On the pre-Markan Gospel that had the Baptist as witness

[Giuseppe]

There is an interesting comment that is inspiring myself just in this time:

Major Markan Markers regarding Jesus:

• 1) Jesus came to be baptized for the repentance of sins just like everyone else.
  
  2) Jesus got baptized by John just like everyone else.
  
  3) God's Spirit possessed Jesus but Jesus' audience did not notice, only the Reader.
  
  4) The Spirit immediately kuriousnaps Jesus away from the scene of the rhyme so no one, including John who predicted Jesus, notices anything remarkable about Jesus.

"Mark" (author) looks to me to have his Jesus go out of The Way to avoid indicating there was historical witness to anything at the baptism that was a sign. It's all for the Reader. Thematically this follows Paul:

• 1) Jesus was not seen as reMarkable in his time.
  
  2) Jesus was revealed as remarkable in Paul's time.
  
  3) You need faith in Paul's time to see Jesus as remarkable, not historical witness.

In particular, the last phrase:

You need faith in Paul's time to see Jesus as remarkable, not historical witness

This sounds as a warning against something that the Christians were already doing. Before Mark. Pace Mark and contra Mark. As prof Price said (I go to memory): you don't say to people to not do what they weren't already doing.

The immediate implication is that John the Baptist was used in a previous narrative as the necessary historical witness of the first apparition of Jesus on the earth.

This fits perfectly what Celsus read in the his gospel:

What credible witness beheld this appearance? Or who heard a voice from heaven declaring you to be the Son of God? What proof is there of it, save your own assertion, and the statement of another of those individuals who have been punished along with you?

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04161.htm

[Giuseppe]

The belief in a historical Jesus started with the proclamation that a man saw him to appear in the wilderness or in a similar place. That man, that witness, was probably John the Baptist.

The (relative) surprise is that there is a marcionite tradition about John being yes a witness of Jesus, only not on the earth. But in Hades.

In addition to this, the gnostic Heracleon, the author of the earliest commentary of a gospel, wrote that "Capernaum", where the marcionite incipit has Jesus descended from heaven, was allegory of the Hades.

Tertullian says somewhere that the marcionite Jesus descended from the heaven of the alien god, but he had to pass from the heaven of the demiurge before to descend on Capernaum. Tertullian is confused: was the heaven of the demiurge just the Hades, of which Capernaum is allegory?

Celsus identifies the only witness of Jesus with a dead person, dead as killed by persecution. The dead people are in Hades.

According to Ascension of Isaiah, Jesus's final destination, during the his descending, was the Hades.

Hence, Mark wanted to deny that Jesus was seen by John the Baptist in the Hades, the first time when Jesus was seen by someone. The baptism by John replaced the meeting of Jesus with John in Hades.

[Giuseppe]

In Mark, John the Baptist saw only the man (Jesus) but not the spirit (the Christ). With the warning (betraying embarrassment): John was not a witness of the spirit, but only of the man.

In Marcion, John the Baptist saw (possibly in Hades for the first time) the Christ, but John denied that he was the Christ expected by him. Hence in Marcion there is clearly a separation between what John expected to see (the Jewish Messiah) and what he effectively saw (the Christ
of an alien God).

The point is that also in Mark there is clearly a separation between what John expected to see (a mere man) and what he effectively saw (the Jewish Christ).

At level of awareness of what he was witnessing, in Marcion John realized that Jesus was an alien Christ, not the his own Messiah. In Mark, John was witnessing only the presence of a mere pious Jew, not of a Christ.

Hence, if Mark is embarrassed by what John realized by the his witness (where the comment above of Joe Wallack has lead myself to conclude), then probably John was embarrassed by the content of the knowledge acquired by John by the his witness: the status of Jesus as an ALIEN Christ. As the Christ of an ALIEN God.

[Giuseppe]

Joe Wallack is really a genius (see the comment above).

In short, the chronological sequence is the following:

1) in Marcion, John realized the divinity of Jesus but he was scandalized by it. He disapproved it.

2) in Mark, John didn't realize the divinity of Jesus but he would have approved it, if only he had known it.

3) in Luke, Matthew, John, etc, John realized the divinity of Jesus and he approved it.

This chronological sequence explains definitely why Mark was embarrassed by a John who knew but disapproved the alien nature of Jesus.

At the time of Mark, the knowledge of Jesus was intrinsically connected with the realization (sometimes followed by a disapprovation, as in the case of John the Baptist) of the his alien nature (as the Christ of an alien god). Hence the Mark's remedy to overcome the his embarrassment (for that realization) was the negation of that knowledge: in short, the Messianic Secret is in Mark basically anti-marcionite apology.

[Giuseppe]

1) in Marcion, John realized the divinity of Jesus but he was scandalized by it. He disapproved it.

2) in Mark, John didn't realize the divinity of Jesus but he would have approved it, if only he had known it.

3) in Luke, Matthew, John, etc, John realized the divinity of Jesus and he approved it.

How did John realize that Jesus was divine, in Marcion?

We don't know, because the Marcion's gospel is lost.

But the more probable hypothesis is that, in Marcion's Gospel, John met Jesus the first time in Hades. He realized, by this descending of Jesus into Hades, that Jesus was sent by a God. Only, John rejected the God of Jesus, since this God was not the creator.

He remained in Hades. Euhemerized as the prison of Herod.