From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

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Joseph D. L.
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From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

Post by Joseph D. L. »

When Hadrian became emperor, one of his acts of goodwill towards Jews was to rebuild the Temple. This is verified in the Genesis Rabbah, ch. 64:

... In the days of R. Yehoshua ben Chananiah the evil kingdom (Rome) decreed to rebuild the Temple. Papos and Lulianos (two brothers who were later martyred in Lod) set up tables from Akko to Antioch and supplied the pilgrims from the diaspora with silver, gold and all of their needs. Some Kuthites went [to the emperor] and said, "The king should know that if this rebellious city is built and its walls fortified, 'they will not pay tribute, poll-tax, or land-tax.'" He said to them, "What should I do, I have already made the decree?" They said to him, "Send to say to them [that] they either change the place of the Temple or add or remove five ells from it and they will recant on their own." And all of the [Jewish] people was gathered in Beit Rimon. When the king's edict arrived, they began to cry. They sought to rebel against the king. [The sages] said, "Let a wise man go up to quiet the assembled." They said, "Let R. Yehoshua ben Chananiah go up, as he is learned in the Torah." R. Yehoshua ben Chananiah went up and expounded, "A lion was devouring prey [and] a bone got stuck in its throat. It said, 'I will give a reward to anyone who comes and removes it.' An Egyptian heron with a long beak put his beak into the mouth of the lion and extracted the bone. It said to the lion, 'Give me my reward.' The lion said to it, 'Go and praise yourself, "I went into the mouth of the lion in peace and I came out in peace" - and there is no greater reward than that.' So too, it is enough for us that we entered into this nation in peace and came out in peace"...

Hadrian's offer was rebuffed by the Jews who viewed this decree as a sacrilegious. As it goes, however, Hadrian still had his city built, a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus errected, issued a ban on circumsicion, and placed a heavy tax on Jews in Palestine.

This then brings us to the Epistle of Barnabas:

I will also speak with you concerning the Temple, and show how the wretched men erred by putting their hope on the building, and not on the God who made them, and is the true house of God. For they consecrated him in the Temple almost like the heathen. But learn how the Lord speaks, in bringing it to naught, "Who has measured the heaven with a span, or the earth with his outstretched hand? Have not I? saith the Lord. Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool, what house will ye build for me, or what is the place of my rest?" You know that their hope was vain. Furthermore he says again, "Lo, they who destroyed this temple shall themselves build it." That is happening now. For owing to the war it was destroyed by the enemy; at present even the servants of the enemy will build it up again.

Some interpret this passage as an anachronism about the building of the second Temple. However, the text makes it clear that the ones who destroyed the Temple are the ones who shall rebuild it. The Babylonians destroyed the Temple, while the Persians allowed the Jews to rebuild it. So it cannot have been about the second Temple. Still others assume that the passage is referring to a "spiritual Temple," and while the Epistle does speak about such a Temple throughout, I believe that this is acknowledging the construction of a real, physical Temple. The context assumes such a reading.

And here we have a definitive date range for the Epistle, as it was the Romans who destroyed it during the war of 70 ad, and now it is Hadrian, a Roman emperor, who shall rebuild it. "Lo, they who destroyed this temple shall themselves build it". This places the Epistle ca. 125 ad.

But could the Epistle of Barnabas be Marcionite? There are circumstantial reasons to assume so. It's emphasis that the rites, laws and customs of the Jews have been made obsolete by Jesus Christ (so named in the Epistle) is Marcionite, and how it characterizes the Jews as wretched and as no better than the heathens is also a Marcionite stereotype. It also, like Paul, Marcion's favourite Apostle[*], relies on Jewish prophecy and scripture to clarify it's meaning that this was divinely orchestrated by God, for both Jews and Gentiles alike. But what does it mean by God?

In discussing the rite of baptism issued by Christ, the Epistle writes,

"And again the Prophet says, 'I will go before you and I will make mountains level, and I will break gates of brass, and I will shatter bars of iron, and I will give thee treasures of darkness, secret, invisible, that they may know that I am the Lord God.'"

