A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
User avatar
Jagd
Posts: 74
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2021 4:59 pm

Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by Jagd »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 3:11 am I have dusted off a copy of Norelli's 1995 commentary and am reminded that he argues that the Ascension of Isaiah was put together to protest against the stifling of visionary prophetic experiences among Christians. I plan to outline his case in a future blog post.

[...]

Norelli goes on to suggest that Ignatius may have been one of the bishops who was working to suppress the visionary prophetic activity we see represented in the AI.
Would this suggest that the crucifixion event was something witnessed in visions?
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by neilgodfrey »

Jagd wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 12:38 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 3:11 am I have dusted off a copy of Norelli's 1995 commentary and am reminded that he argues that the Ascension of Isaiah was put together to protest against the stifling of visionary prophetic experiences among Christians. I plan to outline his case in a future blog post.

[...]

Norelli goes on to suggest that Ignatius may have been one of the bishops who was working to suppress the visionary prophetic activity we see represented in the AI.
Would this suggest that the crucifixion event was something witnessed in visions?
The Asc of Isa does depict a witnessing of the crucifixion by means of a vision but it is an earthly crucifixion.
User avatar
neilgodfrey
Posts: 6161
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 pm

Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by neilgodfrey »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 3:05 pm
Jagd wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 12:38 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 3:11 am I have dusted off a copy of Norelli's 1995 commentary and am reminded that he argues that the Ascension of Isaiah was put together to protest against the stifling of visionary prophetic experiences among Christians. I plan to outline his case in a future blog post.

[...]

Norelli goes on to suggest that Ignatius may have been one of the bishops who was working to suppress the visionary prophetic activity we see represented in the AI.
Would this suggest that the crucifixion event was something witnessed in visions?
The Asc of Isa does depict a witnessing of the crucifixion by means of a vision but it is an earthly crucifixion.
Asc Isa also portrays Jesus coming out of or through a woman in order to "become a man" -- also in vision.

But the vision is of things that are said to happen in real history.
Paul the Uncertain
Posts: 994
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 6:25 am
Contact:

Re: A Japanese Model for Christian origins with a Jesus who never preached

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

It would be very difficult for any organization to prevent visionary experience among its members. It's too easy to have anomalous quasi-perceptual experience, whether spontaneously or on demand. Some relevant modern psychological brand names are Giovanni Caputo and Tanya Luhrman.

Caputo has experimentally demonstrated the strange face illusion. Ordinary people reliably experience catastrophic disruption of their facial recognition capability after a few minutes of staring at a face (e.g. their own in a mirror, or someone else's face, or even a photograph of a face) in poor viewing conditions (dim light, but in ancient times, polished base metal mirrors of the sort made in Corinth would probably serve). What subjects see instead of the actual scene varies with the individual, the setting and the set (in other words, maybe anything, or maybe just chaos, with a component of suggestibility thrown in).

Luhrman has studied a variety of smaller effects, especially things like "felt presence" elicited by "interior dialog" (talking to oneself, but as if in conversation with someone else, "playing both roles" in the conversation). She has also, however, managed to elicit quasi-perceptual visitations from the long-dead Leland Stanford, Jr in one or more Stanford University undergraduates.

This is apart from better living through chemistry and pathological conditions like temporal lobe epilepsy.

It would plausibly be desirable to maintain good order among the church's rank and file by suppressing visionary experience, but that may be impossible for a church to do. Churches may be able to regulate or inhibit the dissemination of testimony about such things, or influence the reception and interpretation of such testimony by its audience.
Post Reply