Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

I know I am not a particularly important thinker. That's cool. But I participate at this site as a catalyst for my own development and I thought I would share this idea as I wait in the school parking lot for my son.

I think I figured out where Judaism and Christianity might intersect with respect to adoptionism.

The standard idea is that Christianity needed adoptionism to explain how a mortal man named Jesus became divine. That's why the dove came down. But if you notice, the earliest exegetes of the gospel Mark connected adoptionism with the crucifixion.

According to these "no-name" exegetes there was Jesus and Christ - two separate entities - and one lived and one died, one watched impassibly while the other suffered.

The way the surviving Greek texts of Irenaeus frame the understanding it was a heavenly Christ and a mortal Jesus. But Against the Valentinians describes the pairing it was a heavenly Jesus and a mortal Christ. I think Theodotos is another source for this.

What's the difference if it's Jesus from heaven and Christ on the cross or vice versa?

Here's the Jewish connection. I was reading Hippplytus the other night and I noticed how his anti-Christ expectation resembles the suffering messiah of rabbinic lore. In other words Hippplytus assumes a failed Jesus followed by a victorious bad guy.

Forget about that for the moment. It was just the catalyst for what followed.

What I am thinking now that if we take Against the Valentinians formula with a heavenly Jesus and a crucified (generic) Christ you suddenly explain the Soter figure of the gnostics. It's plainly stated in AtV that Jesus is Soter a heavenly figure and Irenaeus criticises the Valentinians in Book 2 for this "bad" etymology.

Here's where it gets interesting.

AtV says something a long the lines that the crucified Christ is the Demiurge's predicted messiah from the prophets. The Marcionites reference this idea over and over again too. But if Jesus was heavenly we also reconcile why not only the Marcionites denied that Jesus was the predicted messiah of the prophets but why Tertullian could "switch" the arguments of Against the Jews to Book 3 of Against Marcion.

The earliest forms of Christianity accepted that the prophets knew the Jewish messiah would fail. It is a remarkable thing for the rabbinic tradition to concede but clearly it is based on Daniel 9:26. The Jews accepted it, the Marcionites and the Valentinians accepted it. But the idea became heretical because ... it necessarily supported the idea of another god beside the Demiurge and thus contradicted Imperial monarchianism.

The point is that at the beginning of Christianity Jesus was not the name of the crucified Christ. It can't have been. The crucified Christ wasn't used to justify the triumph of the new religion but likely the failure or the limit - the end - of the old revelation (i.e. the Law and the prophets) who only saw up to this failed messiah. What came next was something new and something what "no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him."
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Right or wrong, this line of thought is intriguing. The reversal definitely demands accounting for:

Tertullian, Against the Valentinians 27: .... Upon this same Christ, therefore (so they say), Jesus descended in the sacrament of baptism, in the likeness of a dove. ....

In my own mythicohistorical approach I linked Jesus with a divine avatar, as it were, and Christ (originally, at least) with the expected Jewish messiah. So the idea of the divine/human split going in that direction in some circles resonates for me.
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Giuseppe
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Giuseppe »

One can (insist to) call a guy as "Christ" only if there was some previous doubt about the his being the Jewish Messiah.

Hardly for other reasons.

1 John 4:2–3: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus [i.e., as the Jewish Christ] is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”

Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

Whatever
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

And the Excerpts of Theodotos too:
And when he came into Space Jesus found Christ, whom it was foretold that he would put on, whom the Prophets and the Law announced as an image of the Saviour. But even this psychic Christ whom he put on, was invisible, and it was necessary for him when he came into the world to be seen here, to be held, to be a citizen, and to hold on to a sensible body. A body, therefore, was spun for him out of invisible psychic substance, and arrived in the world of sense with power from a divine preparation. [59]

Now the psychic Christ sits on the right hand of the Creator, as David says, “Sit thou on my right hand” and so on. And he sits there until the end “that they may see him whom they pierced.” But they pierced the appearance, which is the flesh of the psychic one, “for,” it says, “a bone of him shall not be broken,” just as in the case of Adam the prophecy used bone as an allegory for the soul. For the actual soul of Christ deposited itself in the Father's hands, while the body was suffering. But the spiritual nature referred to as “bone” is not yet deposited but he keeps it.[62]
but against this idea:
Now the angels were baptised in the beginning, in the redemption of the Name which descended upon Jesus in the dove and redeemed him. And redemption was necessary even for Jesus, in order that, approaching through Wisdom, he might not be detained by the Notion of the Deficiency in which he was inserted, as Theodotus says. [22]
but notice what immediately follows:
The followers of Valentinus say that Jesus is the Paraclete, because he has come full of the Aeons, having come forth from the whole. For Christ left behind Sophia, who had put him forth, and going into the Pleroma, asked for help for Sophia, who was left outside; and Jesus was put forth by the good will of the Aeons as a Paraclete for the Aeon which had passed.
It's too bad we're getting this information second hand. Notice again a little later:
“Jesus our light” “having emptied himself,” as the Apostle says, that is, according to Theodotus; having passed beyond the Boundary, since he was an angel of the Pleroma, led out the angels of the superior seed with him.
It seems the person writing down the information here about Theodotos often times frames the discussion in terms of his own orthodox beliefs.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

