Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

davidmartin wrote: ↑Fri Oct 09, 2020 5:51 ami think you are missing a much bigger story but that is just my opinion of course!

I think that the essential is to resolve the enigma "John the Baptist" starting from the mythicist premises (i.e.: celestial Jesus in Paul, Marcion's Evangelion as first gospel, absence of John the Baptist in the first gospel).

I am galvanized by this discovery. Only ask yourself: why do you (=Marcion) take the disturb to mention a precise date ("15° year of Tiberius") when nobody apart Paul (in your assumed theology) was there "to witness" the magical fantastic mythical event?

Best answer: because in your original incipit Paul figured precisely there "to witness" the magical fantastic mythical event.

To remove this privilege from Paul's hands, the Judaizers replaced him (=Paul) with a his historical contemporary: the Samaritan Prophet called John the Baptist.

Now John the Baptist is the privileged witness, not more Paul.

The rest is history.

I remember only now that Roger Parvus, when he was still a mythicist, arrived to this conclusion from a different premise, the idea raised by Dykstra that "Jesus" was Paul/Simon Magus in proto-Mark. But Parvus had still Paul/"Jesus" as the man baptized by John the Baptist hence (still) "witnessed" by John the Baptist.

Differently from Roger Parvus, I start simply from the correct assumption that the precise datation ("15° year of Tiberius") implies by need the dogmatic claim that someone witnessed the event (the descent of Jesus from heaven) and that someone could only be Paul in Marcion's Evangelion.

Hence, there are only two possibilities:

• Jesus descended directly on Paul, confirming so the mystical experience of the apostle who felt "his Son in me";

• Jesus descended as a distinct being and Paul witnessed the event, hearing the voice from heaven pointing to Jesus: "This is my beloved Son". This was in nuce the original Gospel Transfiguration, eclipsed by the other of our knowledge, with the three Pillars as witnesses.

Hence my view (the second point) is totally different from Roger Parvus's view and can't be accused of unaware plagiarism.

"Luke" (corruptor) had made John as the privileged witness of the descent of Jesus Christ on earth, and not Paul.

Now, the passage found in Galatians 1:15-16:


...gave a good occasion for Marcion show Paul in the exact incipit of his gospel, as the chosen privileged person destined to witness a day the first descent of Jesus Christ on earth.

My point is that, even if the original incipit of the Evangelion didn't mention explicitly Paul, neither his birth (his being "set me apart from my mother’s womb") nor his mystical vision, as adult, of the descent of Christ on the earth, Marcion and his original Marcionite readers understood perfectly that the precise date ("15° year of Tiberius") worked perfectly as temporal pointer to Paul and only to him.

This is the true reason the Judaizer "Luke" felt obliged to introduce not only John the Baptist as the first receiver of the "voice of god", but also -- observe attentively this point please -- his being "set me apart from my mother’s womb", in the form of the stupid story of the birth of John the Baptist: really a very stupid story!!! A story who finds entirely his function and his goal in the replacement of Paul with John the Baptist in the role of who witnessed for the first time and even being destined from the birth the celestial apparition of Jesus Christ on earth.

Note also how much the Catholic priest prof Adamczewski is right to identify Capernaum as allegory of Damascus.


Christ appeared in "Capernaum", i.e. in Damascus, being witnessed just before by Paul "on the way to Damascus".

Hence paradoxically Gerd Lüdemann is more precise than Robert M Price in pointing out the "historicity" of the conversion of Paul in Damascus's road.

Stantibus rebus (I hope the reader reads with attention my post just above), I wonder if the precise date "15° year of Tiberius" was derived from the sum:

14 years + 1 year

...where 14 years was the time necessary for Paul see Christ in the Third Heaven and/or before he went to Damascus/"Capernaum":


...plus 1 year for Christ revealing himself in Damascus/"Capernaum".

Et voilà:

Holy words that can make sense only under my very probable interpretation (that "the 15° year of Tiberius" worked explicitly or implicitly as a pointer to Paul's mystical witness and his predestination from the birth, and the Judaizers eclipsed the reference to Paul by introducing the birth and the witness of John the Baptist):


(Bartosz Adamczweski, The Gospel of Mark: A Hypertextual Commentary, p. 47, my bold)

So an enigma of 2000 years is finally resolved.

The implication is grave:

• Pilate and John the Baptist and Herod Antipas and Caiaphas and Quirinus were all added for the only fact that they were contemporaries of Paul and Paul witnessed "his Son in me" precisely "the 15° year of Tiberius" .

• This is the definitive proof that the Marcion's Evangelion is the Earliest Gospel.

