What Alternatives Are There to Christianity Being an Ascetic Religion?

[Secret Alias]

My issue with scholarship - of course as a jealous failed scholar - is that it has the habit of creating problems for itself to solve. The real question is what is Marcionism? That's the starting point. There is of course 'what the Church Fathers say about Marcion.' If we limited ourselves to just this we'dh have some honesty and transparency. The difficulty is when you try to cross the line and say 'what the Church Fathers are reporting is real.'

Hebion became a real heretic.

To me at least the real clash seems to come in the second century because anything that hinted of dualism was deemed to be problematic. You can see it in Celsus's discussion of Christian (Marcionite?) interpretation of 'you can't have two masters.' He implies at least that it is 'anti-monarchian' literally meaning against the (Imperial) monarchy.

I don't know how saying there was a god above the Lord of the World was deemed to be subversive. But that's what happened in my estimation. Various theorists argued that god can't have a physical body, god can't be anthropomorphic, a god enthroned somewhere isn't everywhere etc. Historically speaking, these lines of logic which clearly existed long before the second century suddenly became signs of subversion. This I am sure of. Again I can't speak to any specificity beyond the age of Commodus as the focal point.

It is curious that Marcus Aurelius ruled with his brother and then his son. Why was joint rule so important?

Anyway Marcion seems to have been the embodiment of the idea that 'there are two powers.' His two powers were a just power and a kind power - exactly as it had been for Philo and countless generations of Jews before him/them - where it seems the kind power was superior to the power of justice. These ideas were established long before the end of the second century but they found themselves 'out of fashion' in the age of Commodus.

At some point the one Lord was all there was. This understanding took over Judaism (with Judah haNasi's introduction of 'the Lord of the World' into the liturgy) and Christianity. Yet Christianity was much slower to adapt. Arianism is in essence the continuing struggle with accepting the 'absolutely authority' of one Lord.

[nightshadetwine]

I have hypothesized that there was actually a Jewish mystery cult devoted to Yahweh in the form "Yahweh saves" (= Yehoshua = Yeshua = Joshua/Jesus), just as Zeus was sometimes worshiped as Zeus Soter (= Zeus the Savior); that this mystery cult preceded any historical Jesus, and that the legend of a sign prophet (for lack of a better term) named Joshua/Jesus who was executed in Jerusalem as a troublemaker was combined with the cult; and that this combination accounts both for the very low Christologies and for the very high Christologies which seem to have been present right from the start. Link: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3125. (Please realize that many of the details have changed upon reflection since I wrote that up, but I still think the overall idea very much worth pursuing.)

This Jewish mystery cult would have owed much to the cults of Ba'al and of Inana. Yahweh is well known to bear many similarities to Ba'al in particular. Links: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3139 and viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2183.

I definitely think this is possible. As you know, dying and resurrecting gods go way back so it wouldn't be surprising if there was a Jewish mystery cult before the time of Jesus. It was only a matter of time until there was a Jewish version of the dying and resurrecting savior. There's a lot of similarities between Inanna and Jesus like them both being tried by a tribunal and hung/killed and then resurrecting 3 days later.

The similarities between Inana, Ba'al, and Yahweh on the one hand and Dionysus and other gods on the other hand owe themselves to deep cultural concepts which trace back to primeval times. It was easy for many cults to map their own gods onto Jesus (and vice versa) because the patterns were so similar and familiar.

Yeah, these were motifs that you find in a lot of ancient Near Eastern religions.

That is a good correspondence. Thanks. On the other hand, Matthew 3.17 and its parallels are universally recognized as an allusion to Isaiah 42.1. To me, this is an example of how similar the various ancient religions could be, and how easy it is to exchange elements from one to another.

Yeah, some of the Egyptian influences could have come indirectly through Judaism seeing as scholars have shown that there's Egyptian influences in the Hebrew scriptures.

From "The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt" by Richard H. Wilkinson:

The text alludes to the Heliopolitan creation account centered on the god Atum, but goes on to claim that the Memphite god Ptah preceded the sun god and that it was Ptah who created Atum and ultimately the other gods and all else 'through his heart and through his tongue'. The expression alludes to the conscious planning of creation and it's execution through rational thought and speech, and this story of creation ex nihilo as attributed to Ptah by the priests of Memphis is the earliest known example of the so-called 'logos' doctrine in which the world is formed through a god's creative speech...It lies before, and in line with, the philosophical concepts found in the Hebrew Bible where 'God said, let there be light, and there was light'(Genesis 1:3), and the Christian scriptures which state that 'In the beginning was the word[logos]...and the word was God...all things were made by him...'(John 1:1,3).

From "Ancient Egypt Investigated: 101 Important Questions and Intriguing Answers" by Thomas Schneider:

Ever since Egyptian texts became widely known in the second half of the nineteenth century, scholars began searching for ancient Egyptian parallels to biblical texts. At first, their goal was to confirm the scripture, while later it was to situate the Bible in the wider cultural context of the Near East. A significant Egyptian influence can be detected in genres and literary motifs of the Old Testament. Scholars also assume Egyptian influences on the Psalms, Ecclesiastes (Koheleth), the priestly creation story, and other texts. Often, however, these texts and motifs have been compared with the easily accessible (for modern readers) texts from the Egyptian New Kingdom, when what should actually be consulted is the literature of ancient Egypt’s later periods.

In the literature of Egypt’s Late Period (664–332 bce) we find clear parallels to motifs in the oft-cited Psalm 104, the Song of Songs, and the book of Job. Perhaps the best-known example can be seen in Proverbs 22.17–23.14, which borrows from the Instruction of Amenemope, a wisdom text in circulation at least as late as Dynasty 26—that is, the sixth century bce. The atmosphere and character of the Egyptian Late Period is clearly visible in the descriptions of the story of Joseph and Israel’s stay in Egypt, where there are also similar literary motifs, as, for example, the contest between Moses and Pharaoh’s magicians (Exodus 7) and the similar contest between Siosire and the Ethiopian magicians in the Demotic cycle of Setne- Khaemwese. In addition, the criticisms directed at kings in the books of Chronicles find parallels in Egyptian ‘apocalyptic’ works.

Numerous religious concepts also have Egyptian parallels: man as God’s image, the concept of God as shepherd, the weighing of the heart, the forming of men on a potter’s wheel, the discovery of sacred books in order to legitimize religious reform, and so forth. The Hebrew of the Old Testament also displays a certain Egyptian influence in the area of vocabulary and idioms: for instance, ‘face between his knees’ in the story of Elijah; the expression ‘standing and sitting’ in the sense of ‘comport oneself’; the term ‘way of life’; the comparison of the prophet Jeremiah with a ‘bronze wall’; ‘burning coals on the head’ as a metaphor for penitence; and the designation of God as ‘sun of righteousness.’ These literary and linguistic borrowings are part of a much wider cultural influence that Egypt had on Israel, as has been pointed out in recent decades by Othmar Keel.

In addition to textual borrowings, this influence is found in imagery as well, and is especially clear in the iconographic material from Palestine, in particular, representations on seals. One example of Egyptian influence is apparent in the solar symbolism of Yahweh belief in Israel and Judah during the eighth century bce, which incorporated the Egyptian sundisk and Uraeus serpents.