the insider Mark not known by Irenaeus

[Giuseppe]

Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one deceives you.
Many will come in my name saying, ‘I am he,’ and they will deceive many.

(Mark 13:5-6)

It is curious that the first people to be deceived in that way were just the same people who met Jesus according to Mark: Peter and the 12 seem to know Jesus but really they are deceived by him insofar they

...see but not perceive,
and hear and listen but not understand,
in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.

(Mark 4:12)

In Mark, it is a pure and simple fact that Jesus is coming under the name of Christ and he is deceiving the Pillars.

While this may be tolerated under a historicist paradigm (the usual explanation is that Jesus is warning the disciples against distinct false messianists), it is not more so under a mythicist paradigm: Mark knows that an earthly Jesus is not the true Christ (because an earthly Jesus didn't exist). Therefore, the insider ''Mark'' would have put rightly his Jesus among the false claimants of the title of Christ.

This is another clue (but there are others) for the fact that Mark was introducing (for the first time) an earthly Jesus principally for the purpose of denigrating the Pillars as false recipients of the revelation of the true Jesus.

This to say that I find very probable that when Mark was inventing Jesus, while the outsider ''Mark'' showed himself a public ''sincere'' believer in this new earthly Jesus, the insider ''Mark'' was the first to not really believe, but to despise the earthly Jesus as a false Christ (after all, ''Mark'' himself was his creator!).

And so I can find a plausible explanation for the fact that the first readers of Mark, according to Ireneus, were, at least in surface, ''separationist'' Christians :

1) Mark was introducing an earthly Jesus (to show as the Pillars did know only a mere earthly Jesus and not the celestial Jesus, differently from Paul).

2) Mark was selling publicly this earthly Jesus (as evidence of the failure of the Pillars, against their followers) while secretly he was despising him.

3) in Mark's communities, therefore, both insiders and outsiders were encouraged to separate the earthly Jesus from a heavenly Christ (by considering the first inferior to the second), as public (exoteric) reflection of the secret (esoteric) contempt for the earthly Jesus (as a mere invention of the insider ''Mark'').

teaching by the public ''Mark'' (known by Irenaeus)	teaching by the secret ''Mark''
the earthly Jesus did exist	the earthly Jesus is a pure invention
the Pillars met only the earthly Jesus	the Pillars met the celestial Jesus
the earthly Jesus is inferior compared to the celestial Christ	only the celestial Jesus Christ is real therefore only he is worthy of worship

4) So the proto-catholic Irenaeus about the original readers of Mark:

Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified.

(Against Heresies III,11,7)


The proto-catholic Irenaeus (as all the stupid hoi polloi) could see only the public surface, only the exoteric separation between an earthly Jesus and a heavenly Christ, as doctrine preached ''officially'' by the original readers of Mark. He couldn't imagine that in Mark's community the ''insiders'' did learn another, different (but parallel) truth.

[Giuseppe]

My point is that if all of Mark is allegorical, then even the adoptionism (better, the separationism) in his gospel and between his first readers (as shown in surface by Irenaeus) should be seen as allegory of a more esoteric truth.

teaching by the public ''Mark'' (known by Irenaeus)	teaching by the secret ''Mark''
the earthly Jesus did exist	the earthly Jesus is a pure invention
the Pillars met only the earthly Jesus	the Pillars met the celestial Jesus but didn't follow him at contrary of Paul
the earthly Jesus is inferior and distinct being from the celestial Christ	only the celestial Jesus Christ is real therefore only he is worthy of worship

The last parallelism is crucial. The adoptionist Christians did believe in a exoterical manner what the insiders did read in a more esoterical manner. Therefore the evidence of adoptionism in Mark is interpreted, according to an esoteric reading (only for insiders), as allusive evidence of conspiracy: "we know that the earthly Jesus is a pure invention and therefore we show him distinct (or merely adopted) from the heavenly Christ to allegorize this our secret mythicist knowledge".

The fact that the only demons recognize the messianic status of Jesus in Mark confirm that earthly Jesus as "another Jesus", not the true Pauline Jesus.

[Giuseppe]

Irenaeus is assuming that the separationists are reading Mark not with a love of truth:

Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified.

(Against Heresies III,11,7)

''Love of truth'' may mean 'literalism'. The contrary would be 'contempt of truth', contempt of the earthly Jesus (in esoterical sense: knowledge of the fictional nature of the Gospel Jesus).

So Mark 9:2-8 :

After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; then from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.

Paul wrote:

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed!

