Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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stephan happy huller
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Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Post by stephan happy huller »

Does the question of the historicity of the gospel come down to a question of whether the text originally intended to portray an earthly or heavenly stranger? If we acknowledge Joseph was a very late addition then a mother specifically named 'Mary' was yet another layer of the same onion. While Luke 8:19 - 20 reads:
Now Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” He replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”
The Marcionite version clearly resembled what appears in our canonical Mark for it adds 'Who is my mother and my brethren?', not recorded by Luke, but present in Matt. 12: 48 and Mark 3: 33. Notice also that there is no specific mention of a name for Jesus's alleged 'mother.' The purpose of the narrative was to reinforce that 'everyone knew' that Jesus claimed to be from heaven after his appearance in the synagogue.
From Epiphanius, Panarion 30.14, writing of the Ebionites:

Παλιν δε αρνουνται ειναι αυτον ανθρωπον, δηθεν απο του λογου ου ειρηκεν ο σωτηρ εν τω αναγγεληναι αυτω οτι, Ιδου, η μητηρ σου και οι αδελφοι σου εξω εστηκασιν, οτι, Τις μου εστι μητηρ και αδελφοι; και εκτεινας την χειρα επι τους μαθητας εφη· Ουτοι εισιν οι αδελφοι μου και η μητηρ και αδελφαι, οι ποιουντες τα θεληματα του πατρος μου.

But again they deny that he was a man, apparently from the word which the savior spoke when it was announced to him: Behold, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, that is: Who is my mother and brothers? And he stretched out his hand over the disciples and said: These who my brothers and mother and sisters, those who are doing the wishes of my father.

From Epiphanius, Panarion 30.16, writing of the Ebionites (de Santos 6; Lagrange 5):

Ου φασκουσι δε εκ θεου πατρος αυτον γεγεννησθαι, αλλα εκτισθαι, ως ενα των αρχαγγελων, μειζονα δε αυτων οντα, αυτον δε κυριευειν και αγγελων και παντων υπο του παντοκρατορος πεποιημενων, και ελθοντα και υφηγησαμενον, ως το παρ αυτοις κατα Εβραιους ευαγγελιον καλουμενον περιεχει, οτι Ηλθον καταλυσαι τας θυσιας, και εαν μη παυσησθε του θυειν, ου παυσεται αφ υμων η οργη.

And they say that he was not engendered from God the father, but created, as one of the archangels, but being greater than they are, and that he is Lord both of angels and of all things made by the creator of all, and that he came also to declare, as the gospel among them called according to the Hebrews has: I came to abolish the sacrifices, and, if you do not cease to sacrifice, the wrath will not cease from you.

From Epiphanius, Panarion 30.22, writings of the Ebionites (de Santos 7; Lagrange 6):

Αυτοι δε αφανισαντες αφ εαυτων την της αληθειας ακολουθιαν ηλλαξαν το ρητον, οπερ εστι πασι φανερον εκ των συνεζευγμενων λεξεων, και εποιησαν τους μαθητας μεν λεγοντας· Που θελεις ετοιμασωμεν σοι το πασχα φαγειν; και αυτον δηθεν λεγοντα· Μη επιθυμια επεθυμησα κρεας τουτο το πασχα φαγειν μεθ υμων;

And they themselves, having removed from themselves the following of the truth, changed the word, which is apparent to all from the words in context, and made the disciples to say: Where do you wish us to prepare the Passover for you to eat? And they made him to clearly say: It is not with desire that I have desired to eat meat, this Passover, with you, is it?
Why don't we just simplify the 'mythicist' or 'historicist' debate into a much simpler question as to whether the gospel originally said that Jesus was an earthly or heavenly stranger? Can there be any objections here?
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Re: Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Post by stephan happy huller »

Adelbert Denaux has an interesting take on the birth narratives of Luke:

Luke's subtle application of the descensus/ascensus imagery to Jesus has implications for his Christology. By putting Jesus' earthly mission within the framework of his katabasis and anabasis, Luke somehow suggests in a discrete way Jesus's divine origin. The deeper meaning of his being a 'stranger on earth' is that he is a 'heavenly stranger', whose birth was a descent from another, divine world, and to which he returned after having fulfilled on earth the mission he had received from his Father. If our presentation of Luke's narrative Christology is correct, it might be possible to suggest that Luke's Christology forms a bridge between the Christology of Mark and that of John, the latter having expounded an explicit descensus/ascensus Christology. http://books.google.com/books?id=uKP-hf ... 22&f=false
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Re: Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Post by neilgodfrey »

I don't see how it matters to the historicity question whether Jesus is portrayed as an entirely mortal human or someone from heaven. Adam, Jonah and Job are portrayed as entirely human, too.

The starting point as I see it is to begin with the Jesus we know: the literary Jesus. My understanding is that most scholars accept that the literary Jesus is a mythical figure ("the Christ of faith").

