A Marcionite Antithesis behind Jesus Bar-Abbas?

[Peter Kirby]

The only thing I would say is a "waste of time" is any Synoptic solution that doesn't take Mcn into account at all. Which describes most of the "non-hobbyist" studies published by tenured professors with alphabet soup after their names.

I agree with this. Marcion is a very important part of the synoptic problem.

It seems that a synopsis including Marcion is not so easy to create because of the textual problems of the gospel of the Lord (*hobbyistic conclusion after following the hint of "Secret Alias" and reading again Old Harnack*)

Very true. I hope to make one anyway, by distinguishing between 'considered to be in the Evangelion' and 'considered to be absent in the Evangelion' (and remaining neutral about encoding any other information into the Evangelion column), with references to the patristic sources.

[Peter Kirby]

Although it takes Luke as the point of comparison for the Evangelion (perhaps a bit too uncritically or dogmatically), this seems to be one of the better presentations that are online (though not, as it stands, formatted as a synopsis with other gospel texts).

https://sites.google.com/site/inglisonm ... -with-luke

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Although it takes Luke as the point of comparison for the Evangelion (perhaps a bit too uncritically or dogmatically), this seems to be one of the better presentations that are online (though not, as it stands, formatted as a synopsis with other gospel texts).

https://sites.google.com/site/inglisonm ... -with-luke

Thanks for the link

[Giuseppe]

I can see a simple logical contradiction that may arise having Mark as the first written Gospel.

Mark is all allegorical, ok, but begins with a Jesus who preached the imminent arrival of the Kingdom, and then the Kingdom doesn't arrive but will be replaced by Church, that is, his 12 idiot disciples, obviously properly redeemed by Paul that already waits in Galilee, etc.

Historicists will derive the reading that Jesus in Mark is clearly a failed apocalyptic prophet, 'therefore' historical.

Richard Carrier replied this by saying was not Jesus, but is 'Mark' the REAL failed apocalyptic prophet.

Who is right?

I hardly believe both, because the historicists fail to take account of the contamination of legitimate doubt on any claim of historicity behind the gospels, and because contra Carrier I do not think that 'Mark' was so naive as to believe even, at his time, to the imminent end of the world.

So a logical solution provides the temporal priority of the Gospel of Marcion.

If Mcn was the Oldest Written Gospel, it was an entirely marcionite theological point of refuting one by one all the sacred and venerable Jewish prophecies found in Old Testament about the imminent coming of Jewish Messiah, as prophecies inspired from the god of Jews, a clumsy demiurge creator of a world of disgusting matter. So those prophecies, contrary to common sense, SHOULD fail one by one: Jerusalem had to be destroyed not by danielic Jewish Messiah, but by the Romans, to inaugurate the time of a God who all loves, the god of Marcion. The antithesis is between an apparent messiah/prophet (who APPEARS Jesus) and a real son of a foreign god (that IS Jesus).

Mark and the other canonical Gospels, at that point, could do nothing to correct this view of Mcn, if not turn Jesus himself into a failed apocalyptic prophet (transforming the appearance I refer in a strict identity), attributing to him the prophecies about the end of world and doing everything in order that the imminent Kingdom of God coincides ultimately, more or less allegorically, with the incipient Catholic Church itself, the real Novus Israel that replaces the old (traditional Catholic anti-Judaism) after 70.

Therefore what Klarke Owens sees rightly in Mark as allegory of spiritual Israel that dies and rises after 70, i.e. the fulfillment of Jesus apocalyptic prophecies in his death on cross (symbol of a crucifixion en masse of all Israel at 70 CE), would be only a pure catholic apology made in order to remedy to image originally introduced by Marcion of OT prophecies puntually disproved and contradicted from simple presence of Jesus on tirra firma.

If you are a markan priority supporter, how do you reply to this one point?

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

I can see a simple logical contradiction that may arise having Mark as the first written Gospel.

Mark is all allegorical, ok, but begins with a Jesus who preached the imminent arrival of the Kingdom, and then the Kingdom doesn't arrive ...

If you are a markan priority supporter, how do you reply to this one point?

I think the kingdom arrived.

24 And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take.
25 And it was the third hour when they crucified him.
26 And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”
27 And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.
29 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days,
30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!”
31 So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.
32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.”

what Paul had to say about that, 1 Cor 2

6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”

Therefore I see personally no problem here

[Giuseppe]

Suggestive. Good and unexpected answer.