(Galatians 1:8)

Both the conditions are realized in Mark 9:2-8:
1) Mark is pauline,
2) Mark's ''voice'', ''this is my beloved Son. Listen to him'' , is not the true vox dei heard by Paul : Mark is inventing it. Therefore that ''voice from the cloud'' is allegorical of ''a gospel other than'' the one preached by Paul.

Therefore the effect should be by need an ''anathema'' on the same people that are listening that ''voice from the cloud''.

Who are these people? The Pillars: Peter, James and John.

They see ''Jesus alone with them''. The emphasis on the solitude of Jesus, in that scenario, shows that something is missing: the true celestial Jesus, the Son of God.

They don't see the true Jesus Christ, the same celestial archangel seen by Paul.

Therefore there is the evident trace of separationism: while a true Son of God is proclaimed from the cloud, by direct contrast to that voice, what the Pillars see is only a mere human being, by definition ''another Jesus'', a false Christ:

For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it well enough.

(2 Corinthians 11:4)

In Mark, to see an earthly Jesus corresponds to condemn themselves: now the Pillars are condemned, cursed. An anathema is put on them.

The Pillars are not more the first apostles to see the celestial Jesus (as yet Paul thought). They are reduced to being like the rest of Israel: misled by a false Christ.

They will share the same fate of all Israel: 70 CE.

Therefore it is inevitable that shortly after Jesus began to preach the death of the Son of Man (not surprisingly, the Son of Man, Israel, not the Son of God!): Israel will be crucified en masse in 70 CE.

As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant. Then they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” He told them, “Elijah will indeed come first and restore all things, yet how is it written regarding the Son of Man that he must suffer greatly and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.”

(Mark 9:9-13)

[Giuseppe]

In Mark the Jesus who is crucified is not the same Jesus of Paul but ''another Jesus'', the Son of Man (Israel), not the celestial Son of God.

At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “Look, he is calling Elijah.” One of them ran, soaked a sponge with wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to take him down.” Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. The veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” There were also women looking on from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome. These women had followed him when he was in Galilee and ministered to him. There were also many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.

(Mark 15:33-41)

The reference to Elijah in this episode is a clear reference to the Elijah mentioned in Mark 9:8-13 : the death of the Son of Man (Israel) is happening, not of the pauline Son of God. The centurion is wrong when he recognizes that son of man as the true Son of God.

The point of Mark is that while all (the Pillars, the women, the scribes and pharisees, the Romans, even the same demons) are seeing the crucifixion of a mere son of man (exchanged wrongly for the same Son of God), really the crucifixion of the true Son of God is already happened in an invisible, celestial realm.


A real ''angel from heaven'' continues to proclaim another Gospel, one different from the pauline Gospel:

On entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe, and they were utterly amazed. He said to them, “Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus the Nazarene, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Behold, the place where they laid him. But go and tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.’” Then they went out and fled from the tomb, seized with trembling and bewilderment. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

(Mark 16:5-8)

Now I find a new reason behind the fear of the women: they don't proclaim the news of that resurrection (remember: the resurrection of a false Christ, of ''another Jesus'') because they have understood now what it means ''to see'' an earthly Jesus (even if risen) : attract persecution on themselves.

The open tomb becomes so the symbol of a destroyed temple as well as of a rock soil (cfr Mark 16:8: ''a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock'') emptied of his vain ''seed''.

The women are saved: by their silence, they recognize that the 'son of man' crucified on the cross near Jerusalem is only a false Christ. Therefore the only true Jesus Christ is not an earthly man crucified in Jerusalem, but the ''crucified Christ'' preached by Paul.

Forever linked to the vision of their earthly Jesus (thanks to Mark's Gospel) - indeed, a self-condemnation -, the Pillars are condemned for eternity to no longer be considered the visionaries of the true celestial Christ.

[Giuseppe]

Now I find a new reason behind the fear of the women: they don't proclaim the news of that resurrection (remember: the resurrection of a false Christ, of ''another Jesus'') because they have understood now what it means ''to see'' an earthly Jesus (even if risen) : attract persecution on themselves.

...

The women are saved: by their silence, they recognize that the 'son of man' crucified on the cross near Jerusalem is only a false Christ. Therefore the only true Jesus Christ is not an earthly man crucified in Jerusalem, but the ''crucified Christ'' preached by Paul.

