Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
It has been advanced the hypothesis that it is not only a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:12. The two thieves had the function of descending with Jesus into the Hades.
Why?
Two hypotheses:
The two thieves work as witnesses of a such descent into Hades, against the idea that the spirit of Jesus ascended to heaven the day itself.
The idea that Jesus descended alone into the Hades was someway disturbing, since it resembled too much the marcionite myth reported by Irenaeus:
In addition to his blasphemy against God Himself, he advanced this also, truly speaking as with the mouth of the devil, and saying all things in direct opposition to the truth,--that Cain, and those like him, and the Sodomites, and the Egyptians, and others like them, and, in fine, all the nations who walked in all sorts of abomination, were saved by the Lord, on His descending into Hades, and on their running unto Him, and that they welcomed Him into their kingdom. But the serpent(3) which was in Marcion declared that Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and those other righteous men who sprang(4) from the patriarch Abraham, with all the prophets, and those who were pleasing to God, did not partake in salvation. For since these men, he says, knew that their God was constantly tempting them, so now they suspected that He was tempting them, and did not run to Jesus, or believe His announcement: and for this reason he declared that their souls remained in Hades.
I prefer the first explanation. Afterall, I follow Robert M. Price's point that the Cyrenaic episode serves to neutralize the Basilidians about an apparent, and only apparent, death of Jesus on the cross:
What Basilides noticed was that the last proper name before "that crucified him" (Mark 15:24) is not Jesus but Simon of Cyrene. Simon of Cyrene is easily identities with/as Simon Magus. The latter was also called "Simon of Gitta". Gitta (= Gath) was one of the five Philistine city states. The Philistines and Phoenicians were the "Sea Peoples", the Kittim, which equates to "Gitta". North African Cyrene was a Phoenician city. It is all comes to the same thing. So I think Mark 15:21's snippet about Simon is a sanitized version of the story told by "heretics" that Simon Magus was crucified in the place and semblance of the Son. Guess what, folks? It's not a piece of history.
(Holy fable, vol. 2, p. 98)
Along the same line of the Cyrenaic episode, by adding well two witnesses of the identity of the crucified victim — the two thieves — there are no doubts that Jesus descended into Hades.
It is redactorial fatigue, pointing to a pre-gospel story without burial and resurrection in the flesh but where the repentant thief and Jesus entered the kingdom right after the cross.
This descent to hades is also connected to Jesus talking to demons in the synagogue.
schillingklaus wrote: ↑Mon Oct 31, 2022 8:32 am
It is redactorial fatigue, pointing to a pre-gospel story without burial and resurrection in the flesh but where the repentant thief and Jesus entered the kingdom right after the cross.
indeed the repentant thief figures in Mcn.
schillingklaus wrote: ↑Mon Oct 31, 2022 8:32 am
This descent to hades is also connected to Jesus talking to demons in the synagogue.
This is the André Wautier's view of Jesus descending in Hades even in the incipit itself of the earliest gospel, 'Capernaum' == Hades.
So the dilemma "Was it Capernaum or Hades?" was resolved by having Jesus talking yes with demons, only not more in Hades, but in a synagogue.
The implication is that the "synagogue" was seen originally as the Hades itself: the realm of dead people.
Accordingly, the two thieves are witnesses of a descent happened after death, and not at the beginning itself of the gospel.
