Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Ulan
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Ulan »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Nov 22, 2018 7:13 am Er übersetzte Detering ins Englische
So the "ü" comes from English then? Well, live and learn. In German, it's "ur".\

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to pedantic here, I'm just trying to save someone from having to type that pesky "ü" on an English keyboard.
Last edited by Ulan on Thu Nov 22, 2018 7:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
Secret Alias
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Secret Alias »

Unless I misunderstood. Salm translates most of Detering's stuff. I thought he said he was working on something else. But the umlaut is an obvious error. Maybe he said he was a translator in the heat of battle. Who knows
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Secret Alias
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Secret Alias »

I still don't think John the Baptist is a historical figure but apparently I have more to read. What else is new
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Giuseppe
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Giuseppe »

Marcion himself could have invented John the Baptist (or, in alternative, he could have gnosticized a historical figure named John) as the Gnostic figure of a “Herald to whom He gave command to make this proclamation to the hearts of men”:

4. Tat. And where hath He had it set up?
Her. 4 He tilled a mighty Cup 5 with it, and sent it down, joining a Herald [to it], to whom He gave command to make this proclamation to the hearts of men:
Baptize 1 thyself with this Cup’s baptism, what heart can do so, thou that hast faith thou canst ascend to Him that hath sent down the Cup, thou that dost know for what thou didst come into being!
As many then as understood the Herald’s tidings and doused themselves in Mind, became partakers in the Gnosis; and when they had “received the Mind” they were made “perfect men.”
But they who do not understand the tidings,these, since they possess the aid of Reason [only] and not Mind, are ignorant wherefor they have come into being and whereby.
5. The senses of such men are like irrational creatures’; and as their [whole] make-up is in their feelings and their impulses, 2 they fail in all appreciation of 3 those things which really are worth contemplation. These centre all their thought upon the pleasures of the body and its appetites, in the belief that for its sake man hath come into being.
But they who have received some portion of God’s gift, 4 these, Tat, if we judge by their deeds, have from Death’s bonds won their release; for they embrace in their own Mind all things, things on the earth, things in the heaven, and things above the heaven,—if there be aught. 1 And having raised themselves so far they sight the Good; and having sighted It, they look upon their sojourn here as a mischance; and in disdain of all, both things in body and the bodiless, they speed their way unto that One and Only One.

http://gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/TGH-v2/th209.html
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Secret Alias »

If the Jews could accept Job as a fiction Job lo haya v'lo nivra ela mashal haya (Baba Bathra 15.1) no reason to be sure John was historical.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Stuart
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Stuart »

Ulan wrote: Thu Nov 22, 2018 3:48 am
Stuart wrote: Thu Nov 22, 2018 1:22 am ... adjusting the ür-Gospel ...
I hate to disappoint here, but while it may look snazzy to put dots on the "u" to enhance its Germanness, the word is "ur". After this public service announcement, I wish everyone fun with the continued discussion.
Thanks. Not sure where I picked up the umlat on that (I saw it somewhere ... perhaps my coffee). I'm not native German. I just know how to speak it a bit from my grandmother's family and my high school German taken four decades ago. (I can mostly read a newspaper, but higher works requires a dictionary on hand)
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
Secret Alias
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Secret Alias »

This is where he seems to be claiming he's a German translator
"Sorry for the delay. I tied up completing the German to English translation of Dr. Detering's "Die gnostische Deutung des Exodus und die Anfänge des Josua/Jesus-Kultes" (The Gnostic Interpretation and Exegesis of Exodus). It's off getting reviewed now --- I have a bonus English only section covering 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 which Dr. Detering and I have had some back and forth ..." viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3962&p=84069&hilit= ... ish#p84069
BTW I would have posted this earlier but I was on my private jet coming back from Dubai. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
John2
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by John2 »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Nov 22, 2018 9:43 am If the Jews could accept Job as a fiction Job lo haya v'lo nivra ela mashal haya (Baba Bathra 15.1) no reason to be sure John was historical.
It appears to have been only one though (who is unnamed), and his opinion was rejected:
A certain Rabbi was sitting before R. Samuel b. Nahmani and in the course of his expositions remarked, Job never was and never existed, but is only a typical figure. He replied: To confute such as you the text says, There was a man in the land of Uz, Job was his name. But, he retorted, if that is so, what of the verse, The poor man had nothing save one poor ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up etc. Is that anything but a parable? So this too is a parable. If so, said the other, why are his name and the name of his town mentioned?

http://www.come-and-hear.com/bababathra ... ra_15.html
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arnoldo
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by arnoldo »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Nov 22, 2018 7:53 am I still don't think John the Baptist is a historical figure but apparently I have more to read. What else is new
Read the Apocalypse Of Elijah. It has the following interesting quote;
Then when Elijah and Enoch hear that the shameless one has revealed himself in the holy place, they will come down and fight with him saying,

Roger Pearse writes that this writing may've been originally a jewish text re-written into a christian document. If so, it may indicate a jewish expectation of a Elijah type figure.
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Stuart
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Re: Does Marcion's Gospel mention John the Baptist?

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu Nov 22, 2018 9:43 am If the Jews could accept Job as a fiction Job lo haya v'lo nivra ela mashal haya (Baba Bathra 15.1) no reason to be sure John was historical.
What does a historical John the Baptist have to do with literature anyway?

That is like arguing about the primer below three paint jobs later of of finish paint. It's utterly irrelevant.

By the time the NT was written all the characters were drawn from legends, whether based on real people or mythical people or even those made up by the author of the text. Of course in my view the Gospels were written over a century after the events they fictionally talk about. It would be like you or I writing an account of trench warfare on the western front in the "Great War" as it was known. That is how distant the authors of the NT were to the settings and era their genre placed events.

When you speak about so-and-so existing or not existing, you are talking about something very different than the literature, be it NT or Patristic or for that matter ancient historians. Myth and legend often mix freely with the real and human. This is even more true in religious literature.

The point is, to the character of John was well known to the pre-evangelical Christian movement, and it seems also his association with the Prophet Elijah. He simply could not be ignored by the Gospel authors, as his myth had become intertwined with Jesus. This does not mean the opinion was universally held; sects already existed prior to the eruption of evangelism - sectarian competition is why we have four Gospels and not one. But John's Baptism of Jesus caused a major theological problem for the Marcionite author, as his sect held that Christ was unknown and had nothing to do with the God of Moses and the Prophets. So he wrote his own account replacing the Baptism. (Note, Matthew had a similar issue with the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, so left it out, while Luke made it safe for the developing orthodoxy by adding verses 16:30-31, in effect making the Rich Man and his brothers "bad Jews" who didn't follow truly Moses rather than doomed for following Moses instead of Jesus -- harmonizing)

None of this has anything to do with whether a character existed or not in real life. But once a character was introduced and gained any traction, they pretty much had to be accounted for in any subsequent literature on the subject.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
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