Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Jesus is also made a contemporary of John Hyrcanus (= K Yannai) in the Jewish tradition for reasons that have never fully been explained.

Secret Alias wrote:Why isn't it likely that 'John' in the Marcionite gospel = John Hyrcanus the Jewish king/high priest who forcibly converted most of the neighbors of Judea to Judaism (or at least one form of it)? I remember reading a fragment at Qumran - https://books.google.com/books?id=t05ok ... ts&f=false - that there was a list which ended with John Hyrcanus if I am not mistaken.

If it is then it's simply a vestigial memory from two and a half centuries prior. Hardly clear and present, lacking the immediacy of the times. The argument strikes me as parallelism that is at best secondary to to the focus. You are venturing into the dark abyss between eras and forcing a connection. Hard to see any poignancy with Greek speaking writers of the NT who show no interest in writing further about this. I also note that your source is simply a conjectural reconstruction of false prophets from a Qumran document. Nowhere is John referred to as a false prophet. None of the Church fathers see that connection, and that makes me believe it wasn't in the minds of the Christian authors.

It's hard not to see the NT as much other than Polemic, as opposed to affirmation based documents. The focus is clearly upon points of contention between the two camps (lumping here - ignoring all the variant tangents in each). Why reach back to the dark era when the passage can be explained by an immediate polemic need, and the Marcionite charge that Jewish path and God is violent?

I think you are too quick to look for the gimmick solution from some source whose connection is questionable, based on the assumption that the writers were confused. The premise sells the writers short IMO.

Unless the proselytes living in the region remembered their association with John. The 14th century Samaritan chronicler Abu'l Father remembered John's association. But he was using lost earlier sources

An example of how John Hyrcanus is referenced in Samaritan literature:

And there was between the Sadducees and the Pharisees, violent enmity, and each party allowed shedding the blood of the other. And the cause of that was the secession of the elders who separated in the time of John that they might have a book of religious law, for it was agreed that that would bring benefit on them ...

Again just as in Christian literature (and in Marcionite tradition this is even more pronounced) the name 'John' was so rare (compare the statement in various Islamic sources) that it could just stand unqualified in historical texts.

The next explicit reference to name 'John' in the Samaritan Chronicle of Abu'l Fath:

But when John transferred to the Sadducees and did to the Pharisaic party what he did and burnt their books, and prohibited the children from learning from them, (then) he returned to seek (to make) the pilgrimage to Nablus, to the Blessed Mountain, and confirmed that it was the House of God. But the Samaritans refused to make it possible for him to go (up) to it. And they were vigilant to prevent him, and overcame his pride by the greatness of their God. So when he despaired of that, he began sending offerings and tithes, freewill offerings, and alms, and gifts to it, and he continued (doing) that and the Jews who were called Pharisees went away to Aelia.

Note that the report Abu'l Fath was using clearly derives from a period when Jerusalem was called Aelia.

If we imagine that the contemporary world had 'disciples of the Sadducees' 'disciples of the Pharisees' and converts who were 'disciples of John' Hyrcanus how best should one read the following reference in a Marcionite gospel where there was no baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist:

While the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting, they came and said to him, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast but your disciples do not fast?

As already noted the original Marcionite context was that of 'disciples of John' who fasted on the Sabbath like the Marcionites later did. The Marcionites are also said to derive and to appeal their message to proselytes who were established historically by John Hyrcanus, hence their familiarity with an unreferenced 'John' in the gospel.

It is interesting to note that Josephus writes that Hyrcanus was both priest and prophet: “Now he [John] was accounted by God as worthy of three of the greatest privileges: the rule of the nation, the office of high-priest, and the gift of prophecy" (Ant 13:299, Wars 1:68) As noted he was also very much 'the Baptist' of countless people in Judea and all the region as the gospel notes.

An example of John's 'prophetic' gifts is also provided by Josephus:

Now about the high priest Hyrcanus an extraordinary story is told, how the Deity communicated with him, for they say that on the very day on which his sons fought with Cyzicenus, Hyrcanus, who was alone in the temple, burning incense as high priest, heard a voice saying that his sons had just defeated Antiochos. And on coming out of the temple, he revealed this to the entire multitude, and so it actually happened.

The statue of John at the gates of Jerusalem is repeatedly mentioned as a symbol of great significance to the revolutionaries most of whom are identified as proselytes. I think people underestimate the significance of John in the Palestinian environment in which the gospel was produced and which Christianity flourished. The idea that John heralded Jesus or might have is a curiosity which must be deeply considered especially given there is no Jewish remembrance of a 'John the Baptist' who lived at the turn of the Common Era.

hence their familiarity with an unreferenced 'John' in the gospel.

Are you saying that 'John' is not referenced as 'THE BAPTIST' in Mcn ?

I find that in Luke 7:18-19 (where Mcn introduces the first time John the Baptist) the entire sufficient knowledge about who is John is already given and there are no implicit assumptions.

And the disciples of John told him of all these things.

And John, calling unto him two of his disciples, sent them to Jesus asking, “Art thou He that should come, or look we for another?”

When the men had come unto Him, they said, “John the Baptist hath sent us unto thee, asking, ‘Art thou He that should come, or look we for another?’”

It is entirely possible that the Marcion did use the Scripture to make the link between Malachi and John etc for the first time and it is not necessary to assume previous proto-catholic tradition about that link. The entire line of argument is that the need of Scripture to ''prove'' (or ''disprove'') that Jesus and/or John are already prophetized appear only from Marcion onward.

It is common knowledge that scholars of Marcionite have concluded that there is no baptism by John narrative in their gospel. Thats why reading scholarly literature is so important. It gets you up to the speed of the discussion quickly!