This is the essence of the Messianic Secret in Mark: To learn that the true Christ is absent in the story of Mark (except when speaking by the mouth of a mere son of man). To learn that the true Christ is not the earthly 'Jesus Nazarene' crucified in Jerusalem (a parody of the Israel crucified in 70 CE). The earthly Jesus, any earthly Christ (and with him, the earthly Israel), is only capable of attracting ''anathema'' on those who wait him.

No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”

(Mark 2:18-22)
The ''old wineskins'' is the same earthly 'Jesus Nazarene'. The ''new wine'' (the true Son of God) cannot be seen in a mere son of man, otherwise the son of man is crucified (''the skins are ruined'') and ''the wine is ruined'' (a false conception of Christ, the ''another Jesus'' cursed by Paul).

A critique of the traditional Jewish messianism is implicit.

Mark is an euhemerizer of the pauline Christ insofar he is inventing an earthly Jesus as a false (as merely earthly) reflection of the authentic pauline Christ. Thus Mark doesn't describe him as a pre-existent being, but is careful to sow traces of separationism (for the insiders) to emphasize his human nature of son of man, a nature that cannot be never the same nature of the celestial Son of God.

[Giuseppe]

In 'Is This Not the Carpenter?' (2011), precisely the article of Robert Price ('Does the Christ Myth Theory Require an Early Date?'), the author writes:

Had the partisans of the pure Christ myth heard of the demigod Jesus and his adventures they might have rejected it all as degrading heresy, just as some Ebionites rejected the virginale conception Nativity which other Ebionites had embraced.

(p.112)

My view now is that Mark himself was who introduced deliberately his earthly Jesus as "degrading heresy", "another Jesus" preached from an "angel from heaven" (the young man in Mark 16). That was the way Mark had to describe the Pillars (and all the Jews) as heretics and victims of themselves.

[Giuseppe]

So Vridar:

Elijah left John when Herod had his head chopped off. Elijah appeared in his own original form after John’s demise.

The Son of Man will in the future be revealed as the physical form of the Son of God who inhabited Jesus at his baptism. Until the resurrection, this was only demonstrated to the disciples at his transfiguration, an event they could not at the time comprehend.

If there was an original longer ending of Mark, was it removed early by the “proto-orthodox” because it clarified this very unorthodox idea of the originally two separate natures of the man Jesus and the Spirit Son too directly?

http://vridar.org/2009/11/27/when-a-nob ... possessed/

My thesis requires no a "longer ending of Mark ... that clarified this very unorthodox idea of the originally two separate natures" of Jesus and Christ. The last verse of Mark (16:8) is sufficient alone to reveal the ENTIRE esoteric point of the gospel: the women have learned that the earthly Jesus is a "degrading heresy" (see Price's comment in the previous post) cause only of self-condemnation for everyone who sees him, as a false Christ (and not the true Son of God).Therefore the women reveal a superior knowledge by showing fear. Who sees only the Son of Man (the earthly Jesus), even in his glory (on the cross, when he is exchanged wrongly for the Son of God) is condemned: the centurion (Rome) is condemned, just as the Pharisees and the Pillars (both see only the earthly Jesus).

The true secret knowledge is to recognize that Jesus is not a mere earthly man possessed by Sathan (the Pharisees interpretation) , Jesus is not the Son of God, the Christ (the error of both Peter and the centurion). Jesus is a mere man totally distinct from the Son of God: he is proclaimed falsely as risen in Galilee by an "angel from heaven": in Pauline terms, a proclaimer of "another gospel", a false gospel.

Who is then Jesus Nazarene (for the insiders)? He, as mere unworthy recipient of a Christ who is ALREADY risen (and has therefore no need of a second resurrection) is simply a false image of the true Messiah (the celestial Son of God seen by Paul in a revelation): a mere fetish meant to deceive Israel 40 years before of his complete destruction.

But for the outsiders he is believed an earthly man adopted by the Christ and became (post-mortem) one with Christ: for the insiders, this is what the hoi polloi have to believe. And so a "degrading heresy" has been spread deliberately among the followers of a purely mythical Christ.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Jesus is not a mere earthly man possessed by Sathan (the Pharisees interpretation)

it's the interpretation of the scribes

Who is then Jesus Nazarene (for the insiders)? He, as mere unworthy recipient of a Christ who is ALREADY risen (and has therefore no need of a second resurrection) is simply a false image of the true Messiah (the celestial Son of God seen by Paul in a revelation): a mere fetish meant to deceive Israel 40 years before of his complete destruction.

