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

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

Post by Giuseppe »


“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.

(Mark 10:18)

Curiously, Mark says:
ὁ Θεός

He doesn't say "Kyrios", not "the Father", finding as compromise between YHWH and the Father the choice of the more neutral "God".

Isn't this the entire program of Mark in nuce? To harmonize enemies of YHWH and Judaizers ?
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billd89
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Re: Like Philo's "Two God Theory"?

Post by billd89 »

Know your myths! "The Good." It sounds Monadic.

The appearance of the Christos (#3) after the Logos (#2) and the Unknowable Supreme God (#1) is just one conceptualization, c.25 BC or so. The Church Fathers had difficult work, c.300 AD, sanitizing a plethora of systems which had popped up ...

Father AND Creator, here. Very Philonic? There was a (widely perceived) Duality before the Trinity throughout the Diaspora, I believe. But Philo Judaeus also elaborates 3-, 4-Power 'God Concepts'. So the situation was more complex and I see hints of Gnosticism in his work. And Philo was CONSERVATIVE.

How many Jewish 'gods' were there in 25 AD? On another thread, we tried to sort out all the different God=Chronos forms (there are 3 or 4 iterations). You may count the Unnameable God, Logos, Cosmos/Nature, Adam Kadmon, Christos, divinized Man (A. A.)... ?

The Gnostic proliferation of God's Powers, following the collapse of the Temple system, is not so surprising in light of the chronology of multiplying deities already recorded by Philo. He is NOT the originator of this multiplication; it's NOT recent. If you really believe the Gospels are a 2nd C AD product, there should be a dozen or so forms of 'God' iterated by then!
Giuseppe
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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 »

Bolland's point is that we see the same pattern in action:
  • Philo was disgusted by literalist reading of Genesis, etc,
  • hence he introduced a "superior" allegorical reading of it
‐------------------------------------‐
  • Moses didn't lead the Jews in Israel: Joshua did.
  • Hence: Joshua is better than Moses.
‐------------------------------------‐
  • The Creator is too much a tribal deity, bloodthirsty etc. Platonists knew better.
  • Hence: an Unknown Father is more good than the only "just" sadistic YHWH.

Hence, anti-demiurgism is strictly connected woth the choice of "Joshua" for the name of the new Christian deity.
Giuseppe
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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 14:61-62 doesn't explain why the messianic blasphemy has to be considered a blasphemy:

Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”

62 “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

If we replace "Messiah" and "Son of the Blessed One" with "Chrestos" and "Son of Father", we realize that the anti-demiurgism was the blasphemy:

Again the high priest asked him, “Are you Chrestos, the Son of Father (== "Bar-Abbas"?"
“I am,” said Jesus.

Hence we realize easily how much was strong the need to release Barabbas in the wilderness, more far possible from the crucifixion!
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billd89
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I cannot follow you

Post by billd89 »

Giuseppe wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 9:20 am Bolland's point is that we see the same pattern in action:
  • Philo was disgusted by literalist reading of Genesis, etc,
  • hence he introduced a "superior" allegorical reading of it
That's rubbish. ''Disgust'' is the wrong characterization, and he "introduced" nothing. Allegoresis long predated Philo J, who was but an outstanding exemplar.
‐------------------------------------‐
  • Moses didn't lead the Jews in Israel: Joshua did.
  • Hence: Joshua is better than Moses.
Moses never made it to Israel, himself. 'Moses' was a myth (very important stuff, but not literal), anyway.
‐------------------------------------‐
  • The Creator is too much a tribal deity, bloodthirsty etc. Platonists knew better.
  • Hence: an Unknown Father is more good than the only "just" sadistic YHWH.
I'm inclined to agree that a perceived sadistic YHWH was failing before 68 AD, but the moral philosophical and social reasons WHY were more complex than the flawed formula(s) you offer. Josephus called the Essenes 'Pythagoreans'.
Hence, anti-demiurgism is strictly connected woth the choice of "Joshua" for the name of the new Christian deity.
That's a big Maybe, but rejected as phrased. Middle Platonists believed in the Demiurge. Not all had an Evil Demiurge, as you would say. (I can never figure out your timeframes or locales, btw.)

You paint things not in vivid but extreme colors; the world has never looked so Day-Glo. Just my two cents.
Giuseppe
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Re: I cannot follow you

Post by Giuseppe »

billd89 wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:13 am I'm inclined to agree that a perceived sadistic YHWH was failing before 68 AD, but the moral philosophical and social reasons WHY were more complex than the flawed formula(s) you offer.
surely the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE was hailed by anti-demiurgists as the end of the rule of the evil demiurge YHWH. So Marcion interpreted it, according to prof Markus Vinzent.

70 CE: the visible sign that someone had broken in whiletime the rule of YHWH.
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billd89
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Re: Marcion was an Anti-Semite

Post by billd89 »

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

I imagine that there was a mass apostasy after YHWH did not avenge his Temple's destruction and the Roman slaughter of His People. That didn't turn every (fmr) Jew 'anti-YHWH', however; some became pacifist agnostics, others esoterically-oriented, and weird Judaic 'cults' exploded too.

Which of the NHC are obsessed with an Evil Demiurge YHWH ? Don't overstate or wildly exaggerate. In Egypt, there were TWO major pogroms (38 AD, 116 AD) yet the "metaphysical antisemitism" (as Gershom Scholem terms it) is fairly scant, subdued in that collection of tractates 'after the fact'.

This could be my "What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?" face:
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Marcion was an Anti-Semite

Post by neilgodfrey »

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?
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billd89
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Marcion was an 'Anti-Semite' (Anti-Jewish)

Post by billd89 »

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?
Extreme? Not at all. True.

Purging Luke of the 'Jewish bits'? And Apelles' repudiation of the Law, Patriarchs? (Apple didn't fall far from the tree.) I would assume everyone can simply read at face value and understand what's really going on there.

Scholem (1941) termed it "metaphysical antisemitism" - I think we can drop the esoteric qualifier. Bart Ehrman (2003) wrote "Marcion seems to have hated Jews and everything Jewish" - so M. promoted an "Anti-Jewish religion." Perhaps that's an extreme assessment. I'm not sure how many other scholars have broadly addressed it; it's obvious. See Joseph B. Tyson's "Anti-Judaism in Marcion and His Opponents" (2006) @ escholarship.bc.edu/scjr/vol1/iss1/art21 ; Google link opens as a pdf: 1359-Article Text-1549-1-10-20110415-1.pdf

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 and that his theology completely separated the God of Jesus from the God of Israel.

Marcion was an exquisitely 'Anti-Jewish' editor (High AntiSemitism); Tyson (2006) p.200:
Our ancient sources agree that Marcion made a total separation between the religion that Jesus and Paul espoused and that of the Hebrew Scriptures. The God of Jesus was totally unknown before Jesus appeared.13 The God who ruled prior to 29 C.E. knew nothing of Jesus or of the second God.14 The revelation of the God of Jesus occurred when Jesus first appeared, and Marcion was willing to date it with precision—in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, emperor of Rome. This is the first verse of Marcion’s gospel, a verse that also appears in Luke 3:1.

Etc. Tertullian was right.
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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 »

Plenty of Jews at the time considered various aspects of the scriptures as false, added to, or corrupt. Markion could easily be in a similar category. He may have been nothing more than reacting to overly literal translation of regional pal Aquilas Greek translation f the Hebrew scriptures. Add to that the Two-Powers controversy raging at the time and you easily have Markion the Jew.
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