No “Son of Man” in Marcion

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Giuseppe
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No “Son of Man” in Marcion

Post by Giuseppe »

So Tertullian:
When led before the council, He is asked whether He is the Christ.(12) Of what Christ could the Jews have inquired(13) but their own? Why, therefore, did He not, even at that moment, declare to them the rival (Christ)? You reply, In order that He might be able to suffer. In other words, that this most excellent god might plunge men into crime, whom he was still keeping in ignorance. But even if he had told them, he would yet have to suffer. For he said, "If I tell you, ye will not believe."(14)

http://gnosis.org/library/marcion/Tert12.html#AM415

If the silence of Jesus, for Marcion, had to serve to lead Jesus on the cross, then why, shortly after, Jesus himself would have revealed his identity in a so evident way?

69 From henceforth shall the Son of man be seated
on the right hand of the power of God.
70 And they all said, Art thou then the Son of God?
And he said unto them,
Ye say it, because I am.

http://gnosis.org/library/marcion/Gospel6.html#Tortured

In addition, Luke talks about the Son of Man being only seated with God, while Mark talks also about the descending of the Son of Man with God. In both the cases, both Luke and Mark insist on the fact that who is with God is the same danielic Son of Man and not the Christ.

This is a strong clue of the fact that in Marcion we had the exact contrary: Jesus proclaimed the ascending of the spiritual Christ to his true Father (a miracle that happened in that precise moment, under the eyes of the sinedrites), while leaving the man Jesus before the sinedrites.

in Marcionin Luke and in Mark
the Son of Fatherthe Son of Man
ascends to God descends or is with God

Hence any mention of the Son of Man is probably absent in Mcn.
The danielic Son of Man was introduced in the Gospels to insist, against Marcion, on the divine nature of the man Jesus, in opposition to the only divine nature of the spiritual Christ.

(Even a blind realizes that a Son of Man, even if he is God himself, is at any case a human being: the exact thing denied by Marcion for the his Christ).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: No “Son of Man” in Marcion

Post by Giuseppe »

This allows me to decipher the hidden meaning of the following verse:

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

(Mark 14:35)

Note that, by removing “Abba” as interpolation linked with the Barabbas episode (so who is escaping is the false Barabbas and not more the spiritual Christ: as Couchoud proved, it is an anti-marcionite episode), then we have:

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36“Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

The symbolism is evident: the “cup” is the human recipient possessed by the spiritual Christ, not Christ. That “cup” - the mere man Jesus - will suffer in the place of the spiritual Christ. And the reader knows already when precisely that “cup” will be effectively removed from Christ the Son of Father: when he will proclaim the ascending of the Christ to his Father before the sinedrites.

This is an evident maniphesto of separationism in code forms.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Stuart
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Re: No “Son of Man” in Marcion

Post by Stuart »

This is incorrect. While I agree in exegesis the Marcionites did not associate Jesus with the Daniel's "son of man", there is no question that the phrase was present in multiple places in the Marcionite Gospel:

From Epiphanius:

'But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power to forgive sins upon earth.'
<β> «Ἵνα δὲ εἰδῆτε ὅτι ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀφιέναι ἁμαρτίας ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς»
42.11.6.2 Luke 5:24

The Son of Man is lord also of the Sabbath.'
<γ> «Κύριός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου»
42.11.6.3 Luke 6:5

<ιϚ> «Λέγων, δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου πολλὰ παθεῖν καὶ ἀποκτανθῆναι καὶ μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἐγερθῆναι»
'Saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be slain, and be raised after three days.'
42.11.6.16 Luke 9:22. Cf. Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.21.7.

'For the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men.'
<κ> «Ὁ γὰρ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου μέλλει παραδίδοσθαι εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων»
42.11.6.20 Luke 9:44

'The days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man.'
<μθ> «Ἐλεύσονται ἡμέραι, ὅταν ἐπιθυμήσητε ἰδεῖν μίαν τῶν ἡμερῶν τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου».
42.11.6.49 Luke 17:22

'The men in shining garments said, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is risen; remember all that he spake when he was yet with you, that the Son of Man must suffer and be delivered.'
<οϚ> «Εἶπαν οἱ ἐν ἐσθῆτι λαμπρᾷ· τί ζητεῖτε τὸν ζῶντα μετὰ τῶν νεκρῶν; ἠγέρθη, μνήσθητε ὅσα ἐλάλησεν ἔτι ὢν μεθ' ὑμῶν, ὅτι δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παθεῖν καὶ παραδοθῆναι».
42.11.6.76 Luke 24:5-7. Cf. Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.43.5.

