Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

As the reader has already realized, I like to speculate, even with my rather worn tools , about the Christian origins starting from the assumptions that original Paul's letters are marcionite fabrications (who notes how I am indebted to Stuart Waugh is not mistaken) and Mcn was the oldest written gospel.

My problem with this view is that I recognize that the original epistles are silent about a HJ but I give here a possible reason for this.

1) the good news of marcionite epistles is that Paul is the only one apostle who knew by revelations the true perfect celestial Jesus.
2) if only Paul's revelation is true, then all other revelations are imperfect and wrong. If only Paul's Christ is true, then all other Christs are false.
3) hence the need to explain why the revealed Jesus of others is a false Jesus.

Point 3 says that in epistles is introduced, for the first time, the dicothomy between a true revealed Jesus and a false revealed Jesus, but without to give a 'pauline' description of the second. Hence the question: if the true revealed Jesus is Paul's Jesus, how it happened that the Jesus revealed to others before Paul was an illusory Jesus?

I think that the earliest Gospel was written precisely in order to answer this question.

This would explain the fact the Jesus is never recognized in Mcn from his disciples and from Jews in general.
This would explain the fact the Jesus is crucified as a criminal after a regular roman trial: it's implicit a priori the idea that the condemned person has given a controversial (opposite of 'clear') image of himself, beyond his real innocence or guilt.

Because an earthly, kata sarka Jesus by definition has to give only the illusion of being known (that was his mission from the beginning on terra firma), when in fact only Paul knew the true spiritual Jesus.

Therefore the marcionite author(s) of epistles could have also knowledge of a Gospel (contra Robert Price that thinks otherwise), but ''Paul'' did not have to display his knowledge of it because this would have undermined its claim to knowledge of the true spiritual Jesus.

To have knowledge about a earthly Jesus, according to marcionites, was equivalent to an detriment of their own spirituality, not a particular reason to boast themselves. To know an earthly Jesus is equivalent to sin and to be ignorant for eternity.

The message of original epistles + first Gospel was:

the earthly Jesus is a false, illusory Jesus by definition.

It's curious, in this view, to realize how the proto-catholics reacted against Marcion, beyond the writing of their (our) canonical Gospels.

Instead of dirtying the epistles with more concrete allusions to a nascent 'historical' Jesus (like in Pastoral epistles), they transformed the strongest point of marcionite 'Paul' (not having all contaminated himself with knowledge of a earthly, hence illusory, Jesus) in its authentic point of weakness (not to have known the historical Jesus personally), interpolating every sentence in the epistles where (the catholic) 'Paul' commiserates himself for that very fact.

In this scenario, even the same Gnostics like Cerinthus, Valentinians, the author of proto-John, etc, very similar to Catholicizing trend, were looking for a compromise to reconcile an eternal heavenly Jesus with his fallacious, transient and illusory earthly image, inventing adoptionistic and/or separationistic christologies in order to overcome the drastic docetism of marcionites (revaluing so the heartly Jesus against the early marcionite conviction that the mere knowledge of it bore against those who did pride of himself).

In short, I think the early Christians were marcionites (and only marcionites).

Giuseppe wrote:My problem with this view is that I recognize that the original epistles are silent about a HJ but I give here a possible reason for this.

Not entirely. Luke 22:19-20 and 1 Corinthians 11:22b-25 are just about... eye-...dentical.

19 Then he took a loaf of bread, gave thanks, broke it in pieces, and handed it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Keep on doing this in memory of me.” 20 He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant sealed by my blood, which is being poured out for you.

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you—how the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took a loaf of bread, 24 gave thanks for it, and broke it in pieces, saying, “This is my body that is for you. Keep doing this in memory of me.” 25 He did the same with the cup after the supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you drink from it, keep doing this in memory of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink from this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Any discussion of the nexus of influence among the Apostolikon, the Evangelion, the NT Pauliana, and the NT Gospels must address this.

Where is the problem?

A catholic inserted these verses from Evangelion to 1 Cor, so to make Paul a receiver of tradition.

But this unique exception (of gospel quote in epistles) confirms the general rule:

Instead of dirtying the epistles with more concrete allusions to a nascent 'historical' Jesus (like in Pastoral epistles), they transformed the strongest point of marcionite 'Paul' (not having all contaminated himself with knowledge of a earthly, hence illusory, Jesus) in its authentic point of weakness (not to have known the historical Jesus personally), interpolating every sentence in the epistles where (the catholic) 'Paul' commiserates himself for that very fact.

I'm not offering problems. That is only an attitude adopted when one knows their conclusion and can then fit the facts to it. This is just data. There will be more than one possible explanation, some more probable than others.

