(First) Apocalypse of James & Arsinoe

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John2
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Re: (First) Apocalypse of James & Arsinoe

Post by John2 »

abdias wrote: Sat Sep 15, 2018 7:10 am @MrMacSon yours and DCHindley's posts piqued my interest in terms of scholarly opinion; the Manichaean connection was probably my best bet, and as a result of my looking around I found this section of interest:
However, a group of four women disciples are named in the First Apocalypse of James (40:25-26: Salome, Mary, Martha, and Arsinoe), and this distinctive group of four recurs twice in the Manichean Psalms of Heracleides. In each case a list of twelve apostles, each briefly characterized, is followed by a similar list of women disciples: Mary, Martha her sister, Salome, Arsinoe. [...] Though it appears to be largely dependent on the Diatessaron, it refers to women at the empty tomb, first as Mary, Salome, and Mary (cf. Mark 16:1) but then as Mary, Salome, and Arsinoe. Since these four lists of women disciples of Jesus are the only known references to a disciples named Arsinoe, and since all four lists name the same four women [...] it seems certain that they derive from the same distinct gospel tradition.
The author goes on to speculate the origin of this tradition and the likelihood of its authenticity:
[...] [T]his tradition may originally belong to the Jewish Christianity of east Syria, which would explain its availability to the Manicheans. There seems to be no reason why the name Arsinoe should not be regarded as a historical memory of a disciple of Jesus whose name has not survived in other traditions (just as Joanna and Susanna are known only from Luke).
You left out a key part in your second quotation though, which I underline below:
Since the First Apocalypse of James refers to Addai (36:20-22), the apostle of Edessa, this tradition may belong originally to the Jewish Christianity of east Syria ...

https://books.google.com/books?id=ahb7r ... oe&f=false
And that makes a lot of sense. This sounds like the answer, that the Arsinoe tradition comes from east Syrian Christians (whether or not they were specifically Jewish Christians) and then it spread to Manicheans and the gnostics who wrote the First Apocalypse of James. That seems like a pleasingly easy solution. Now, whether the name could be a product of "a historical memory of a disciple of Jesus" as Bauckham suggests is another question. I wish I could see more of what Bauckham says in the Google books link above but it cuts off for me shortly after the above citation.
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abdias
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Re: (First) Apocalypse of James & Arsinoe

Post by abdias »

@John2 I think he was starting to say something about how the name 'Arsinoe' isn't a normal Palestinian name, but until somebody finds a pdf of the entire book, we don't know.
John2
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Re: (First) Apocalypse of James & Arsinoe

Post by John2 »

abdias wrote: Sat Sep 15, 2018 7:54 pm @John2 I think he was starting to say something about how the name 'Arsinoe' isn't a normal Palestinian name, but until somebody finds a pdf of the entire book, we don't know.
I was able to view what Bauckham goes on to say about the name Arsinoe:
Though not otherwise attested as a Palestinian Jewish woman's name, it is not implausibly such, since it was a royal name of the Ptolemaic dynasty and the other female royal name of that dynasty, Cleopatra, was used by Palestinian Jews.

So, while Jesus could have had a disciple named Arsinoe, she is not named until later Manichean and gnostic writings that may be based on a Syrian Christian tradition, is my takeaway. The only question then would be if this presumably Syrian tradition stems from an earlier tradition, one that other Christian writings were not privy to or chose to neglect, and I'm going to guess (just for the hell of it) that it does not.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
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abdias
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Re: (First) Apocalypse of James & Arsinoe

Post by abdias »

Yeah, especially considering that not Paul or early Christian writers even allude to her existence it sounds a bit late to be authentic.
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