"him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

[MrMacSon]

I'm sorry, my dear friends, but you seem not see the my point. There are two lines of inquiry of the Earliest Gospel:

1) the traditional line (of which even the 'radical' view of Joseph is a mere instance) that assumes that Jesus (I mean: in the Earliest Gospel with narrative form) is the son (adopted or natural) of the Jewish god,

2) the radical line, that assumes that the author of the Earliest Gospel hated the Creator-God.

So please don't dispel your attention. Anything you say is just and true, but only under the line 1.

What do you think about the line 2 [that assumes that the author of the Earliest Gospel hated the Creator-God] ?

About that I am interested, sincerely.

... Carl B Smith in No Longer Jews: The Search for Gnostic Origin, 2004, concluded -

that Egypt following the Jewish Revolt under Trajan (115-117 CE) provides a ripe context for Gnosticism's most unique and definitive innovation: rejection of the cosmos and the Creator God of the Jews. [Smith] argue[d] that individuals closely connected with Judaism....may have responded to the rebellion by rejecting the God and religion that inspired this apocalyptic and messianic ferment. "No longer Jews," they were now free to follow a higher God and way of life. https://www.amazon.com/No-Longer-Jews-G ... 0801047706

[Joseph D. L.]

the radical line, that assumes that the author of the Earliest Gospel hated the Creator-God.

As I have already given my stipulation for what the earliest Gospel text was, there is no evidence that it or the first Gospel/Acta Christi had any such hatred for the Creator God. Rejection is not the same as hatred. What is more probable is that the author saw in Genesis 1 and 2 a dichotomy of powers, Elohim and YHWH respectively. Christ was an agent of Elohim, the Light/Logos. Whereas the original "Gospel" was an epistle delivered from the messenger/Angel of God, the secondary Gospel would naturally be a new Torah. (We see this in the Talmud, where the Laws of Moses had been supplemented by a new Law), the Gospel).

But does such a rejection of YHWH for Elohim constitute hatred? No. YHWH would be a necessary part of Elohim's scheme for the author(s). This is why Marcion divided them into Platonic ideas as Good/Merciful, and Just. Not evil.

And I doubt very strongly that Marcion rejected YHWH completely. His theology is too connected to Judaism to outright exile YHWH.

[Giuseppe]

And I doubt very strongly that Marcion rejected YHWH completely. His theology is too connected to Judaism to outright exile YHWH.

Well. So, at the end, your interpretation is not so 'radical' how you promised. Your exegesis of the Gospels will differ not so much from the traditional. For example, you would interpret probably the words of Peter in Caesarea Philippi, 'You are the Christ', as a confession by the best disciple that Jesus is really the Jewish Christ, as Peter confirms.


I would like the traditional exegesis if I have to polemize against a Christian apologist, since RG Price has proved that, even assuming the traditional view, the case for a mythical Jesus is very much probable.

But I have closed with the activity of polemizing assuming the traditional view. It is, frankly, very much boring, to read the Gospel episodes assuming the 'monotheistic' (in opposition to 'dualistic') view of the author. Even if I see still a lot of flaws in my preferred alternative view, I would inquiry under it, i.e. the view that the Earliest Gospel was written by haters of YHWH.

Note that I am not saying that the Origins were pagan or gnostics. Think about Joseph Smith. He has nothing to share with the Catholics, for example. He was the last of the heretics, for a Catholic.

But assume, for analogy, that Joseph Smith had discovered something of IMPOSSIBLE (I am imagining a fantastic story, don't worry ), something that would have drawn necessarily the attention of the entire Catholic Church, something that was too much good to be rejected only because it came from... ...a Joseph Smith!

Well, so I think that a Gnostic Christian (from Pontus?) wrote deliberately a fictional story where he used the Christ already adored by some Jewish sects, to promote his Gnostic view (of hatred against the Creator, etc).

All that is necessary to assume about the background of this Gnostic author of the Earliest Gospel is what Carl B Smith in No Longer Jews: The Search for Gnostic Origin, 2004, concluded -

that Egypt following the Jewish Revolt under Trajan (115-117 CE) provides a ripe context for Gnosticism's most unique and definitive innovation, the rejection of the cosmos and the Creator God of the Jews. He argue[d] that individuals closely connected with Judaism--whether Jews, Jewish Christians, or gentile God-fearers--may have responded to the rebellion by rejecting the God and religion that inspired this apocalyptic and messianic ferment. "No longer Jews," they were now free to follow a higher God and way of life.

