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Re: The crucifixion as form of death derived from the baptism of the god Jesus

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 6:36 pm
by MrMacSon
davidmartin wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:14 am
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
A good example of Paul's confusing theology which i don't think even he understood.
At a fundamental level it makes no sense at all, none. He argues for opposite things at the same time.
Being 'baptised into death' is very similar to what was part of Egyptian [mystery] religions of the time ...

... member nightshadetwine posts about such things
Marcion's edits were probably just to remove the confusion!
If Marcion did any editing ...

Re: The crucifixion as form of death derived from the baptism of the god Jesus

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 6:43 pm
by MrMacSon
Joseph D. L. wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:29 pm Marcion obviously was not a shipwright in the literal sense. He was the new Noah; the church, the new Ark. Even the cross can be seen as the mast of this ship. (Early church writers also make comparisons between the cross and ship-masts.) So it is Marcion who man's the helm of this church amidst the deluge of a new baptism.
Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, in ‘The Jesus of Mark and the Sea of Galilee’, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 103, No. 3 (Sept 1984), pp. 363-377, noted, -

The significance of the ‘sea’ [of Galilee] in the Marcan Gospel is indicated by its opposition to the land … land versus sea implicitly underlies the narrative as a whole … Jesus calls his first disciples while “passing along by the Sea of Galilee” (1.16). Jesus often teaches the crowds on the land “beside the sea” (2:13; 3:7; 4:1; 5:21). Physically the seas is a barrier between the land of Galilee and the foreign lands on its eastern shores, but Jesus easily crosses the barrier … At certain points in Mark opposition of land and sea comes to explicit expression (4:1, Jesus is on the sea, the crowd is on the land).

She argued the land is normally a secure environment of human beings, as opposed to the sea which is a temporary place of movement for humans and also a place that threatens and is capable of destruction. The land is the realm of promise. Genesis and Exodus stories come into play.

Malbon noted various passages show Jesus overcoming the sea: “in mediating the opposition of land and sea, Jesus manifests the power of God.”


Perhaps Marcion was given a similar though lesser status when he was at the height of his popularity?


An essay, Galilee and Galileans in St Mark’s Gospel, by G.H Boobyer, addresses the significance and roles of the ‘Sea of Galilee’ and of Galilee per se.

Re: The crucifixion as form of death derived from the baptism of the god Jesus

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:47 pm
by Joseph D. L.
MrMacSon wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 6:30 pm That's an interesting proposition. Has anyone else proposed it or taken it up?
Not that I'm aware, although I do remember reading someone who believed Paul's letters show an influence of the Noahide Laws.

Can you provide the passages (or at least the names and works of those early church writers)?
Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch. 55, Symbolism of the Cross:

For consider all the things in the world, whether without this form they could be administered or have any community. For the sea is not traversed except that trophy which is called a sail abide safe in the ship.

Tertullian in An Answer to the Jews:

Of course no one-horned rhinoceros was there pointed to, nor any two-horned minotaur. But Christ was therein signified: bull, by reason of each of His two characters — to some fierce, as Judge; to others gentle, as Saviour; whose horns were to be the extremities of the cross. For even in a ship's yard — which is part of a cross— this is the name by which the extremities are called; while the central pole of the mast is a unicorn. By this power, in fact, of the cross, and in this manner horned, He does now, on the one hand, toss universal nations through faith, wafting them away from earth to heaven; and will one day, on the other, toss them through judgment, casting them down from heaven to earth.

Minicius Feliz, Octavius, ch. 29:

Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses glided and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it. We assuredly see the sign of a cross, naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up, it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with hands outstretched. Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it.

Hippolytus, The Antichrist, ch. 59,:

But we who hope for the Son of God are persecuted and trodden down by those unbelievers. For the wings of the vessels are the churches; and the sea is the world, in which the Church is set, like a ship tossed in the deep, but not destroyed; for she has with her the skilled Pilot, Christ. And she bears in her midst also the trophy (which is erected) over death; for she carries with her the cross of the Lord. For her prow is the east, and her stern is the west, and her hold is the south, and her tillers are the two Testaments; and the ropes that stretch around her are the love of Christ, which binds the Church; and the net which she bears with her is the layer of the regeneration which renews the believing, whence too are these glories. As the wind the Spirit from heaven is present, by whom those who believe are sealed: she has also anchors of iron accompanying her, viz., the holy commandments of Christ Himself, which are strong as iron. She has also mariners on the right and on the left, assessors like the holy angels, by whom the Church is always governed and defended. The ladder in her leading up to the sailyard is an emblem of the passion of Christ, which brings the faithful to the ascent of heaven. And the top-sails aloft upon the yard are the company of prophets, martyrs, and apostles, who have entered into their rest in the kingdom of Christ.

What's more, the ship was used in the early church as a symbol for the church itself.

Image

The nautical imagery around the church is prevalent in these writings. It just seems conspicuous to me that the arch-heretic par excellence, Marcion, should be viewed as a mariner with such blatant symbolism.

