Mark 11:23 based on Mcn/Luke 17:6

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Giuseppe
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Mark 11:23 based on Mcn/Luke 17:6

Post by Giuseppe »


If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you

(Luke 17:6, attested in Mcn)

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them

(Mark 11:23)

In Mark the earthly Temple is allegorized by the "mountain", thrown in a Gentile sea. The implicit assumption is that the Temple rises as a Gentile Christian Temple of a New Israel.

But in Marcion, the tree that has to be uprooted is the demiurge, since it figures in the Parable of Two Trees, as the "bad tree":

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.

(6:43)

Since it bears "bad fruit", that "bad tree" has to be "uprooted".
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