, and therefore as corollary the author of AoI had justify the his ignorance of the apocalyptic signs in the immediate his present by postulating an identical ignorance by the demons about the same identity of their victim.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

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Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:32 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:23 am
Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:09 amIt is true that this presumed knowledge (by the rulers) of the identity of Jesus is not found in the Ascension of Isaiah, but from the other hand, AoI is not an apocalyptic text....
What do you mean? The second half of the work is an apocalypse by almost any definition.
I mean that, even if AOI is an apocalyptic text, the only possible explanation of the difference between the Paul's view (assuming Kovacs is right about it) and the AoI's view - the fact that in Paul the demons know the victim while in AoI the demons don't know the victim - is that, by the time the AoI was written, the apocalyptic hopes were not so strong as they were for a Paul, and therefore as corollary the author of AoI had justify the his ignorance of the apocalyptic signs in the immediate his present by postulating an identical ignorance by the demons about the same identity of their victim.
It is exhausting trying to understand your arguments. It sounds like you are trying to connect diminished eschatological hopes on the part of the author of the Ascension with the demons' not knowing who Jesus is in the Ascension, yet the connection itself eludes me completely.

Also, lacking a strong sense that the eschaton is nigh has nothing to do with whether a text is apocalyptic or not.
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Giuseppe
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Re: Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

Post by Giuseppe »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:43 am

It is exhausting trying to understand your arguments. It sounds like you are trying to connect diminished eschatological hopes on the part of the author of the Ascension with the demons' not knowing who Jesus is in the Ascension, yet the connection itself eludes me completely.
Only think about it:

Paul: you demons know that you have killed just the Son, but only I know that you will be defeated already tomorrow.

The author of AoI: the demons have killed the Son, I am not so sure that the Apocalypse is tomorrow, but at any rate the same demons don't know that they have killed just the Son.

Also, lacking a strong sense that the eschaton is nigh has nothing to do with whether a text is apocalyptic or not.
Ok, then please interpret my previous post as meaning that AoI, differently from Paul (that is afterall the reason why we value so much Paul), ''lacks a strong sense that the eschaton is nigh''.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

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Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:49 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:43 am

It is exhausting trying to understand your arguments. It sounds like you are trying to connect diminished eschatological hopes on the part of the author of the Ascension with the demons' not knowing who Jesus is in the Ascension, yet the connection itself eludes me completely.
Only think about it:

Paul: you demons know that you have killed just the Son, but only I know that you will are defeated already tomorrow.

The author of AoI: the demons have killed the Son, I am not so sure that the Apocalypse is tomorrow, but at any rate the same demons don't know that they have killed just the Son.
I am thinking about it, and it makes no sense! The demons knowing Jesus' identity has nothing to do with the author knowing when the eschaton will come. The connection would have to be strengthened before it could even be considered a non sequitur.
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Re: Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:55 am I am thinking about it, and it makes no sense! The demons knowing Jesus' identity has nothing to do with the author knowing when the eschaton will come. The connection would have to be strengthened before it could even be considered a non sequitur.
No, I think that the demons knowing Jesus' identity is not at all an embarrassing thing for someone who is strongly persuaded that the eschaton will come soon.

While for someone who is already partially embarrassed by the relative delay of the Parusia (I mean: the author of AoI), then the demons knowing Jesus' identity becomes something of very, very much embarrassing.

So the new apology was: the demons didn't know Jesus.

Please, think about it.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Re: Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

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Giuseppe wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 8:00 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:55 am I am thinking about it, and it makes no sense! The demons knowing Jesus' identity has nothing to do with the author knowing when the eschaton will come. The connection would have to be strengthened before it could even be considered a non sequitur.
No, I think that the demons knowing Jesus' identity is not at all an embarrassing thing for someone who is strongly persuaded that the eschaton will come soon.

While for someone who is already partially embarrassed by the relative delay of the Parusia (I mean: the author of AoI), then the demons knowing Jesus' identity becomes something of very, very much embarrassing.

So the new apology was: the demons didn't know Jesus.

Please, think about it.
Your thinking is either that of a supergenius AI program from the future or that of a mental patient.

On another front, when you suggest that the author of the Ascension evinces embarrassment at the delay of the parousia, which passage(s) are you talking about?
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Re: Kovacs's view about what the rulers knew

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 8:05 am Your thinking is either that of a supergenius AI program from the future or that of a mental patient.
In the doubt, can we at least agree that Paul is the mental patient? :consternation:
On another front, when you suggest that the author of the Ascension evinces embarrassment at the delay of the parousia, which passage(s) are you talking about?
The feature of the not-knowledge of the identity of the victim by the his killers may be seen as similar to a feature of the 'docetic' death, viz the belief that the death of the victim was only apparent, since the victim was without body or - that is the same thing - another being was killed in the his place (and the killers don't know it).


For example, so prof Robert Price about the near-violation of Eve in The Hypostasis of the Archons:
"In those days only one virgin, Istahar by name, remained chaste. When the Sons of God made lecherous demands upon her, she cried: 'First lend me your wings!' They assented and she, flying up to Heaven, took sanctuary at the throne of God, who transformed her into the constellation Virgo" (Liqqute Midrashim, 156). 18 The same astrological myth underlies the wing-borne escape of the virgin from the dragon in Revelation 12, and in both cases it is clear that the original identity of the virgin was the goddess Ishtar (= "Istahar"), as is evident from the crown of stars, etc. Like Hera and the Gnostic Eve (= the Greek and Phrygian Hebe), the threatened woman is divine. But the difference between the stories of Istahar on the one hand and of Hera and Eve on the other is that Istahar experiences a last-minute clean getaway, while the other two share the revealing motif of the doubling of the original victim into both victim and escapee. If the story of Eve's near-violation as we read it in The Hypostasis of the Archons preserves an original tale in which she was never actual raped, why does it not read more like the story of Istahar--a simple escape? The doubling motif tells the tale: originally Eve was raped.
(my bold)
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_amorous1.htm

So, mutatis mutandis, the fact that the false Eve was raped (differently from other similar myths where the goddess escapes simply without need of a false victim in the his place), is evidence, for Price, of the embarrassment for an older version of the story: one where the true Eve was raped by the Archons.

Could something of similar be happened in the AoI ?

The fact that in AoI the Son was killed without being known by the his killers is evidence of embarrassment for an older version of the myth, one where the Son was killed by killers who knew him, since we have also evidence of other versions of the myth (for example: Basilides) where the Archons knew the identity of the Son but another person was killed in the his place.

So, insofar you see embarrassment for the death of the Son by the docetics à la Basilides (and I think that Ben already concedes the fact that for Basilides the real death of the Son was something of embarrassing), then you have to see an equivalent embarrassment at work in AoI for the Archontic knowledge of the Son.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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