Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

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Giuseppe
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Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

Post by Giuseppe »

Jesus was crucified by demons for one of the following three reasons:

(A) because the demons knew that Jesus was the Son of God


(B) because Jesus was just entered in the world of the demons without their permission


(C) because Jesus had made miracles on the earth, miracles considered 'upheavals' of the archontic rule.



Neither Paul nor Ascension of Isaiah report that Jesus had made some action, before the crucifixion, that was able to derive against him the attention of the demons. So Paul and Ascension of Isaiah support the scenario (B).


In general the Gospels support the scenario (C).


Only a Gospel parable supports the scenario (A): the parable of the Tenants:

Mark 12:1-11
12 Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 2 At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.
6 “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
7 “But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
9 “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
11
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’ ?”

According to Kovacs, also Paul supports the scenario (A).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

Post by GakuseiDon »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Aug 10, 2018 11:48 pmNeither Paul nor Ascension of Isaiah report that Jesus had made some action, before the crucifixion, that was able to derive against him the attention of the demons. So Paul and Ascension of Isaiah support the scenario (B).
When writing about the Ascension of Isaiah, it would be useful if you mention which version you are using. The translation from the Ethiopic one certainly gives the actions of Jesus that caused him to be crucified:

Chap 11:
18. And when He had grown up he worked great signs and wonders in the land of Israel and of Jerusalem.
19. And after this the adversary envied Him and roused the children of Israel against Him, not knowing who He was, and they delivered Him to the king, and crucified Him...


For the translation from the Latin, Dr Carrier writes this in his "On the historicity of Jesus" (page 43):

... in this version of the text, Jesus descends to the firmament (10.29), then to the lower air (10.30), and then is suddenly in 'the world among men' (11.2), where he at last takes the form of a man, but no one knows him there.

Combine that with the translation from the Slavonic/Latin has in Chap 9:

13. ... when He has descended and been made in your form,
14. And the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is.


The implication is that in the earlier versions, the Beloved descends, and then, when he takes on the form of a man in 'the world among men', where 'no one knows him', he is crucified. However, Carrier constructs his own hypothetical version, which unsurprisingly supports his celestial crucifixion model.

So please let us know which version of the Ascension of Isaiah you are referring to when you use it: The Ethiopic, Slavonic, Latin or Carrier's hypothetical constructed version.
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
Giuseppe
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Re: Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

Post by Giuseppe »

GakuseiDon wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 1:19 am

So please let us know which version of the Ascension of Isaiah you are referring to when you use it: The Ethiopic, Slavonic, Latin or Carrier's hypothetical constructed version.
I believed that it was evident from the context which version I refer as the more original, since not only Carrier but the entire consensus agrees that it is the more similar to the older version:

13. ... when He has descended and been made in your form,
14. And the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is.


Note that this is true even if you follow Norelli who thinks that the Birth of Jesus is part of the earliest version. What I point out here is that in the earlier version of Ascension of Isaiah the demons kill Jesus without knowing the his identity and the his actions.

Only because he is just descended in their world.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

Post by GakuseiDon »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 1:46 amWhat I point out here is that in the earlier version of Ascension of Isaiah the demons kill Jesus without knowing the his identity and the his actions.
I'm not sure what version you mean by 'earlier version'. It might be more useful to identify it when referring to the AoI; e.g. S/L (Slavonic/Latin), E (Ethiopic) or HC (Hypothetical Carrier). The reason is that in the E version, the demons don't kill Jesus. Referring to AoI generally as it saying that demons killed Jesus gives a false impression of the AoI.
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
Giuseppe
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Re: Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

Post by Giuseppe »

GakuseiDon wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 2:50 am
Giuseppe wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 1:46 amWhat I point out here is that in the earlier version of Ascension of Isaiah the demons kill Jesus without knowing the his identity and the his actions.
I'm not sure what version you mean by 'earlier version'. It might be more useful to identify it when referring to the AoI; e.g. S/L (Slavonic/Latin), E (Ethiopic) or HC (Hypothetical Carrier). The reason is that in the E version, the demons don't kill Jesus. Referring to AoI generally as it saying that demons killed Jesus gives a false impression of the AoI.
ok but also you are giving the false impression that in the first version of AoI is described some Gospel item (like Jerusalem etc).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

Post by Giuseppe »

In the hymn to Philippians, the emptying of Jesus requires that he didn't exploits to provoke the demons before the his death. Anything he has to do is to empty himself. Also only a miracle during the descending in the sublunar world would break the climax.