Tertullian quoting from Marcion's text

"Blessed shall ye be, when men shall hate you, and shall reproach you, and shall cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake."
AM 4.14.14 Luke 6:22

"the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and scribes, and priests, and be slain, and be raised again the third day."
AM 4.21.7 Luke 9:22 (Note: I am suspicious of the underlined phrase, missing in Epiphanius, as "elders" never occurs elsewhere in Marcion)

"Whosoever shall speak against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him."
AM 4.28.6 Luke 12.10

He warns us "to be ready," for this reason, because "we know not the hour when the Son of man shall come"
AM 4.29.7 Luke 11.40 (this quote is not fully secure, as it is out of sequential order)

"the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected," before His coming,
AM 4.35.14 Luke 17:25

"For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost,"
AM 4.37.2 Luke 19:10

"And then shall they see the Son of man coming from the heavens with very great power. And when these things shall come to pass, ye shall look up, and raise your heads; for your redemption hath come near,"
AM 4.39.10 Luke 21:27-28 (This one is problematic, I'm not completely convinced it's from the Marcionite text)

"Woe," says He, "to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!"
AM 4.41.1 Luke 22:22

"Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God."
AM 4.41.4 Luke 22:69

"Remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered up, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."
AM 4.43.5 Luke 24:6, 7


Tertullian calls out Marcion, based on his own (Tertullian's) reading that the son of man requires he be born of woman in flesh and blood, in AM 4.10.8 saying

On what principle you, Marcion, can admit Him Son of man, I cannot possibly see. If through a human father, then you deny him to be Son of God; if through a divine one also,(Si et Dei) then you make Christ the Hercules of fable; if through a human mother only, then you concede my point; if not through a human father also,(Si neque patris) then He is not the son of any man, and He must have been guilty of a lie for having declared Himself to be what He was not.



Tertullian spends much of AM 4 complaining about the use of the appellation "Son of man," and the Marcionite claim that it occurs by accident, (Ex accidenti obvenit), which should be proof enough the term exists in the Marcionite.

The evidence for the term being present throughout the Gospel, even if a few of the quotes by Tertullian or Epiphanius might be from a Catholic text rather than Marcionite, is pretty overwhelming. The Marcionites however seem to have interpreted it similar to how Geza Vermas presents it in his famous book Jesus the Jew, as a form of third person self identification by Jesus when he spoke. Rather than calling himself the master or the great one or some such, he instead refers to himself as a lowly man like those around him. Tertullian does not accept this and insists upon his own interpretation.

You have read Tertullian's rejection of the Marcionite interpretation incorrectly thinking it meant the term was not present.

There is no question IMO that the use of the term in places present in Luke and Marcion's text relate directly to the Daniel text. For me this is part of the evidence -that although the first published public version of a Gospel- the Marcionite text was built upon an existing prototype Gospel, just as the Pauline letters were built upon existing (untitled) tracts already existing in the pre-Evangelical Christian community and formed by a variety of sects (pre-sects really) with differing views, not always compatible with the Marcionite (or any other) sect. Such is my more conservative opinion.
“’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
Secret Alias
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Re: No “Son of Man” in Marcion

Post by Secret Alias »

But how - if the gospel was written in Greek and the Marcionites were a wholly Greek speaking community - DIDN'T the Marcionites associate Daniel's 'Son of Man' with Jesus's 'Son of Man.' Like having two meanings for 'golazo' https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=golazo. The 'Son of Man' is a Semiticism. The Marcionites knew Daniel and developed exegetical interpretations of the text. It is impossible that they differentiated between Daniel's and Jesus's 'Son of Man' - they had to be one and the same.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: No “Son of Man” in Marcion

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Giuseppe wrote: Wed Sep 19, 2018 2:03 am So Tertullian:
When led before the council, He is asked whether He is the Christ.(12) Of what Christ could the Jews have inquired(13) but their own? Why, therefore, did He not, even at that moment, declare to them the rival (Christ)? You reply, In order that He might be able to suffer. In other words, that this most excellent god might plunge men into crime, whom he was still keeping in ignorance. But even if he had told them, he would yet have to suffer. For he said, "If I tell you, ye will not believe."(14)

http://gnosis.org/library/marcion/Tert12.html#AM415

If the silence of Jesus, for Marcion, had to serve to lead Jesus on the cross, then why, shortly after, Jesus himself would have revealed his identity in a so evident way?

