The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

Post by neilgodfrey »

Hi Sinouhe, -- I have been reading Nathanael Vette's Writing With Scripture (a book I think you referenced earlier on this forum) and was reminded of you when I came to the following footnote on page 189:
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Sinouhe
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Re: The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

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neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:34 am Hi Sinouhe, -- I have been reading Nathaniel Vette's Writing With Scripture (a book I think you referenced earlier on this forum) and was reminded of you when I came to the following footnote on page 189:

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Hello Neil,

Thanks for the footnote. It confirms what we said. It’s not clear that Paul or Mark used the verse but it’s not clear either that they don’t use it. By the way, the fact that Mark build his passion narrative using this psalm tends to make me think that he also had verse 17 in mind.

And how is the book? I liked his PDF that summarizes the book and I consider his findings to be a real breakthrough in the study of Mark's composition and the non-historicity of his gospel. I will certainly buy it next month.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

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Sinouhe wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:43 am
And how is the book? I liked his PDF that summarizes the book and I consider his findings to be a real breakthrough in the study of Mark's composition and the non-historicity of his gospel. I will certainly buy it next month.
I'll be rereading chunks of it before blogging about it. The publisher kindly sent me a review copy so that's my homework. Much of interest in it, but I could have done without the Goodacre-ish apologetics trying not to sound like apologetics at the end. Crossan gets a mixed report, which at times I think is a tad unfair. But those details are of secondary importance to what I take to be the main value of the book.
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Sinouhe
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Re: The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

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neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:15 am
Sinouhe wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:43 am
And how is the book? I liked his PDF that summarizes the book and I consider his findings to be a real breakthrough in the study of Mark's composition and the non-historicity of his gospel. I will certainly buy it next month.
I'll be rereading chunks of it before blogging about it. The publisher kindly sent me a review copy so that's my homework. Much of interest in it, but I could have done without the Goodacre-ish apologetics trying not to sound like apologetics at the end. Crossan gets a mixed report, which at times I think is a tad unfair. But those details are of secondary importance to what I take to be the main value of the book.
I think his personal conclusion is a bit surprising indeed but it is his demonstration that is interesting and a more critical person will inevitably have a different conclusion than he does. Thanks for the feedback, I will read your article on vridar with great interest.
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Re: The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

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Sinouhe wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:44 am

I think his personal conclusion is a bit surprising indeed
probably you and Neil are talking about what Vette concludes (from his article on academia.edu):

It could be that if everything incidental was peeled away from the crucifixion narrative, all that would be left is Mark 15:20, “Then they led him out to crucify him.”

When I read Mark 15:20, and I remember that Mark 15:20 is the immediate effect of the Jesus's answer before Pilate ("tu dices"), I can only wonder about Louis Painchaud's analysis about a Gnostic story having exactly the same crucial point: question ⟶ answer ⟶ punition/glorification.
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Sinouhe
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Re: The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

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Giuseppe wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 8:35 am
Sinouhe wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:44 am

I think his personal conclusion is a bit surprising indeed
probably you and Neil are talking about what Vette concludes (from his article on academia.edu):

It could be that if everything incidental was peeled away from the crucifixion narrative, all that would be left is Mark 15:20, “Then they led him out to crucify him.”

I more or less agree with the conclusion of his PDF.
But from what i read in his interview, i think he will conclude like Goodacre, that Mark has a historical basis behind all his midrashim and pesharim.
My latest book, Writing with Scripture: Scripturalized Narrative in the Gospel of Mark (LNTS 666; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2022), argues that Mark made use of a popular literary convention whereby new stories were fashioned out of scriptural language. Second Temple authors often modelled stories on well-known episodes in the scriptures: so you have stories of Abraham being rescued from a fiery furnace (à la Daniel 3), Judas Maccabeus besieging a city he is unable to go around (as Moses destroys Sihon) and Judith assassinating Holofernes in a tent (as Jael assassinates Sisera), to name a few. So when Mark has Jesus spend forty-days in the wilderness and call his disciples like Elijah or Herod Antipas making promises to the young girl like Ahasuerus, the scriptures are being used in the same way, as a compositional model. Scholars have tended to see great exegetical significance in Mark’s use of the scriptures—like the Psalms in the Passion Narrative—but my research suggests that sometimes the scriptures were used for no other reason than to tell a new story in familiar language. It also raises interesting questions about the historicity of episodes told in scriptural language: did scripturalization lead to the invention of non-historical episodes? My answer should equally displease radical and conservative exegetes!
https://phdstudentstofollow.wordpress.c ... ael-vette/
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

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The main point of the book is to demonstrate that scriptural allusions do not necessarily point to some hidden exegesis of the scriptures. In other words, stop looking for some theological meaning in the OT allusions: most of them are the raw material from which the story has been crafted and generally have no more meaning than that -- i.e. they are ideas for a story. Such was the way of storytelling in other Jewish literature of the time.

