Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

rakovsky wrote:Were a ton of messages by me erased from this thread and the other one?

No. Why don't you just look at your post history to find all your posts?

search.php?author_id=7124&sr=posts

There's no need to keep asking. Posts are not erased. You could call someone gay zombie Hitler, and it won't be erased.

That a complementary-2-powers-heretic would write a pseudo-historical novel of a man being the younger Yahweh is infinitely more plausible than that a complementary-2-powers-heretic would identify a vanilla rabbi as the younger Yahweh.

davidbrainerd wrote:That a complementary-2-powers-heretic would write a pseudo-historical novel of a man being the younger Yahweh is infinitely more plausible than that a complementary-2-powers-heretic would identify a vanilla rabbi as the younger Yahweh.

I am not so secure after the reading of this post:

http://stephanhuller.blogspot.it/2009/0 ... n.html?m=1

Now I think that I can understand SA's view: he is an intelligent mix of Detering + Vinzent + Segal + Brandon.

Giuseppe wrote:

davidbrainerd wrote:That a complementary-2-powers-heretic would write a pseudo-historical novel of a man being the younger Yahweh is infinitely more plausible than that a complementary-2-powers-heretic would identify a vanilla rabbi as the younger Yahweh.

I am not so secure after the reading of this post:

http://stephanhuller.blogspot.it/2009/0 ... n.html?m=1

Now I think that I can understand SA's view: he is an intelligent mix of Detering + Vinzent + Segal + Brandon.

Now I think that I can understand SA's view: he is an intelligent mix of Detering + Vinzent + Segal + Brandon + Robert j

Giuseppe wrote:

davidbrainerd wrote:That a complementary-2-powers-heretic would write a pseudo-historical novel of a man being the younger Yahweh is infinitely more plausible than that a complementary-2-powers-heretic would identify a vanilla rabbi as the younger Yahweh.

I am not so secure after the reading of this post:

http://stephanhuller.blogspot.it/2009/0 ... n.html?m=1

Now I think that I can understand SA's view: he is an intelligent mix of Detering + Vinzent + Segal + Brandon.

Stephan is very good at using rhetoric to make us forget patristic details and run off on a wild goose chase. For instance from that blog post:

There is something very strange about the story of Justin Martyr’s conversion to “our” Christianity. It isn’t just that Justin’s only known student, Tatian, was so wildly “heretical” as to imply Justin could not have been a Catholic. Justin was a Samaritan, and there are many problems imagining a Samaritan becoming a Catholic, not least the fact that, embracing “Jesus Christ,” he would have been yielding to a Jerusalem-based faith. In the whole history of religion, there is no other attested case of a Samaritan conversion to Judaism. Indeed, talk about a tall order! Samaritans have always despised what they identify as the inherent “falseness” of the Jewish religion. Why would an educated, erudite figure like Justin be any different? To be sure, the Dosithean sect stood much closer in many respects to the Jewish tradition than its rivals. Justin was likely a Dosithean, but even a Dosithean could never have cast aside one central feature of his religion: believing that Mt. Gerizim was a truer holy place than Jerusalem.

So when we hear that Justin converted to Catholicism, we must imagine that God was working extra hard to make miracles that day.

This is good rhetoric. But to buy it we have to forget that Justin is only ethnically Samaritan, raised essentially secular, has no interest in the Samaritan religion, has zero aquaintance with OT scripture, instantly turns to Greek philosophy just as soon as he develops an interest in God, tries to become a Pythagorean but isn't good at math, settles on Platonism, is fully convinced of Platonism, and one day while meditating on Platonism in a park hears about Christ on a chance encounter with an old man who pokes some holes in Platonism and wows him with proofs from prophecy about Jesus being Christ, his love for Christ is instantly inflamed mainly because the OT scriptures as a complex jigsaw puzzle pointing to one man seems so cool that Justin wants to see if he can put together more of the puzzle than anyone else. There is nothing in Justin's autobiography to suggest that we are dealing with some bigoted Samaritan who has a hard time accepting anything Jewish.

Our surviving treatises of Justin must have been manipulated by a later Christian editor. It is a pattern which accompanies any ancient writer embraced and absorbed by Catholic Christianity. Now at last we can explain how all the pro-Jerusalem material got in the text of the Dialogue with Trypho. We should blame the editor. And who was this editor? Just look at the introduction: where is the "dialogue" supposed to have taken place? Ephesus. That's amazing, implying that we have yet another Palestinian Christian castaway miraculously headed out to Polycarp, the founder of Catholic Christianity.

