Was Jesus taken up like Enoch?

[Ben C. Smith]

Frankly, we have no earliest evidence of the ascension of the entire body of Jesus during the crucifixion. Celsus witnesses the absence of the idea and he profits to criticize Christians just in virtue of that absence.

What is the reference for Celsus?

[Giuseppe]

Frankly, we have no earliest evidence of the ascension of the entire body of Jesus during the crucifixion. Celsus witnesses the absence of the idea and he profits to criticize Christians just in virtue of that absence.

What is the reference for Celsus?

But let us observe how this Jew of Celsus asserts that, if this at least would have helped to manifest his divinity, he ought accordingly to have at once disappeared from the cross.

(2:68)
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04162.htm

And again:

While undergoing his punishment he was seen by all men, but after his resurrection by one, whereas the opposite ought to have happened.

(2:70)

[Ben C. Smith]

Frankly, we have no earliest evidence of the ascension of the entire body of Jesus during the crucifixion. Celsus witnesses the absence of the idea and he profits to criticize Christians just in virtue of that absence.

What is the reference for Celsus?

But let us observe how this Jew of Celsus asserts that, if this at least would have helped to manifest his divinity, he ought accordingly to have at once disappeared from the cross.

(2:68)
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04162.htm

And again:

While undergoing his punishment he was seen by all men, but after his resurrection by one, whereas the opposite ought to have happened.

(2:70)

Okay, thanks.

[Ben C. Smith]

My point is that the default position has to be that the Separationist crucifixion is the oldest idea, unless you give more strong evidence about the ascension of the entire body as earliest idea.

A big part of the point of the idea that an assumption from the cross is the earliest traceable belief about Jesus' death is that it is nowhere still extant in its original form; it has to be mined out of texts whose overall interests stand opposed to it. Thus neither the gospel of Peter nor that of Luke is, on the whole, an assumptionist text: both have a burial of the body.

Of course Celsus would not (necessarily) know about those earlier beliefs. (I have to admit, however, that although I was familiar in other contexts with that line you quote from him, I had never really considered it in connection with the present idea.) Not even later Christians knew about them, since ex hypothesi they had been written over. Celsus is dependent upon Christian contemporary with himself, on Christian documents which had already made the move, and on Jewish propaganda against Christians contemporary with himself. None of those things is, even today, an unsullied source for what I am talking about.

What Celsus does show is that an assumption from the cross is a pretty natural idea to conceive if one does not wish the shame inherent in crucifixion to attach to one's hero.

I do not know how strong you might consider my evidence to be. There is the Greek verb from the OP, used in common by Peter and by the texts adduced in the OP pertaining to bodily assumption. There is the argument that the empty tomb narrative is a later addition to the gospel of Mark. There is the observation that the Transfiguration, which to my eye looks like a relocated vision of Jesus in glory, presents Jesus in conjunction with two of the three figures most associated with a bodily assumption. There are also those passages in the NT in which the action seems to skip directly from crucifixion and/or death to exaltation, without mentioning or specifying either resurrection or burial. Finally, there is the relative smoothness of going from a unidirectional assumption to a bidirectional separation of sorts as contrasted with the relative roughness of going from a bidirectional separation to a unidirectional assumption; the separation can easily swallow the assumption whole, whereas the reverse maneuver requires a more severe denial of what came before.

(That is, there can be a crucifixion on assumptionist, separationist, and resurrectional terms, but there can be no burial or delayed resurrection on assumptionist terms; anyone hinting at an assumption would really be cutting against the grain. And please note that the way in which I am using the term "separation" would in this context rope in both the proto-orthodox and the sects classically called separationists; what they share is a split of some kind at the cross: the classic separations are just more extreme in what they are splitting off.)

I readily admit that the OP is engaging in speculation. There is no smoking gun. But I am still happier, at least so far, with that speculation than I am with the speculation that separationism, whether of the severe or of the mild variety, came first.

I appreciate the feedback.

Separationism at the Cross.png (68.45 KiB) Viewed 5570 times

[Giuseppe]

Prima facie, your hypothesis assumes that, in the Earliest Gospel, Pilate and the sinedrites saw the total victory of Jesus, being him disappeared miraculously from the cross (both as body and as soul). This effort of imagination would seem to go against the hypothesis (Occam prohibits).

But you may object that the Earliest Gospel ended bluntly with the ascension of both body and soul, hence we would be dispensed from the related effort of imagination about his enemies'reaction, pace Occam.

But the assumption that both body and soul were ascended up, is equivalent to deny any difference between body and soul. Afterall, a body who disappears is not a "real" body: usually, true bodies don't disappear. Hence what you are describing for the Earliest Gospel would be merely what people call "a Docetist crucifixion". A belief that has to be considered late insofar we assume that Marcion of Sinope was late, too.

And the your quotes from Enoch don't assume a disappearance of the body in a moment of extreme danger of life, in extremis. Not even Paul knew if his ascension to Third Heaven was a Separationist Ascension or a Complete Ascension, but at any case Paul didn't risk the death on the earth when he was ascended (with body or without body) to Third Heaven. Just as Enoch.

[Ben C. Smith]

Prima facie, your hypothesis assumes that, in the Earliest Gospel, Pilate and the sinedrites saw the total victory of Jesus, being him disappeared miraculously from the cross (both as body and as soul). This effort of imagination would seem to go against the hypothesis (Occam prohibits).

Far from assuming that Pilate saw Jesus victorious, my hypothesis does not even necessarily assume that the first iteration had anything to do with Pilate at all! You are confusing your assumptions with mine.

