Is the Passion story really the key of a gospel?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Giuseppe
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Is the Passion story really the key of a gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

The only reason advanced by who answers: "yes" is that the tragedy of 70 CE was sufficient as impulse for a theodicy, and the Passion story was that theodicy.


A list of reasons to answer: no.
  • If the Passion story was really the key of every gospel, then we would have a such story not so strongly theologically oriented to make the point that Jesus is the "Christ"/"king of the Jews". Contra factum that we don't have a Marcionite Passion story. We don't know if Pilate figured in a Marcionite Passion story. We don't know if the only "crucifixion" in the Evangelion was the Transfiguration episode itself.
  • The episodes of healings vehicle a point that finds in themselves a good midrashical explanation, without requiring a prediction of the Passion story.
  • If the Passion story was merely a theodicy for the tragedy of the 70 CE, then the same Passion story ceases ipso facto to be the mere translation on the earth of a celestial crucifixion happened in outer space. Evidence that a such translation happened is the use of the term "archontes" to mean the Jewish chiefs of the people (and/or Herod), while the real political archontes were the Romans. The primary impulse was a naïve identification of earthly archontes, not at all a theodicy for the facts of the 70 CE. Indeed, this naivety of the way by which the demons were euhemerized on the earth as Jewish or Roman authorities is not different at all from the way by which other mythological deities were euhemerized on the earth (Attis reduced to a shepard, Osiris reduced to a Pharaon, Helios to a Elijah or a Samson, etc). A mythicist can't have both the things: the euhemerization of a celestial myth and the theodicy for the facts of the 70 CE.





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schillingklaus
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Re: Is the Passion story really the key of a gospel?

Post by schillingklaus »

The passion story is not the key, the feeding miracles are.
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Irish1975
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Re: Is the Passion story really the key of a gospel?

Post by Irish1975 »

Giuseppe wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:33 am Contra factum that we don't have a Marcionite Passion story. We don't know if Pilate figured in a Marcionite Passion story. We don't know if the only "crucifixion" in the Evangelion was the Transfiguration episode itself.[/list]
The reconstructions of The Gospel, by BeDuhn and Klinghardt and anyone who uses Tertullian and Epiphanius to some minimal extent, include a lengthy and amply attested passion narrative. What reason is there to exclude such evidence?

As a matter of literary analysis, it is indisputable that the passion narrative is central to the Gospels of Marcion and the Four. It's the only part of the Jesus story that has any narrative depth and coherence. As tragedy, however, it's more poetry than history.

The passion narrative is anything but a theodicy. If anything, it is an "anti-theodicy" of the creator and of the Jewish nationalists. It arises from entirely Marcionite principles. Most especially in the case of Mark's gospel.

Vinzent observes that persecution and martyrdom for one's faith were important themes for Marcion. From what we know of his deeply religious orientation, I think it makes most sense to interpret his passion narrative according to his religious principles. Nonetheless, as a "doctissimus" Jewish scribe, he used the historical situation of Rome and the Jews to frame his story.
Giuseppe
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Re: Is the Passion story really the key of a gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

Irish1975 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:01 amNonetheless, as a "doctissimus" Jewish scribe, he used the historical situation of Rome and the Jews to frame his story.
that Marcion was expert in Jewish things is a great "IF" introduced by prof Vinzent. His precursor, P.-L. Couchoud, was perfectly able to talk à la Vinzent about Marcionite priority without never introducing the great "IF" about a Marcion "the Jew".

But I am more interested about this your point:

Irish1975 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:01 amThe passion narrative is anything but a theodicy. If anything, it is an "anti-theodicy" of the creator and of the Jewish nationalists. It arises from entirely Marcionite principles. Most especially in the case of Mark's gospel.
What makes you think this? We know that the Passion story is based midrashically on the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. Why is it a marcionite source, according to you? In addition, I follow Stahl/Couchoud about the Barabbas episode being very probably an attack against who preached that the crucified Jesus was not the one "called Christ". Third: the titulus crucis makes it clear that the Jews are going to crucify their own Messiah-King: how could he be the Messiah of an alien god?

