How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

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Secret Alias
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How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

Post by Secret Alias »

The Gospel of Thomas and almost certainly the Gospel of Marcion HAD Jesus announcing he would destroy the temple. But Luke - the supposed Marcionite original - has no reference to Jesus's words. Clearly this is proof that Luke is secondary. End of debate:
55 The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. 56 Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree. 57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’” 59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree. 60 Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. [Mark 14:55 - 59]

But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward. Finally two came forward 61 and declared, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’” 62 Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 63 But Jesus remained silent. [Matthew 24:60 - 63]

At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, both the chief priests and the teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. 67 “If you are the Messiah,” they said, “tell us.” Jesus answered, “If I tell you, you will not believe me, 68 and if I asked you, you would not answer. 69 But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.” 70 They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?” He replied, “You say that I am.” 71 Then they said, “Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips.”
Am I missing something?
Secret Alias
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Re: How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

Post by Secret Alias »

I was typing this up as I was working. But as I see it:

1. either Jesus said 'I will destroy the temple' as Marcion and the gospel of Thomas
2. or Jesus did not say it but (?) the gospels were reporting misinformation from the Jews or some other source (Marcion?)
3. but Luke completely omitting it cannot be seen as anything other than an attempt to edit Marcion's gospel

Otherwise why not faithfully report what is Mark and/or Matthew?
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Ken Olson
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Re: How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

Post by Ken Olson »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 10:00 am The Gospel of Thomas and almost certainly the Gospel of Marcion HAD Jesus announcing he would destroy the temple. But Luke - the supposed Marcionite original - has no reference to Jesus's words. Clearly this is proof that Luke is secondary. End of debate:

* * *

Am I missing something?
An argument?

1) The Gospel of Thomas Logion 71 has: 'I will overturn this house and no one will be able to build it again.' If Thomas is based on the synoptics, or at least on a Jewish/Palestinian traditional setting it shares with the synoptics, then interpreting the house to be the temple in Jerusalem is a pretty strong inference. If Thomas precedes the synoptics and originally had nothing to do with Jewish Messianic expectations and fulfilled Jewish prophecy, it's hard to see how we can know what the house was.

2) What is your case for concluding that the Evangelion used by Marcion almost certainly had Jesus announcing he would destroy the temple?
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Re: How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

Post by rgprice »

I'm not sure why you think Marcion's Gospel said Jesus would destroy the Temple. But Luke is derived from Marcion nonetheless.
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Ken Olson
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Re: How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

Post by Ken Olson »

rgprice wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 10:51 am I'm not sure why you think Marcion's Gospel said Jesus would destroy the Temple. But Luke is derived from Marcion nonetheless.
I'm not sure why you would think Luke is derived from the Evangelion nonetheless. How do you know?
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Re: How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

Post by Secret Alias »

Well some sort of relationship is consistently referenced. Irenaeus AH 1.27.1, Tertullian (various), Epiphanius. The orthodox say:
Marcion seems to have singled out Luke for his mutilating process. Luke, however, was not an apostle, but only an apostolic man; not a master, but a disciple, and so inferior to a master — at least as far subsequent to him as the apostle whom he followed (and that, no doubt, was Paul ) was subsequent to the others; so that, had Marcion even published his Gospel in the name of St. Paul himself, the single authority of the document, destitute of all support from preceding authorities, would not be a sufficient basis for our faith.
Tertullian clearly gets his information from Irenaeus here. But still since there is a one way relationship claimed one might feel comfortable arguing that IN REVERSE it argues for Luke being constructed as the anti-Marcionite gospel. Irenaeus says as much:
So firm is the ground upon which these Gospels rest, that the very heretics themselves bear witness to them, and, starting from these [documents], each one of them endeavours to establish his own peculiar doctrine. For the Ebionites, who use Matthew's Gospel only, are confuted out of this very same, making false suppositions with regard to the Lord. But Marcion, mutilating that according to Luke, is proved to be a blasphemer of the only existing God, from those [passages] which he still retains. Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified. Those, moreover, who follow Valentinus, making copious use of that according to John, to illustrate their conjunctions, shall be proved to be totally in error by means of this very Gospel, as I have shown in the first book. Since, then, our opponents do bear testimony to us, and make use of these [documents], our proof derived from them is firm and true. It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world ...
It does kind of sound in Irenaeus like God made the gospel four because of the 'four kinds' (arba'a minim Leviticus 23:40) of heresies pre-ordained from the beginning in scripture. Maybe the Leviticus reference is a stretch but God somehow knew ahead of time that there would be four gospels so the four heresies each attached to one of the gospels arose.

