Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:53 am
1) I ignore GPeter, sorry.
Which is your right, but I think you're missing a big piece of the puzzle.
2) the criterion of Embarrassment, docet dr. Carrier, is useful to recover oldest beliefs, not to recover historical nucleus. I am not applying the criterion of Embarrassment on the separationist belief to prove that Jesus existed. I am applying it on the separationist belief to prove that the view of a god who abandoned/betrayed Jesus preserves trace of a belief that is really embarrassing therefore more old than separationism itself, precisely the Marcion's belief that the bastard demiurge conspired against Jesus.
Even setting aside a historical Jesus, which the issue doesn't touch upon, the idea of using the criterion of embarrassment is not an honest assessment of retrieving what these people believed, originally believed, or their motivations.
And your last statement is just a presumption treated a s fact.
Learn, please: "more old" doesn't mean "more historical", here.
In this instance, the older something is, is the more authentic it is.
So if it's shown that Macrion didn't hate YHWH, then it doesn't matter what later Marcionites thought. The father away we get from the sphere of influence (100 ad -140 ad) is the less I care about what others have to say. I can only use their writings for information on how the traditions evolved, and can only hope to work my way back through the layers of sediment with appropriate the tools and theories. I'll be honest, even someone like Celsus means very little to me.
3)
you are ignoring Celsus, who met personally Marcionites and learned from them their beliefs. And Celsus confirms that Marcionites hated the bastard demiurge.
This is the full context of what Origen says about Celsus's interpretation on the Marcionites:
In the next place, mixing up together various heresies, and not observing that some statements are the utterances of one heretical sect, and others of a different one, he brings forward the objections which we raised against Marcion. And, probably, having heard them from some paltry and ignorant individuals, he assails the very arguments which combat them, but not in a way that shows much intelligence. Quoting then our arguments against Marcion, and not observing that it is against Marcion that he is speaking, he asks: Why does he send secretly, and destroy the works which he has created? Why does he secretly employ force, and persuasion, and deceit? Why does he allure those who, as you assert, have been condemned or accused by him, and carry them away like a slave-dealer? Why does he teach them to steal away from their Lord? Why to flee from their father? Why does he claim them for himself against the father's will? Why does he profess to be the father of strange children?" To these questions he subjoins the following remark, as if by way of expressing his surprise: Venerable, indeed, is the god who desires to be the father of those sinners who are condemned by another (god), and of the needy, and, as themselves say, of the very offscourings (of men), and who is unable to capture and punish his messenger, who escaped from him! After this, as if addressing us who acknowledge that this world is not the work of a different and strange god, he continues in the following strain: If these are his works, how is it that God created evil? And how is it that he cannot persuade and admonish (men)? And how is it that he repents on account of the ingratitude and wickedness of men? He finds fault, moreover, with his own handwork, and hates, and threatens, and destroys his own offspring? Whither can he transport them out of this world, which he himself has made? Now it does not appear to me that by these remarks he makes clear what evil is; and although there have been among the Greeks many sects who differ as to the nature of good and evil, he hastily concludes, as if it were a consequence of our maintaining that this world also is a work of the universal God, that in our judgment God is the author of evil. Let it be, however, regarding evil as it may — whether created by God or not — it nevertheless follows only as a result when you compare the principal design. And I am greatly surprised if the inference regarding God's authorship of evil, which he thinks follows from our maintaining that this world also is the work of the universal God, does not follow too from his own statements. For one might say to Celsus: If these are His works, how is it that God created evil? And how is it that He cannot persuade and admonish men? It is indeed the greatest error in reasoning to accuse those who are of different opinions of holding unsound doctrines, when the accuser himself is much more liable to the same charge with regard to his own.
I'll also point out that YHWH being the author of good and evil is not unique to Marcionites.
For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I name you, though you do not know me.
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know me,
6 that people may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is none besides me;
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
7 I form light and create darkness;
I make well-being and create calamity;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.
None of this shows that Marcion had some unabashed hatred for YHWH and JUdaism.
I take little stock in what they say, and you shouldn't either. Marcion's entire theology is rooted in Judaism.
Sorry, but to my knowledge Marcion comes from Sinope, not from Judea.
You don't have to be in Judea to know about Judaism.
Alexandria had a thriving Jewish population. Rome had a Jewish population. Greece had a Jewish population.
You see man, it's stuff like this that causes people to believe you don't know what you're talking about. Aquila came from Sinope, and yet he became a Jewish proselyte. What was stopping Marcion, if it's not geography (which is everything)?
Hell, we don't even know where Marcion came from. Him being from Sinope, Pontus could very well have ulterior motives from the heresy hunters (especially if you read Tertullian's description). As far as we know, Marcion could have come from anywhere in the Empire. Sinope, Syria, Alexandria, Rome, etc. We don't know.
The Pagan Celsus didn't hate Marcion. Celsus despised Marcion just as he despised the Judaizers (ebionites) and the proto-catholics. Therefore Celsus is a credible independent witness of the anti-demiurgist view of Marcion.
Celsus is writing at 220 ad (and yes, I know the consensus has him at 175 ad. I don't care. He's writing after Zephyrinus and the establishment of a four-fold canon), and by that point Marcionites have evolved. It's one reason why I don't care about Esnik or Ephraim. My interest is Marcion, not Marcionites. If at somepoint between Marcion, and Irenaeus, Tertullian, Celsus, and everyone else the Marcionites hated YHWH and Judaism, means absolutely nothing to me. Marcion himself was dependant on Judaism (as shown by the very texts the Marcionites used), and his views were not at all strange to rabbinical Judaism. Again, Justin's only charge against Marcion was that he made YHWH--the god of Judaism, meaning that Marcion was derivative of Judaism himself, because he still regarded YHWH as creator--second to an even more powerful god--again, which is found with a literal reading of Torah.
In all honesty, you just over complicate things. I mean, how in the world can you actually prove any of the things you say? It's all circular and too dependent on these obscure yet specific interpretations of yours.
