On the controversy between Jesus and his family (and the true origin of "Ben Panthera")

[Giuseppe]

Usually this controversy is considered evidence of an old rivalry between the paulinized Jesus and the (followers of the) carnal brothers of a historical Jesus.

But there are other alternatives:

• The experience of Christian proselites, who abandoned their own families to follow Jesus.

But this explanation is too much "romantic". What is the evidence that the Christians were so anti-social ?

I think that Jean Magne is correct about this point:

• A Gnostic tradition had Sabaoth rebel against Yaldabaoth: this rebellion against his divine father was given as example of the Gnostic rejection of the carnal world and anything in it.

The same moral given by the Gospel Jesus to the young rich.

Only that this Gnostic kosmophoby is judaized in Mark: Jesus rejects his family, but his family is an exemplar Jewish family, with a lot of brothers and sisters.
The young rich is reluctant to abandon his property, but he becomes allegory of old Israel, reluctant to open himself to gentiles.

The Gnostic "division" between the spiritual and the carnal world becomes the "sword" brandished by the apocalypticist Judaized Jesus.

The accusation of bastardry against Jesus ("is not this the son of Mary?") judaizes the Gnostic rejection felt by the Gnostics against themselves as creatures of the "bastard" demiurge.

This last accusation became "euhemerized" with the Celsus's accusation against Jesus "son of Panthera": the demiurge was entirely theriomorphic and therefore he was pan-thērion: having completely form of animal.



Hence Jesus was despised as son of Mary and of the demiurge. The demiurge was the original "carpenter".

But all was judaized and sanitized in Mark.

[Giuseppe]

In definitive: the controversy between Jesus and his family is a literary expedient invented by "Mark" (author) to eclipse and judaize the Gnostic rival propaganda about Jesus being rebel against the theriomorphic demiurge and his carnal and material world.

[Giuseppe]

The theriomorphic (pan-thērion) demiurge
portrayed as a Roman Centurion (as per Heracleon, also) in a Gnostic amulet:



Hence the origin of the Roman soldier "Panthera" father of Jesus.

From carvings on Gnostic gems ike the Ophian gem pictured in chapter 7 and descriptions of the gods in their literature, we know that Gnostics imagined the dark lords of the heavens as brutal monsters, animal-human hybrids dressed in Roman military uniforms. Most often the monsters had the heads of ferocious lions or hissing asps. They carried the sceptres of kings in their hands, and sometimes even displayed the heads of theis slain enemeies to terrorize their sujects.

There is a revolutionary edge to the Gnostic vision of the gods, one with political implications. Traditionally, kings and emperors were representatives of the gods, tasked with maintaining cosmic and civil order. When Gnostics characterize the traditional gods as demonic monsters in Roman military uniform, they are implying that their political leaders, the Roman power brokers, are demonic too. In Gnostic thought, the royals and their officials are the bad guys, terrorizing the rest of us, lying to us, and keeping us in servitude in the interests of their demonic overlords.

(quoted from April DeConick, The Gnostic New Age, p. 92, my bold)