[Joseph D. L.]

I never claimed my hypothesis was radical. As for what it contained, it would need to reinforce the message of Paul and incorporate him and his Gospel, while also maintaining a connection to Torah. John is the only text that fully satisfies both conditions, but it is so heavily modified that it is essentially impossible to know what its original shape was. Portions of Mark and Luke may have originated from it; Matthew is at theological odds with it, so I doubt it would contain anything fromit, however its responses would reveal what was in it. Secret Mark is perhaps our closest witness. Our texts are as tossed as a salad. This is just the abstract approximation. Only three things are certain:

1) Christ was the Logos

2) Paul is foreshadowed

3) Christ's death brings an end to the Old Torah ("It is finished")

That's as far as I've got.

[Secret Alias]

Is there an argument in print that Marcion thought the Demiurge was Pilate?

[Giuseppe]

To my knowledge, only Couchoud was the first and the last to do the argument. In this thread there are only my speculations about the idea.

[Giuseppe]

The gnostics accused the Jewish god of being blood thirsty and the true killer of Jesus.

The proto-catholics preserved this violent nature of YHWH, but connected it with the Father of Jesus:

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

(Romans 8:32)

Surely Pilate was one "who did not spare" his subjects, the Jews, too, at least according to Josephus and Philo.

Surely it was embarrassing that YHWH was violent against his same son.

Hence the catholic apology:

“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”.

(Mark 14:36)

[Giuseppe]

Hebrews 5:7-9 also betrayes this intime awareness that YHWH was violent against Jesus and originally his same enemy:

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him

YHWH, conceived as father of Jesus here by Christian adorers of YHWH, doesn't want to help the son in extremis.

[Secret Alias]

What's the reference for Couchoud?

[Giuseppe]

In all the clutter of the Mandæan books there is preserved a curious passage which seems to be an echo of John the Baptist announcing the coming of the Man from Heaven in John’s time, the time of Pontius Pilate. This heavenly person is called Enosh-Uthra, the angel Enoch, for in one of Enoch’s visions, Enoch himself, carried up to heaven, becomes the Son of Man enthroned at God’s side. (Enoch lxxi; a last vision which seems added to the book of the parables of Enoch).

Enosh-Uthra comes and makes his way to Jerusalem,
Garbed in a cloak of cloud.
He walks clad seemingly in a body,
But he has no raiment of flesh.
Wrath and vengeance are not in him.
He comes in the years of Pilatus, king of the world.

Enosh-Uthra comes down to the earth
With the power of the King of Light.
He heals the sick, causes the blind to see,
Cleanses the leprous, makes the lame to walk,
And those who drag themselves along the ground to arise,
Gives hearing to the deaf, and life to the dead. [Isaiah xxxv, 5, lepers and dead added.]

He finds his faithful from among the Jews.
He shews them this:
There is Death and there is Life;
There is Darkness and there is Light;
There is Error and there is Truth.
He converted the Jews in the name of the High God of Light.

Three hundred and sixty prophets went up out of Jerusalem.
They bear witness to the Name of the Lord of Greatness.
Enosh-Uthra rises into the heights
And takes his place at the side of Mshunné-Kushat. [Ginza, trans. M. Lidzbarski; Göttingen and Leipzig, 1925, pp. 29-30. Vide R. Reitzenstein, Das Mandäische Buch des Herrn der Grösse und die Evangelienüberlieferung; Heidelberg, 1919.]

According to this prophecy the divine man began his manifestation on earth by his beneficent works before taking his place at the side of God to accomplish his terrible duty of the Day of Doom. His apparition is made, not in the clouds, as Daniel said, but in a cloak of cloud, seemingly in a body. The disciples of the Baptist, who were numerous at Ephesus, evidently believed, on the authority of a pronouncement such as the above, that the divine man, the Angel Enoch, the guardian angel and consoler of mankind, had made a visit in the body to earth in the years of Pontius Pilate, which were also the years of the Baptist. The Marcionites replied that this visit was that of Jesus. The Gospel of Marcion (Luke) vii. 21-22, gives an enumeration of works similar to that on the Mandæan text, including the addition of the leprous and the dead. It is not likely that the Mandæan text should be derived from the Marcionites, since it is in a more ancient line of ideas which goes back directly to the Book of Enoch. Jesus is therefore substituted for the Divine Consoler of the followers of John.

(Couchoud, Creation of Christ, p. 136-137, my bold)