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Why did the rabbis rejected the Second Power in Heaven?
Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2024 9:11 am
by Giuseppe
Best answer: for fear of Marcion and the anti-demiurgists.
Essentially: for fear of the dualism introduced by Marcion and company.
Fear that the original Christian ditheism could be misinterpreted, thanks to Marcion et similis, as dualism.
Without this fear, the rabbis would have never expelled the Christians from the licitae Jewish sects.
Without this fear, the Christians would have never felt the need of an adoptionist Christology to remark that there was no problem: Jesus was not the second YHWH. Only the his adopted son.
The fear is the impulse.
Re: Why did the rabbis rejected the Second Power in Heaven?
Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2024 9:16 am
by Giuseppe
The genius of "Mark":
- For the outsiders, Jesus is adopted at the baptism. A pious Jew. How can Marcion deny his devotion to YHWH?
- For the insiders: Jesus is YHWH. How can Marcion claim that he is a different god?
Re: Why did the rabbis rejected the Second Power in Heaven?
Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2024 5:12 am
by Giuseppe
One potential challenge for those who propose an implied high Christology in Mark is the question of why such a Christology would only be implied and not explicit. If Mark is committed to such a high Christology, why did the Evangelist not make such important christological claims more explicit in the narrative?
(Adam Winn,
reading Mark's Christology under Caesar, p. 198, my bold)
Winn's solution is laughable: Jesus aka "YHWH on the earth" would be humble because the Flavians were humble in public and before the Senate!
My hypothesis explains it better: it was Marcion who exalted Jesus as a alien god without no compromise at all with materiality. Humility was required to make the Markan Jesus anti-marcionite. As such, more acceptable to a Jewish milieu.
Re: Why did the rabbis rejected the Second Power in Heaven?
Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2024 7:25 am
by Giuseppe
The apparent rejection of a "high christology" by Mark figures par excellence in the episode of Barabbas, obviously. How could Mark, a proponent of the identity Jesus == "YHWH on the earth", reject for Jesus the title of 'Son of Father', in favour of the more modest 'called king of the Jews' ?
Even more so when the expression 'Son of Father' identifies the Son with the Father. Isn't Jesus YHWH himself according to Mark? Isn't YHWH the 'Father' ?
Only Marcion resolves the difficulty, 'Son of Father' being the best title for the his Jesus. The implication is that, by logical extension, any apparent rejection of a "high christology" in Mark follows the same anti-marcionite pattern: make Jesus humble, make him different from the Marcion's Jesus.