Joseph D. L. wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:29 pm
... There was no such things as gentile Christianity, or "judiaized" Christianity. To say so shows an unabashed ignorance of the history and development of Judaism*.
* Did you mean Judaism? or Christianity? (I doubt whether there were many clear divisions as well, if at all).
No, I meant that the idea that Christianity was overtime infused with Jewishness is fallacious, and why Giuseppe should be looked at as a charlatan. Christianity was but another phase--"modernized", if you will, but still organic--strand of Judaism.

Re: The crucifixion as form of death derived from the baptism of the god Jesus

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:53 pm
by Joseph D. L.
davidmartin wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:14 am
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
A good example of Paul's confusing theology which i don't think even he understood
At a fundamental level it makes no sense at all, none. He argues for opposite things at the same time
to this day i don't know what the heck he is going on about, but Jesus actually makes sense
Marcion's edits were probably just to remove the confusion!
Paul's theology isn't that confusing. What makes it seem confusing is that he writes in a way that the reader is already aware of what he is saying and so doesn't feel the need to elaborate further. He's writing to members of an extent and contemporaneous church, not people two thousand years down the road.

I'm also taking for granted that Marcion and Paul are the same individual. Perhaps to my own discredit.

Re: The crucifixion as form of death derived from the baptism of the god Jesus

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:01 am
by Joseph D. L.
MrMacSon wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 6:43 pm
Joseph D. L. wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:29 pm Marcion obviously was not a shipwright in the literal sense. He was the new Noah; the church, the new Ark. Even the cross can be seen as the mast of this ship. (Early church writers also make comparisons between the cross and ship-masts.) So it is Marcion who man's the helm of this church amidst the deluge of a new baptism.
Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, in ‘The Jesus of Mark and the Sea of Galilee’, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 103, No. 3 (Sept 1984), pp. 363-377, noted, -

The significance of the ‘sea’ [of Galilee] in the Marcan Gospel is indicated by its opposition to the land … land versus sea implicitly underlies the narrative as a whole … Jesus calls his first disciples while “passing along by the Sea of Galilee” (1.16). Jesus often teaches the crowds on the land “beside the sea” (2:13; 3:7; 4:1; 5:21). Physically the seas is a barrier between the land of Galilee and the foreign lands on its eastern shores, but Jesus easily crosses the barrier … At certain points in Mark opposition of land and sea comes to explicit expression (4:1, Jesus is on the sea, the crowd is on the land).

She argued the land is normally a secure environment of human beings, as opposed to the sea which is a temporary place of movement for humans and also a place that threatens and is capable of destruction. The land is the realm of promise. Genesis and Exodus stories come into play.

Malbon noted various passages show Jesus overcoming the sea: “in mediating the opposition of land and sea, Jesus manifests the power of God.”


Perhaps Marcion was given a similar though lesser status when he was at the height of his popularity?


An essay, Galilee and Galileans in St Mark’s Gospel, by G.H Boobyer, addresses the significance and roles the ‘Sea of Galilee’ and Galilee per se.
I'm definitely in favour of this interpretation. Of course it's for self-serving reasons, because it really props up my own theories.

The sea was a symbol for the primordial waters that preceded creation (see, for example, Genesis 1:2, as well as Nun, the Egyptian primordial waters), so I think it's only natural to see in the Galilee episode a comparison to that.

Re: The crucifixion as form of death derived from the baptism of the god Jesus

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 1:41 am
by MrMacSon
MrMacSon wrote:
Joseph D. L. wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:29 pm Even the cross can be seen as the mast of this ship. (Early church writers also make comparisons between the cross and ship-masts.)
Can you provide the passages (or at least the names and works of those early church writers)?
Joseph D. L. wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:47 pm
Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch. 55, Symbolism of the Cross:

For consider all the things in the world, whether without this form they could be administered or have any community. For the sea is not traversed except that trophy which is called a sail abide safe in the ship.


Tertullian in An Answer to the Jews:

Of course no one-horned rhinoceros was there pointed to, nor any two-horned minotaur. But Christ was therein signified: bull, by reason of each of His two characters — to some fierce, as Judge; to others gentle, as Saviour; whose horns were to be the extremities of the cross. For even in a ship's yard — which is part of a cross— this is the name by which the extremities are called; while the central pole of the mast is a unicorn. By this power, in fact, of the cross, and in this manner horned, He does now, on the one hand, toss universal nations through faith, wafting them away from earth to heaven; and will one day, on the other, toss them through judgment, casting them down from heaven to earth.


Minicius Feliz, Octavius, ch. 29:

Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses glided and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it. We assuredly see the sign of a cross, naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up, it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with hands outstretched. Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it.