I really like this

[MrMacSon]

... the women reveal a superior knowledge by showing fear. Who sees only the Son of Man (the earthly Jesus) [who]?, even in his glory (on the cross, when he is exchanged wrongly for the Son of God), is condemned: the centurion (Rome) is condemned, just as the Pharisees and the Pillars (both see only the earthly Jesus) [are also condemned]?.

The true secret knowledge is to recognize that Jesus is not a mere earthly man possessed by Sathan (the Pharisees interpretation) , Jesus is not the Son of God, the Christ (the error of both Peter and the centurion). Jesus is a mere man totally distinct from the Son of God: he is proclaimed falsely as risen in Galilee by an "angel from heaven": in Pauline terms, a proclaimer of "another gospel", a false gospel.

Who is then Jesus Nazarene (for the insiders)? He, as [a]? mere unworthy recipient of a Christ who is ALREADY risen (and has therefore no need of a second resurrection), [so 'He'] is simply a false image of the true Messiah (the celestial Son of God seen by Paul in a revelation): a mere fetish meant to deceive Israel 40 years before of his complete destruction.

But, for the outsiders, he is believed an earthly man adopted by the Christ and became (post-mortem) one with Christ: for the insiders, this is what the hoi polloi have to believe. And so a "degrading heresy" has been spread deliberately among the followers of a purely mythical Christ.

Does what Giuseppe has proposed there^ align with what Ben has posted in his 'Son of Man' thread -viz. -

... in Mark 13.26, Jesus, as the son of man, is coming down from God's heaven to the clouds. That's a long time after the ascension. In Da 7.13, the son of man is going to God (would be during Jesus' ascension). Reverse direction, different times.

So "Mark" might have got "coming in the clouds" from Daniel, but that's it. He was not using Daniel 7:13-14 as a prophecy for Jesus' ascension and his future function as the ultimate king.

The view that I have long espoused is simply that such texts borrowed the direction of travel from Zechariah 14.5 and the clouds from Daniel 7.13. This combination is explicit in the Didache. In Mark 13.27 the "holy ones" from Zechariah 14.5 are interpreted as angels gathering the elect; in 1 Thessalonians 4.16 the "holy ones" are the risen dead, said to be reunited with the Lord before the living are caught up. The element of looking upon him or seeing him comes from Zechariah 12.10; this connection is explicit in Revelation 1.7 and in Matthew 24.30. Passages such as Isaiah 19.1, in which Yahweh comes (to earth, or to a spot on the earth) in judgment upon a cloud, would obviously help to facilitate the change of direction envisioned for Daniel 7.13.

At least some of the rabbis interpreted Daniel 7.13 as the coming of the messiah to earth. Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a:

R. Alexandri said: R. Joshua opposed two verses: it is written, And behold, one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven, whilst [elsewhere] it is written, [behold, thy king cometh unto thee … ] lowly, and riding upon an ass! — if they are meritorious, [he will come] with the clouds of heaven; if not, lowly and riding upon an ass.

Here the arrival of the messiah on a donkey (as per Zechariah 9.7) and the arrival of the messiah on the clouds of heaven (as per Daniel 7.13) are proposed as alternate scenarios, depending upon the moral state of Israel at the time.

We are obviously dealing with a living exegetical tradition here, both Jewish and Christian, and I find Crossan (and others of similar bent) quite convincing on these points.

Ben.

[Giuseppe]

I listened in Deconstructing Jesus of Price the point about the hypothesis on a circular strutture of Mark: the risen Jesus Nazarene in Galilee of Mark 16 would be the same Jesus coming from Nazareth of Galilee in Mark 1, to mean that the readers enter now in a loop: the story repeats himself fatally from the beginning. The unique way to exit that loop (otherwise infinite: and therefore infinite crucifixions of the son of man! ) would be to recognize that the celestial Christ is ALREADY risen before still that the entire story started, and that therefore the celestial Son of God possessed a mere son of man only in order to predict, via his mouth, the destruction of the Pillars and of all Israel in 70 CE (the allegorical meaning of a son of man abandoned on a Roman cross). To follow the Nazarene in Galilee would be equivalent to continue forever the error of a mere son of man exchanged wrongly with the Son of God: hence the women take the right decision.

To see the Son of Man is equivalent to self-condemnation.

The Son of Man means therefore:
1) a mere son of man, the guy from Nazaret, an obscure town
2) the old earthly Israel crucified in 70 CE
3) the sinister apocalyptic figure symbol of self-condemnation for everyone who follows him in Galilee or sees him in Jerusalem.

3 is what links 1 to 2: the earthly conception of the Messiah is converted in the image of an authentic Anti-Christ: Jesus Nazarene.