"Only god is good" as Mark's compromise to eclipse "Only the Father, not YHWH, is good"

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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billd89
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Re: Correction

Post by billd89 »

"Marcion was venomously Anti-Jewish - hardly a neutral witness."

That's an overstatement. I would remove 'venomously' - because it presumes he made harsh antisemitic statements, acted atrociously. (Which might be true, but I cannot prove.)

However, we may reasonably infer Marcion was Anti-Jewish, beyond the text, much like those 'intellectual' Holocaust Deniers (same type). If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck ... no, I'm not willing to entertain theories it's an ostrich.

I'm not at all persuaded (by evidence or hypothesis) he was a kind of self-loathing Jew - but 'anything is possible'.
robert j
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Re: Marcion was an 'Anti-Semite' (Anti-Jewish)

Post by robert j »

billd89 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 10:35 am
Marcion deliberately purged his canon of the Jewish; Tyson (2006) p.198:
It is unarguable that Marcion’s canon did not include any of the Hebrew Scriptures ...

I’m not going to track down examples or details here, so I’ll just play the game of dueling scholars.

BeDuhn, in his The First New Testament, writes in his chapter on the Apostolikon ---

… what are we to make of the many, many more biblical quotations left in place, including:

[here BeDuhn lists 25 examples in the form of letter/OT book with chapter and verse for each]

Not only do all these biblical quotations remain in place in Marcion’s text, but not once is either a quotation or its context altered in order to treat the text critically or negatively. (page 212)

perseusomega9
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Re: "Only god is good" as Mark's compromise to eclipse "Only the Father, not YHWH, is good"

Post by perseusomega9 »

Likewise Lieu, Marcion
...Tertullian implies as much when he identifies here an unholy
alliance between the heretic and the Jew, and draws his polemic from his
earlier work Against the Jews (Tertullian, AM III. 6–7). However, the lines
are by no means straightforward, since developing anti-Jewish polemic was
itself fuelled by anxieties about Marcion. Hence, Marcion was being
charged with rejecting a strategy for retaining and reading the Scriptures
that he himself, in part, had made necessary. In fact, it is evident from his
retention of 1 Corinthians 10.1–6 and of Galatians 4.21–7 that Marcion did
read ‘symbolically’ in some sense;...{/quote]
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billd89
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The Point

Post by billd89 »

I said Marcion was an AntiSemite (Anti-Jewish). Someone asked for proof of that "extreme" claim. I showed it wasn't "extreme" at all. **Evidence**

Whether you(or anyone) agrees 'Marcion was an AntiSemite' - the game of dueling scholars - is of no consequence to me. Different opinions are different.

And most importantly, Marcion is too late for and far from my attention. Sorry.
perseusomega9
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Re: The Point

Post by perseusomega9 »

billd89 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:37 pm**Evidence**
Which was Tyson paraphrasing Tertullian and the church bros.
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DCHindley
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Re: Marcion was an Anti-Semite

Post by DCHindley »

neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:34 am
billd89 wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 1:25 pm Marcion was venomously Anti-Jewish - hardly a neutral witness.
Is there evidence for this extreme claim?
I have to agree with Neil, I don't think that Marcion faulted the Judean God for being evil, just wrong headed for refusing to believe there could be a greater god/principal than himself. I think that this was worked out in some posts here from several years ago. IIRC, Marcion accepted that the Judean God had put into motion a plan to reveal a kingly messiah, and that this messiah would one day come, but he rejected the idea that Jesus was that messianic king. I could be wrong about that last point.

It was Hippolytus and Epiphanius who said Marcion called the Creator "evil." I don't think the others (Irenaeus, Tertullian) claim that he thought the Creator god "evil." These folks seem to have restricted themselves to calling Marcion himself "evil." That's a different thing.

The earlier discussion was here:
viewtopic.php?p=39326#p39326

It's coming back to me, but I think what Epiphanius was saying was that always-existing unformed matter itself was the "evil" god. Marcion held there were three principals: the Good, the Creator and Matter. In fact, this is from Plato, although Plato called the first principal The One.

DCH
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Re: "Only god is good" as Mark's compromise to eclipse "Only the Father, not YHWH, is good"

Post by Secret Alias »

If you read Clement you see the angle that Marcion was influenced by Platonism. This seems to dovetail with a section in Celsus where the pagan says that Christians were influenced by Plato. At issue here is the obvious EMOTIONAL state displayed by the god in the Torah - he's jealous, angry, interested in women's privates, men's privates etc. It goes against Platonic assumptions about the ultimate god.
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Re: "Only god is good" as Mark's compromise to eclipse "Only the Father, not YHWH, is good"

Post by Giuseppe »

Menander said that YHWH was the father of Satan. It remembers the movie Prometheus of saga Alien: the demiurges had good intentions, only they gave rise to the famous monsters for their intrinsic inferiority.
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Re: "Only god is good" as Mark's compromise to eclipse "Only the Father, not YHWH, is good"

Post by Giuseppe »

Mark 10:18
there is none good but one, that is, God

...betrayes also an apology of monotheism, since monos theos is specifically a label for the Creator, i.e. Mark was correcting a previous gospel where the claim was:

there is none good but the Father!

the Father is chrestos, the supreme god of the anti-demiurgists (=anti-YHWH).
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