Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

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Aleph One
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Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

Post by Aleph One »

Hey everyone I just had a general question that occured to me. I agree with a lot of scholars that GMark has an Adoptionist christology, i.e. Jesus is a normal man who is possessed by the spirit of christ at his baptism. This got me thinking about the scene of the spirit departing his body at the moment of death on the cross, followed by the empty tomb and implied resurrection appearance in Galilee.

If the spirit of Christ left the body of Jesus as he died on the cross then why would his body disappear from the tomb later before the resurrection appearances? I know if you have the resurrected Jesus appear as a phantom then go into a docetic direction which may have been problematic for some christians, but that way seems more consistent to me with the adoptionism.

Does it make any sense for the gospel we have now to be a compromise between adoptionists and corporealists (anti-docetists), or maybe even that the empty tomb is a secondary addition to the original gospel? Being a layman I'll try to avoid assuming the mindset of turn of the millennium Christians, so I won't provide my own speculation on this but perhaps someone here more knowledgeable than I could help out.

Thanks
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Aleph One wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:36 am Hey everyone I just had a general question that occured to me. I agree with a lot of scholars that GMark has an Adoptionist christology, i.e. Jesus is a normal man who is possessed by the spirit of christ at his baptism. This got me thinking about the scene of the spirit departing his body at the moment of death on the cross, followed by the empty tomb and implied resurrection appearance in Galilee.

If the spirit of Christ left the body of Jesus as he died on the cross then why would his body disappear from the tomb later before the resurrection appearances? I know if you have the resurrected Jesus appear as a phantom then go into a docetic direction which may have been problematic for some christians, but that way seems more consistent to me with the adoptionism.

Does it make any sense for the gospel we have now to be a compromise between adoptionists and corporealists (anti-docetists), or maybe even that the empty tomb is a secondary addition to the original gospel? Being a layman I'll try to avoid assuming the mindset of turn of the millennium Christians, so I won't provide my own speculation on this but perhaps someone here more knowledgeable than I could help out.
Bernard Muller, who has posted here before, thinks that the empty tomb is an addition to the crucifixion story, which originally ended at 15.39: http://historical-jesus.info/79.html. E. Bruce Brooks takes a somewhat different approach, but also thinks that the empty tomb is an addition: https://www.umass.edu/wsp/publications/ ... ection.pdf. John Dominic Crossan has a similar take on it, but for reasons having to do with his hypothesized "Cross Gospel" and Secret Mark.
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toejam
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Re: Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

Post by toejam »

^The article by E. Bruce Brooks is an eye opener for sure. Thanks for sharing, Ben.
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Giuseppe
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Re: Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

Post by Giuseppe »

Aleph One wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:36 am If the spirit of Christ left the body of Jesus as he died on the cross then why would his body disappear from the tomb later before the resurrection appearances?
I don't see contradiction between an abandoned Jesus and a risen Jesus. We are said from more sources about the separationists/adoptionists (in primis Cerinthus) that they considered the human recipient (possessed and abandoned and later risen by the divine Christ) as a man extremely righteous and obedient to Torah. This insistence on the moral virtues of the man Jesus was necessary against the Ophites, who at contrary despised the man Jesus as a degrading heresy (see evidence of this in Celsus). So this is another reason to consider Mark as a first reaction against purely docetic Christianity (another reason being this).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
perseusomega9
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Re: Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

Post by perseusomega9 »

Out own Peter Kirby is cited in that!
The metric to judge if one is a good exegete: the way he/she deals with Barabbas.

Who disagrees with me on this precise point is by definition an idiot.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

Post by Ben C. Smith »

perseusomega9 wrote: Thu Jul 26, 2018 6:39 am
Our own Peter Kirby is cited in that!
Indeed. :)
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Re: Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

Post by Secret Alias »

If his article was published in 2002 it must have been written in something like 2000. That's 18 years ago. He doesn't even look 38 now. But still, he was 20 when he wrote that?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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John T
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Re: Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

Post by John T »

Aleph One wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:36 am If the spirit of Christ left the body of Jesus as he died on the cross then why would his body disappear from the tomb later before the resurrection appearances?
The traditional understanding goes something like this:
Jesus' spirit disappeared for three days but not his body.

