Was James the 'brother of the Demiurge'?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
robert j
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Re: Was James the 'brother of the Demiurge'?

Post by robert j »

Giuseppe wrote: Tue Aug 21, 2018 7:52 am
robert j wrote: Tue Aug 21, 2018 7:37 amThat possessed Jesus already had a much more important father
only, a father not known by the people of Nazaret, so they could well mention the earthly father of this possessed Jesus ...

... The problem in the your interpretation remains.
The author of GMark introduced the hometown passage with Jesus teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath --- so certainly Mark intended the astonished ones to have knowledge of the God of the Jewish scriptures.

But these townsfolk were merely props in Mark’s tale. The force of the passage --- at least in part --- was to chide the hometown folk for their inability to recognize Jesus as possessed by the heavenly spirit and as the son of the God of the Jewish scriptures.

That Mark chose not to introduce a hometown human father and thereby distract from his wider story is something that I do not find problematic at all.
Giuseppe wrote: Tue Aug 21, 2018 7:52 am ... so they could well mention the earthly father of this possessed Jesus (given the fact that even Matthew mentioned him - by making him the 'carpenter' and not the son - , and surely the Matthean Jesus was not possessed: he was fully Jesus Christ) but they didn't. Why?
But we are talking about Mark’s story here, not the story presented by the author of GMatthew. The author of GMatthew adapted Mark’s tale and wrote his version of the tale in such a manner to satisfy his own particular agenda and points of view.

I don’t intend to engage with you in an extended discussion here. I wanted to offer an alternative solution for Mark 6:1-6 --- a solution that I think is more likely than the one you have offered in this thread. That having been done, this is your thread and I’ll leave you to it.
Giuseppe
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Re: Was James the 'brother of the Demiurge'?

Post by Giuseppe »

robert j wrote: Tue Aug 21, 2018 9:14 am That Mark chose not to introduce a hometown human father and thereby distract from his wider story is something that I do not find problematic at all.
(Don't sorry, if I continue to post, after all, this is the my thread :notworthy: )

Even if that episode was probably used by Celsus to argue that Jesus was of 'unknown father' ?

In my view, it is an item that leaps immediately to the eye: why is the mother so important to eclipse totally the father?

Moreover, in a Gospel when Joseph was not still invented.

This is why I think that there is some relation between being a 'carpenter' and being a 'son of Mary': these two facts are not independent facts. The author is saying that Jesus couldn't be considered 'carpenter' without being considered also a 'son of Mary', and vice versa.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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