It is more probable than not that the 1 Cor 11 passage was in the Apostolikon, and barring any necessity that would contraindicate that, any probable explanation of the data will include this piece of the puzzle. As scholarly reconstructions based on the extant references show, the external evidence supports the existence of this passage in the Apostolikon, as inconvenient as that might be. The internal evidence against post-Marcionite interpolation includes the fact that the passage has the claim that the information was 'received from the Lord.'

But of course that is a 'problem' for you, since you perceive an internal inconsistency with the idea that the original Pauliana would just have this one glittering passage with perfect correspondence to a gospel text. And in that you are not imperceptive. But you also currently are infatuated with the appealing notion that the original Pauliana were entirely Marcionite compositions. But that makes the passage of 1 Cor 11 a 'problem' for you; after all, you said it. Because an interpolation that is already in the Marcionite Apostolikon points to a corpus that predated Marcion. Since that currently bothers you, you find it easier to deny the evidence and to claim that it were a post-Marcionite interpolation.

I have surely all the bias of this world, but I read that it's a later insertion from Stuart's reconstruction of original marcionite 1 Corinthians.

MrMacSon wrote:

DCHindley wrote: The earliest followers of Jesus were following a man with an inclusive idea. The day of judgment (the Day of the LORD) was coming when the messiah would establish a bountiful kingdom of God on earth in the region known in old times as the Land of Canaan (essentially southern Syria and the areas populated by the Judeans). It would become the center of a worldwide empire that would replace all other empires and kingdoms that then existed (Roman, Parthian, etc). This idea of a coming new empire, one that would be just and fair, was as appealing to many gentiles as it was to many Judeans.

How they expected this to occur is a subject of speculation, but I suspect that they expected this to be effected by men led by a messiah along with angelic assistance.

They might have been following a narrative about a man with an exclusive idea. Or even a narrative about an angel.

In the words of Crocodile Dundee, "Naaaaah". I prefer to think that Jesus and his movement were a product of his time and place, and the only detailed record of his time and place is Josephus, who speaks nothing of angel worship, but does speak of quite horrific sectarian strife between gentiles and Jews, and between Jewish groups, surrounding the war of 66-70 CE.

I am a Hegelian of sorts (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) but I am also aware, from chemistry, not all reactions of chemicals happen at room temperature. There has to be mixing, and often heat and pressure, to create a good many molecules, from other molecules. The Judean war, and its outcome for the practice of traditional Judean worship, was a giant reactor vessel that produced Rabbinic Judaism, "Jewish" Gnosticism, Christianity (as we know it from the NT), and "Christian" Gnosticism.

In college, I worked over one summer for a chemical company, making benzoyl peroxide. We'd mix sodium hydroxide (liquid lye) with hydrogen peroxide (95% pure, which will set grass on fire if you spilled it) to create sodium peroxide and byproducts. I'd slowly mix in benzyl chloride (nastiest smelling stuff you could ever get a whiff of) while agitated and cooled by refrigeration coils. Benzoyl peroxide crystals would form, with the byproducts being essentially water and salt. The particles were drained in big filter boxes, and even at 60% water by weight could spontaneously ignite. When dry, the stuff burns furiously in an instant and can actually detonate by the pressure of a cart wheel rolling over a few grains.

Interrupt that process anywhere, or not maintain the correct temperature, etc., would spell disaster, as happened to another worker on a late shift. She mixed the chemicals too quickly and the cooling coils could not keep the temperature down to safe levels, so the supervisor flushed it down into our sewage system along with a lot of water, hoping to dissipate the reaction. It did not. and the story was that the manhole covers were popping off and plastic like goo was spurting out of them due to reactions with the residues of other chemicals we produced. What a mess!

I think that the Judean war was such a messed up reaction, and that many groups resulted from the reactions of the parties involved under the pressures of ethnic and civil war. It can all be explained without recourse to hypothetical angel worship.

DCH

Peter Kirby wrote:

Giuseppe wrote:My problem with this view is that I recognize that the original epistles are silent about a HJ but I give here a possible reason for this.

Not entirely. Luke 22:19-20 and 1 Corinthians 11:22b-25 are just about... eye-...dentical.

19 Then he took a loaf of bread, gave thanks, broke it in pieces, and handed it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Keep on doing this in memory of me.” 20 He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant sealed by my blood, which is being poured out for you.

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you—how the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took a loaf of bread, 24 gave thanks for it, and broke it in pieces, saying, “This is my body that is for you. Keep doing this in memory of me.” 25 He did the same with the cup after the supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you drink from it, keep doing this in memory of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink from this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Any discussion of the nexus of influence among the Apostolikon, the Evangelion, the NT Pauliana, and the NT Gospels must address this.

