in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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MrMacSon
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Re: in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 8:07 pm
MrMacSon wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 2:02 pmAnd I find it noteworthy that the Church Fathers like Irenaeus seems to have devoted far more ink to discussing so-called Gnostic theology than Christian theology - it's almost as if Christian theology was in its infancy when Irenaeus is supposed to have written.
What do you find surprising about a work entitled Refutation and Overthrow of the Knowledge Falsely So Called devoting most of its space to the refutation and overthrow of knowledge falsely so called? Does that not seem like exactly what one would expect from such a work? If something strange can be divined from it, I do not know what it could be.
Sure, but it's interesting that the works of Irenaeus that are preserved are not as strongly representative and do not reflect Christianity as it is alleged to have been in his time.

Interestingly, some say the that title, Refutation and Overthrow of the Knowledge Falsely So Called, is derived from 1 Tim 6:20-21

"Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, 21 which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith"

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neilgodfrey
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Re: in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

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MrMacSon wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 2:01 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 12:40 am Everything about the Gospel of Mark looks to me like its taken from Jewish Scriptures.
Maybe not everything. The proposition I've put forward is the passage in question from Origin of the World could well have influenced 1 Cor 2:6-8 and from there Mark used it, ala Tom Dykstra, rgprice, Carrier, and perhaps David Oliver Smith.
Is there a more economical hypothesis?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

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Giuseppe wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 1:47 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 12:40 am
Everything about the Gospel of Mark looks to me like its taken from Jewish Scriptures.
yes, obviously. But you would like to inquiry about the motivation behind a so great and deliberate effort of midrash from Jewish Scriptures and I think that if in a so pivotal episode (=the trial before Pilate, so embarrassing therefore the oldest item of the Gospel tradition, not the more historical) we observe a midrash from Origin of the World (or his source), then the motivation is clear: "to prove" via Scriptures that Jesus, the suffering deity of the Christians, was the Jewish Christ predicted by the Scriptures, against Christian deniers.

To doubt about the historical reality of Jesus, one needs to know:
  • how the Gospel Jesus was built (about the how, any reader here is more expert than me)
  • why it was necessary
The midrash from Origin of the World may answer to the second question, I think.
Perhaps, but I'm not so sure the Gospel of Mark was addressing anything other than "whither Judaism" after the destruction of its cult (whether 70 or 134 ce). I see no need to introduce other factors. They do not appear necessary to explain anything that we read in GMark. I'm open to being shown I'm wrong, but I don't see it there in the Pilate trial parallel you point to.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

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MrMacSon wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 1:54 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 12:40 am There is nothing unusual about the interpretation of the Philippian Hymn that has the son receiving the name Jesus after his resurrection. but it does not follow that a previous name that is found in the Origin of the World, as far as I can see.
I think the proposition is that a previous name could have been any one of a few names in various documents in the Nag Hammadi collection, not Origin.
Is not the general rule to add details over time? So would not it be consistent with that trend in other writings for a pre-resurrection name be given to Jesus subsequent to the Philippian hymn? Why assume there must have been a name for Jesus before he was given the name above all names?

There could have been various sects calling him Adam (meaning a heavenly Adam) -- but I don't think we can take the Nag Hammadi writings and place them as early as Paul or the first gospel. We can, but is it anything more than speculation?
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MrMacSon
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Re: in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

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neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 3:17 am
Is not the general rule to add details over time? So would not it be consistent with that trend in other writings for a pre-resurrection name be given to Jesus subsequent to the Philippian hymn? Why assume there must have been a name for Jesus before he was given the name above all names?

There could have been various sects calling him Adam (meaning a heavenly Adam) -- but I don't think we can take the Nag Hammadi writings and place them as early as Paul or the first gospel. We can, but is it anything more than speculation?
I guess there could have been a common source or theological tradition.

I only got involved when Giuseppe posted a quote from Robert M Price in this thread here and I made a comment here http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 66#p114766
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MrMacSon
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Re: in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

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neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 3:09 am
MrMacSon wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 2:01 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 12:40 am Everything about the Gospel of Mark looks to me like its taken from Jewish Scriptures.
Maybe not everything. The proposition I've put forward is the passage in question from Origin of the World could well have influenced 1 Cor 2:6-8 and from there Mark used it, ala Tom Dykstra, rgprice, Carrier, and perhaps David Oliver Smith.
Is there a more economical hypothesis?
Not presently for this. I made a comment in reply to the OP by Giuseppe; he posted a link to this table and I modified it thus -
MrMacSon wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 4:32 pm
Giuseppe wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 3:14 am
... the real 'culmination' of the judaizing anti-Gnostic counter-offensive is this) ... one of the many reactions against the Gnostic propaganda (as "The Untitled Text").
.
Such theological change - perhaps evolution, perhaps competing narcissists - may not have been a reaction against Gnostic propaganda, and, despite things like the fifth document of codex II, it's feasible not all Gnostic texts were propaganda.

I presume documenting progressive change from a 'gnostic' text to Paul to a NT gospel might be [a] better [reflection], represented left to right thus -

1 Corinthians 2:6-8
Oldest Gospel Passion Story

Then, when the seven rulers came,
they saw hima and were greatly disturbed.

They went up to hima and seized him.a
And [the chief ruler] said to the breath within him,a

"Who are you? And whence did you come hither?"

Ita answered and said, "I have come from 'the force of the man' for the destruction of your work."