But I remember you that for Marcionites Jesus was not really THE ''King of Jews'', and neither for Simonians (if you see Simonians as more free-lance precursors of Marcionites): he was only the messiah of a Stranger God.

Therefore what prevent me from belief that what you have above revealed in Mark was only another mitigate reaction to radical Marcionite disequation Jesus ≠ Jewish Messiah ?


Mcn: Jesus only appeared to be THE King of the Jews, but in reality he was not.

Mark: Jesus seemed only a would king (in sense of zealot, rebel, usurper: regulus) of the Jews, but in reality he really was THE True King of Jews.

in Mcn, you are condemned if you think that Jesus is the Messiah and King of Jews, beyond you are Roman or Jew.

in Mark, you are condemned if you think that Jesus is not the True King of Jews and Jewish Messiah, i.e. only if you remain a Jew not Christian.

First: how could Mark be written by Jewish people (i.e. people that adore sincerely YHWH) since Mark condemns so clearly ALL the Jews in virtue of their blindness?

Second: if for Mark Jesus was the true Jewish Messiah & King of Jews, then you need to follow Carrier in accepting that Mark was a failed apocalyptic prophet (since he waited the imminent revenge of his crucified Messiah) and therefore fall in problem described in my post above: was Mark so naive to be a sincere apocalypticist?

It would seem more subversive and radical the marcionite logic, and therefore more old.

And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”

the dramatic irony here is that was Jesus really the expected King of jews? Or was he no Jew and no man at all?

1) A Jew messianist is by definition an apocalypticist: the Messiah will come on this world.
2) Mark is a Jew messianist (even if sui generis).
3) therefore Mark was a failed apocalipticist.
4) therefore Mark needed some way an apology for the delay of parusia.

I think that the apology in Mark would be the casting of Jesus in a symbol of Israel that dies and rises collectively in Diaspora. But this apology is basically catholic because only Catholics had clear interest into cooptation of name ''Israel''.

Otherwise I can imagine a proto-gnostic proto-Mark à la Parvus and this problem doesn't arise. But Occham prohibits (because proto-Mark is like Q).

Mcn has no need of apology in this sense because Marcionites had no hope in redemption of the world of demiurg.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

First: how could Mark be written by Jewish people (i.e. people that adore sincerely YHWH) since Mark condemns so clearly ALL the Jews in virtue of their blindness?

I can not see here any problem, because Mark agreed with Paul about this (Romans 11). Currently the Jews are wrong but they are not excluded.

25 ... a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
27 “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.

... then you need to follow Carrier in accepting

I do not need to follow Carrier

[Giuseppe]

your reading of Mark as saying that the Kingdom is arrived, the prophecies realized, but substantially all invisible is another way to repeat the usual catholic news, or better catholic APOLOGY: the Kingdom is arrived but ironically spiritualized in the Church (=novus Israel). No wonder that the Paul from you quoted is the catholic interpolated Paul, since already assumes the strict disequation Jews ≠ Christians, improbable in I CE.

I repeat: Marcionites had no need of spiritualizing and 'realizing' something on tirra firma (had been even the Church), since it's a product of Demiurg, pure shit. The paradigm of a ''failed apocalyptic prophet'' begins only with the catholic Jesus (Mark, Matthew, a catholicized John). Therefore all proto-catholics were by definition failed apocalypticists (even if not sincere) and in this sense you need to follow Carrier .

Please read this:

http://www6.vridar.org/2014/12/15/paul- ... ment-70771

You should see better Mark as a first timide tentative to mix into that pure shit that is tirra firma the invisible gnostic spirituality, in order to reedem partially the same tirra firma from marcionite vilification, and the invisible mean/reedemer for this target is the Church and only the Church.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

A Church in Mark?

Do you mean the house whose roof gets uncovered? The non-understanding disciples which run away? Or the women which are completly silent?

Sorry Giuseppe, but the discussion is

... a 'waste of time' ...

for me.

It may be my fault.

[Giuseppe]

A Church in Mark?

Do you mean the house whose roof gets uncovered? The non-understanding disciples which run away? Or the women which are completly silent?

if properly redeemed, yes (read Dykstra's book on that).


of course, they are just my opinions, and I respect yours (I think it's implicit).