Did the Gospel-writers anthropomorphize Marcion's J-Christ?

[MrMacSon]

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Marcion's theology was essentially a di-theism in which Christ was portrayed as a spiritual entity sent by the Monad-God to reveal the truth about existence, and thus allowing humanity to escape the earthly trap of the Demiurge. Marcion and his followers are understood to have portrayed the incarnation of their Christ in a docetic manner; ie. that Jesus' body was only an imitation of a material body, and consequently denied Jesus' physical and bodily birth, death, and resurrection.

Tertullian, in 'Adversus Marcionem', noted Hippolytus reported that Marcion's phantasmal (and docetist) Christ was "'revealed' as a man, though not a man", and did not really die on the cross.

According to Marcion theology, the title 'God' was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished from the higher Good God. The former was díkaios, severely 'just'; the latter agathós, or loving-kind. The former was the God of the Old Testament; the latter 'the true God'. While Christ was supposedly the Son of the Good God, He was portrayed as pretending to be the Messiah of the Demiurge to spread the truth concerning His good heavenly Father. The true believer in the true Christ entered into God's kingdom, the 'unbeliever' remained forever the slave of the Demiurge.

• (this theology seems, to me, at least, like a commentary on the desolation of Jerusalem)

With that being Marcion's theology, and with several scholars in recent years arguing that Marcion's theology preceded the writing of the synoptic gospels - Jason BeDuhn1, Markus Vinzent2, and Matthias Klinghard3 - to add to the similar previous arguments of Joseph B Tyson (2006)4, John Knox (1940s)5, and even Charles B Waite in the 1880s6, it would seem reasonable to propose that,

if the Jesus the Christ of Nazareth of the NT (of the early 1st-C.) is a post-Marcion phenomenon, then 'He' is an anthropomorphization/euhemerisation of Marcion's Christ Jesus.

• 1 Jason BeDuhn (2013) 'The First New Testament: Marcion’s Scriptural Canon'
  
  2 Markus Vinzent (2004) Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels (Studia patristica supplement 2; Leuven: Peeters).
  
  3 Matthias Klinghardt (2005) Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Francke a. Verlag, publisher
  
  4 Tyson (2006) Marcion and Luke-Acts: a defining struggle
  
  5 Knox, J (1942) Marcion and the New Testment, Ams Pr Inc
  
  6 Charles B Waite (1881) History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two-Hundred

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[MrMacSon]

Consider the idea that Marcion was a renegade, who broke from existing teaching and [may have] adulterated the letters of Paul and [may have adulterated] the Gospel of Luke. Some here have claimed that he came up with the idea of docetic christology; that is, they have claimed that Marcion, unlike anyone before him, claimed that Jesus was a phantom instead of a man in the flesh. [Some] have claim[ed] that Marcion carefully edited the start of Luke to make it look like Jesus wafted out of the sky and could fly off cliffs and such. They claim that Marcion removed most of the juiciest passages in the letters of Paul, claiming that Jesus was descended from David and born of a woman. They claim that Marcion was rebuffed by the church at Rome after attempting to bribe them and that, therefore, he went his own way with these perverted doctrines. They claim that Marcion came up with the idea of the bad god of this world (and the Father above that Jesus preached) and that previous Christian theology didn't have this.

Let's entertain the idea here -- is there anything that could help us establish that it is true? (Or that it is false?)

http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 370#p69370

Late 2nd century Christians, and those who followed, seem to have rationalized much out of the threadbare evidence that had been passed down to them. It is almost as if they had not been paying any attention to normal changes over time to their organization or beliefs, until around the mid 2nd century (ca 150-200 CE), when they snapped out of their "half-dreamed-dream" and tried to reconstruct their history. Maybe before then they really did not think they could gain the acceptance from society and rulers, but by then they were certainly holders of a high Christology that that they felt transcended and reversed the circumstances of being followers of a man who was crucified for Judean royal ambitions that had not been sanctioned by the Romans.

DCH - http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 371#p69371

[Peter Kirby]

Please define your terms, "euhemerize" and "euhemerisation."

if the Jesus the Christ of Nazareth of the early 1st-century of the NT is a post-Marcion phenomenon, then 'He' is a euhemerisation of Marcion's Christ Jesus

You've made it carry the weight of explicating your thesis, but that's a shame, as without further explanation it's not even clear from context what exactly is meant by the use of these words.

These words have been the source of much confusion in the recent past, and they still have not acquired any recognized single meaning as a term of art in the study of antiquity. (Or, to the extent that they have, some of the older definitions of these terms don't exactly agree with the way they are used specifically by 21st century writers on Christian origins who doubt the historicity of Jesus - namely, Richard Carrier and some others online.)

[MrMacSon]

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Is the Gospel of Thomas an intermediate or parallel text to an evolution of Marcion to the synoptics?

See http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 312#p69312

[Peter Kirby]

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Is the Gospel of Thomas an intermediate or parallel text to an evolution of Marcion to the synoptics?

See http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 312#p69312

What do you mean?

[MrMacSon]

• Please define your terms, "euhemerize" and "euhemerisation."

