I'm going to ask Ben his opinion on this since his Greek is better than both of ours combined twice over.Giuseppe wrote: ↑Fri Mar 27, 2020 5:27 am 1) sorry but ἐναντίον is used to make the point that an opposition is in action, not a mere presence before someone. The context requires only the metaphorical meaning of ἐναντίον. There is no reason at all to describe a god as "in presence of" another god. At least: not in that context.
But to say that Celsus is inferring the metaphoric meaning is ignoring Celsus's argument, that the two gods are different only in relation to each other, not that they are fighting/adversarial to each other.
Why? Why not just ignore Judaism altogether? What was so special about Judaism that Marcion felt the need to impose his theology onto it? Why is it not intuitive to see Marcion as an outgrowth of Judaism, when there is no evidence he took umbrage with other cults?2) it is called co-optation. For the same reason Simon Magus posed as Jesus. They used the texts of the enemies they wanted co-opt. For the same reason they made John a mere precursor.
The Marcion Gospel calls John the greatest prophet who lived. Wouldn't this imply that John came first and the Marcionites were actively incorporating him into their canon?