Epiphanius on the Ebionites

[Ben C. Smith]

So people like yourself are so enlightened that your understanding of things can't be based on unconscious biases or an acceptance of things established by deceit centuries ago. Must be nice not to have to question your presuppositions.

I hope you can get things sorted out so that you can return to your usual form.

[Secret Alias]

I'd figure you'd ignore me. No problem. I still respect your attention to detail.

[Ben C. Smith]

I'd figure you'd ignore me. No problem. I still respect your attention to detail.

Hey, I want to engage, but you are speaking to a completely different issue than I am, yet somehow not realizing it. It is probably my fault, however, since the exchange is taking place on a thread which is explicitly about patristic testimony to or about Jewish Christianity, whereas what I am addressing predates that whole scenario. I apologize for taking up space on your thread.

[Secret Alias]

I see so the question of Epiphanius on the Ebionites has nothing to do with Irenaeus's reliability as a witness because ... we want there to be Ebionites? Well under those parameters by all means continue to assume that there were Ebionites. Let's talk about what clothes they might have worn or imagine what some of their funny habits were. I apologize for getting in the way of a collective fantasizing exercise.

[Secret Alias]

If Irenaeus was unreliable and contemptible for his use of Papias, Hegesippus and other sources isn't it likely that he was consistently unreliable and contemptible in his use of source material? Or is that too much of an assumption because it gets in the way of our ability to write bad fiction?

[Secret Alias]

And this is my issue with scholarly 'controversy' regarding Secret Mark which - along with Eusebius - lays out the case for a/the development of Christianity from Alexandrian Judaism. It's not like normative scholarship, normative texts are pristine and Secret Mark is 'putative.' The Pastorals defined Paul as anti-gnostic in antiquity and they are forgeries. Of course we act as if we know that the Pastorals aren't really Pauline. But the damage is already done. We've accepted their premise - i.e. Paul was anti-gnostic. Do you think Irenaeus cares if we don't accept his forgeries as long as we continue define Paul according to his dictates? He'd take that compromise surely.

The canon is entirely built with forgeries as building blocks. The texts are rife with interpolations. And that doesn't matter, that didn't affect the way we define core concepts like 'Jewish Christianity'? Come on. The Patristic material have layers of rewriting and interpolation. It isn't only with Christianity but Jewish and Samaritan writings are built in the same sludge. But we like certain types of sludge because they are familiar. Sort of like the difference between handling our own underwear in the wash and those of strangers.

So what's fair in my mind is to say - ok, Irenaeus (through his canon, his texts and his explicit testimony) says X, Clement says Y. Which is a better model for the origins of Christianity? That's fair. That prompts a discussion. Whereas what you do is pretend - 'our texts' (= Irenaeus) say X and there is no other dissenting views or they don't amount to much so they can be ignored. That's bullshit. All you've done is just limit the choices down to Irenaeus and call 'Irenaeus' 'the texts' or 'our texts' or 'our tradition' like it fell from the sky naturally without human intermediaries or without an explicit purpose in mind - i.e. to establish Chrsitianity as something other than what it really was - a mystery religion designed to curb lustful impulses thereby fulfilling the Law (defined as the ten commandments) and in particular its penultimate commandment.

In that case sure posit the 'primitive Church' make a mystery religion a later development 'alienated' in spirit from the true Church. Sure. But what you don't recognize is that you've just bought into Irenaeus's telos, his purpose, by buying into his particular arrangements of texts.

[John2]

What if the scrolls are mostly Sadducean (which I accept)?

The DSS believe in the resurrection of the dead and the Sadducees did not.


Josephus Ant. 18.1.4:

But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies.

Mk. 12:18:

Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question.

M. Ber. 9:5:

All the conclusions of blessings that were in the Temple they would say, "forever [lit. as long as the world is]." When the sectarians perverted their ways and said that there was only one world, they decreed that they should say, "forever and ever [lit. from the end of the world to the end of the world]."

One of the central debates between the Sadducees and the Pharisees was over the concept of the next world, the “olam haba.” This was an important doctrine for the Pharisees, one that the Sadducees denied. In earlier times blessings in the Temple would contain the word, “leolam,” usually translated as “forever” but here understood as “for as long as the world has existed.” The Sadducees used this blessing as evidence that there is only one world. The blessing makes reference to one world and hence there is only one world. Therefore the Pharisees decreed that the blessing should read, “forever and ever(min haolom vead haolam)” which could also be translated as “for this world and for the next world.”


http://learn.conservativeyeshiva.org/be ... hnah-five/

4Q521:

For He will heal the wounded, and revive the dead and bring good news to the poor.

The Damascus Document also appears to believe in the resurrection of the dead, with the "glory of Adam" arguably meaning the state of Adam before death existed (as noted on page 91 of All the Glory of Adam, for example: "Throughout the late second Temple period, in fact, we encounter the view that (before the Fall) Adam (and Eve) possessed a divine or angelic Glory"):

But God, in His wonderful mysteries, forgave them their sin and pardoned their wickedness; and He built them a sure house in Israel whose like has never existed from former times till now. Those who hold fast to it are destined to live for ever and all the glory of Adam shall be theirs.

And the existence of Enoch and Jubilees and the relatively high number of copies of Daniel and Daniel-related writings (which refer to resurrection) among the DSS favors the idea that whoever wrote and collected them were not Sadducees.

[John2]

The Qumran community accepted sacrifices. Christian did not. There is a suggestion that Alexandrian Judaism already adopted gave up sacrifices.

Jesus is pro-sacrifice in Mt. 5:23-24 (in keeping with his general pro-Torah position):

Therefore if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

[Secret Alias]

Jesus is pro-sacrifice in Mt. 5:23-24 (in keeping with his general pro-Torah position):

So your Ebionites believed ... that temple sacrifice was acceptable? Oh I forgot. We're not trying to honestly make sense of the past. We're just trying to paste together whatever works to advance a proposition regardless of its logical consistency. The Ebionites are whatever the Church Fathers say the Ebionites are until there is a disagreement with the DSS and then we ignore the Church Fathers. Because it's all about rescuing Eisenman's hypothesis. Sure. Know the answer and the mold the question to fit the answer. Bowing before the altar of Giuseppe

[Secret Alias]

The DSS believe in the resurrection of the dead and the Sadducees did not.

Really? The Sadducees are what their enemies say they are because ... it's convenient to further a proposition. Oh, I am learning. So by the time the gospel said the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead, there were still Sadducees? Nonsense. The Samaritans believe in the resurrection of the dead and in most other respects the Sadducees agree with the Samaritans. But not here ...