• To anthropomophize a celestial entity or a god -ie. an entity previously described or thought of as being celestial or heavenly
  
  ie. to give or attribute human traits or properties to such an entity
  
  I added the term anthropomorphization to the OP

[MrMacSon]

• Is the Gospel of Thomas an intermediate or parallel text to an evolution of Marcion to the synoptics?
  
  See http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 312#p69312

• What do you mean?

• rakovsky alludes to some concepts in the Gospel of Thomas similar to concpets in Marcion theology, and to some things similar to NT theology

In the Gospel of Mark, the author does not hit the reader over the head with Jesus' divinity. In fact, while there are all sorts of signs that the author provides that Jesus is God, like his forgiving of sins, Jesus generally does not publicly declare himself to be God, and at times tells people to keep it a secret that he is Christ. One reason for this of course is protection - if Jesus goes around telling everyone that he is the Messiah and God Himself, it's going to make a lot of people mad like the priests in the Temple were in the Passion Narrative due to "the Blasphemy". Plus it's going to make the Romans set against him because they would see him in the category of a rebel leader, a claimant to rulership over the Judeans, as on the sign on the Cross.

Consider Mark 8:27-30 ... That is, his Christhood was meant as a secret.

When the scholars turn to the Gospel of Thomas, which some think traces to 1st to early 2nd c. Christian teachings, they sometimes notice that it doesn't have the normal gnostic idea of a good Superior God and a lower demiurge, and so some eveb question if it's gnostic. They also question whether it portrays Jesus as God Himself. One of the curious things I noticed though was in Saying 13. It seems to portray the teaching that Jesus was God as a secret, only shared openly with a limited circle, much as the Gospel of Mark does.

Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like."
Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel."
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

The three words I expect were אני מי שאני. They mean "I am that I am", and refers to God's words in the Torah to Moses identifying Himself. Jesus' assertion in the Passion story "I am" offended his judges whereupon they called for his death. This can explain why Thomas said that the words would make people stone him, but that out of the stones would come the punishing fire against the persecutors. That those were the three words would make sense because in Judaism, the name of God is normally ineffable - not spoken aloud. This would help explain the whispering, the passing of it in secret.

Also, Jesus is called an angel, a philosopher, a master. What else could there be? Christ and God and a friend. It seems that whatever Jesus told Thomas was an answer in that vein - what kind of person or being he was. Identifying himself with God would fit.

[Giuseppe]

These words have been the source of much confusion in the recent past, and they still have not acquired any recognized single meaning as a term of art in the study of antiquity.

I would disagree. The term euhemerization means to reduce a deity to a man by a pure act of will and imagination (it doesn't matter the reason to do so). Therefore who is using the term is assuming implicitly that according to him the god of interest is a purely mythical entity.

Hence I think that it is wrong to call the enemies of Marcion as ''euhemerizers'' since Marcion himself would be the euhemerizer, IF Vinzent's thesis is correct AND IF the Paul's Jesus is assumed as mythical.

[MrMacSon]

• The term euhemerization means to reduce a deity to a man by a pure act of will and imagination (it doesn't matter the reason to do so). Therefore who is using the term is assuming implicitly that according to him the god of interest is a purely mythical entity.

• Not necessarily reduced to being just a man. Jesus is still portrayed as a deity. Previously, it was usually done to re-cast and misrepresent the deity as having been a deified person.
  
  In Jesus' case he was portrayed as having been both (albeit with a supernatural beginning and a period often as a normal person.

Thi is hard to contextualize and thus hard to understand: -

Hence I think that it is wrong to call the enemies of Marcion as ''euhemerizers'' since Marcion himself would be the euhemerizer, IF Vinzent's thesis is correct AND IF the Paul's Jesus is assumed as mythical.

• (but I don't want this thread hijacked by arguments over euhemerization per se).
  
  They may argue against my proposition, of course.
  
  eta: My argument is Marcion's Christ was spiritual/celestial angle-like figure, and the gospel writers euhemerized him

[maryhelena]

Please define your terms, "euhemerize" and "euhemerisation."

if the Jesus the Christ of Nazareth of the early 1st-century of the NT is a post-Marcion phenomenon, then 'He' is a euhemerisation of Marcion's Christ Jesus

You've made it carry the weight of explicating your thesis, but that's a shame, as without further explanation it's not even clear from context what exactly is meant by the use of these words.

These words have been the source of much confusion in the recent past, and they still have not acquired any recognized single meaning as a term of art in the study of antiquity. (Or, to the extent that they have, some of the older definitions of these terms don't exactly agree with the way they are used specifically by 21st century writers on Christian origins who doubt the historicity of Jesus - namely, Richard Carrier and some others online.)

Indeed!

Nickolas P. Roubekas's new book on Euhemerism is now available. The Kindle edition is considerably less than the hardcover copy........maybe I'll consider it.....(£34.99 compared to £86.49)

An Ancient Theory of Religion: Euhemerism from Antiquity to the Present (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/113884893X/ ... P83NO5EFUX



A sample of the book is available to download from amazon.