69 From henceforth shall the Son of man be seated
on the right hand of the power of God.
70 And they all said, Art thou then the Son of God?
And he said unto them,
Ye say it, because I am.

http://gnosis.org/library/marcion/Gospel6.html#Tortured

In addition, Luke talks about the Son of Man being only seated with God, while Mark talks also about the descending of the Son of Man with God. In both the cases, both Luke and Mark insist on the fact that who is with God is the same danielic Son of Man and not the Christ.

This is a strong clue of the fact that in Marcion we had the exact contrary: Jesus proclaimed the ascending of the spiritual Christ to his true Father (a miracle that happened in that precise moment, under the eyes of the sinedrites), while leaving the man Jesus before the sinedrites.

in Marcionin Luke and in Mark
the Son of Fatherthe Son of Man
ascends to God descends or is with God

Hence any mention of the Son of Man is probably absent in Mcn.
The danielic Son of Man was introduced in the Gospels to insist, against Marcion, on the divine nature of the man Jesus, in opposition to the only divine nature of the spiritual Christ.
This is a paradigmatic example of your kind of reasoning, Giuseppe. Interpret something from the canonical gospels, assume that in the Marcionite gospel it must have been the opposite, and then interpret this manufactured datum from the Marcionite gospel as if it were a textual discovery you had just made.

And this is a natural consequence of that sort of reasoning:
Stuart wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:17 pm This is incorrect. While I agree in exegesis the Marcionites did not associate Jesus with the Daniel's "son of man", there is no question that the phrase was present in multiple places in the Marcionite Gospel:

From Epiphanius:

'But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power to forgive sins upon earth.'
<β> «Ἵνα δὲ εἰδῆτε ὅτι ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀφιέναι ἁμαρτίας ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς»
42.11.6.2 Luke 5:24

The Son of Man is lord also of the Sabbath.'
<γ> «Κύριός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου»
42.11.6.3 Luke 6:5

<ιϚ> «Λέγων, δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου πολλὰ παθεῖν καὶ ἀποκτανθῆναι καὶ μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἐγερθῆναι»
'Saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be slain, and be raised after three days.'
42.11.6.16 Luke 9:22. Cf. Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.21.7.

'For the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men.'
<κ> «Ὁ γὰρ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου μέλλει παραδίδοσθαι εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων»
42.11.6.20 Luke 9:44

'The days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man.'
<μθ> «Ἐλεύσονται ἡμέραι, ὅταν ἐπιθυμήσητε ἰδεῖν μίαν τῶν ἡμερῶν τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου».
42.11.6.49 Luke 17:22

'The men in shining garments said, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is risen; remember all that he spake when he was yet with you, that the Son of Man must suffer and be delivered.'
<οϚ> «Εἶπαν οἱ ἐν ἐσθῆτι λαμπρᾷ· τί ζητεῖτε τὸν ζῶντα μετὰ τῶν νεκρῶν; ἠγέρθη, μνήσθητε ὅσα ἐλάλησεν ἔτι ὢν μεθ' ὑμῶν, ὅτι δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παθεῖν καὶ παραδοθῆναι».
42.11.6.76 Luke 24:5-7. Cf. Tert. Adv. Marc. 4.43.5.