It is clear that Luke copied Marcion, with his 4:23 being a perfect copy yet in the wrong context, as his Jesus still has to go to Capernaum.
Marcion must have written his Gospel based on Mark and Thomas, and Luke gratefully hijacked it in his effort to steer the Thomas supporters into Mark's direction

Question just is: what are the differences between the both, really? And why didn't Marcion make it into incrowd, but Luke did?

mlinssen wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 12:10 am Marcion must have written his Gospel based on Mark

I disagree. Prof Vinzent gives reasons to think that Mark interpolated John the Baptist in the original incipit of Marcion.


http://markusvinzent.blogspot.com/2011/ ... -john.html

In this thread I have emphasized the function of witness of John the Baptist in reaction and opposition to who witnessed probably the descent of Marcion's Jesus in "Capernaum"/Damascus: Paul. The divinely inspired birth of the Baptist is a reaction against the divinely inspired birth of Paul (Galatians 1:15). It is not a coincidence, that a predestined birth of Paul is replaced by the predestined birth of John the Baptist, and that a witness of John as precursor of Christ replaces the witness of Paul as continuator of Christ.

mlinssen wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 12:10 am Question just is: what are the differences between the both, really? And why didn't Marcion make it into incrowd, but Luke did?

Vinzent has to publish in future his commentary on the Marcion's Evangelion, but I am enough sure that it will be not so different from Couchoud's commentary.

In shorter synthesis, the "15° year of Tiberius" worked necessarily, in Marcion, as a pointer to Paul's witness of the descent of the Christ on the earth.

You don't say that you have seen Harry Potter in a precise day of the calendary, unless you can confirm it because you have "seen" Harry Potter in person precisely that day.

Marcion was sincere when he meant (explicitly or implicitly we never know) that Paul and only him (for his theology) "saw" the Jesus's descent in Damascus/"Capernaum" the "15° year of Tiberius".

Hence: if John the Baptist appears now as first witness, the reason is that his introduction in that role was designed principally to replace Paul. Against Marcion.

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 12:41 am

Why would Mark begin to introduce his book that is going to be a narrative on Jesus’ life, deeds and words not with a message of Christ, but with John the Baptist as a messanger with a message about Jesus Christ? Of course, Christian readers who are so used to the Synoptics’ accounts of John the Baptist may no longer feel this strange character of a delayed opening. In contrast, if we ask the question, could Mark have added this passage to counter one of Marcion’s challenges, the answer is readily at hand. As shown in the previous paragraph, The Gospel incorporated a passage where it dealt with John the Baptist’s attitude to Jesus Christ. Very similar to the other disciples, the twelve and the 70 – he was curious and enquired who Jesus was, but despite all the deeds of Jesus, he did not trust and believe, but took offensive at Christ. Mark disputes this characterisation of the Baptist, by portraying him as the messanger and fore-runner of Jesus who not only prepares his ways and baptizes him, but who also captures all the typically Marcionite features: asceticism, the emphasis on repentance, baptism and the remission of sins, but without the renounciation of the Jewish past!

http://markusvinzent.blogspot.com/2011/ ... -john.html

A very confused and confusing commentary by Vincent.
In Mark, John B plays only this little role, in verses 1:4 - 1:9. Nothing more.
John is portrayed as the forerunner, as Elijah in disguise, even dressed in Elijah's clothes https://biblehub.com/2_kings/1-8.htm.
How else can you start if not like this?

Do you know what is interesting about the start?

Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ

Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christos

The end of Thomas, used as beginning, beginning with the word for beginning, mentioning his invention of eu angelion, and introducing the star, loud and clear, under his new name. That is how Mark starts!

Where is the textual criticism? These aren't very convincing arguments, Giuseppe.
But in the meantime I've looked for the differences in between Marcion and Luke and have come up with an ingenious Sunday afternoon conspiracy theory

mlinssen wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 4:54 am But in the meantime I've looked for the differences in between Marcion and Luke and have come up with an ingenious Sunday afternoon conspiracy theory

always interested to conspiracy theories in this field!

But if you accept that Marcion preceded Luke, then you are obliged to accept that Marcion preceded Mark, too.

• The incipit of Marcion gives a temporal marker ("the 15° year of Tiberius") that can make sense only as the date when a particular person was privileged by a mystical vision.

• The incipit of Mark doesn't give a temporal marker but betrayes from the first moment an excessive insistence on John the Baptist as the man who witnessed Jesus.

It is evident that Mark is opposing John the Baptist against the person who in Marcion had the privilege of "seeing" Christ for the first time.