Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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Re: Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Post by Secret Alias »

Here's my problem again. If someone came along with a name = Moses (like Mark let's say) that person could be viewed as a second (returning) Moses. We know that.

If someone had the name 'Jesus' or Joshua that could person could - by the same logic - be viewed as a second Joshua right? That make sense. And Joshua sort of resembles David so it makes sense to identify this 'second Joshua' with the strong military leader associated with Joshua and David. Right?

But Jesus isn't like that figure. He's passive and kind. He doesn't bring Israel into the promised land, fight the enemies of Israel etc. Could the Marcionites have venerated a Jewish angel? Sure why not. Could the Marcionites have believed in an angel named Jesus that turns upside down half a millennium of Jewish understanding of Joshua as Moses's 'enforcer'? I find that to difficult to believe unless - and would be the comeback of early Christians - this passive kind 'Jesus' really did exist and we have to deal with that reality (i.e .that he visited Judea born from a virgin etc).

If you think someone was making up the existence of this angel and his entire existence comes from a developed sense of Biblical allegory and symbolism, why invent a kind angel with a human name and a human name associated with violence? Unless it really did happen that way and we just have to deal with it ...

Yet the orthodox said Jesus really was born of a virgin and so named by an angel. He wasn't an angel for them.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Giuseppe
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Re: Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Post by Giuseppe »

But if the community was Greek-speaking they may have been unaware of the names implication in Hebrew.
Thus the outsiders were unaware and this is OK, while the insiders of marcionite elite knew the name and the contradiction by it raised for traditional Jewish messianism (the quasi impossible antithesis of a ''YHWH saves'' killed by ''Jews'') and had no problem with it.

...why invent a kind angel with a human name and a human name associated with violence?
a possibile reply: maybe in order to undermine the violent messianism from the inside, raising a deliberate confusion of fields of sense. ''Scandal to the Jews, folly to the pagans'', an act of radical criticism of a religion considered as source of terrorism (=zealotism).

A speculative but enlightening example: once you suppose that muslim terrorists are really more close to original concept of 'Jihad', then the ''marcionite'' muslims (i.e. the moderate muslims) would be logically in your view by necessity the people that ''convert'' (betray, substantially) the ''Jihad'' in a more spiritual pacifist meaning withouth changing his name prima facie (that means: ''holy war''). In order to adapt the Islam in a new world order.

Post Scriptum:
I find this, at last, about a possible gnostic reason to use the name ''Jesus'' by a limited number of YHWH-haters:

http://firstnewtestament.com/exodus_allegory.htm
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Clive
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Re: Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Post by Clive »

He wasn't an angel for them
Were nephilim thought of as a type of angel?
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
andrewcriddle
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Re: Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Post by andrewcriddle »

Giuseppe wrote:I read this, too, about the possible PAGAN origin of name ''Jesus'':
The gospel story may be wholly
explained as the writing down—about 50 years after Paul's
death—of a "mystery play" reflecting the mystical function of
"the Son": God being born in us—as in the Minoan
mysteries. This view related directly with the mysteries of
Asia Minor in which God died and then rose again, and the
Saviour was also called Ieso, one of the Minoan dactyls.

Through adoption of the divine titles, along with "Lord," of
"Messiah" (ho chnstos) and Jes(h)u(s) = Joshua = Ieso, all
meaning Saviour, Paul's teaching made immediate contact
not only with Asia Minor and Greece but also with Hebrews
who had partly adopted Hellenistic mystical ideas
("Jesuists").1
(source: http://phdtree.org/pdf/31565986-on-the- ... e-in-mind/ )

but maybe 'Ieso' as ''one of the Minoan dactyls'' is meant even here as ''healer''.
I can't find any evidence of a Minoan dactyl called Ieso.

There may possibly be some vague connection with Iaso or Ieso the daughter of Asclepius the healer. Possibly via theosophy/Blavatsky. But it is very unclear.