FYI, Marcion's Text definitely did not include the passage in 1 Corinthians cited above. There is some good evidence also that Luke 22:19b-20 may not have been there. Everything after "This is my body." But I am not certain on Luke.

Returning in topic, I agree with DCHindley in this:

I am a Hegelian of sorts (thesis, antithesis, synthesis)

where I recognize easily the stages as:

1) thesis: ?

2) antithesis: marcionites

3) synthesis: proto-catholics.

My problem is: what is the thesis in this pattern? Who was there before marcionites?

If we have no evidence of Christians in I CE, since the first Christian writings were all marcionites, is it possible to imagine who was there before? And if not, is it possible to imagine Christian origins exclusively in early II CE?

I see that all here like to read inside the Earliest Gospel (beyond if you think it is Mark or Mcn) the disputes between ancient Christians as if these disputes were born already before the writing of same Earliest Gospel.

The logic I condemn would be this, for example:

1) in oldest Gospel I see a dispute between Jesus (a cipher for Christians X) and Jesus'opponents (a cipher for Christians Y).
2) therefore the Christians X existed, and the Christians Y existed before the Gospel.
3) therefore the leader of Christians Y was ''Peter'' (or prothocatolics), and therefore ''Peter'' (or protocatholics) existed before the writing of Gospels, an so the ''Christianity'' is projected on the past.

This is a circular logic, because it starts saying that there is not Christianity before a certain time (the writing of a Gospel, for example) and then goes to the conclusion that 'Christianity' existed already before that time.

My alternative logic would be instead that the first Christian narrative had created all the fictious actors and the rules of game present and future (fixing time and context of story under Pilate), therefore expecting that later Christians should fill the 'holes' left from these fictious actors.

So Cepha/Peter, for example, became the symbol of proto-catholics only after - and not before - some Jews read Mcn and rejected partially his theology, therefore making 'Peter' his theological mascotte in order to bring corrections at story. Idem for any other actors of earliest religious drama. 'Maria of Magdala', for example, became a gnostic icon only after some people read the Gospel and decided to use her as own symbolic icon. Idem - maybe - for 'Paul'. Idem for 'Thomas'. Idem for 'John'. Idem for 'James'.

All these names became symbols of relative rival christian theologies only AFTER the reading - not even the writing - of earliest Gospel.

Peter Kirby wrote:As scholarly reconstructions based on the extant references show, the external evidence supports the existence of this passage in the Apostolikon, as inconvenient as that might be. The internal evidence against post-Marcionite interpolation includes the fact that the passage has the claim that the information was 'received from the Lord.'

The internal evidence is self-explanatory.

The external evidence can be easily found and quoted.

http://www.tertullian.org/articles/evan ... 0index.htm

Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.40 [about the Gospel]

So then, having affirmed that with desire he had desired to eat the passover, his own passover--it would not have been right for God to desire anything not his own—the bread which he took, and divided among his disciples, he made into his body, saying "This is my body," that is, the figure of my body. Now there could have been no figure, unless it had been a veritable body; for an empty thing, which a phantasm is, would have been incapable of figure. Or else, if you suppose he formed bread into a body for himself because he felt the lack of a veritable body, then it was bread he ought to have delivered up for us. It would well suit Marcion's vacuity, that bread should be crucified. Yet why does he call his body bread, and not rather a pumpkin, which Marcion had instead of a heart?

Tertullian, Against Marcion 5.8 [about 1 Corinthians]

For since I am the image of the Creator, there is no room in me for any other head. Also, why shall a woman need to have power upon her head? If it is because she was taken out of the man, and was made for the man's sake according to the Creator's ordinance, in this case too the apostle has paid respect to the moral law of him by whose ordinance he explains the purposes of that law. He adds also, Because of the angels. Which? or rather, whose? If those which revolted from the Creator, with good reason, so that the woman's face, which was the cause of their offence, should wear, as a sort of mark, this garment of humility and eclipsing of beauty. If however he means the angels of your other god—what has he to fear, when even Marcionites have no hankering after women? [referring to the 1 Cor 11:1-16 passage regarding women]

I have already several times observed that by the apostle heresies are set down as an evil thing among things evil, and that those persons are to be understood as meeting with approval who flee from heresies as an evil thing. [reference to 1 Cor 11:16 or 11:18] And further, I have already, in discussing the gospel, by the sacrament of the Bread and the Cup, given proof of the verity of our Lord's Body and Blood, as opposed to Marcion's phantasm. [reference to 1 Cor 11:23-26] Also that every mention of judgement has reference to the Creator as the God who is a Judge, has been discussed almost everywhere in this work. [reference to 1 Cor 11:29,31,34] I proceed to say of spiritual (gifts), [reference to 1 Cor 12:1] that these too were promised by the Creator with reference to Christ, ...

