Three passages from the Evangelion that appear to assume the validity of the Law and the Prophets

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Ken Olson
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Three passages from the Evangelion that appear to assume the validity of the Law and the Prophets

Post by Ken Olson »

I'm posting three passages from the Evangelion (in BeDuhn's translation) that appear to assume the validity of the Scriptures of Israel (i.e., the Law and the Prophets).

Evangelion/Luke 5.14: And he instructed him to tell no one, 'But go off and show yourself to the priest, and offer for your purification just as Moses commanded.'

Jesus instructs the (former) leper to obey the law of Moses and to go and make an offering for his purification.

Evangelion/Luke 7.22: And responding, he said to them: 'Go tell John ... that the blind are seeing again, the lame walk, and the deaf are hearing, the dead are being awoken".

Jesus appears to be pointing out to John that he is fulfilling the promises God made to Israel in Isaiah 35.4-6, though it is not an exact match:

Isaiah 35.4: Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
“Be strong, fear not!
Behold, your God
will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man leap like a hart,
and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy.

By implication, this should answer John's question: 'Are you the coming one, or should we expect a different one?" (Luke/Ev 7.19).

Evangelion/Luke 10.25: A certain lawyer stood up, testing him out, say- ing, “By doing what shall I inherit life?”
26 And he said to him, “What has been written in the Law?”
27. . . “You will love your lord, God, with your whole heart and with your whole life and with your whole strength. . . .”
28 Then he said to him, “You answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

Jesus asks the lawyer what is written in the Law, and he responds with a near quotation of Deuteronomy 6.5, and Jesus approves. It would appear that following Deut. 6.5 is what he should do to inherit eternal life.

There may be other examples.

Best,

Ken
Last edited by Ken Olson on Tue May 30, 2023 6:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: Three passages from the Evangelion that appear to assume the validity of the Law and the Prophets

Post by Secret Alias »

It is impossible that Marcionite asceticism was NOT related to the command/rule for sexual abstinence at Sinai and/or the Philonic 10th commandment "do not lust." Impossible. If Clement is fixated on this commandment so too Marcion. Marcionite asceticism is Jewish.
Secret Alias
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Re: Three passages from the Evangelion that appear to assume the validity of the Law and the Prophets

Post by Secret Alias »

Tertullian's citation:

As far as concerned avoidance of human glory, he told him to tell no man: as concerned the observance of the law, he ordered the proper course to be followed: Go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded. Knowing that the law was in the form of prophecy, he was safeguarding its figurative regulations even in his own mirrored images of them, which indicated that a man who has been a sinner, as soon as he is cleansed by the word of God, is bound to offer in the temple a sacrifice to God, which means prayer and giving of thanks in the church through Christ Jesus, the universal high priest of the Father. This is why he added, That it may be to you for a testimony—no doubt by which he testified that he did not destroy the law but fulfilled it, a testimony that it was he and no other of whom it was foretold that he would take upon him their diseases and sicknesses.

Epiphanius:

“Go shew thyself unto the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded—that this may be a testimony unto you,”34 instead
of the Savior’s “for a testimony unto them.”

Reading: εις μαρτυριον αυτοις/in testimonium (add sit : e) illis : aur e f l M

Reading: ινα εις μαρτυριον ην (η: Dc) υμειν τουτο/ut sit in testimonium hoc vobis (vobis hoc : d; vobis istud : c): McnT.E D a b c d ff2 l q r1

(2) Besides in the main sources also testified in manuscripts of the so called "Western Text" (D it sy).

Allocation of Variants:
McnT = McnE = L1 = G1 ≠ L2 = G2 = M

Testified: (ÜZ) Congruent testimony of two or more of the main sources.

I don't think this is a "Marcionite" reading but Epiphanius copying out the anomaly in Irenaeus's text (used for Tertullian) which has a textual variant.
Giuseppe
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Re: Three passages from the Evangelion that appear to assume the validity of the Law and the Prophets

Post by Giuseppe »

Very strange that, if Ken's reading is correct, then John the Baptist doesn't show at all evidence that he has changed idea on the identity of Jesus. At contrary, the fact that he continues to be declassed in the rest of the Jesus's words is a strong clue of the continued opposition of John the Baptist to Jesus even after that "conciliatory" answer.

The sense of a such "conciliatory" answer is that someone is able to realize the Isaiah's prophecy (where it doesn't oppose with the higher morality of the Good God) without being the Jewish Messiah.

The following logion (7:23) applies really to John the Baptist's disenchantment:

They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:

“‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not cry.’

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mlinssen
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Re: Three passages from the Evangelion that appear to assume the validity of the Law and the Prophets

Post by mlinssen »

Ken Olson wrote: Mon May 29, 2023 2:04 pm I'm posting three passages from the Evangelion (in BeDuhn's translation) that appear to assume the validity of the Scriptures of Israel (i.e., the Law and the Prophets).

5.14 And he instructed him to tell no one, 'But go off and show yourself to the priest, and offer for your purification just as Moses commanded.'

Jesus instructs the (former) leper to obey the law of Moses and to go and make an offering for his purification.

7.22 And responding, he said to them: 'Go tell John ... that the blind are seeing again, the lame walk, and the deaf are hearing, the dead are being awoken".

Jesus appears to be pointing out to John that he is fulfilling the promises God made to Israel in Isaiah 35.4-6, though it is not an exact match:

35.4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
“Be strong, fear not!
Behold, your God
will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man leap like a hart,
and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy.

By implication, this should answer John's question: 'Are you the coming one, or should we expect a different one?" (Luke/Ev 7.19).

25. . . A certain lawyer stood up, testing him out, say- ing, “By doing what shall I inherit life?”
26 And he said to him, “What has been written in the Law?”
27. . . “You will love your lord, God, with your whole heart and with your whole life and with your whole strength. . . .”
28 Then he said to him, “You answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

Jesus asks the lawyer what is written in the Law, and he responds with a near quotation of Deuteronomy 6.5, and Jesus approves. It would appear that following Deut. 6.5 is what he should do to inherit eternal life.

There may be other examples.

Best,

Ken
Solid points indeed Ken.
The downside of these is that they demonstrate the failure of the claim of the FF that Marcion excised all Judaic elements from Luke

We all know that the Patristics should be treated as hostile witnesses at best, and the predicament here is: either we give them full credibility on these points and then allow ourselves to be convinced that Marcion was "pretty Judaic", or we do the exact opposite (and let's keep it a binary choice for now) and could claim that they fake these to be there in order to make that point.
In the former case it will forfeit the claim by the Patristics that Marcion excised all Judaic elements from Luke (something that in essence does seem to be the case as very roughly Marcion+Judaisation=Luke), in the latter we end up with unreliable witnesses and a text that can only be reconstructed when we very, very carefully read between their lines alone
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