Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

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Giuseppe
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Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

Post by Giuseppe »

If the Serpent of Genesis is seen as a positive figure (as he was really among some Gnostic sects), then the abandonment of the old skin by the Serpent was seen as the his more supreme Revelation.

The young man in Secret Mark has to abandon the "linen cloth" before Jesus the Serpent (and not before who arrested Jesus in Gethsemani), presumably to become his perfect image (so it is assumed that Jesus is already naked, without the his old skin, before the young):

"And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan."

Note also the function of the woman. She is judaizing insofar she believes (wrongly):
1) that Jesus is davidic
2) that his brother, new Adam, is died in virtue of the his original sin.

So Jesus may be hungry against her.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

Post by Giuseppe »

By revealing their status of nakedness, the snake is the first to be aware of its own nudity, the first to “cover up” through the manipulation of language, and the first to be physically stripped of its outer layer. According to midrash (PRE 14), God’s curse not only strips the snake of its limbs but of its skin as well.

He lopped off the snake’s limbs, and commanded that it (=the snake) shed its skin.

So the reader of GMark knows that, if the young naked is only going to be naked, Jesus was already naked in that moment, as revealing the his true serpentine identity.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

Post by Giuseppe »

This raises a new light about the abandonment of the linen cloth by the young naked in the Gethsemani. If "becoming naked" means to reveal himself as adorer of the Serpent before someone, and if that someone were the mere guards of the high priest (in turn allegory of the Prince of this World: the Jewish demiurge), then the young naked is simply revealing the secret (="serpentine") nature of the his teacher.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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rakovsky
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Re: Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

Post by rakovsky »

Yeah... if Secret Mark could be proven authentic, it would be more helpful to use it to make broader theories like this.
Instead, it's really more like making theories about how Christianity would look if Secret Mark was legitimate, which at least to me and others like Ben Smith, Robert Price, and Bart Ehrman is not the case yet....

Right now I am reading Peter Jeffrey's The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled.

But speculation would work for me because I think that Secret Mark has gnostic secret rituals in mind, since g. it references the Carpocratians.

I think a better place to look for links between Christianity and gnosticism would better be found in the canonical NT because the arguments would be stronger as the texts are already agreed on. Still, it looks like there was some kind of falling out between the disciples and the gnostics like Cerinthus and Simon Magus, even if the ideas can be found in the NT sometimes, like being "wily as serpeants" and being given the power to trample serpeants, and Jesus being like the snake raised on a staff in the desert by Moses.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
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arnoldo
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Re: Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

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arnoldo
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Re: Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

Post by arnoldo »

This source also indicates there was an alleged distortion to this writing.
(Pseudo-)Clement’s letter to Theodore

Oden (2011a:198–199) concludes, against the bulk of scholars (like Jay 2008:573–597; Watson 2010:128–170; Carlson 2005, and many others) and myself, that Clement wrote this letter (cf. also Brown 2008:535–572; Viklund & Paananen 2013:235–247). Nonetheless, the letter contains very valuable information about Mark. Folio I (Recto 15–25) states:

As for Mark, then, during Peter’s stay in Rome he wrote an account of the Lord’s doings, not, however, declaring all of them, not yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former books the things suitable in whatever makes for progress toward knowledge. Thus he composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected. (cf. Oden 2011a:201–202)

Oden elaborated much on the last part of the quote referring to the secret gospel of Mark (Oden 2011a:205–207) and concluded that in the end there were three versions of Mark: A canonical Mark, a spiritual Mark, and a Carpocratian distortion of the spiritual Mark (Oden 2011a:207).
https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3400/8579

Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

Post by Giuseppe »

In the mind of an apologist, usually who distorted is always late and false. It doesn't come in their mind the contrary idea: that who distorted something was really saving the older "truth".
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

Post by Giuseppe »

So Philo gives evidence that Adam was clothed, after the Fall, by garments of skins created by the Creator:

Why God made garments of skins for Adam and his wife, and clothed them? (#Ge 3:21). Perhaps some one may laugh at the expressions here used, considering the small value of the garments thus made, as if they were not at all worthy of the labour of a Creator of such dignity and greatness; but a man who has a proper appreciation of wisdom and virtue will rightly and deservedly look upon this work as one very suitable for a God, that, namely, of teaching wisdom to those who were before labouring to no purpose; and who, having but little anxiety about procuring useful things, being seized with an insane desire for miserable honours, have given themselves up as slaves to convenience, looking upon the study of wisdom and virtue with detestation, and being in love with splendour of life and skill in mean and handicraft arts, which is in no way connected with a virtuous man. And these unhappy men do not know that a frugality, which is in need of nothing, becomes, as it were, a relation and neighbour to man, but that luxurious splendour is banished to a distance as an enemy; therefore the garment made of skins, if one should come to a correct judgment, deserves to be looked upon as a more noble possession than a purple robe embroidered with various colours. Therefore this is the literal meaning of the text; but if we look to the real meaning, then the garment of skins is a figurative expression for the natural skin, that is to say, our body; for God, when first of all he made the intellect, called it Adam; after that he created the outward sense, to which he gave the name of Life. In the third place, he of necessity also made a body, calling that by a figurative expression, a garment of skins; for it was fitting that the intellect and the outward sense should be clothed in a body as in a garment of skins; that the creature itself might first of all appear worthy of divine virtue; since by what power can the formation of the human body be put together more excellently, and in a more becoming manner, than by God? on which account he did put it together, and at the same time he clothed it; when some prepare articles of human clothing and others put them on; but this natural clothing, contemporary with the man himself, namely, the body, belonged to the same Being both to make and to clothe the man in after it was made.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book41.html

Before the (later) Judaizing counter-exegesis, Adam and Eve became aware that they were naked thorugh eating the fruit. According to Judaizing counter-exegesis, they became naked.
If the Serpent is a positive figure and the Creator is an evil demiurge, then it becomes clear that being clothed by demiurgical skins is equivalent to be in a state of ignorance and of real Fall. By going to be naked, the young in Secret Mark, is imitating the nakedness of the Serpent, symbol of immortality:

(33) Why did the serpent accost the woman, and not the man? (#Ge 3:2). The serpent, having formed his estimate of virtue, devised a treacherous stratagem against them, for the sake of bringing mortality on them. But the woman was more accustomed to be deceived than the man. For his counsels as well as his body are of a masculine sort, and competent to disentangle the notions of seduction; but the mind of the woman is more effeminate, so that through her softness she easily yields and is easily caught by the persuasions of falsehood, which imitate the resemblance of truth. Since therefore, in his old age, the Serpent {the ancients believed that the serpent became young again by casting his skin. Ovid says--Anguibus exuitur tenui cum pelle vetustas.} strips himself of his scales from the top of his head to his tail, he, by his nakedness, reproaches man because he has exchanged death for immortality. His nature is renewed by the beast, and made to resemble every time. The woman, when she sees this, is deceived; when she ought rather to have looked upon him as an example, who, while showing his ingenuity towards her, was full of devices, but she was led to desire to acquire a life which should be free from old age, and from all decay.


The young naked has to be a woman insofar he, just as Eve, has to accost again the Serpent and to desire his immortality/nakedness.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

Post by Secret Alias »

How can you make pronouncements that something as basic as nudity can only be interpreted one way. You know that in some cultures it's an insult to show the palm of your hand to people. In others it's a greeting. You make everything so simple - like you are God and we are your audience. Could be a sign of mental illness.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus as the Serpent of Genesis in Secret Mark?

Post by Giuseppe »

No wonder you are so offensive and misinterpreting about the my views, insofar you are a (infamous) modern judaizer of old de-ethnicizers/de-judaizers.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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