Tertullian quoting from Marcion's text

"Blessed shall ye be, when men shall hate you, and shall reproach you, and shall cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake."
AM 4.14.14 Luke 6:22

"the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and scribes, and priests, and be slain, and be raised again the third day."
AM 4.21.7 Luke 9:22 (Note: I am suspicious of the underlined phrase, missing in Epiphanius, as "elders" never occurs elsewhere in Marcion)

"Whosoever shall speak against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him."
AM 4.28.6 Luke 12.10

He warns us "to be ready," for this reason, because "we know not the hour when the Son of man shall come"
AM 4.29.7 Luke 11.40 (this quote is not fully secure, as it is out of sequential order)

"the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected," before His coming,
AM 4.35.14 Luke 17:25

"For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost,"
AM 4.37.2 Luke 19:10

"And then shall they see the Son of man coming from the heavens with very great power. And when these things shall come to pass, ye shall look up, and raise your heads; for your redemption hath come near,"
AM 4.39.10 Luke 21:27-28 (This one is problematic, I'm not completely convinced it's from the Marcionite text)

"Woe," says He, "to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!"
AM 4.41.1 Luke 22:22

"Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God."
AM 4.41.4 Luke 22:69

"Remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered up, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."
AM 4.43.5 Luke 24:6, 7


Tertullian calls out Marcion, based on his own (Tertullian's) reading that the son of man requires he be born of woman in flesh and blood, in AM 4.10.8 saying
On what principle you, Marcion, can admit Him Son of man, I cannot possibly see. If through a human father, then you deny him to be Son of God; if through a divine one also,(Si et Dei) then you make Christ the Hercules of fable; if through a human mother only, then you concede my point; if not through a human father also,(Si neque patris) then He is not the son of any man, and He must have been guilty of a lie for having declared Himself to be what He was not.

Tertullian spends much of AM 4 complaining about the use of the appellation "Son of man," and the Marcionite claim that it occurs by accident, (Ex accidenti obvenit), which should be proof enough the term exists in the Marcionite.

The evidence for the term being present throughout the Gospel, even if a few of the quotes by Tertullian or Epiphanius might be from a Catholic text rather than Marcionite, is pretty overwhelming.
An overwhelming flood of evidence that, if we know anything about the Marcionite gospel, we know that it contained the term "son of man."

The kind of reasoning that you so frequently employ, Giuseppe, is simply fallacious. One would be more likely to get correct answers to historical or literary questions by interrogating a tarot-reading basset hound.
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Ulan
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Re: No “Son of Man” in Marcion

Post by Ulan »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:48 pm One would be more likely to get correct answers to historical or literary questions by interrogating a tarot-reading basset hound.
You're on a roll :lol: . Let's hope that tarot-reading basset hound will sign up soon to get us out of this slump.
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Re: No “Son of Man” in Marcion

Post by perseusomega9 »

in the meantime can we limit giuseppe to one new thread/week?
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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Re: No “Son of Man” in Marcion

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Ulan wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 2:28 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:48 pm One would be more likely to get correct answers to historical or literary questions by interrogating a tarot-reading basset hound.
You're on a roll :lol: .
Heh, thanks. :)
Let's hope that tarot-reading basset hound will sign up soon to get us out of this slump.
Yes. A slump. That is exactly what it feels like. These things go in cycles, I guess.
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Re: No “Son of Man” in Marcion

Post by MrMacSon »

perseusomega9 wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 2:43 pm in the meantime can we limit Giuseppe to one new thread/week?
or just one thread, period.
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Re: No “Son of Man” in Marcion

Post by Giuseppe »

Stuart wrote: Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:17 pm This is incorrect. While I agree in exegesis the Marcionites did not associate Jesus with the Daniel's "son of man", there is no question that the phrase was present in multiple places in the Marcionite Gospel:
What you and Ben seem to not understand is that the Son of Man is a so clear reference to the humanity of a divine being (even if divine) that the deniers par excellence of the humanity of Jesus (the marcionites)
couldn't accept the term without some premise about it.

Hermann Raschke (proponent of Mcn = Proto-Mark) argued that the Son of Man is the earthly appearance of the divine Christ. This is a harmonization that simply signals the problem I have already signaled.

Hence my point remains, and I wonder why you are so blind to not realize it:
In Marcion we had the exact contrary: Jesus proclaimed the ascending of the spiritual Christ to his true Father (a miracle that happened in that precise moment, under the eyes of the sinedrites), while leaving the man Jesus - the Son of Man - before the sinedrites
.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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