No doubt reference would be made to the unreliabilty of the external evidence and to their ability to reference exclusively catholic texts in the middle of discussing the text of the Apostolikon. Such is a convenient escape for using the external evidence selectively and arriving at a subjective, hermetically-sealed interpretation of the evidence.

If I thought it could be sustained, I'd jump on this little bandwagon myself--it is, of course, convenient to excise this Gospel reference entirely from the letters of Paul, even in their Marcionite form. Unfortunately it does not really seem sustainable with conviction.

The argument offered by Stuart Waugh can be quoted also.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B75F1hK ... 9Mbkk/edit
also https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B75F1hK ... JUMmM/edit

Verses 11:23-27, 30 are all part of a later post Marcion stratum. The concept of Paul receiving a tradition παξέιαβνλ ἀπὸ ηνῦ θπξίνπ as opposed to revelation (Galatians 1:12 παξέιαβνλ αὐηὸ νὔηε ἐδηδάρζελ ἀιιὰ δη ̓ἀπνθαιύςεσο Ἰεζνῦ Χξηζηνῦ) is impossible in Marcion, even coming from the Lord.

This is erroneous. The language of "receiving from the Lord" does not point to a "tradition" (received from men) "as opposed to revelation."

The tradition which follows in verse 11:24-25 is lifted entirely verbatim from Luke 22:19-20. While this material in Luke is attested in Marcion‟s Gospel (AM 4.40.4) it is unique that the Gospel would be quoted in Paul, and a rather later version at that; the reading includes ⌐ ὡζαύησο θαὶ ηὸ πνηήξηνλ for θαὶ ηὸ πνηήξηνλ ὡζαύησο (all mss. except B p 579) which indicates this came back into 1 Corinthians later. The other problem is this passage is concerned with sacrament in the Church, a concern independent of the early Christian feasts of the surrounding text. This point is apparent in 11:28 when the meaning of the sacrament as a method to separate orthodox from heretic is stated in terms of worthiness, an issue of prominence against Gnostics.

This is consistent with an interpolation already present in the Apostolikon.

In verse 11:26 the concern is with not only the meaning of the sacrament, but also the second coming of the Lord, a Catholic concept differing from Marcion. Finally verse 11:30 is rendered nonsensical without the second coming commentary in 11:26. The remaining verses 11:28-29, 31-32 concern with (θξηλόκ-) judgment for eating and drinking the sacrament with the proper discernment for the body of Christ. Judgment by the Lord is introduced in contradiction to Marcionite teaching (note, the theology does include a nod to Marcionism with ἵλα κὴ ζὺλ ηῶ θόζκῳ θαηαθξηζ῵κελ).

This is Stuart Waugh's speculation about the doctrinal concepts of Marcion and the implications of them.

This is a later development and intrudes upon the discussion of eating in the assembly without the proper etiquette, waiting until all are served first. The removal of 11:23-32 also restores flow of the discussion on etiquette from 11:20-22 to 11:33-34, underscored by restoring the proximity of ζπλεξρόκελνη in 11:33 which is tied to ζπλεξρνκέλσλ in 11:18, 20 and ζπλέξρεζζε in 11:17.

This is consistent with an interpolation already present in the Apostolikon, although Waugh may or may not have correctly guessed its extent.

Stuart wrote:FYI, Marcion's Text definitely did not include the passage in 1 Corinthians cited above.

This claim is not actually grounded in the evidence.

Giuseppe wrote:I have surely all the bias of this world, but I read that it's a later insertion from Stuart's reconstruction of original marcionite 1 Corinthians.

Appeal to Stuart Waugh does not allow escape from the fact that the 'conclusion' is driving the investigation, including these particular 'critical judgments', the 'conclusion' being that the Pauline corpus were originally a product of Marcionite design. Stuart Waugh takes this as the starting point of his investigation also, although I doubt that he would lay bare his assumption so bluntly.

Peter Kirby wrote:

• 1) Possibly Nazoreans

Probably just easier to say Galilean then Nazoreans which many will associate with a later cult.

I would have to say John the Baptist movement is the earliest possible movement we can trace anything back with any plausibility. I would lean towards a Aramaic Apocalyptic Zealot movement if I had to use a label.

•2) The Apostolic Movement,

I think this is a later Hellenistic invention based on the legends surrounding the "inner circle" oral traditions. Later mythology included 12 and the Apostolic Movement much of which Paul used rhetorically..


In other words later Hellenistic mythology

•3) The Jewish Gnostics

Also a later movement based on the wide diversity in multiple cultures the mythology grew in.

The Marcionite movement,

Much later movement that gained quite the steam as the evolution of the mythology branched off in more popular segments. Deemed heretical based on Marcion trashing the OT concepts.