Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

In the Gospel of Mark, the author does not hit the reader over the head with Jesus' divinity. In fact, while there are all sorts of signs that the author provides that Jesus is God, like his forgiving of sins, Jesus generally does not publicly declare himself to be God, and at times tells people to keep it a secret that he is Christ. One reason for this of course is protection - if Jesus goes around telling everyone that he is the Messiah and God Himself, it's going to make a lot of people mad like the priests in the Temple were in the Passion Narrative due to "the Blasphemy". Plus it's going to make the Romans set against him because they would see him in the category of a rebel leader, a claimant to rulership over the Judeans, as on the sign on the Cross.

Consider Mark 8:

27 Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, “Who do men say that I am?”

28 So they answered, “John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”

29 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.”

30 Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him.

That is, his Christhood was meant as a secret.

When the scholars turn to the Gospel of Thomas, which some think traces to 1st to early 2nd c. Christian teachings, they sometimes notice that it doesn't have the normal gnostic idea of a good Superior God and a lower demiurge, and so some eveb question if it's gnostic. They also question whether it portrays Jesus as God Himself. One of the curious things I noticed though was in Saying 13. It seems to portray the teaching that Jesus was God as a secret, only shared openly with a limited circle, much as the Gospel of Mark does.

Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like."
Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel."
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

The three words I expect were אני מי שאני. They mean "I am that I am", and refers to God's words in the Torah to Moses identifying Himself. Jesus' assertion in the Passion story "I am" offended his judges whereupon they called for his death. This can explain why Thomas said that the words would make people stone him, but that out of the stones would come the punishing fire against the persecutors. That those were the three words would make sense because in Judaism, the name of God is normally ineffable - not spoken aloud. This would help explain the whispering, the passing of it in secret.

Also, Jesus is called an angel, a philosopher, a master. What else could there be? Christ and God and a friend. It seems that whatever Jesus told Thomas was an answer in that vein - what kind of person or being he was. Identifying himself with God would fit.

The ECW commentary notes:

It's easy to see that Jesus spoke three words in Hebrew to Thomas, in English this is the meaning of these words: "I am who I am."
...

Pistis Sophia 136 mentions Yao Yao Yao, the Greek version (with three letters, given three times) of the ineffable name of God;
(The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, pp. 74-75)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... mas13.html

rakovsky wrote:In the Gospel of Mark, the author does not hit the reader over the head with Jesus' divinity. In fact, while there are all sorts of signs that the author provides that Jesus is God, like his forgiving of sins, Jesus generally does not publicly declare himself to be God, and at times tells people to keep it a secret that he is Christ. One reason for this of course is protection - if Jesus goes around telling everyone that he is the Messiah and God Himself, it's going to make a lot of people mad like the priests in the Temple were in the Passion Narrative due to "the Blasphemy". Plus it's going to make the Romans set against him because they would see him in the category of a rebel leader, a claimant to rulership over the Judeans, as on the sign on the Cross.

Consider Mark 8:

27 Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, “Who do men say that I am?”

28 So they answered, “John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”

29 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.”

30 Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him.

That is, his Christhood was meant as a secret.

When the scholars turn to the Gospel of Thomas, which some think traces to 1st to early 2nd c. Christian teachings, they sometimes notice that it doesn't have the normal gnostic idea of a good Superior God and a lower demiurge, and so some eveb question if it's gnostic. They also question whether it portrays Jesus as God Himself. One of the curious things I noticed though was in Saying 13. It seems to portray the teaching that Jesus was God as a secret, only shared openly with a limited circle, much as the Gospel of Mark does.

Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like."
Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel."
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

The three words I expect were אני מי שאני. They mean "I am that I am", and refers to God's words in the Torah to Moses identifying Himself. Jesus' assertion in the Passion story "I am" offended his judges whereupon they called for his death. This can explain why Thomas said that the words would make people stone him, but that out of the stones would come the punishing fire against the persecutors. That those were the three words would make sense because in Judaism, the name of God is normally ineffable - not spoken aloud. This would help explain the whispering, the passing of it in secret.

Also, Jesus is called an angel, a philosopher, a master. What else could there be? Christ and God and a friend. It seems that whatever Jesus told Thomas was an answer in that vein - what kind of person or being he was. Identifying himself with God would fit.

The ECW commentary notes:

It's easy to see that Jesus spoke three words in Hebrew to Thomas, in English this is the meaning of these words: "I am who I am."
...