When they heard, they glorified him.a

a him = Adam, which Sophie Zoe has just breathed life into = It = not a human

We do, however, speak a message
of wisdom among the mature,
but not the wisdom of this age
or of the rulers of this age,
who are coming to nothing.1a

No, we declare God’s wisdom,
a mystery that has been hidden
and that God destined for our glory before time began.1b

None of the rulers of this age understood it,

for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.



So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate.

“You have said so,” Jesus replied.

[Pilate] had Jesus flogged,b and handed him over to be crucified.

b the flesh was beaten

1 These statements are of usurping: setting aside the old beliefs and reaffirming they don't matter b/c they were supposedly but a sideshow from the real beliefs Paul is reaffirming.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

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MrMacSon wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 2:28 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 8:07 pm
... if you want to read something by Irenaeus which has little to do with the heretics, try the Demonstration. He mentions the heretics maybe two or three times altogether in it. (Irenaeus himself even sounds a tiny bit gnostic a couple of times in it.)
This Demonstrations? The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching?

Yes, it does seem a little gnostic in a couple of places.

It reads to me like a pre-Gospel document: general theological rhetoric; quite a few appeals to major Jewish prophets throughout, with a few references to Moses, David, Isaiah, and Jerimiah; a few general statements about Christianity, including vague references to disciples of the Apostles, presbyteri apostolorum discipuli; several appeals to the Logos among the rhetoric; a couple of references to Paul, one reference to John the Baptist and one to the disciple John, but no references to Mark, Luke or Matthew.

Now, of course one shouldn't expect much recitation of the Canonical Gospels of other BT book in a work like this, but one might expect more and much better citation or representation of what the Gospels say Jesus is said to have said or said to have done.
So, in Against Heresies, in which Irenaeus quotes from the canonical gospels at length and in detail, summarizing each one basically from start to finish, it is apparently an issue that he talks so dang much about the heresies. In the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, in which he barely mentions the heresies, the issue is that he demonstrates what he perceives to be the Jewish basis for the apostolic preaching instead of quoting more from the gospels.

Instead of expecting him to talk about the gospels more in the Demonstration and the heresies less in Against Heresies, why not just reverse the field and acknowledge that he discusses both the gospels and the heresies in Against Heresies, but speaks more theologically and foundationally in the Demonstration? Once one does that, both works make sense for their design and purpose and fall into place at the same time.

(That this is so, by the way, is not a positive case for whatever you are arguing against. It is merely the neutralizing of a perceived negative case.)
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

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MrMacSon wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 3:00 amInterestingly, some say the that title, Refutation and Overthrow of the Knowledge Falsely So Called, is derived from 1 Tim 6:20-21

"Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, 21 which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith"

I agree; I think there is a manifest connection between the title of Irenaeus' work and this verse from 1 Timothy.
Giuseppe
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Re: in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

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neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 3:12 am
Giuseppe wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 1:47 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 12:40 am
Everything about the Gospel of Mark looks to me like its taken from Jewish Scriptures.
yes, obviously. But you would like to inquiry about the motivation behind a so great and deliberate effort of midrash from Jewish Scriptures and I think that if in a so pivotal episode (=the trial before Pilate, so embarrassing therefore the oldest item of the Gospel tradition, not the more historical) we observe a midrash from Origin of the World (or his source), then the motivation is clear: "to prove" via Scriptures that Jesus, the suffering deity of the Christians, was the Jewish Christ predicted by the Scriptures, against Christian deniers.

To doubt about the historical reality of Jesus, one needs to know:
  • how the Gospel Jesus was built (about the how, any reader here is more expert than me)
  • why it was necessary
The midrash from Origin of the World may answer to the second question, I think.
Perhaps, but I'm not so sure the Gospel of Mark was addressing anything other than "whither Judaism" after the destruction of its cult (whether 70 or 134 ce). I see no need to introduce other factors. They do not appear necessary to explain anything that we read in GMark. I'm open to being shown I'm wrong, but I don't see it there in the Pilate trial parallel you point to.
to my knowledge, another similar case where an evangelist uses a Gnostic (anti-YHWH) source is the episode of the disciples of Emmaus: the opening of their eyes is a midrash of the opening of the eyes of Adam and Eve so Jesus replaces the Genesiac Serpent as giver of a superior knowledge (that the Jewish Messiah has to suffer and rise).

But that episode was too much marginal to conclude that the evangelists had as motivation an anti-Gnostic polemic.

Now we are talking about the trial before Pilate, a central element of the entire Gospel story, very probably part of any proto-gospel preceding even Mark.

The sense of the episode is already explained alone, without need of other sources, as Pilate confirming by his own mouth that Jesus is the Christ hence, by crucifying him, the "prophet" Pilate fulfills the Christian prophecy that the Messiah had to suffer.

But what the midrash on The Origin of the World adds is :
  • The clear Markan will to introduce his Jesus Christ (and his supreme god YHWH) in the place of a celestial Adam crucified/"glorified" by 7 rulers (among them, YHWH himself degraded to evil archon).
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Re: in the Gnostic tradition the women could make Jesus risen

Post by Giuseppe »

neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 3:17 am

There could have been various sects calling him Adam (meaning a heavenly Adam) -- but I don't think we can take the Nag Hammadi writings and place them as early as Paul or the first gospel. We can, but is it anything more than speculation?
Note that we have already partial knowledge of the source shared by both Mark and On the Origin of the World: the Ascension of Isaiah.

As James Barlow noted independently from me, also there, in the original Ascension of Isaiah, we have the same sequence:
  • (1) the archontes raise a question addressed to a deity
  • (2) the deity gives the answer
  • (3) the archontes crucify the deity
Thoughts? :cheers:
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