(p. 53, my bold)
...one can't avoid the conclusion that a such Jesus is entirely mythical.
...so I can only exclaim: power of the baptism of Jesus by John, the only episode in the whole gospel that introduced his presumed humanity!!!
Yes, perhaps. Yet I think that Marcion just did not stress anything. Jesus came down to Capernaum, period. Jesus revealed himself to them in flesh, period. Jesus speaks an awful lot of the father and nothing or very little of God, periodGiuseppe wrote: ↑Sat May 07, 2022 8:13 am Surely when one reads prof Vinzent about Marcion's Jesus:
To Marcion whose Gospel did not provide the birth and youth stories of Jesus, as mentioned, but in which Jesus as an adult came down from above, from God, Jesus is and remains from the start through to his resurrection an angelic divine figure. Jesus only appears in human form, but in truth he is the transcendent God himself. This was the reason, as Tertullian explains to us, why Marcion called this text “gospel”, “eu-angelion”, namely the good message of an angel. It is the same reason, why early Christian authors after Marcion were rather reluctant in picking up this title.
(p. 53, my bold)
...one can't avoid the conclusion that a such Jesus is entirely mythical.
...so I can only exclaim: power of the baptism of Jesus by John, the only episode in the whole gospel that introduced his presumed humanity!!!
here I can't absolutely follow you, frankly. The Barabbas episode is a sure witness, in my view, of an earlier anti-marcionite offensive that didn't appeal to any form of harmonization or compromise, at contrary of what happened later with the canonical gospels. The marcionite Son of Father who claimed "All who have come before me [i.e. Moses and the Prophets] are thieves and robbers" (John 10:8) is sarcastically reduced himself to a robber and a criminal called "Bar-Abbas".
Nope, that's where they failed. The FF fail to make their case for Marcion deleting from Luke what he disliked - even Harnack came to that conclusion.davidmartin wrote: ↑Sat May 07, 2022 3:11 pm So, the FF employed the strategy of making opponents say what they found easiest to refute. In researching Simon I find his theology wasn't especially gnostic (so much so when SImonian writings are found scholars have trouble even identifying them as Simonian!), yet he is made the forefather of all the people Irenaeus is refuting. The FF also employ the tactic of finding an extremist to distort even more, then present their views as typical and tar all with the same brush. Just how much can we be sure of?
The baptism of Jesus is a curious feature of Marcion's ev. It really makes no sense for Jesus to be baptised at all in a docetic Christology - unless he is trying to appear to be a man but really isn't
In orthadox Christology it doesn't make much sense either but does have a sort of explanation in the catch-all of 'fully God / fully man'
But it would surely make complete sense in an adoptionist Christology with a human Jesus figuring out John would help him on his journey
If Marcion is dependent on Paul 'm not sure he'd favour an adoptionist Christology, but then again if the baptism was moved from John to the cross itself (the 'second baptism' mentioned in the gospels to mean the crucifixion) or hinted at that...
but maybe we are simply seeing an older adoptionist Christology layer in the baptism episode?
Just because someone named Barabbas is chosen over Jesus?Giuseppe wrote: ↑Sat May 07, 2022 9:18 pmhere I can't absolutely follow you, frankly. The Barabbas episode is a sure witness, in my view, of an earlier anti-marcionite offensive that didn't appeal to any form of harmonization or compromise, at contrary of what happened later with the canonical gospels. The marcionite Son of Father who claimed "All who have come before me [i.e. Moses and the Prophets] are thieves and robbers" (John 10:8) is sarcastically reduced himself to a robber and a criminal called "Bar-Abbas".
A such caustic defamation was possible only if it was justified by something of very scandalous about marcionism and Thomas: the simple idea that the law and the prophets prove the essential evilness of YHWH. That feature of marcionism was decisive for what came after.
And obviously Thomas adored the Son of Father before his reduction to Barabbas. I remember vaguely a saying about a pun on s-abba-th and the Father.
none evangelist would have invented the criminal figure of Barabbas, "son of father", unless he had been obliged to do so because he wanted to distance his own Jesus called Christ (i.e. the Jesus son of YHWH) from the rival Jesus, the Jesus Son of Father adored by anti-demiurgists, never "called Christ".
Bezae, needs some cleaning up because of textual line numbers and paragraph indicationsGiuseppe wrote: ↑Sat May 07, 2022 9:38 pmnone evangelist would have invented the criminal figure of Barabbas, "son of father", unless he had been obliged to do so because he wanted to distance his own Jesus called Christ (i.e. the Jesus son of YHWH) from the rival Jesus, the Jesus Son of Father adored by anti-demiurgists, never "called Christ".
Remember that Barabbas is introduced before Pilate in opposition to Jesus "called king of the Jews" (in Mark) and "called Christ" (in Matthew). So the great sin of Barabbas is to be Son of the wrong Father. By releasing him, the message was: "do you see? Marcion insists that his Jesus was crucified, when really he, in addition to be a criminal, was even released by Pilate; our Jesus was really crucified, not his Jesus".
You're likely right, I'll finish the above laterGiuseppe wrote: ↑Sun May 08, 2022 2:03 am It is my firm opinion that Barabbas couldn't be in the original marcionite text, under all the possible paradigms and synoptic solutions, pace Klinghardt.
About Barabbas I am very dogmatic in my conclusions, Martijn.
Already Joseph Turmel has proved that Barabbas is an interpolation in the Fourth Gospel.
So well five mythicists and two historicists agree with me about Barabbas being an insult to the marcionite Jesus Son of Father:
Paul-Louis Couchoud
Robert Stahl
Georges Ory
Jean Magne
Patrick Boistier
André Wautier
Joseph Turmel