Olivier-Pierre Thébault on Paul as the anti-Neron

[Giuseppe]

Olivier-Pierre Thébault is another eager follower of Bernard Dubourg, with words of authentic worship about this scholar dead so young.

Interesting what he says:

NYRWN/Neron ⟶ N(Y)R the eschatological light-lamp

Paul, who is the 'light of the Nations' in Acts, has to go to Rome to convert Neron: a light who converts another light.

Hence:

This midrash, it must be admitted, takes on a surprising relief if it is heard as a counterpoint to the historical account of Tacitus.

In other words, no Testimonium Taciteum, no invention of Paul.

[Giuseppe]

Time of the Judges: we have appreciated the meanings of this expression in the body of the text. I will return to it to indicate how it is understood at the heart of the New Testament, in relation to the time opened by the death of Jesus. Indeed, this is how the book of Judges begins: "And it came to pass, after the death ['a(r)harêy môth] of Joshua [Jesus!], , the Israelites asked the Lord, “Who of us is to go up first to fight against the Canaanites?" (Judges 1, 1). In this "after death" you will have recognized Arimathea, who gives his name to the famous Joseph who came to claim the body of Jesus. In the New Testament the eschatological time of the Judges begins after the death of Jesus. It ends with the Book of Revelation and the foundation of the messianic kingship, in the same way as the reign of David, "His anointed", follows - via the reign of Saul, represented in the New Testamen by the time of suspension of the time of the announcement of Saul/Paul, which is characterized by a suppression of the heaviness of the mitsvôth, the commandments of the Torah, that is to say the more prosaic hôq, decree, corresponding to the rules of life, the mitzvot - the book of Judges.

(translated from Alchimie du Verbe, t. II)

Joseph of Arimathea, therefore, is not more Josephus.

[neilgodfrey]

Giuseppe -- do you know if any of the French "midrashists" have discussed the implications of their hypothesis for any challenges it poses for other ideas of the relationship between Acts and Marcionism?

[Giuseppe]

Giuseppe -- do you know if any of the French "midrashists" have discussed the implications of their hypothesis for any challenges it poses for other ideas of the relationship between Acts and Marcionism?

From what I read, it seems that Marcion is considered as guilty as the most tendentious of the Fathers, for the misunderstanding of the texts. For example:

These two examples show that we should not hesitate to question texts that are sometimes wrongly classified outside the new and eternal covenant of which they are nevertheless an integral part. To question them, to retrovert them, to meditate on them and to make the meaning of this retroversion clear is of great importance.
I point out that the tripartition Old Testament + Intertestamentals + New Testament is an abstraction and that it is necessary to gather the texts concretely according to the tendency to which they belong, Sadducees, Samaritans, Pharisees with internal subdivisions that would have to be determined, Gnostic Nassenes, Cainites, Sethians, Mandeans or others, Nazarenes recognizing the name of Jesus as that of the Messiah finally, and thus to establish what is left of the libraries of the various tendencies considered. We would then discover the full extent, variety and richness of both the the Pharisee and Nazarene (conservative) corpus of a New Covenant. This latter corpus of thousands and thousands of pages ranging from certain texts of the cycle of Enoch or certain scrolls found at Qumran, to a number of apocrypha buried by the canonization of the Scriptures and the passage of Aquiba (of those who make him say that...), of Marcion, or later of the Greek and Latin Fathers.

Here the "passage of Marcion" is said to have 'buried' the apocrypha etc.: indeed not a positive action.

About the presumed anti-marcionite tendency of some books similar to Acts of Apostles (interpreted in this sense, as anti-marcionite propaganda), for example, I read this possible confutation:

A little-known apocrypha, Correspondence between Paul and the Corinthians, echoes the apocalyptic polemic, but this time by the mouth of Paul. Indeed, this text opposes the sons of justice (bnêy tsedaqah) who are the authors of the Christian midrash to "mysterious" sons of wrath; one recognizes of course the right and left of the final judgment in this opposition. Further on, these opponents are referred to as "the cursed ones who profess the doctrine of the Serpent (LMD NHtSh!)". One would expect Naassen type gnostics; well, again, not at all. For shortly afterwards, these same "who teach the doctrine of the Serpent" are called "a race of vipers", "a brood of serpents and basilisks", expressions well known in our pocket gospels to attack the Pharisee and Sadducee opponents of Christian midrash (cf. Matthew 3:7), those who teach the doctrine of Balaam or of the Serpent (Nahass is also one of the terms nailing the Adversary in the Apocalypse), always the Nicolaites!

(my bold)

The point of the author is that, just as the Nicolaites are not Gnostic anti-demiurgists but an allegory for Pharisiens, so also in other books, who is attacked is the Pharisee (adorer of YHWH) and not the Gnostic (hater of YHWH).