The treasures spoken of is strongly suggestive of the true God of Marcion, a god who is removed, absent, remote, secretive, and invisible. That the author is quoting a passage about the figure of Cyrus is all the more conspicuous, as it was Cyrus who was anointed by YHWH and who allowed the Jews to return to their homeland.[**] Everything in the Epistle indicates that it is the god of the Jews who he is invoking.

There is nothing at all strange or enigmatic about this. Jewish scriptures, time and again, states how the Jews are a wicked people when they reject their god, and such an indictment in the Epistle is in keeping with that. Lest a certain someone claims that Marcion and the Epsitle reject Judaism and YHWH respectively, the argument is disproved on the outset.

* It is my opinion that Paul and Marcion are in fact the same individual.

** It is possible though not at all absolutely provable that the writer of the Epistle of Barnabas is comparing Hadrian to Cyrus. Hadrian was also given the title of κύριος, and the author would have been acutely aware of the connection as κύριος was a title for YHWH as well.
Last edited by Joseph D. L. on Sat Feb 15, 2020 9:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

Post by Secret Alias »

The rabbinic tradition says Nero was a proselyte
“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
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

Post by Joseph D. L. »

And Yohanna ben Zakai believed Vespassian to be messiah. So anyone saying that Jews would not do such a thing is baseless.

Then again, everything he says is baseless.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

Post by Joseph D. L. »


Understand, then, you children of gladness, that the good Lord has foreshown all things to us, that we might know to whom we ought for everything to render thanksgiving and praise. If therefore the Son of God, who is Lord [of all things], and who will judge the living and the dead, suffered, that His stroke might give us life, let us believe that the Son of God could not have suffered except for our sakes. Moreover, when fixed to the cross, He had given Him to drink vinegar and gall. Hearken how the priests of the people gave previous indications of this. His commandment having been written, the Lord enjoined, that whosoever did not keep the fast should be put to death, because He also Himself was to offer in sacrifice for our sins the vessel of the Spirit, in order that the type established in Isaac when he was offered upon the altar might be fully accomplished. What, then, says He in the prophet? And let them eat of the goat which is offered, with fasting, for all their sins. Attend carefully: And let all the priests alone eat the inwards, unwashed with vinegar. Wherefore? Because to me, who am to offer my flesh for the sins of my new people, you are to give gall with vinegar to drink: eat alone, while the people fast and mourn in sackcloth and ashes. [These things were done] that He might show that it was necessary for Him to suffer for them. How, then, ran the commandment? Give your attention. Take two goats of goodly aspect, and similar to each other, and offer them. And let the priest take one as a burnt-offering for sins. And what should they do with the other? Accursed, says He, is the one. Mark how the type of Jesus now comes out. And all of you spit upon it, and pierce it, and encircle its head with scarlet wool, and thus let it be driven into the wilderness. And when all this has been done, he who bears the goat brings it into the desert, and takes the wool off from it, and places that upon a shrub which is called Rachia, of which also we are accustomed to eat the fruits when we find them in the field. Of this kind of shrub alone the fruits are sweet. Why then, again, is this? Give good heed. [You see] one upon the altar, and the other accursed; and why [do you behold] the one that is accursed crowned? Because they shall see Him then in that day having a scarlet robe about his body down to his feet; and they shall say, Is not this He whom we once despised, and pierced, and mocked, and crucified? Truly this is He who then declared Himself to be the Son of God. For how like is He to Him! With a view to this, [He required] the goats to be of goodly aspect, and similar, that, when they see Him then coming, they may be amazed by the likeness of the goat. Behold, then, the type of Jesus who was to suffer. But why is it that they place the wool in the midst of thorns? It is a type of Jesus set before the view of the Church. [They place the wool among thorns], that any one who wishes to bear it away may find it necessary to suffer much, because the thorn is formidable, and thus obtain it only as the result of suffering. Thus also, says He, Those who wish to behold Me, and lay hold of My kingdom, must through tribulation and suffering obtain Me.

Here we have one-hundred percent confirmation that the Barabbas episode WAS based upon the scapegoat, and that it WAS about the transmigration of the Christ-spirit.

