Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

[Secret Alias]

So I was rereading Tyson on the general purpose of Luke and he sees the ending of the gospel as proof of the author's 'proof-by-prophesy' angle. https://books.google.com/books?id=MU2U0 ... sy&f=false Now here is where things get interesting. Luke is alone in this angle especially with regards to the ending. When we revisit Tertullian (Irenaeus's) main argument:

1. Marcion had access to all four gospels but 'beat up' or abused Luke in particular
2. Marcion while borrowing 'poison' from the Jewish 'snake' in other respects is understood to have argued that - and this is where the terminology gets very muddled
i. there's aren't two gods - there is one god and not two
ii there aren't two Christs - there is one Christ and he belongs to the Jewish god
3. because of 2 i and 2 ii Marcion 'denies' that the Jewish prophesies knew the central truth of Christianity or only knew it in part (dimly or at a lower level of consciousness)

What I am going back to however is that when you look at Against Marcion's treatment of the ending (or rather the glimpses we get of the Marcionite interpretation of 'the gospel' which is really 'Luke' according to the Catholics) it is amazing to see how fixated the Marcionite message dovetails with the Lukan ending.

Let me explain what I mean. Even when Against Marcion is commenting on the Marcionite message and saying its wrong you can kind of piece together how the Marcionites used this gospel and it's proof of prophesy. For instance, we've been talking about how Daniel 9:26 fits with the general sense of the short ending of Mark. But when you look at the Marcionite exegesis of their gospel/Luke it becomes even stronger. Leaving behind the claim that the Marcionites denied the Jewish prophesies (something which is clearly incompatible with citations of Isaiah even in the Marcionite portion of the letters for instance) Tertullian says that the Marcionites used the ending to justify their claim that Jesus or Christ (it's always confusing given the inherent monarchianism of the author) was a 'spirit.' Well, when you think of it - that's exactly what the empty tomb would imply. It's like sealing a fly in a bottle and finding the fly 'managed to get out.' The fly would be judged to have the ability to pass through solid objects and thus 'was spirit-like.'

Moreover the Marcionites read πνεῦμα σάρκα καὶ ὀστέα οὐκ ἔχει καθὼς ἐμὲ θεωρεῖτε ἔχοντα as it was to be taken "you see that I do not have flesh and bones like a spirit' which doesn't make sense in Greek but maybe it could be read that way in Syriac. Will have to check. The point however is that Tertullian borrows again from Justin the weak 'prophetic proof' of the empty tomb (viz. his sepulture was taken away out of the midst) rather than Daniel 9:26 which is a much stronger prophetic proof. It's as if the author can't read Hebrew or wants to avoid certain things about the identification of the empty tomb with Daniel's 'Christ will killed and disappear.' Perhaps it has something to do with the Marcionites arguing that 'resurrection' was proof that there wouldn't be a bodily resurrection. Why else would 'Christ' appear in a wholly spiritual form after the empty tomb? There really isn't any compatibility between this 'spiritual' ending of the gospel and the idea that we're all going to have to wait until a final judgment, after being resurrected in the body. The gospel read the way the Marcionites read it contradicts that cardinal belief of normative Jews, Samaritans and Christians.

More importantly it is hard to read the Danielic interpretation of the ending of the 'spirit gospel' as if 'Jesus' and 'Christ' were the same person. The transformation into a spirit happens three days later. This is what is clear from the Tertullianic criticism of the Marcionites. He says 'why didn't Christ demonstrate his spirit self on the cross?' which sounds suspiciously like Celsus read this book. He says how was Christ a spirit when Joseph claimed the body? The idea clearly is that the Marcionites thought that someone who was flesh and bones became spirit after three days. Thus underscoring that the Marcionites were separationists.

I wonder whether the Marcionite gospel was first and that Mark was a shortened form - deliberately shortened - in order to retain the sense of the original (i.e. the importance of the 'miracle' of the empty tomb) without delving into the prophetic significance of it all.