[neilgodfrey]

A little-known apocrypha, Correspondence between Paul and the Corinthians, echoes the apocalyptic polemic, but this time by the mouth of Paul. Indeed, this text opposes the sons of justice (bnêy tsedaqah) who are the authors of the Christian midrash to "mysterious" sons of wrath; one recognizes of course the right and left of the final judgment in this opposition. Further on, these opponents are referred to as "the cursed ones who profess the doctrine of the Serpent (LMD NHtSh!)". One would expect Naassen type gnostics; well, again, not at all. For shortly afterwards, these same "who teach the doctrine of the Serpent" are called "a race of vipers", "a brood of serpents and basilisks", expressions well known in our pocket gospels to attack the Pharisee and Sadducee opponents of Christian midrash (cf. Matthew 3:7), those who teach the doctrine of Balaam or of the Serpent (Nahass is also one of the terms nailing the Adversary in the Apocalypse), always the Nicolaites!

(my bold)

The point of the author is that, just as the Nicolaites are not Gnostic anti-demiurgists but an allegory for Pharisiens, so also in other books, who is attacked is the Pharisee (adorer of YHWH) and not the Gnostic (hater of YHWH).

Is that quoted passage from Thebault?

I found Dubourg's positing the various gnostic sects such as the Naassenes originating from the "same pool" as other midrashic interpreters, each group following its own distinctive midrashic meanings. That is, the early "Pharisaic" custom of midrashic interpretations is where the various later Christian sects were born, with our "orthodox" one being but one of several, so Naassenes were another.

But if Acts is in any way a reaction against Marcion then following Dubourg we would have to either place Marcion much earlier than is often done or set the midrashic (pre-Greek) writing of Acts as late as towards the mid second century, I think.

[Giuseppe]

Is that quoted passage from Thebault?

yes. Dubourg would agree probably with what Thebault says about the Book of Revelation.

I found Dubourg's positing the various gnostic sects such as the Naassenes originating from the "same pool" as other midrashic interpreters,

True. It is relatively easy to speculate about Jewish origins of anti-demiurgists as Naasenes, etc. But about the man called Marcion and his action, Dubourg is very critical. He goes so far to accept as true the Catholic accusation of Marcion having mutilated Luke: something very hard to argue today.

I wonder if there is a way to harmonize Dubourg with a "positive" view of Marcion (by "positive" I mean his being not a banal interpolator of an original Luke). Surely what can't count at all as a rational harmonization, for me, is the view that Marcion was partially a Jew and adored (!) YHWH as a second god.

At any case, Klinghardt argues for Marcion being only a preserver of his gospel. Not his author.

[Giuseppe]

But if Acts is in any way a reaction against Marcion then following Dubourg we would have to either place Marcion much earlier than is often done or set the midrashic (pre-Greek) writing of Acts as late as towards the mid second century, I think.

Are you ignoring a third option (raised also by mythicist rg price in this forum) :

• that Acts was a very late catholic work,

• that Acts was against Marcion,

• that Acts was based on very old pre-Gospel sources.

The last point can be redifined, following Dubourg, as:

• Acts was based on very old Hebrew (midrashic) pre Greek Gospel sources.

[neilgodfrey]

But if Acts is in any way a reaction against Marcion then following Dubourg we would have to either place Marcion much earlier than is often done or set the midrashic (pre-Greek) writing of Acts as late as towards the mid second century, I think.

Are you ignoring a third option (raised also by mythicist rg price in this forum) :

• that Acts was a very late catholic work,

• that Acts was against Marcion,

• that Acts was based on very old Hebrew pre-Gospel sources.

The last point can be redifined, following Dubourg, as:

• Acts was based on very old pre Greek Gospel sources.

Far from ignoring those points, those very points are what gives rise to my question.

[Giuseppe]

Dubourg says that after the 70 CE nothing was written in Hebrew by Christians.

If I understand well his point, the prophecy of the destruction of the Temple was not fabricated post factum. The early Christians were against the Temple. The events of 70 appeared to confirm their (Gospel Jesus') prophecy and this coincidence made their story to seem too much persuasive...

[neilgodfrey]

Dubourg says that after the 70 CE nothing was written in Hebrew by Christians.

If I understand well his point, the prophecy of the destruction of the Temple was not fabricated post factum. The early Christians were against the Temple. The events of 70 appeared to confirm their (Gospel Jesus') prophecy and this coincidence made their story to seem too much persuasive...

You understand very well. Yes, I had for a moment overlooked that conclusion written by Dubourg at the end of his first volume. He places all the NT pre-70, even the book of Revelation. To me, that time-frame raises by far more problems than he has otherwise arguably solved with his Hebrew language hypothesis.

Another view that Dubourg works with and that I cannot accept is his reference to what he calls messianic expectations in the pre-70 era. As I noted in another thread (the one initiated by Irish1975 on Bruno Bauer - ch 11) I was pleased to see Bauer himself as an early recognizer that there is zero evidence for popular messianic anticipations in the narrative time of Jesus. Dubourg works with that view that Jews were preoccupied with wanting to know when the messiah would come etc etc-- But once we reject such an idea as baseless (and a misinterpretation of the sources we have) then Dubourg's pre-70 time-frame for the NT is even harder to justify.