It's buried in Irenaeus Book 3.11.3

But, according to these men, neither was the Word made flesh, nor Christ, nor the Saviour (Soter), who was produced from [the joint contributions of] all [the Aeons]. For they will have it, that the Word and Christ never came into this world; that the Saviour, too, never became incarnate, nor suffered, but that He descended like a dove upon the dispensational Jesus; and that, as soon as He had declared the unknown Father, He did again ascend into the Pleroma. Some, however, make the assertion, that this dispensational Jesus did become incarnate, and suffered, whom they represent as having passed through Mary just as water through a tube; but others allege him to be the Son of the Demiurge, upon whom the dispensational Jesus descended; while others, again, say that Jesus was born from Joseph and Mary, and that the Christ from above descended upon him, being without flesh, and impassible. But according to the opinion of no one of the heretics was the Word of God made flesh. For if anyone carefully examines the systems of them all, he will find that the Word of God is brought in by all of them as not having become incarnate (sine carne) and impassible, as is also the Christ from above. Others consider Him to have been manifested as a transfigured man; but they maintain Him to have been neither born nor to have become incarnate; whilst others [hold] that He did not assume a human form at all, but that, as a dove, He did descend upon that Jesus who was born from Mary. Therefore the Lord's disciple, pointing them all out as false witnesses, says, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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MrMacSon
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by MrMacSon »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:46 am < . . . snip . . . >
What I am thinking now that if we take Against the Valentinians formula with a heavenly Jesus and a crucified (generic) Christ you suddenly explain the Soter figure of the gnostics. It's plainly stated in AtV that Jesus is Soter a heavenly figure and Irenaeus criticises the Valentinians in Book 2 for this "bad" etymology.

Here's where it gets interesting.

AtV says something a long the lines that the crucified Christ is the Demiurge's predicted messiah from the prophets. The Marcionites reference this idea over and over again too. But if Jesus was heavenly we also reconcile why not only the Marcionites denied that Jesus was the predicted messiah of the prophets but why Tertullian could "switch" the arguments of Against the Jews to Book 3 of Against Marcion.

The earliest forms of Christianity accepted that the prophets knew the Jewish messiah would fail. It is a remarkable thing for the rabbinic tradition to concede but clearly it is based on Daniel 9:26. The Jews accepted it, the Marcionites and the Valentinians accepted it. But the idea became heretical because ... it necessarily supported the idea of another god beside the Demiurge and thus contradicted Imperial monarchianism.

The point is that at the beginning of Christianity Jesus was not the name of the crucified Christ. It can't have been. The crucified Christ wasn't used to justify the triumph of the new religion but likely the failure or the limit - the end - of the old revelation (i.e. the Law and the prophets) who only saw up to this failed messiah. What came next was something new and something what "no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him."
This is good . . . :popcorn:
Ulan
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Ulan »

Interesting. This question regarding who is who was something I found rather irritating myself. Why "Jesus" in this case though?
Secret Alias
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Secret Alias »

I am not that smart. At best I am good at spotting parallels. Look at the Hebrew of Daniel 9:26. I render it:
messiah will be killed and disappear = יכרת משיח ואין לו
Couldn't that be the limit of meaning of the short (original) ending of Mark. It is a confirmation of scripture - in this case Daniel's prediction. Daniel has ואין לו = and he disappears, he has disappeared. Isn't that what happens to the body of the crucified one in the gospel? I am telling you folks have got this one wrong for ages. The gospel story is simply the messiah was killed and then disappears in imitation of the Hebrew of Daniel chapter 9. That's all. There wasn't originally anything more about Christ. Bye bye after Mark 16:8. :notworthy: I don't think this has been understood before but it is the correct understanding.

Eusebius links Dan 9:26 with 'the coming of Christ.' But he thinks it is the birth of Jesus. I think Christians originally understood it to mark the crucifixion and disappearance of Christ in the gospel. Yet is there any surviving proof of this?

BTW if anyone doubts my rendering of 'disappear' note the Jewish Study Bible's translation - https://books.google.com/books?id=yErYB ... 22&f=false

Apparently there is an Aramaic tradition that the crucifixion took place in the 62 week - "... that the fifth millennium came to an end in the days of Cyrus and until the passion of our savior there were five-hundred years according to the true prophecy of Daniel, who prophesied that after 62 weeks, the Messiah/ Christ (msiho) is killed." https://books.google.com/books?id=xyw70 ... cQ6AEIKjAA
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Ulan
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Re: Somewhat of a Breakthrough in My Own Personal Research

Post by Ulan »

This is a rather sobering idea. I guess the reason why solutions like this get overlooked is that they are simple, boring and soul-crushingly uninteresting. I don't mean that in a depreciating way toward the idea, I think of the way people like to think about these matters. It's like looking into an abyss of despair. A failed prophecy about a failed messiah. Can it become more uplifting?

It's only natural that people made something more appealing out of it.
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