Furthermore, and more importantly, it is essential to my methodology that the element at hand (such as a bodily assumption) not be forced into compliance with other elements of the story (such as Pilate), or vice versa. The OP is, by its very nature, an experiment and a probe, designed to see how many disparate little details from otherwise incalcitrant texts it can explain. Some of my very best ideas, in the long run, have been born of holding two contrasting ideas in tension, giving each one separately its full weight and worth despite the other, until pursuits in parallel topics happen to clear up the tension in a very satisfying way. That kind of result is quashed from the very beginning if each new idea has to be discarded as soon as it seems to rub up against existing ideas.

After all, a body who disappears is not a "real" body: usually, true bodies don't disappear.

Either Enoch, Elijah, and Moses disagree with you here or they themselves are examples of docetism. The beauty is that the precise answer to this question is not necessary to my hypothesis, since the template was obviously in place regardless of its exact implications. "What happened to Jesus? Well, it was kind of like Enoch." No need to account for a tomb, either.

And the your quotes from Enoch don't assume a disappearance of the body in a moment of extreme danger of life, in extremis.

The crucifixion itself is not part of this motif; its origins are separate, whatever they may be. The assumption, to my mind, may well have been called upon precisely in order to justify the crucifixion, which was already firmly in place and could not be ignored.

[Giuseppe]

Under the your hypothesis, someone invented the Separationist Crucifixion to harmonize two different previous sources:

• a source that had a Complete Ascension or Disappearance

• a source that had a burial and empty tomb

But GPhilip is evidence that who invented the Separationist Crucifixion (or, that is equivalent, who merely "read" a Separationist Crucifixion in the Jesus's cry: "my God, why have you abandoned me?" et similia) wanted that it was an allegory of the Crucifixion/Separation in Outer Space. Velim nolim, it is so that the Valentinians interpreted a Separationist Crucifixion.

Hence Occam prohibits your scenario as too much complicated, since it requires two reasons to introduce a Separationist Crucifixion and not only one.

1 is more simple than 2. Isn't it?

[Ben C. Smith]

Under the your hypothesis, someone invented the Separationist Crucifixion to harmonize two different previous sources:

• a source that had a Complete Ascension or Disappearance

• a source that had a burial and empty tomb

But GPhilip is evidence that who invented the Separationist Crucifixion (or, that is equivalent, who merely "read" a Separationist Crucifixion in the Jesus's cry: "my God, why have you abandoned me?" et similia) wanted that it was an allegory of the Crucifixion/Separation in Outer Space.

Come now. You know, Giuseppe, that I regard the whole concept of a crucifixion in "outer space" (as Carrier annoyingly called it) as nonsense (on the merits of early Christian literature and trajectories, not a priori). I cannot get even a shadow of a foothold into that idea, and I no longer debate it, because it bores me to tears. So marshaling the "crucifixion in outer space" in some way against my speculation is comedy.

Hence Occam prohibits your scenario as too much complicated, since it requires two reasons to introduce a Separationist Crucifixion and not only one.

1 is more simple than 2. Isn't it?

There would be only the one reason on my reconstruction. To take "why have you forsaken me" as separationist is to misunderstand, deliberately or otherwise, the use of the Psalm in the passion narrative. It is not the bare source of separationism; it is an opportunism of a kind exercised every day by humans everywhere. One sees separationism in "why have you forsaken me" only if one already wants to see it there, already wishes that the passion narrative would play out differently.

[Giuseppe]

There would be only the one reason on my reconstruction. To take "why have you forsaken me" as separationist is to misunderstand, deliberately or otherwise, the use of the Psalm in the passion narrative. It is not the bare source of separationism; it is an opportunism of a kind exercised every day by humans everywhere.

To my knowledge, the only Gospel text that may be considered as evidence of Separationist Crucifixion is the Jesus's cry on the cross. I am talking about Separationist Crucifixion, not merely about generic Separationism (note that I don't talk about the Separationist Baptism, for example).


GPhilip is evidence that the Valentinian author of the interpolation of "Lord" in verse 72:

"My God, my God, why, O Lord, have you forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34). It was on the cross that he said these words, for he had departed from that place.

...knew in advance that his readers would have interpreted the Jesus's cry of abandon on the cross as the allusion to the myth of the separation in outer space alluded by Ireneus:

For her enthymesis (or inborn idea) having been taken away from her, along with its supervening passion, she herself certainly remained within the Pleroma; but her enthymesis, with its passion, was separated from her by Horos, crucified, and expelled from that circle. This enthymesis was, no doubt, a spiritual substance, possessing some of the natural tendencies of an Æon, but at the same time shapeless and without form, because it had received nothing. And on this account they say that it was an imbecile and feminine production.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103102.htm

You can't deny that Horos was in outer space, not on this earth.

I fear that you are ignoring deliberately these points. Particularly, you are ignoring the fact that the idea of a Separationist Crucifixion is entirely based, in the eyes of the Separationists, on the Jesus's cry on the cross, totally beyond if who invented it had in mind only the Psalm 22.

Possibly I may give you my view: who invented the cry of Jesus on the cross built it deliberately along the Psalm 22. But to eclipse a different idea of Separation. The Jesus's cry started as anti-Separationist, originally. It is not an allusion to the idea. It was born as denial of the idea (and an apology for that denial). Something as: Jesus was separated, yes, but in virtue of the Psalm 22, not because a Separation happened in outer space.

[Ben C. Smith]

I fear that you are ignoring deliberately these points.

Fear what you will. Get therapy for it, if necessary.

Particularly, you are ignoring the fact that the idea of a Separationist Crucifixion is entirely based, in the eyes of the Separationists, on the Jesus's cry on the cross, totally beyond if who invented it had in mind only the Psalm 22.

I suspect, to the contrary, that the cry from the cross was their main prooftext for a concept they wanted to be true for other reasons.