So, again:

hypothesis A: possibly only Paul

hypothesis B: Paul +earlier version of Ascension of Isaiah + Hymn to Philippians

hypothesis C: later versions of AoI and Gospels.


So the more older evidence fits the hypothesis B: Jesus was killed by the demons for the his entering the sublunar world, and for no other reason.

This is surely more expected if the place of the crucifixion is the lower heavens between the earth and the moon: the 'outer space'.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Re: Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 8:18 amSo the more older evidence fits the hypothesis B: Jesus was killed by the demons for the his entering the sublunar world, and for no other reason.
Switch out "the demonic realm," whatever that may mean, for "the sublunar world," and I would tend to agree with you. People traipse all over the sublunar world all the time without being killed by demons, so entering the sublunar world by itself is not enough.
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DCHindley
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Re: Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

Post by DCHindley »

In the classic sense, demons were spiritual beings under direction of the creator God the same as angels. The demons were the "elementals" commanded by angels, doing the heavy work like cause or heal sicknesses, control weather, etc., and angels were in turn under the command of the creator God, directing human events at Gods command like generals and soldiers under a king.

The traditional Jewish POV, where the God of the Jews was also the creator, they all worked for the big dude, YHWH. They did have a system of "border crossings" between heavens (the number of heavens varies from 3 to 7 or even 10), where you are expected to "show your papers" by handing over or drawing a secret sigil or password phrase. If you had the password/sigil, you were let through no questions asked.

In a world view where there are two competing powers, good and evil, each may command their own spiritual beings (a Good God would have angels who exist in "good" space, and the Evil One demons, usually, in a material world, but there can be endless variations). There I could imagine a scenario, where the demons would be mad because Jesus, an alien, somehow managed to slip by them, meaning they could be subject to punishment for dereliction of duty.

However, if they knew about him slipping in from somewhere unknown, then they could not kill him unaware of his true origin. He was doing miracles, so had some sort of other worldly origin, but not necessarily with good intentions. It's like we find out that an alien being has been living among us, exercising powers to make things happen (healing, stopping storms, etc.) at his very word, and we decide that he is a threat to this planet, he is arrested, interrogated and killed in order to see what makes him tick. But we would know we were dealing with an alien of unknown capacity, so we did not kill him in ignorance.

There are all sorts of "catch-22s". The world view of the Cathars (or Bogomils or Manicheaens, whatever) I don't think was written down until a century after the Gospels were composed (between late 1st and late 2nd century CE). It may make sense in the early 3rd century but it would not explain the origins of the Christian myth.

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GakuseiDon
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Re: Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

Post by GakuseiDon »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 3:53 am
GakuseiDon wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 2:50 am
Giuseppe wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 1:46 amWhat I point out here is that in the earlier version of Ascension of Isaiah the demons kill Jesus without knowing the his identity and the his actions.
I'm not sure what version you mean by 'earlier version'. It might be more useful to identify it when referring to the AoI; e.g. S/L (Slavonic/Latin), E (Ethiopic) or HC (Hypothetical Carrier). The reason is that in the E version, the demons don't kill Jesus. Referring to AoI generally as it saying that demons killed Jesus gives a false impression of the AoI.
ok but also you are giving the false impression that in the first version of AoI is described some Gospel item (like Jerusalem etc).
Again: I don't know what you yourself mean by 'first version' of the AoI. It's confusing when you do that. What is the 'first version'? In S/L, the Beloved descends to the firmament (10.29), then to the lower air (10.30), and then is suddenly in 'the world among men' (11.2), where he at last takes the form of a man, but no one knows him there. I agree that there is nothing about Jerusalem or other Gospel items in there.
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
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Re: Three different reasons to kill Jesus (if you are one of the 'Rulers of this Age')

Post by Giuseppe »

GakuseiDon wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 4:34 pm I agree that there is nothing about Jerusalem or other Gospel items in there.
I mean that the earlier version is the version where Jesus is killed by demons without the description of the particular reason the demons kill him (other than his being alien in their world). So this version:
13. ... when He has descended and been made in your form,
14. And the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is.

Is older than this:
18. And when He had grown up he worked great signs and wonders in the land of Israel and of Jerusalem.
19. And after this the adversary envied Him and roused the children of Israel against Him, not knowing who He was, and they delivered Him to the king, and crucified Him...

since in the latter the author is inventing/adding "great signs and wonders" as the real cause of the "envoy" by the demons.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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