Pistis Sophia 136 mentions Yao Yao Yao, the Greek version (with three letters, given three times) of the ineffable name of God;
(The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, pp. 74-75)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... mas13.html

Perhaps it is so in the gospel of Thomas, but where in Mark does Jesus claim to be God.? Or even pretends to be God?
Forgiving of sins is regularly done by Catholic priests to day, and When did Jesus blaspheme?

PS it is late here. Good night.

iskander wrote:
Perhaps it is so in the gospel of Thomas, but where in Mark does Jesus claim to be God.?

What I am saying is that it's the same thing in Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Mark, where they do not openly state that Jesus is God. He does not openly pretend to be, either. Rather, it is a secret in both gospels.

There is plenty of evidence and it's quite well known and publicized. It's the stuff that skeptical scholars like Ehrman toss away for the very reason that indeed it can be rationalized away.

You gave one example:

Forgiving of sins is regularly done by Catholic priests to day,

This would be a case where a Skeptic would rationalize this particular piece of evidence away.
In ancient Judaism as far as I know it basically didn't happen that a human could put their hand on another human and forgive their sins. Forgiving someone's sins was God's prerogative. Jesus then gave his special power to his apostles, which according to patristic Christianity then passed to the priests you mentioned.
Therefore, the fact that the priests have this power does not contradict the inherent uniqueness of this gift in Christ.

So while someone could rationalize this evidence trace away in their mind, nonetheless due to what I underliend above, it does stand as an indirect sign of Christ's godhood, and as I said, in Mark's gospel it's a secret and you are going to find traces.

Or take for example the opening of Mark:

2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way,
3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’”

Ehrman is a smart, well read scholar, so I expect that he can find a way to rationalize this and other traces away.
Still, what I underlined is a second trace.
John's role was as an Elijah figure. He was preparing the way for the coming of the Messiah.
Here though, this verse from Isaiah about preparing the way is applied to John's role and it says that he was preparing the way for "The Lord". The Lord of course in ancient Judaism was Adonai, the well known replacement term for the Tetragrammaton.

In fact, the messages in Mark that Jesus is God are all over the place, but like an interesting skillfully written piece of literature, it's a totally deliberately "hidden" piece of information.


See for example: Does the Gospel of Mark Claim that Jesus is God?
http://www.reasonsforgod.org/2013/06/do ... us-is-god/

It's an apologetic website, but like I said, the published information is all over the place, it's just that it's the mainstream Christian idea, whereas there are intelligent Skeptics like Ehrman don't accept this thesis.

My personal guess is that the real reason they don't is a combination: They don't personally believe that Jesus is God, AND ALSO Mark doesn't openly say it - it's hidden. So when they as skeptics pick up the book and don't believe Jesus is God, they don't read the book that way either, and the traces I am talking about are things that they throw away as not about Jesus being God.

Let me give you what I think is a pretty fun proof of how even intelligent humans' minds work that illustrate this. Take for example the Anglican Articles of Religion. (A) Maybe 40% of Anglicans believe that Jesus is somehow directly in the communion bread, whereas (B)maybe 30% believe that he definitely is not, and that it's only his body in a practical, effective, and symbolic sense. The Articles of Religion do take up this topic, and it *happens* that each of those two groups of Anglicans I mentioned - A and B - say that the Articles teach the view that accords with their group's view. That applies to a large number of intelligent Anglican scholars as well who have written works on the Articles' meaning.

I believe that what is actually happening is that each group has a certain belief and then they read the Articles to accord with their belief. IMO the Articles are internally in contradiction and actually teach both views, but the two sides will not admit that. In fact, about 80% of Anglicans I surveyed said that they adhere to the Articles of Religion's teaching on the Eucharistic presence or nonpresence, and a moderator on an Anglican forum told me that one must not make the claim that they were contradictory, because then they shouldn't be accepted.

Add this one to your clues.

Gospel of Thomas 28
Jesus said: I stood in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in the flesh.

rakovsky wrote:

iskander wrote:
Perhaps it is so in the gospel of Thomas, but where in Mark does Jesus claim to be God.?

What I am saying is that it's the same thing in Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Mark, where they do not openly state that Jesus is God. He does not openly pretend to be, either. Rather, it is a secret in both gospels.

There is plenty of evidence and it's quite well known and publicized. It's the stuff that skeptical scholars like Ehrman toss away for the very reason that indeed it can be rationalized away.

You gave one example:

Forgiving of sins is regularly done by Catholic priests to day,

This would be a case where a Skeptic would rationalize this particular piece of evidence away.
In ancient Judaism as far as I know it basically didn't happen that a human could put their hand on another human and forgive their sins. Forgiving someone's sins was God's prerogative. Jesus then gave his special power to his apostles, which according to patristic Christianity then passed to the priests you mentioned.
Therefore, the fact that the priests have this power does not contradict the inherent uniqueness of this gift in Christ.