Andrew Criddle
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Blood
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Re: Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Post by Blood »

neilgodfrey wrote:
Secret Alias wrote:But it does seem stupid. But looks can be deceiving. Sorry that I am a busy attending to the duties of a life not in its twilight. In order to keep track of your selective citations of obscure books and journals I should have to become a librarian like you. But then libraries are also in their twilight.
Of course anything you haven't bothered to actually read really must "seem stupid". Geez I wish you'd try to be a bit friendlier instead of your constant snide put-downs - not just towards me but also others with a different perspective. By the way where I work there is no theology or biblical studies school or faculty at all and nothing I source is done through my job. And I won't apologize if I happen across something that I think will be of interest to some others here and sharing it for consideration. I happen to enjoy reading and learning from as many sources as possible but you seem to have a problem with that. So why your tiresome put-downs?
Neil, save yourself the trouble actually attempting to reason with an obnoxious troll. Use the ignore function.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
Bingo
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Re: Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Post by Bingo »

Clive wrote:
He wasn't an angel for them
Were nephilim thought of as a type of angel?
May I recommend this article?

The enigmatic mystery of the Nephilim, the Rephaim, and the Titans
Giuseppe
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Re: Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Post by Giuseppe »

If you think someone was making up the existence of this angel and his entire existence comes from a developed sense of Biblical allegory and symbolism, why invent a kind angel with a human name and a human name associated with violence? Unless it really did happen that way and we just have to deal with it ...
This would be a mythicist enigma that is exactly simmetric and specular to a very similar historicist enigma of this kind:

if historical Jesus wasn't a violent Zealot, ''why cast him in a kind angel with a human name and a human name associated with violence? Unless it really did happen that way and we just have to deal with it ...''

Therefore, in similar terms, mutatis mutandis, I can reply to Secret Alias using Bermejo-Rubio's words slightly modified:
The (implicit or explicit) objection that the hypothesis of a ''human name associated with violence'' is inconsistent with the marcionite description & INVENTION of their angel, which proceeded in the direction of pacifism, unfortunately ignores the kind of inverting processes and surprising shifts which take place in the history of religions, away from the goals of founders (or allegedly founding figures).
The precise words of Bermejo-Rubio were these.
The (implicit or explicit) objection that the hypothesis of a seditionist Jesus is inconsistent with later Christian developments and emphases, which proceeded in the direction of pacifism, unfortunately ignores the kind of inverting processes and surprising shifts which take place in the history of religions, away from the goals of founders (or allegedly founding figures).
(source: http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/201 ... 8008.shtml )
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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DCHindley
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Re: Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Post by DCHindley »

andrewcriddle wrote:I can't find any evidence of a Minoan dactyl called Ieso.
I think he must mean the Cretan Dactyls:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactyl_(mythology)

The link seems buggy, but you want to look for a combination of dactyl and mythology.
Cretan Dactyls

In Crete, three Dactyls bore names suggestive of healing: Paionios (later associated with Asclepius), Epimedes, and Iasios. It was said that they had introduced the smithing of copper and iron. Of Iasion it was told (Hesiod, Theogony 970) that he lay with Demeter, a stand-in for Rhea, in a thrice-ploughed field and the Goddess brought forth Ploutos, "wealth", in the form of a bountiful harvest. Zeus struck down this impious archaic figure with a thunderbolt. This is all of the public version of this myth that survives. Doubtless, initiates must have known more.
There is no source for this statement, however.

DCH
Clive
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Re: Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Post by Clive »

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 48. 2 :

