Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Post by Giuseppe »

THE STRONGEST EVIDENCE THAT MARCION IS NOT A JEW EVEN LESS A NOHAIDE.


"Jesus" means "It is YHWH who saves".

Marcion accepted that the pauline Christ, after the his resurrection, received by the Father the name above other names: Jesus.

But for Marcion, it is the alien God who saves, not YHWH, who is the name of the evil demiurge.

The Vermeiren's hypothesis, that the genuine Paul had only the name "Christ" and zero occurrence of "Jesus", is easily confuted.

Therefore, the simplest solution of this great contradiction is that Marcion didn't know the true ethymology of "Jesus".

The simplest solution of Marcion's ignorance of the ethymology of Jesus is that Marcion didn't know the Hebrew Language.

The simplest solution of Marcion's ignorance of Hebrew is that Marcion was not a Jew and not even a Noahide.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Post by Giuseppe »

I have found another interesting link between Bar-Abbas and John the Baptist:

John's existence would probably never have been denied if a similar deifying process had not taken place later with regard to his personality as with that of his contemporary Jesus. In the syncretic system of the Mandeans (from Aramaean Manda, knowledge, enlightenment) or Sabaeans (Aramaean saha, to baptize) John has become the last incarnation of Manda de Hajje, i. e., the knowledge or enlightenment of life, "the beloved son" of Mana rabba. i.e.. the great Mana (comp. either Iranic manas or Arabic mana in the sense of mind or spirit), the god of light and knowledge. But probably Mana rabba is ultimately only a form for the more ancient BabyIonian god Hea or Hoa, who dwells in the ocean, his holiest element, and who according to the ancient legend arose under a fishlike form from the sea, the Persian Gulf, near which the Mandeans live, to bring knowledge to mankind. The Babylonian priest Berosus, who translated this myth into Greek, calls that being by the Hellenized form Oannes.
But originally the ocean, in which Hoa dwells, was meant to be the heavenly ocean, an idea which recurs in the Mandsean system under the name Ajar-Jora, i. e., the heavenly Jordan. Ajar = Greek acr, air, a word early taken into the Aramaean languages.*
Because the often repeated baptism of the Mandseans is a theurgical-magical act which aims at a continually growing insight into the secrets of the realms of light and knowledge by interposition of the elements of Mono rabba, the king of light, namely water,
John the Baptist was assumed to be the last incarnation of Mana rabba's son, Manda dc Hajjc, who answers to the personified divine wisdom of the Old Testament (comp. Prov. viii. 23), the pre-existent, heavenly Christ of Jewish apocryphal and rabbinical literature and of Paul, and to the divine Logos of Philo and the fourth gospel. John the Baptist as the last incarnation of this Manda de Hajje thus became the eponymic hero of the gnostic baptism of the Mandseans.

(Did John the Baptist Exist? - of A Kampmeier, my bold)

The "Son of Mana Rabba" remembers closely "Bar-Rabbas", i.e. Barabbas.


Hence the rival of "Jesus called Christ" could well be just John the Baptist (!!), the last incarnation of Bar-Rabbas, "ultimately only a form for the more ancient BabyIonian god" Oannes.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Post by Giuseppe »

I see a particular point about John the Baptist in Mark.

Prof Price wrote that the detail about John being buried by his disciples is designed to make the point that John didn't rise, hence he is inferior to Christ (who rose).

This was considered an insult against John by the followers of Christ. But was it really only a mere insult ?

I don't think. To die and to rise means redemption, expiatory death, redemptive death.

The insistence on the Death without resurrection of John is a polemical point that betrayes what really was not liked about John by the Christians: the his being a mere Revealer, but not a Redeemer.

The Revealers, usually, don't die. They descended and ascended. Period.

By making John die in a dramatic way and for a futile caprice or suspicion of a king, the absence of a theological meaning for the his death betrayes partially what the Christians didn't like about John: as the his name means, "YHWH gives grace", the Christians didn't want a Revealer who limited himself to give grace and knowledge and prophecy (anything related to a cognitive progress). They wanted redemption by someone with the name: "YHWH gives salvation" (implicit: by redemptive Death).

