The gospel of the Egyptians.

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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rakovsky
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Re: The gospel of the Egyptians.

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Oskar Holtzmann in his book The Life of Jesus suggests that the passage from the Gospel of the Egyptians can be clarified with Jesus' reply to the Sadduccees in Mark 12 that after the resurrection there won't be marriage. Holtzmann reasons that since there is no more death, there might not be marriage either.
As to Salome's comment "Then I have done well in that I have not borne children", Holtzmann notes that this contradicts the common interpretation of Matthew and Mark that she was the mother of James and John. But some scholars and translators interpret her declaration of her barrenness in terms of a hypothetical and a question. Holtzmann sees the ban on eating bitter plants as referring to the ban God gave to Adam in the Garden.
Next he says that the quote about the consummation, which he gives in Greek, resembles closely Philo's declarations about the ideal man, which he also gives in Greek. But I don't read Greek so it's hard for me to judge. I doubt that Philo opposed sex and marriage per se.

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Ben C. Smith
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Re: The gospel of the Egyptians.

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rakovsky wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:03 pm Oskar Holtzmann in his book The Life of Jesus suggests that the passage from the Gospel of the Egyptians can be clarified with Jesus' reply to the Sadduccees in Mark 12 that after the resurrection there won't be marriage. Holtzmann reasons that since there is no more death, there might not be marriage either.
That does seem to be the logic behind a lot of denials that there will still be marriage in the age to come. If there is no more death, then there are no more dead people for the next generation to take the place of.
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Re: The gospel of the Egyptians.

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In The Apocryphal Gospels, Hans-Josef Klauck connects Jesus' reply that men die as long as women give birth to God's decision in the beginning of Genesis to give women birth pangs. But neither story actually means that birth and sex are wrong themselves.

Next, Klauck theorizes that the female is the one overcome because man was made first and this gospel seeks s restoration to the original principle which was Male. That may be true, but it seems that more directly what Jesus here seeks to overcome is the works of female, birth, not the female herself.

Klauck notes that since Clement notes that the Encratites failed to cite Jesus' reply from this gospel, Clement must have accessed the gospel apart from the Encratites. Klauck thinks that Jesus' reply about the bitter plants implies the bitter results of childbirth, the painful birthpangs and the husband's rule mentioned in Gen 3:16. He also sees it as referring to Gen. 2:16 on the rule against eating the forbidden fruit that brings death in a combination with Gen 3:16. "EvEg employs the metaphor of the bitter plant for the entire complex of fall, gender, duality, childbirth and death. Accordingly, it is better to abstain from all this... This of course means that EvEg was a much more encratite document than Clement was willing to recognize."

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Re: The gospel of the Egyptians.

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:19 pm
rakovsky wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:03 pm Oskar Holtzmann in his book The Life of Jesus suggests that the passage from the Gospel of the Egyptians can be clarified with Jesus' reply to the Sadduccees in Mark 12 that after the resurrection there won't be marriage. Holtzmann reasons that since there is no more death, there might not be marriage either.
That does seem to be the logic behind a lot of denials that there will still be marriage in the age to come. If there is no more death, then there are no more dead people for the next generation to take the place of.
I like that you reply to the threads thoughtfully. On page 57 in the top paragraph there are a few places where Holtzmann gives Greek quotations from this gospel and from Philo that he finds related. If you like, you could translate them:

https://books.google.com/books?id=36hZA ... &q&f=false

I think he is saying that the same idea about the primordial man shows up in Philo.

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Re: The gospel of the Egyptians.

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rakovsky wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:54 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:19 pm
rakovsky wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:03 pm Oskar Holtzmann in his book The Life of Jesus suggests that the passage from the Gospel of the Egyptians can be clarified with Jesus' reply to the Sadduccees in Mark 12 that after the resurrection there won't be marriage. Holtzmann reasons that since there is no more death, there might not be marriage either.
That does seem to be the logic behind a lot of denials that there will still be marriage in the age to come. If there is no more death, then there are no more dead people for the next generation to take the place of.
I like that you reply to the threads thoughtfully. On page 57 in the top paragraph there are a few places where Holtzmann gives Greek quotations from this gospel and from Philo that he finds related. If you like, you could translate them:

https://books.google.com/books?id=36hZA ... &q&f=false

I think he is saying that the same idea about the primordial man shows up in Philo.
Here are the translations of the Greek phrases on page 57:

τὸ τῆς αἰσχύνης ἔνδυμα = "the garment of shame" (from the gospel of the Egyptians)
ὅταν γένηται τὰ δύο ἕν καὶ τὸ ἄρρεν μετὰ τῆς θηλείας οὔτε ἄρρεν οὔτε θῆλυ = "whenever the two should become one and the male with the female neither male nor female" (from the gospel of the Egyptians)
ἄρσεν και θῆλυ = "male and female" (from Philo)
οὔτ' ἄρρην οὔτε θῆλυς = "neither male nor female" (from Philo)
τὸ δὲ ἔξω ὡς τὸ ἔσω = "and the outside as the inside" (from 2 Clement)

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Re: The gospel of the Egyptians.

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Nice.

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