[Secret Alias]

I guess to summarize quickly - if the Marcionites thought that Jesus was the spirit man and Christ someone else (= that the Marcionites were separationists like the early Valentinians mentioned by Irenaeus in the Latin text of Against the Valentinians) the Marcionites could reasonably have accepted Jewish prophesies about 'Christ' while maintaining that they knew nothing about the Spirit Man Jesus. What makes this especially attractive is that it explains why the Marcionites are likened to Jews so much in Tertullian, why Against the Jews was modified into Against Marcion 3 late in the reworking of the Five Books Against Marcion and why Marcion would have been connected with Luke and its 'proof-from-prophesy' ending. It's just our training and 'baptism' into the monarchian interpretation of the gospel and Christianity that makes us assume that Jesus and Christ are one and the same. Irenaeus/Tertullian repeatedly denies the Marcionite claim for both two gods and two Christs or a separation between Jesus the god and the man Christ who died on the Cross as predicted in Daniel 9:26's 'the messiah will be killed and be no more.' Strange that Daniel 9:26 is so profoundly ignored by early Christian writers. We can get a glimmer of what that might be in Against Marcion 4's treatment of the Marcionite exegesis of the gospel's ending. The gospel concludes with clear proof that Christ was killed and was no more - i.e. that he no longer had physical/material being. אין לו - the words in Daniel - are often translated "will have nothing" but ein lo אין לו which literally means “There will not be him”. In Biblical Hebrew that is the regular construction for a lack of possession (“He doesn’t have…”). But you can see how Marcionites or Jewish 'spiritualists' might have taken this to mean he no longer had being 'he disappeared' 'he was no more' or even that he became like a spirit.

[Giuseppe]

'he disappeared' 'he was no more' or even that he became like a spirit.

It is not simply changing the name to the things that they can change their nature.

If the Jewish Christ became “like a spirit”, well, that is still a resurrection. A resurrection only of the spirit, sure, just as Paul says somewhere in 1 Cor, but still a resurrection.

[Secret Alias]

אין לו literally means "he does not have." Hebrew does not have a verb 'to have.' Instead of saying 'I have' they say 'there is to me' (= yesh li) and 'I don't have' (ein li) or as in this case third person yesh lo and ein lo. Now what does the messiah not have in the context of Daniel 9:26. It is first said that he will be killed so 'disappear' i.e. not have being is a natural assumption. That's first. We say 'vanish like a ghost' because ghosts have a sort of non-presence. The reference in Daniel is clearly enigmatic. No one denies this. This just seems like the most obvious solution to what is in Daniel. But this is what we are dealing with and since the next verse Daniel 9:27 is brought up immediately before the Passion (in the little apocalypse) it is relevant to the discussion. I have read hundreds of bad attempts by Christian writers to use the prophetic literature to demonstrate historical events. Daniel 9:26 should have clearly been used to say 'Daniel' had foreknowledge of the Passion. But Patristic sources dance around the prophesy of the 70 weeks. There is no firm tradition about how it should be interpreted which is quite peculiar. It's almost as if there was an interpretation from the time of the gospel writer but no one wanted to remember it because it was problematic for orthodoxy.

[Secret Alias]

And what is so peculiar about the non-use of Daniel 9:26 is:

1. Daniel 9:26 is the only explicit mention of the messiah in all of the Jewish writings
2. it says the messiah will be killed
3. Christians and Jews tended to end the 70 weeks at 70 CE
4. the story that founded Christianity is alternatively dates 7 weeks (i.e. 21 CE) or something like 6 weeks and a bit from this terminal date

How can it be that we have a non-use of Daniel 9:26 by Christians. Instead they reach to Isaiah and other vague references to 'an empty tomb' or a 'tree' and all this other nonsense. It doesn't add up. It's like your a detective and a suspect can't be directly linked to the murder but you have a motive and an implausible alibi. Something doesn't add up why Christians avoid Daniel 9:26 as a prediction of the crucifixion. It would be such a persuasive argument to appeal the message to Jews. It's non-use is highly suspicious.