At the very least, Irenaeus says Marcion falsified Luke. On some level Luke is either (a) the exemplar for the Marcionite gospel (as Irenaeus and Tertullian say) (b) related in some unknown way with the Marcionite gospel (a common exemplar) or (c) the anti-Marcionite gospel which explains some of its additions to Mark. But Luke's complete removal of the promise to destroy the temple is suspicious.
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Ken Olson
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Re: How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

Post by Ken Olson »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:14 am But Luke's complete removal of the promise to destroy the temple is suspicious.
What is your case for concluding that the Evangelion used by Marcion almost certainly had Jesus announcing he would destroy the temple?
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Re: How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

Post by Secret Alias »

1. it seems to have been in some form of the gospel which predated the Catholic quaternion. See my new thread.
2. the frequent reference to Marcion destroying or as 'the destroyer' of the Law and prophets (in what way could Jesus have 'destroyed' the Law vividly like Moses shattering the stone tablets?).
3. sometimes Tertullian - or his source Justin - assumes this destruction as the conclusion of the first advent which ushers in the second:
There is another consideration: since he will at his second advent come after Him, that as he at His first coming took hostile proceed-rags against the Creator, destroying the law and the prophets, which were His, so he may, to be sure, at his second coming proceed in opposition to Christ, upsetting His kingdom. Then, no doubt, he would terminate his course, and then (if ever) be worthy of belief; for else, if his work has been already perfected, it would be in vain for him to come, for there would indeed be nothing that he could further accomplish.
4. the proposed Marcionite use of the Acts of Pilate and the use of the Acts of Pilate in Lactantius and (by inference) Tertullian's Apology (see other thread).
5. the removal of the reference in Luke 24 if - as I suggest - Luke was a correction of Marcion and not the other way around (in antiquity no one thought that Luke was copying out Mark. It wasn't read that way. So Luke was understood to have developed a gospel based on what Paul told him).
6. it sounds like something that would be in Marcion's gospel and the gospel of Thomas has it. A relationship between Thomas and the synoptics exists.
7. Celsus assumes it was said in a gospel current in his day:
But what promise did Jesus make which He did not perform? Let Celsus produce any instance of such, and make good his charge. But he will be unable to do so, especially since it is from mistakes, arising either from misapprehension of the Gospel narratives, or from Jewish stories, that he thinks to derive the charges which he brings against Jesus or against ourselves. Moreover, again, when the Jew says, "We both found him guilty, and condemned him as deserving of death," let them show how they who sought to concoct false witness against Him proved Him to be guilty. Was not the great charge against Jesus, which His accusers brought forward, this, that He said, "I am able to destroy the temple of God, and after three days to raise it up again?" But in so saying, He spake of the temple of His body; while they thought, not being able to understand the meaning of the speaker, that His reference was to the temple of stone, which was treated by the Jews with greater respect than He was who ought to have been honoured as the true Temple of God--the Word, and the Wisdom, and the Truth. And who can say that "Jesus attempted to make His escape by disgracefully concealing Himself?"
8. It's in the Slavonic Josephus narrative (Inserted in B. J. V. v. 2.):
At it (the barrier of the Temple) were columns . . . and on these inscriptions in Greek and Roman and Jewish characters, publishing the law of purity and [proclaiming] that no foreigner should enter the inner [court]; for they called it the Holy [Place] to which one had to ascend by fourteen steps, and whose upper part was built in a square. And over these tablets with inscriptions hung a fourth tablet with inscription in these [three] characters, to the effect: Jesus has not reigned as king; he has been crucified by the Jews, because he proclaimed the destruction of the city and the laying waste of the temple.
9. It is part of the expectation for the 'Christ' figure of the Mandaean John Book:
He destroyed the Temple, and set fire to Jerusalem.
He rained destruction upon them, and killed my disciples in Jerusalem.
10. the same thing is found in the Haran Gawaitha.
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Re: How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

Post by Giuseppe »

Robert Stahl argued also for the first gospel (proto-John) having Jesus prophet of destruction of the Temple, but he did so in a context where a such Jesus prophet of destruction of the Temple was a reaction to the Book of Revelation, where a celestial Temple is promised for the new Jerusalem.

Given that a good case exists that Revelation precedes any Gospel narrative, why should we think that the anti-Temple Jesus was first?
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Ken Olson
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Re: How Do We Explain the Complete Absence of Jesus Being 'Falsely Accused' of Wanting to Destroy the Temple in Luke?

Post by Ken Olson »

In response to the question in the title of the thread, it should be noted that a form of the false accusation story missing from Luke is found in Acts 6.8-15:

Acts 6.8 Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. 9 Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and others of those from Cilicia and Asia, stood up and argued with Stephen. 10 But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit[c] with which he spoke. 11 Then they secretly instigated some men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” 12 They stirred up the people as well as the elders and the scribes; then they suddenly confronted him, seized him, and brought him before the council. 13 They set up false witnesses who said, “This man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law; 14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us.” 15 And all who sat in the council looked intently at him, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

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