I may see a marcionite point in the entire Passion story only in this passage of Mark:

Then some began to spit at him; they blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said, “Prophesy!” And the guards took him and beat him

...about which Charles B. Waite (a proponent, earlier than Couchoud, of the Marcionite priority) argued for another reason to consider the 'blindfolding' a Judaizing interpolation of Mcn:


MARCION, 19.51.

And striking him, they said Prophesy; who is it that smote thee?

LUKE, 22. 64.

And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face; and asked him, saying: Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?


The account in Marcion, besides being shorter, is the more natural. Being struck from behind, or by a stranger, Jesus was called upon to tell who struck him. It was an impulsive action. But the author of Luke has the Jews deliberately blindfold Jesus, before striking him.

http://www.marcionite-scripture.info/CW_2.htm

Frankly, I find my reason more convincing: the Jews deliberately blindfold Jesus, before striking him, because otherwise the question "who is it that smote thee?" could sound (and probably it did) as an implicit denial of a real striking: Jesus didn't have a material body.
Giuseppe
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Re: Is the Passion story really the key of a gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

Irish1975 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:01 am
Giuseppe wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:33 am Contra factum that we don't have a Marcionite Passion story. We don't know if Pilate figured in a Marcionite Passion story. We don't know if the only "crucifixion" in the Evangelion was the Transfiguration episode itself.[/list]
The reconstructions of The Gospel, by BeDuhn and Klinghardt and anyone who uses Tertullian and Epiphanius to some minimal extent, include a lengthy and amply attested passion narrative. What reason is there to exclude such evidence?
I follow Klinghardt in his reconstruction until to the Transfiguration episode (included). After the Transfiguration episode, I don't see nothing of marcionite, but everything of an anti-marcionite character.
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Irish1975
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Re: Is the Passion story really the key of a gospel?

Post by Irish1975 »

Giuseppe wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:39 am
Irish1975 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:01 amNonetheless, as a "doctissimus" Jewish scribe, he used the historical situation of Rome and the Jews to frame his story.
that Marcion was expert in Jewish things is a great "IF" introduced by prof Vinzent. His precursor, P.-L. Couchoud, was perfectly able to talk à la Vinzent about Marcionite priority without never introducing the great "IF" about a Marcion "the Jew".
Jerome referred to Marcion as "doctissimus." (Vinzent, Synoptic Gospels, p. 134). If Marcion had anything to do with the earliest version of the New Testament, I think he can only have been someone deeply affected by Judaism of one sort or another. Vinzent conjectures that his family had been proselytes.
But I am more interested about this your point:
Irish1975 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:01 amThe passion narrative is anything but a theodicy. If anything, it is an "anti-theodicy" of the creator and of the Jewish nationalists. It arises from entirely Marcionite principles. Most especially in the case of Mark's gospel.
What makes you think this? We know that the Passion story is based midrashically on the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. Why is it a marcionite source, according to you?
Certainly there was a theology of suffering to draw upon from Isaiah and the Psalms. But the idea of a crucified Jewish messiah was new, and had to come from somewhere. It didn't come from the triumphalistic minds of Matthew and Luke, who wanted to merge Marcion's Christianity with the Mosaic religion. But I think Marcion (and whatever Pauline apostle(s) he revered) was otherworldly, and pessimistic about this life to an extreme degree. Hence, 2 Corinthians for example. The passion narrative represents the failure of worldly hopes. Mark, above all, is emphatically ironic about the concept of Jesus being a Davidic messiah.
Giuseppe
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Re: Is the Passion story really the key of a gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

Irish1975 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 4:14 pm Certainly there was a theology of suffering to draw upon from Isaiah and the Psalms. But the idea of a crucified Jewish messiah was new
Jean Pain has an interesting theory about the origin of a crucified Jewish messiah in the sacrifice of the paschal lamb. I doubt that the anti-Davidic passages in Mark are approved by "Mark" himself, since he could have inherited them passively from Marcion without correcting them. But about the titulus crucis being interpreted in a marcionite sense, surely it is a great challenge for Vinzent's view.