[Secret Alias]

What we hear from early Christians is that the 70 weeks will end at the destruction of Jerusalem (70 CE). This is the implicit explanation of the holy gospel. Jews agree with this dating. They read Daniel the same way. But somehow we have a non-explanation of how 'the messiah will be killed and disappear' in Christian sources just before that terminal date. And Christians were actively appealing their message to Jewish communities. How is this possible? Interesting also is that Jews and Christians don't lock horns about a man dying and coming back to life in the earliest period. No this isn't the bone of controversy. They end up sparring about the empty tomb, whether or not it really happened, whether or not it was miraculous or a sign of something. Similarly the Church Fathers demonstrate the prophets knew about the empty tomb but not the resurrection before the General Resurrection (i.e. there are scriptural proofs for everyone coming back and being judged for their deeds but no scriptural proofs for Christ coming back alive). Only the empty tomb. Funny that this 'empty tomb' should be the battleground but not the resurrection of the crucified man. And even stranger Luke with its 'proof-by-prophesy' ending has the empty tomb (i.e. with the crucified messiah vanishing) and a spirit Jesus who no one recognizes explain that the mysterious empty tomb was predicted by the prophets and the Marcionites connected to this particular gospel. This group distinguishes between Jesus and the Jewish Christ and says - according to my interpretation - the prophesies apply to Christ but not Jesus.

The Marcionites said Daniel 9:26 predicted the death and disappearance of Christ and the orthodoxy denied this interpretation because it confirmed that Jesus wasn't Christ. That the prophets inspired by the second God didn't know about the first god.

[Ethan]

Daniel 9:26 is the only explicit mention of the messiah in all of the Jewish writings

Isaiah 45:1 - למשיחו לכורש, χριστῷ μου Κύρῳ ( My Christ, Cyrus)


Is that the reason why Jews and Christians are Anti-Iranian nowadays?

[Secret Alias]

Another point to consider. We don't know what the 'heretical' or Marcionite interpretation of Daniel was. But it is worth noting that if we leave Against the Jews (with an obvious Justin-Irenaeus-Tertullian pedigree) aside, the next earliest explanation comes from Africanus who writes:

The chapter which we read in Daniel concerning the seventy weeks contains many remarkable details, which require too lengthy a discussion at this point; and so we must discuss only what pertains to our present task, namely that which concerns chronology. There is no doubt but what it constitutes a prediction of Christ's advent, for He appeared to the world at the end of seventy weeks.

What is interesting is that if go back to the earliest gospel(s) we find:

1. it is a one year ministry and in the case of the Marcionite gospel
2. the year of 'ministry' is the same as the year of descent

In other words, Jesus comes down from the ultimate heaven and Christ is crucified all in the same year, the same year of the chronology. What that means I think is that we might expect that Africanus adapted an earlier chronology. Indeed Hippolytus, Apollinarius, Eusebius all have the year of ministry as the termination of the 70 weeks.

I've mentioned this before but I think since the Jews and Christians have the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in mind (70 CE) the only way that this could have been is if 'Darius' is taken to be Darius II (423–404 BCE) who has a predecessor named Xerxes (even though it is not clear the two were father and son). I think that somehow the existence of this second Darius allowed the 490 to end on 70 CE even though it was subsequently forgotten by later generations.

According to the narrative in its present form, Darius, identified as the son of Ahasuerus (Xerxes), a descendant of the Medes, was about sixty-two years old at his succession (Daniel 5:31, 9:1). These references, which do not conform to what is known of the history of the period, have caused problems for scholars trying to unravel the discrepancies in the text, a work of the Hellenistic period, long after the fall of the Achaemenids (see DĀNĪĀL-E NABĪ i). http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/darius-ii

[Secret Alias]

Darius II was the only Darius whose predecessor was Xerxes. https://books.google.com/books?id=lBedC ... 0Q6AEIOzAE

[Secret Alias]

It is clear that Jewish sources (Seder Olam) can be read as if the temple was built under Darius II. Modern Jewish apologists have argued for this https://www.google.com/amp/s/merrimackv ... endar/amp/