He-who-shall-not-be-named is dead wrong.
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Re: From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

Post by Giuseppe »

Curiously, Stuart and dr Detering said somewhere that Barnabas was added to Gal 2 in company of Paul to debase the original uniqueness (and relative MARCIONITE greatness) of Paul.

Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas

Hence Barnabas works as a Catholizing icon meant to make Paul, in virtue of the only presence of Barnabas with him, only a mere apostle among others.

Hence no wonder that in modern times, the modern Judaizers (Secret Alias and Joseph D.L.) repeat with Marcion what the old Judaizers had done with the Paul of Marcion: they want to judaize him by making a Jew like Barnabas a his disciple.

Because the reality of a Marcion who HATED the god of the Jews is for them too much embarrassing to be accepted.

About Barabbas, again:

Where we see again and again the absolute not-ability of Joseph D.L. to see a distinction between a similarity along an esthetic level:

With a view to this, [He required] the goats to be of goodly aspect, and similar, that, when they see Him then coming, they may be amazed by the likeness of the goat.

...and a difference on a moral level:

A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising.

How of grace a murderer can be even only imagined "similar" to a divine being, "that, when they see Him then coming, they may be amazed by the likeness of the goat" ?

Come on.

But then I remember that Joseph D.L. is a mere Judaizer, hence no wonder he repeats the arguments of old Judaizers...
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

Post by Joseph D. L. »

You are simply incapable of forming an actual argument. Accusing others of being a "judiazer" or a "Christian apologist" is not an argument.

Nor have you proven that Marcion hated YHWH. Only through subterfuge and your own ignorance do you give the impression that he did, but that is not proof. While Marcion's own theology is dependent upon Judaism for his to work.
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Re: From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

Post by Giuseppe »

My total confutation of anything written by you in this thread is there, in my post above. I leave the readers to decide who has reason.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

Post by Joseph D. L. »

Where we see again and again the absolute not-ability of Joseph D.L. to see a distinction between a similarity along an esthetic level:

With a view to this, [He required] the goats to be of goodly aspect, and similar, that, when they see Him then coming, they may be amazed by the likeness of the goat.

...and a difference on a moral level:

A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising.

How of grace a murderer can be even only imagined "similar" to a divine being, "that, when they see Him then coming, they may be amazed by the likeness of the goat" ?

Come on.

But then I remember that Joseph D.L. is a mere Judaizer, hence no wonder he repeats the arguments of old Judaizers...
There isn't a difference. Even in their own sacred scripture, Jews adulate and exalt what others would consider criminals.

If Barabbas was an insurrectionist, then he would be doubly exalted. You would then need to explain why men like Judas the Zealot, Johnathon the Weaver, Lukuas Andreas, and Simon bar Kochba, managed to obtain the following that they did, even though the killed (protecting their homeland). Barabbas would have been a hero to the Jews who was fighting against the Romans.

Think for once in your miserable life.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

Post by Joseph D. L. »

My total confutation of anything written by you in this thread is there, in my post above. I leave the readers to decide who has reason.
Your ideas have been roundly rejected.

But hell, let's let democracy work.

Those in favour of my interpretation, say 1.

Those in favour of Giuseppe's interpretation, say 2.

Those who don't give a damn, say 3.

Your pettiness knows no bounds.
Giuseppe
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Re: From Hadrian, to Barnabas, to Marcion

Post by Giuseppe »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 11:25 pm
There isn't a difference. Even in their own sacred scripture, Jews adulate and exalt what others would consider criminals.

If Barabbas was an insurrectionist, then he would be doubly exalted.
for who, Pagan or Jew, wrote after the 70 CE, the Jewish rebels were ALL equivalent to criminals tout court without no shadow of doubt. The winners write the history. Your rehabilitation of Barabbas - as he stands in our Gospels - is comparable to a rehabilitation of a criminal of war in a modern court.

I give you a notice: all the Gospels were written after the 70 CE.
But hell, let's let democracy work.

Those in favour of my interpretation, say 1.
You are giving me a good reason to hate the democracy itself.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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