I see that Jack Bull, in this discussion with Dr. James David Audlin, resumes Vinzent's view by talking about "Gospel material" in the hands of Papias preceding Marcion, and about Marcion as the first author of a "Gospel" etc.
If that "Gospel material" had, for example, atemporal episodes of healings, then the role of Marcion was not so innovative as someone may think prima facie.
Giuseppe
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Re: Is the Passion story really the key of a gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

Another reason to conclude that the original key of a gospel was not the need of a Passion story, but the hidden meaning behind "exorcisms and healings", i.e. the crusade against paganism, sees basically on the same page both a past mythicist, William . B. Smith, and a living mythicist, Maurice Mergui:

If by the expulsion of demons be meant the overthrow of the heathen gods, their dislodgment from the minds of their former servile worshippers, then this mighty task, certainly by far the greatest that the new propaganda could propose or could accomplish, and certainly by all odds the chiefest of all its actual achievements, this supreme task receives in the Gospels foremost and perfectly proper recognition—yea, in Acts X, 38 it is specified as the mission and activity of the Jesus. This, then, is perfectly what we should and must expect. It seems wholly inconceivable that the first propagators of a new religion, annihilating all others, should never make the slightest allusion to any of these, but should direct their chief attention to healing a few defectives, an enterprise merely philanthropic, impossible of any marked significance, and having in it no proper religious element or importance whatever. On the other hand, if the exorcisms be taken literally, if they do not symbolise the conquest of the pagan gods, then, indeed, in the Gospels, in the life, death, and teaching of the Jesus, in the foundation-laying of the new faith, we find no reference of any kind to the overtowering fact of idolatry, to the very state of the case with which the new religion was far more vitally and intentionally concerned than with any and all others. There is, in fact, an immense apparent vacuity in the Gospel, which must be filled, which is actually and completely filled by the hypothesis here set forth, and which can be filled in no other conceivable manner. It seems hardly reasonable to demand a more stringent verification of an hypothesis.

(W.B. Smith, Ecce Deus, p. 58, my bold)

L’irruption des païens (dans le champ de l’eschatologie) figurée ici par notre pécheresse, est, nous allons le voir tout au long de cet essai, le thème central et permanent des Evangiles. C’est même le seul thème du Nouveau Testament.
...

Le Nouveau Testament est un texte de même nature que le midrash juif. Il en est un prolongement.
• Il fonctionne en permanence sous le régime de la double entente.
• Il traite de l'eschatologie et ne peut fournir d’assise à aucun élément historique.
• Tous ses matériaux sont déjà présents dans le midrash juif.
• Les nombreuses péricopes (unités narratives) qui composent les Evangiles peuvent être réduites à un très petit nombre de péricopes génériques. Ces péricopes-péricopes-souches traitent de l’entrée des païens dans l’alliance du Sinaï et de l’allégement de la Loi.
• Les guérisons forment le véritable noyau des Evangiles. Les récits de l’enfance et de la Passion sont secondaires.
• Ces guérisons sont une métaphore de l'entrée des païens dans l'alliance divine. Guérir, c’est toujours guérir de l’idolâtrie.
• Le thème de l'allégement de la Loi est un prolongement de débats internes au Judaïsme, ainsi que l'atteste le Midrash Rabba sur Ruth.
• Les rédacteurs du Nouveau Testament produisent leurs narrations selon un véritable cahier des charges. Leur lexique et leur rhétorique obéissent à un code relativement rigide.
• Le Christianisme s'est édifié sur une lecture univoque de textes à double entente. A la suite de trois traductions majeures, et la perte de la clé de lecture midrashique, le lecteur actuel n'a aucun moyen de revenir au sens originel. Il est condamné à une lecture naïve et historicisante du Nouveau Testament.

Mergui, Maurice. Un Etranger sur le toit: Les sources midrashiques des Evangiles (French Edition)

Giuseppe
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Re: Is the Passion story really the key of a gospel?

Post by Giuseppe »

It would be interesting to know if W. B. Smith changed his views about the true key of a Gospel, if healings or the Passion story.
I should read his posthumous book about the Gospels.
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