"Iasion married Kybele (Cybele) and begat Korybas (Corybas). And after Iasion had been removed into the circle of the gods, Dardanos and Kybele and Korybas conveyed to Asia the sacred rites of the Mother of the Gods and removed with them to Phrygia. Thereupon Kybele, joining herself to the first Olympos [Mountain in Phrygia], begat Alke and called the goddess Kybele after herself; and Korybas gave the name of Korybantes to all who, in celebrating the rites of his mother, acted like men possessed, and married Thebe, the daughter of Kilix. In like manner he also transferred the flute from Samothrake to Phrygia and to Lyrnessos the lyre which Hermes gave and which at a later time Akhilleus (Achilles) took for himself when he sacked that city."
DA′CTYLI (Daktuloi), the Dactyls of mount Ida in Phrygia, fabulous beings to whom the discovery of iron and the art of working it by means of fire was ascribed. Their name Dactyls, that is, Fingers, is accounted for in various ways; by their number being five or ten, or by the fact of their serving Rhea just as the fingers serve the hand, or by the story of their having lived at the foot (en daktulois) of mount Ida. (Pollux, ii. 4; Strab. x. p. 473; Diod. v. 64.) Most of our authorities describe Phrygia as the original seat of the Dactyls. (Diod. xvii. 7; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. i. 1126; Strab. l. c.) There they were connected with the worship of Rhea. They are sometimes confounded or identified with the Curetes, Corybantes, Cabeiri, and Telchines; or they are described as the fathers of the Cabeiri and Corybantes. (Strab. x. p. 466; Schol. ad Arat. 33; Serv. ad Virg. Georg. iv. 153.) This confusion with the Cabeiri also accounts for Samothrace being in some accounts described as their residence (Diod. v. 64; comp. Arnob. adv. Gent. iii. 41); and Diodorus states, on the authority of Cretan historians, that the Dactyls had been occupied in incantations and other magic pursuits; that thereby they excited great wonder in Samothrace, and that Orpheus was their disciple in these things. Their connexion or identification with the Curetes even led to their being regarded as the same as the Roman Penates. (Arnob. iii. 40.) According to a tradition in Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. i. p. 362) the Dactyls did not discover the iron in the Phrygian Ida, but in the island of Cyprus; and others again transfer them to mount Ida in Crete, although the ancient traditions of the latter island scarcely contain any traces of early working in metal there. (Apollon. Rhod. i. 1129; Plin. H. N. vii. 57.) Their number appears to have originally been three: Celmis (the smelter), Damnameneus (the hammer), and Acmon (the anvil). (Schol. ad Apollon. l. c.). To these others were subsequently added, such as Scythes, the Phrygian, who invented the smelting of iron (Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 362), Heracles (Strab. l. c.), and Delas. (Euseb. Praep. Evang. x. p. 475.) Apollonius Rhodius mentions the hero Titias and Cyllenus as the principal Dactyls, and a local tradition of Elis mentioned, besides Heracles, Paconius, Epimedes, Jasius, and Idas or Acesidas as Dactyls; but these seem to have been beings altogether different from the Idaean Dactyls, for to judge from their names, they must have been healing divinities. (Paus. v. 7. § 4, 14. § 5, 8. § 1, vi. 21. § 5; Strab. viii. p. 355.) Their number is also stated to have been five, ten (five male and five female ones), fifty-two, or even one hundred. The tradition which assigns to them the Cretan Ida as their habitation, describes them as the earliest inhabitants of Crete, and as having gone thither with Mygdon (or Minos) from Phrygia, and as having discovered the iron in mount Berecynthus. (Diod. v. 64; Cic. de Nat. Deor. iii. 16.) With regard to the real nature of the Dactyls, they seem to be no more than the mythical representatives of the discoverers of iron and of the art of smelting metals with the aid of fire, for the importance of this art is sufficiently great for the ancients to ascribe its invention to supernatural beings. The original notion of the Dactyls was afterwards extended, and they are said to have discovered various other things which are useful or pleasing to man ; thus they are reported to have introduced music from Phrygia into Greece, to have invented rhythm, especially the dactylic rhythm. (Plut. de Mus. 5 ; Diomedes, p. 474, ed. Putsch; Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 360.) They were in general looked upon as mysterious sorcerers, and are therefore also described as the inventors of the Ephesian incantation formulae; and persons when suddenly frightened used to pronounce the names of the Dactyls as words of magic power. (Plut. de Fac. in Orb. Lun. 30.)
http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Kouretes.html
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Clive
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Re: Did marcionites accept a ''YHWH saves'' as their angel?

Post by Clive »

and persons when suddenly frightened used to pronounce the names of the Dactyls as words of magic power. (Plut. de Fac. in Orb. Lun. 30.)
Name above all names?
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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