"He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey,..."1 Peter 3:19-22

Once again, a strong hint of Enochic Judaism.

After three days and three nights of his dead body still being in the tomb, his spirit was reunited with his dead body and resurrected. Meaning his body never disappeared it was resurrected/transformed and released from the tomb by angels. There are no accounts (as far as I know) of the body of Jesus disappearing and when people came back to verify the disappearance only to find his corpse was still on the slab.

Can anyone pull up Peter's paper "The Case Against the Empty Tomb", I would like to see that. :)

John T
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iskander
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Re: Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

Post by iskander »

Aleph One wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:36 am Hey everyone I just had a general question that occured to me. I agree with a lot of scholars that GMark has an Adoptionist christology, i.e. Jesus is a normal man who is possessed by the spirit of christ at his baptism. This got me thinking about the scene of the spirit departing his body at the moment of death on the cross, followed by the empty tomb and implied resurrection appearance in Galilee.

If the spirit of Christ left the body of Jesus as he died on the cross then why would his body disappear from the tomb later before the resurrection appearances? I know if you have the resurrected Jesus appear as a phantom then go into a docetic direction which may have been problematic for some christians, but that way seems more consistent to me with the adoptionism.

Does it make any sense for the gospel we have now to be a compromise between adoptionists and corporealists (anti-docetists), or maybe even that the empty tomb is a secondary addition to the original gospel? Being a layman I'll try to avoid assuming the mindset of turn of the millennium Christians, so I won't provide my own speculation on this but perhaps someone here more knowledgeable than I could help out.

Thanks
Adoptionism theory is not a valid attempt to explain Jesus
Prophecy is not regarded as a native talent [in the Old Testament] ; the prophetic spirit it is not in the prophet but 'comes upon' him. it is a divine effluence that takes hold of him
The religion of Israel, page 96
Yehezkel Kaufmann, translated by Moshe Greeberg,
SEFER VE SEFEL PUBLISING, JERRUSALEM , 2003,
ISBN 965-7387-02-2


ISBN is 9789657287026 / 9657287022
The Religion of Israel from Its Beginning to the Babylonian Exile

by Yehezkel Kaufman
3.95 avg rating • 21 ratings by GoodReads

Publisher:Sefer V'Sefel, 2003

Edition:Softcover

Language:English

About the book:
Yehezkel Kaifmann's work of scholarship, 'The Religion of Israel,' was a fundamental critique of Wellhausen's arguments on the evolution of the Bible and the religion of Israel. This is an abridged version of the original 8 volumes.


In Roman literature the Sibyl is a woman and god ' comes upon' her, as in the OT ,
Now to the mouth they come. Aloud she cries:
"This is the time; enquire your destinies.
He comes; behold the god!" Thus while she said,
(And shiv'ring at the sacred entry stay'd,)
Her color chang'd; her face was not the same,
And hollow groans from her deep spirit came.
Her hair stood up; convulsive rage possess'd
Her trembling limbs, and heav'd her lab'ring breast.
Greater than humankind she seem'd to look,
And with an accent more than mortal spoke.
Her staring eyes with sparkling fury roll;
When all the god came rushing on her soul.
Swiftly she turn'd, and, foaming as she spoke:
"Why this delay?" she cried- "the pow'rs invoke!
Thy pray'rs alone can open this abode;
Else vain are my demands, and dumb the god."
She said no more. The trembling Trojans hear,
O'erspread with a damp sweat and holy fear.
The prince himself, with awful dread possess'd
The Aeneid, Virgil, translated by John Dryden , book 6


The Empty Tomb is a literary way of saying the spirit that animated the executed man when he was alive goes on living beyond the death of the man and therefore his thoughts remain alive for ever and ever.It is an interpretatiom of the
life of a dead man .
Last edited by iskander on Thu Jul 26, 2018 3:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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toejam
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Re: Question on GMark's Adoptionism vs. the Empty Tomb

Post by toejam »

While we're on the topic, has anyone read this?

https://www.bookdepository.com/Jesus-Et ... 0802875068

Image

Thoughts?

I have a general distrust and dislike of borderline fundamentalist scholars like Bird, Richard Bauckham, N.T. Wright, etc., however I always find it worth reading their material as they at least attempt to engage with 'mainstream secular' scholarship.
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