In the end Vette says the sudden introduction of women who are named along with their sons is difficult to explain unless one assumes that is traditional material derived from historical memory. He virtually says -- not quite but just about -- of Mark that if it's not scriptural allusion it is historical tradition. In other words, from my point of view, he falls into the strict dichotomy of interpretation that he tries to otherwise condemn as simplistic. He also assumes the view that Mark was writing for a limited community who would recognize the names -- an idea I thought was on the way out in NT scholarship since Bauckham. He ignores the pattern of symbolic names, puns, and mirror relationships to identify characters at either end of the gospel (sons identified by their parents; parents identified by their sons) and assumes historical memory without addressing other possibilities. Not so, though, in the case of stories of Judith and Noah, etc.

But what I find most interesting are more significant is that we no longer have to be trying to decipher hidden theological meanings in many of the stories of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark on the basis of scriptural allusions. They are as much there as raw story material and nothing more than that as, some might say, are the allusions to Homer.
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Re: The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

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neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 10:28 am
In the end Vette says the sudden introduction of women who are named along with their sons is difficult to explain unless one assumes that is traditional material derived from historical memory.
Curious! Then, if Vette is correct that the mention of the women implies historicity, and if Painchaud is correct that the mention of women in the Gnostic story titled "Orig. World"

After the day of rest, Sophia sent her daughter Zoe, being called Eve, as an instructor, in order that she might make Adam, who had no soul, arise, so that those whom he should engender might become containers of light. When Eve saw her male counterpart prostrate, she had pity upon him, and she said, "Adam! Become alive! Arise upon the earth!" Immediately her word became accomplished fact. For Adam, having arisen, suddenly opened his eyes. When he saw her, he said, "You shall be called 'Mother of the Living'. For it is you who have given me life."

...is based on Mark's women finding the empty tomb, then, according to Vette's logic, one has to infer that ' "Orig. World" has a historical nucleus, afterall!
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

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Giuseppe wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 10:52 am ...is based on Mark's women finding the empty tomb, then, according to Vette's logic, one has to infer that ' "Orig. World" has a historical nucleus, afterall!
Technically, perhaps, but not really. The key reference of Vette is the introduction of the women standing watching the crucifixion "from afar". That is the scene (and persons) he describes as "scripturalized tradition".

But you are pointing to one of the difficulties that I had with Vette's conclusion. If the women are a historical tradition that are presented in a "scripturalized" context, then does it not follow that in some sense, as Vette suggests, the women are traditional witnesses who had a different story to tell from "the twelve". But what was it that was historical about their witness? The late trial just on the eve of Passover which knowing meant crucified bodies being strung/nailed up potentially into the sabbath? the empty tomb? the young man in the tomb and his message? .... it is hard to imagine what realistic historical event they are said to be witnesses for.

If the only event they witness is the crucifixion then what is their significance as witnesses? Was there any doubt that Jesus was crucified that it needed a historical witness of the women? But once they are said to be watching "from afar", how could they be reliable witnesses that it was Jesus who was being crucified anyway? So the case for them being added to the narrative because of some "historical tradition" raises problems, I think, when it is thought through.
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Celestial Messiah in the parables of Enoch

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Giuseppe wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 10:52 am
... if Vette is correct that the mention of the women implies historicity, and if Painchaud is correct that the mention of women in the Gnostic story titled 'Orig. World'

After the day of rest, Sophia sent her daughter Zoe, being called Eve, as an instructor, in order that she might make Adam, who had no soul, arise, so that those whom he should engender might become containers of light. When Eve saw her male counterpart prostrate, she had pity upon him, and she said, "Adam! Become alive! Arise upon the earth!" Immediately her word became accomplished fact. For Adam, having arisen, suddenly opened his eyes. When he saw her, he said, "You shall be called 'Mother of the Living'. For it is you who have given me life."

...is based on Mark's women finding the empty tomb, then, according to Vette's logic, one has to infer that ' "Orig. World" has a historical nucleus, afterall!

Vice versa is possible too ie. that Mark's women finding the tomb is based on that pericope in On the Origin of the World (aka 'The Untitled Text').

Even though "Orig. World" and it's closed related 'Reality of the Rulers'/'Hypostasis of the Archons' have traditionally been tentatively dated to the third century CE, it's possible they're earlier. How 'possible'—ie. how probable—is another matter ('Reality of the Rulers'/'Hypostasis of the Archons' concludes with prediction of the coming of the Savior, albeit at 'the end of days', and coming of the Savior is a tradition in subsequent gospels ie. Matthew, Luke and John).
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