The question is to account for this literary figure. This is a quite different question from something like, "What history can be gleaned from beneath the text?" That latter question appears to me to guide much of the debate. A literary critical approach won't conclude there was no historical Jesus but it will either establish that the narrative derives from genuine history or make the question irrelevant.
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Re: Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Post by Bernard Muller »

The question is to account for this literary figure. This is a quite different question from something like, "What history can be gleaned from beneath the text?" That latter question appears to me to guide much of the debate. A literary critical approach won't conclude there was no historical Jesus but it will either establish that the narrative derives from genuine history or make the question irrelevant.
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Re: Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Post by stephan happy huller »

I don't know that early Christians could have developed their faith with the bounds of mere 'literary criticism.' Jesus was a figure - whether earthly or heavenly we have yet to determine - who was thought to transform or save the faithful. I don't think this transformation could have taken place within 'literary criticism' alone. The only historical Valentinians we know anything about were 'priests' (Florinus). Priests perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between human and heavenly beings. I don't believe that the gospel ever had a life independent from the sacred rites of the Christian religion.

I think once we stop treating the text as a 'book' we will finally be making some progress. The Pentateuch is the closest literary text in terms of typology. It isn't a 'book.' You aren't suppose to sit on the toilet and 'read' the story.
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Re: Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Post by stephan happy huller »

I think it's so problematic to define the gospel in terms of some 'white' literary genre or classifications (i.e. 'biographical,' 'historical' etc) when everything about the text screams out a specifically Jewish or Samaritan cultural milieu. Once this is established the Pentateuch necessarily becomes the ultimate context for the narrative.

To this end, when you narrow the cultural context for the composition of the gospel you can begin to see how silly tradition Jewish attempts to make sense of the gospel are. You get seemingly endless stuff like this:
Thus the literary shift from unconnected anecdotes about Jesus as a teacher, which resemble so much of the rabbinic material, to composing them together carefully in the genre of an ancient biography is making an enormous christological and theological claim. In the end. rabbinic biography is not possible, because no rabbi is that unique and is only important as he represents the Torah, which continues to hold the central place. To write a biography is replace the Torah by putting a human person in the centre of the stage. The literary genre makes a major theological shift which becomes an explicit christological claim — that Jesus of Nazareth is Torah embodied. http://books.google.com/books?id=lzu-F0 ... 22&f=false
I find it very frustrating at times when we pretend that there are 'all these possibilities' for the literary context to the writing of the gospel. There is really only one - Moses's composition of the Pentateuch. The idea that gospel is a biography of a man doesn't make sense owing to the Jewish context of early Christianity.

The gospel wasn't being developed in a void. Either Christianity was claiming that Jesus was an earthly stranger who deserved worship - something that seems wholly incompatible with the assumed Jewish culture context behind Christianity or Jesus was a god and the gospel narrative was the story of the fulfillment of his heavenly visitation. I don't know why it needs to be more complicated than that - unless white people want to project their own cultural tradition into the gospel. But why?
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Re: Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Post by Bernard Muller »

Either Christianity was claiming that Jesus was an earthly stranger who deserved worship - something that seems wholly incompatible with the assumed Jewish culture context behind Christianity
If Jesus was later worshipped, that was way after his crucifixion, and because then, for Gentiles (forget here about Jewish culture), he was presented as the Christ/Son_of_God, second or equal to the Father and the Savior of Christians by the Sacrifice.
How did a simple uneducated Galilean with a short local public life come to start all that:
http://historical-jesus.sosblogs.com/Hi ... b1-p50.htm
What happened after the crucifixion, how and why he was deified, is explained here:
http://historical-jesus.info/hjes3x.html
or Jesus was a god and the gospel narrative was the story of the fulfillment of his heavenly visitation.
Paul, 'Hebrews', the gospels, Philo of Alexandria's writings made him look like that: with post-existence (forever), then with pre-existence (from the beginning of time or before), making Jesus an eternal god with a brief visit on earth (which was then greatly embellished and added up with a lot of fiction).

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Re: Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Post by stephan happy huller »

But what evidence is there that the gospel existed as a literary text independent of Jesus being worshipped as a god? It is like claiming that the Torah existed as a 'historical text' or a document 'preserving' the escape from Egypt. Nonsense.
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Re: Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Post by outhouse »

neilgodfrey wrote:
The starting point as I see it is to begin with the Jesus we know: the literary Jesus. My understanding is that most scholars accept that the literary Jesus is a mythical figure ("the Christ of faith").

The question is to account for this literary figure. This is a quite different question from something like, "What history can be gleaned from beneath the text?" That latter question appears to me to guide much of the debate. A literary critical approach won't conclude there was no historical Jesus but it will either establish that the narrative derives from genuine history or make the question irrelevant.
Exactly..

Stephan asked "an earthly or heavenly stranger?"

And the answer is both regardless of historicity.
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Re: Earthly Stranger vs Heavenly Stranger

Post by outhouse »

stephan happy huller wrote:But what evidence is there that the gospel existed as a literary text independent of Jesus being worshipped as a god? It is like claiming that the Torah existed as a 'historical text' or a document 'preserving' the escape from Egypt. Nonsense.

Would you deny that early on, these primitive people did not have different views on Jesus divinity from being fully human to fully god and every variation in between before orthodoxy?
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