Hippolytus, The Antichrist, ch. 59,:

But we who hope for the Son of God are persecuted and trodden down by those unbelievers. For the wings of the vessels are the churches; and the sea is the world, in which the Church is set, like a ship tossed in the deep, but not destroyed; for she has with her the skilled Pilot, Christ. And she bears in her midst also the trophy (which is erected) over death; for she carries with her the cross of the Lord. For her prow is the east, and her stern is the west, and her hold is the south, and her tillers are the two Testaments; and the ropes that stretch around her are the love of Christ, which binds the Church; and the net which she bears with her is the layer of the regeneration which renews the believing, whence too are these glories. As the wind the Spirit from heaven is present, by whom those who believe are sealed: she has also anchors of iron accompanying her, viz., the holy commandments of Christ Himself, which are strong as iron. She has also mariners on the right and on the left, assessors like the holy angels, by whom the Church is always governed and defended. The ladder in her leading up to the sailyard is an emblem of the passion of Christ, which brings the faithful to the ascent of heaven. And the top-sails aloft upon the yard are the company of prophets, martyrs, and apostles, who have entered into their rest in the kingdom of Christ.

What's more, the ship was used in the early church as a symbol for the church itself.

Image

The nautical imagery around the church is prevalent in these writings. It just seems conspicuous to me that the arch-heretic par excellence, Marcion, should be viewed as a mariner with such blatant symbolism.
Cheers!

Joseph D. L. wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:47 pm ... the idea that Christianity was overtime infused with Jewishness is fallacious ... Christianity was but another phase--"modernized", if you will, but still organic--strand of Judaism.
I wonder if Christianity was the result of tension in and around a form of Gnosticism (that had arisen from Judaism and maybe a mystery religion which had attracted other Gentile followers) that had come under influence or pressure from more orthodox Jews [in the early to mid 2nd century].

I wonder if Tertuallian (& Irenaeus & others) were reflecting the sidelining of such tensions (or sidelining of the remnants of such tensions), eg. -

Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews:

... But Christ was therein signified: bull, by reason of each of His two characters — to some fierce, as Judge; to others gentle, as Saviour ...

The bull was a significant symbol of Egyptian mystery religions (and the reference to two characters may suggest a Gnostic influence or even a strong underlying tenet)

Re: The crucifixion as form of death derived from the baptism of the god Jesus

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:01 am
by Joseph D. L.
MrMacSon wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 1:41 am I wonder if Christianity was the result of tension in and around a form of Gnosticism (that had arisen from Judaism and maybe a mystery religion which had attracted other Gentile followers) that had come under influence or pressure from more orthodox Jews [in the early to mid 2nd century].
I think it was more of a homogeneous development. I don't see Christianity as being anything other than a Jewish secterian practice. The problem is that our views of Judaism is so restricted to this idea that Jews were always steadfast in refusing assimilation into other cultures, when even in the Old Testament we know that they practiced and partook in other religions numerous times.
I wonder if Tertuallian (& Irenaeus & others) were reflecting the sidelining of such tensions (or sidelining of the remnants of such tensions), eg. -

Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews:

... But Christ was therein signified: bull, by reason of each of His two characters — to some fierce, as Judge; to others gentle, as Saviour ...

The bull was a significant symbol of Egyptian mystery religions (and the reference to two characters may suggest a Gnostic influence or even a strong underlying tenet)
The bull was a near universal symbol for strength, fertility and life. The bull was a symbol for YHWH according the Torah.

I think Tertullian is just comparing two different sect's thoughts about Christ. But who can say?

Re: The crucifixion as form of death derived from the baptism of the god Jesus

Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 5:01 am
by Joseph D. L.
Odysseus bound to the ship-mast:

Image

Image

Image

Re: The crucifixion as form of death derived from the baptism of the god Jesus

Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 5:24 am
by Joseph D. L.
Consider this from Tertullian (Against Marcion, bk 1, ch. 18):

For perhaps he was hindered hitherto by his leading star, or some weird malignants, or Saturn in quadrature, or Mars at the trine. The Marcionites are very strongly addicted to astrology; nor do they blush to get their livelihood by help of the very stars which were made by the Creator (whom they depreciate).

According to Tertullian, the Marcionites did practice astrology and looked to the stars for their prophecies. This observance is linked to a reading of Genesis 1:14-15:

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.”

While the practice of divining the stars was seen as heretical by mainstream Jews (and Christians apparently), the Marcionites made full use of it as ordained in the first chapter of Genesis.

To bring this full circle, the ship's mast is actually a vital navigational tool. At night, when the winds had died down, and against the dark backdrop of the night sky be-speckled with stars, the mast would indicate which direction the ship was going by juxtaposing the stars on either side. (As a child I always wondered why the helm was located behind the mast. I always thought that it would be in the way. But it was actually very important to have the helm behind the mast).

So this mast--this cross--was the key to steering the ship--the church--on this deluge.

The nautical symbolism is just blatant. Which is why calling Marcion a mariner is pretty telling.

Re: The crucifixion as form of death derived from the baptism of the god Jesus

Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 5:31 am
by Joseph D. L.
What's more, Odysseus was seen as an allegory for the soul's journey through the stages of life and death according to Prophyry, and Homer was seen by some ancient writers as being the conductor of a mystery school and looked upon his works with religious meaning.