Hence Ben is totally wrong when he makes irony about my name meaning "YHWH will add". The fate of John is already implicit in the his name, just as the fate of Jesus. THIS IS NOT A COINCIDENCE.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 10:41 amHence Ben is totally wrong when he makes irony about my name meaning "YHWH will add".
I never said it meant "Yahweh will add." I said it meant "he will add." (And I applied the understood "he" to you, not to any deity by whatever name.) Sorry to break it to you, but Joseph/Giuseppe is not theophoric.
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Giuseppe
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Re: Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Post by Giuseppe »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:15 pm
Giuseppe wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 10:41 amHence Ben is totally wrong when he makes irony about my name meaning "YHWH will add".
I never said it meant "Yahweh will add." I said it meant "he will add." (And I applied the understood "he" to you, not to any deity by whatever name.) Sorry to break it to you, but Joseph/Giuseppe is not theophoric.
It is curious the fact that you talk so, here, just you who have written in another thread:
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:11 pm I am favorable overall to the whole redeemer/revealer distinction, and am certainly not against the revealer aspect having come first. But I think you are reading this whole debate into the hymn, not out of it.
In the differences between John and Jesus, in addition to the difference between their names, I see the same redeemer/revealer distinction, the same signs of rivarly between the two views of the divine hero. How can you not see that same distinction in action?

ADDENDA:
You can't deny that this is interesting. I add this to sound not tedious.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 11:12 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:15 pm
Giuseppe wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 10:41 amHence Ben is totally wrong when he makes irony about my name meaning "YHWH will add".
I never said it meant "Yahweh will add." I said it meant "he will add." (And I applied the understood "he" to you, not to any deity by whatever name.) Sorry to break it to you, but Joseph/Giuseppe is not theophoric.
It is curious the fact that you talk so, here, just you who have written in another thread:
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:11 pm I am favorable overall to the whole redeemer/revealer distinction, and am certainly not against the revealer aspect having come first. But I think you are reading this whole debate into the hymn, not out of it.
In the differences between John and Jesus, in addition to the difference between their names, I see the same redeemer/revealer distinction, the same signs of rivarly between the two views of the divine hero. How can you not see that same distinction in action?

ADDENDA:
You can't deny that this is interesting. I add this to sound not tedious.
I claim not to have used the term "Yahweh" in your name's etymology, and then you quote me not using the term "Yahweh" in your name's etymology. Nice. :D

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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Post by Joseph D. L. »

That's Giuseppe's entire career on this forum.
Giuseppe
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Re: Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Post by Giuseppe »

Is the your a cryptic way to say that I am seeing right in the matter? That the presence of YHWH in the name is not a coincidence, for both John and Jesus, with the only difference that John reveals (by "giving grace") while Jesus redeemes (by "saving") ?

That precise difference - a Revealer, then a Revealer in the name of YHWH, then a Redeemer, then a Redeemer in the name of YHWH - may explain the Christian origins, I think.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Post by Giuseppe »

Another co-optation of John's words by the Gospel Jesus:

Words of John:

John 3:35
The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.

Words of Jesus:

John 5:20
20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.

What is strange is that proto-John is written by a disciple of Marcion. Hence, how could he copy and paste from the words of John the Baptist ?

But what is even more surprising, is John 1:32, the most enigmatic verse of the entire NT:

Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him.

Is not this seeing the dove by John the precise thing that is strongly embarrassing for Mark and all the other authors of Gospels ?

Celsus knew that tradition: about a John being the only witness of the descent of Jesus.

I can imagine where.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Was the birth story in Luke/Matthew originally referred to John the Baptist

Post by Giuseppe »

The original "Gospel of John" was Revelation, i.e. the Gospel of John the Baptist.

The evidence is the following:

for the Judaizer named Papias, the main disciples of the Lord had been seven:

Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John and Matthew

That list does not agree with the Fourth Gospel, where Matthew, James and John (=the sons of Zebedee) are never mentioned (really they are mentioned only at the end, in the later Judaizing interpolation), while conversely, one of the first to follow Jesus is a certain Nathanael, whose speak neither Papias nor the synoptic Gospels:

this proves that Papias did not know the Gospel "according to John".

Therefore, for Papias, "The Gospel" was probably the same book of Revelation in his later Catholic version.

But then John the Elder was for Papias the John connected with John of Revelation, of which I have already proved in this thread that he was the original Jewish (and not Christian) "John the Baptist" before any his connection with the Baptism idea.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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