Pro-Jerusalem material? Strange that Justin was in Ephesus? How about a simpler interpretation: Justin was a secular Samaritan who moved to Greece to study pagan philosophy, and there ended up hearing about Christ. Explains why he's not in Samaria. And his emphasis on the destruction of Jerusalem by God as punishment for the Jews killing Christ is sufficiently anti-Jerusalem too! In fact if I were to run wild on speculation like Stephan, at this point I'd suggest that Justin is the author of John 4:21 "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father." He does have a heavy anti-Jerusalem interest, but not to establish Gerizim in its place; rather to hammer home this notion that God doesn't require worship in any particular location and the destruction of the temple serves the dual purpose of proving that and punishing 'them evil Jews' (some Samaritan heritage showing here?) for their disbelief. Putting all crazy speculation aside, Justin is the 1st Christian author we have who shows any interest in the destruction of Jerusalem at all (my, how Samaritan!) Or who states that the temple will NEVER be rebuilt (death blow to Stephan's theory)! So much for the idiotic "pro-Jerusalem" claim. Back in Stephan-like speculation mode, maybe Justin is the editor who went back and made Jesus predict the destruction of Jerusalem in the synoptic gospels, since he's the first to be interested in that subject.

Ok, but after I read a quote from Tertullian:

This interpretation of ours will derive confirmation, when, on your supposing that Christ is in any passage called a warrior, from the mention of certain arms and expressions of that sort, you weigh well the analogy of their other meanings, and draw your conclusions accordingly. "Gird on Thy sword," says David, "upon Thy thigh" ... He conquered death by His resurrection ... Thus is the Creator's Christ mighty in war, and a bearer of arms; thus also does He now take the spoils, not of Samaria alone, but of all nations. Acknowledge, then, that His spoils are figurative, since you have learned that His arms are allegorical. Since, therefore, both the Lord speaks and His apostle writes such things in a figurative style, we are not rash in using His interpretations, the records of which even our adversaries admit; and thus in so far will it be Isaiah's Christ who has come, in as far as He was not a warrior, because it is not of such a character that He is described by Isaiah.

(my bold)


And then Secret quotes Josephus:

Since I have developed the understanding that the Passion and the attack on the Samaritan messiah at the end of Pilate’s reign were one and the same historical event, it is important to note how the latter figure also claims to have “found the vessels” expected of the Samaritan messiah. In Josephus’ account we read that this figure wanted them to:

go in a body with him to Mount Gerizim, which in their belief is the most sacred of mountains. He assured them that on their arrival he would show them the sacred vessels which were buried there, where Moses had deposited them. His hearers, viewing this tale as plausible, appeared in arms … and, as they planned to climb the mountain in a great multitude, they welcomed to their ranks the new arrivals who kept coming. But before they could ascend, Pilate blocked their projected route up the mountain with a detachment of cavalry and heavily armed infantry, who in an encounter with the first comers in the village slew some in a pitched battle and put the others to flight.

(my bold)

David, can you explain differently from Secret Alias the Tertullian's reference to a literalist marcionite reading of a Christ's feature as ''man of war'', in a context where ''Samaria'' is mentioned ?

Thank you if you can do a similar thing. Now I am very curious...

David

Why do we have to see things that way? The first thing that I notice about posters here at the forum is how their brains operate. You have a tendency to make it seem as if your brain - in an instant - can determine the entire range of possibilities and then quickly dismiss all other theories in favor of your own. But this is ridiculous - not merely because human intelligence is limited (yours more so than most) but human intelligence is basically lazy. It just goes for the convenient answers. In your case you seem to have this strange obsession with certain ideas which are illogical and unlikely and lead you to unreasonable conclusions. So, on the one hand, you assume that Patristic texts like Justin should be taken as they are (read at face value) but with respect to the gospel you posit the exist of a fantastic 'Jewishless' gospel that has never anywhere been demonstrated to exist. So in the case of Justin what the text says Justin says is what Justin said and we can know exactly who he and every other Church Father 'is' or 'are' but the gospel - the holy gospels - were treated differently than the Patristic sources. They were corrupted so we can use wild fantasy to reconstruct a pure 'ur-gospel of Marcion.'

Not only is this reconstruction of history stupid it leads you to the wrong conclusions. For instance with your "Patristic texts are pure/gospels are corrupt" model it seems as if you can Tertullian's wild claims to argue for your 'Jewishless' gospel. But here's where you go wrong again. You haven't actually read the Patristic sources. For you should ask yourself- does Tertullian actually say that Marcion erased all reference to the Jewish writings from the gospel and Paul? No he does not. So even with your stupid assumptions you can't actually arrive at your desired stupid conclusions. Tertullian and Epiphanius make clear that the gospel and Paul make explicit references to the Jewish writings over and over again. So where does this leave you? An amateur scholar who stupidly picks and chooses from Patristic reference to arrive at a 'Jewishless' Christianity which never existed and is a stupid belief and assumption.

The question you should ask yourself is - why do you want this so badly? Why is a Jewishless Christian tradition necessary or desirable for you and if you discover that this 'Jewishless Christianity' never existed would you still be interested in studying early Christian sources?

And remember when reconstructing things from my blog, the blog represents my train of thought, my investigation into the truth not any firm conclusions. My firm conclusions ultimately become published in major academic journals like my new article in VC.

Secret, are you still of the idea that Tertullian's words is evidence that the marcionite historical Jesus was the Samaritan Messiah mentioned by Josephus?

Nah. Just looked into the possibility. Ideas are like brides. You got to test them out before committing to them