Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

And getting back to the OP the 'gnostic' leaders of the community - Christian or Jewish - follow the pattern established in Daniel 12: The leaders of this group are the maskilim, "the wise," who impart wisdom to the rabbim, "the many" (umaskile 'am yabinu larabbim Dan 1 1:32-33 c...

Rather than citing a 'bad' Jewish scholar here is FF Bruce: From the emphasis on “knowledge” in several of the community documents it has been inferred by some students that the maskilim and their pupils pursued a form of gnosticism. And a dirty Jew Wolfson: The visual dimension of kabbalistic gnosi...

And what you fail to recognize (in your latent anti-Semitism) is that kabbalah is 'gnosticism' and the specific kabbalistic term for gnostic - הַמַּשְׂכִּלִים (from Daniel chapter 12) - is used by the Marcosians. What more proof can their be that Christian gnosis developed from Judaism?

I should precise that the term "gnostic" I am using is the dualism between the creator/demiurge and a higher god, not merely mystical knowledge I don't care if you use the term 'gnostic' to mean a mortadella sandwich. What evidence is there that the terminology was used that way in antiqu...

The truth is that YOU Giuseppe want there to be a massive distinction between the 'gnostics' and the orthodox for entirely self-serving reasons. But the evidence doesn't support you suppositions (or your conclusions for that matter).

No, no, no. Your understanding of Marcion depends too much on the self-serving reports of the later Church Fathers. When you delve deeper into the Marcion of Clement for instance the distance between him and the church is diminished. Look at the story of Marcion coming to Rome and giving the church ...

But this is the part you're not getting. When Irenaeus says X or Y or Z about various 'heresies' what is really is saying is - 'hey there is this bishop over there (or bishops over there) that hold to these sorts of crazy, wrong beliefs.' There is no reference to the masses, to the rabble, to the id...

And I think the persecutions - which inevitably included elites (cf. the account of the persecutions in Gaul) - were prompted by Roman officials suspecting that the Christian leaders wielded too much power over their superstitious adherents. That as the numbers of Christian believers increased the z...

But this is part of the fucking stupidity I am talking about. THERE WAS NO SUCH THING AS 'GNOSTICISM' meaning a movement which identified itself as such or which was 'purely' or 'wholly gnostic.' I don't care what you have been led to believe by reading (or not reading) Irenaeus. Yes there was mysti...

I am replying to you. Adonis is the Semitic Dionysus. I guess my difficulty is this. Just because we 'like' something doesn't mean it is true.