So while someone could rationalize this evidence trace away in their mind, nonetheless due to what I underliend above, it does stand as an indirect sign of Christ's godhood, and as I said, in Mark's gospel it's a secret and you are going to find traces.

Or take for example the opening of Mark:

2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way,
3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’”

Ehrman is a smart, well read scholar, so I expect that he can find a way to rationalize this and other traces away.
Still, what I underlined is a second trace.
John's role was as an Elijah figure. He was preparing the way for the coming of the Messiah.
Here though, this verse from Isaiah about preparing the way is applied to John's role and it says that he was preparing the way for "The Lord". The Lord of course in ancient Judaism was Adonai, the well known replacement term for the Tetragrammaton.

In fact, the messages in Mark that Jesus is God are all over the place, but like an interesting skillfully written piece of literature, it's a totally deliberately "hidden" piece of information.


See for example: Does the Gospel of Mark Claim that Jesus is God?
http://www.reasonsforgod.org/2013/06/do ... us-is-god/

It's an apologetic website, but like I said, the published information is all over the place, it's just that it's the mainstream Christian idea, whereas there are intelligent Skeptics like Ehrman don't accept this thesis.

My personal guess is that the real reason they don't is a combination: They don't personally believe that Jesus is God, AND ALSO Mark doesn't openly say it - it's hidden. So when they as skeptics pick up the book and don't believe Jesus is God, they don't read the book that way either, and the traces I am talking about are things that they throw away as not about Jesus being God.

Let me give you what I think is a pretty fun proof of how even intelligent humans' minds work that illustrate this. Take for example the Anglican Articles of Religion. (A) Maybe 40% of Anglicans believe that Jesus is somehow directly in the communion bread, whereas (B)maybe 30% believe that he definitely is not, and that it's only his body in a practical, effective, and symbolic sense. The Articles of Religion do take up this topic, and it *happens* that each of those two groups of Anglicans I mentioned - A and B - say that the Articles teach the view that accords with their group's view. That applies to a large number of intelligent Anglican scholars as well who have written works on the Articles' meaning.

I believe that what is actually happening is that each group has a certain belief and then they read the Articles to accord with their belief. IMO the Articles are internally in contradiction and actually teach both views, but the two sides will not admit that. In fact, about 80% of Anglicans I surveyed said that they adhere to the Articles of Religion's teaching on the Eucharistic presence or nonpresence, and a moderator on an Anglican forum told me that one must not make the claim that they were contradictory, because then they shouldn't be accepted.

Forgiving someone's sins was God's prerogative
Today the forgiving of sins is the prerogative of Catholic priests and Luther said the priest is not necessary . This constituted a heresy and still does. The reaction of a religious authority is not a defining event and it could not make neither a God nor a devil out of an autonomous man.

Baptism of repentance offered by another autonomous man :
John the baptizer is an ascetic proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John is forgiving sins.!!!???. And individuals went out to him to be forgiven. Jesus is one of those men who seek forgiveness from a' quack' .
Mark tells the story of a Jewish dissenter struggling against the power of the clerics of his time and place. He is like Jan Hus and Martin Luther , for example. Why was Jesus baptized? He was a religious man who believed ' in the world to come' and its associated consequences, but could no longer accept the atoning sacrificial system of the temple. Both Hus and Luther were obedient servants of the papacy before turning 'heretics'.

The Way to god according to Jesus :
John offered an alternative path to eternal happiness if only if man/woman could transfer the faith in the temple ceremonial to the simpler ceremony offered by John. Jesus discovered that ' faith' was the solution for every person. He accepted the purifying water-- cleansing water is a very common finding in different religions-- and later he settled for the 10 commandments and the mercy of God. Luther must have travelled along a similar path towards his rejection of extra ecclesiam nulla salus and its associated consequences.


Or take for example the opening of Mark:
Isaiah is hoping for a religious revival ; a holy man who will sanctify the nation. One who is preparing the way for the one who will preach The Way of Hashem.
Isaiah is not of any importance for us since both the announcer and the lecturer are men.



We will leave the Eucharist out of this for now .

Peter Kirby wrote:Add this one to your clues.

Gospel of Thomas 28
Jesus said: I stood in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in the flesh.

I've been reading G.Thomas lately and that sounds like the kind of thing they would say in it. It's a very mystical writing, sometimes like in puzzles. I am really not sure how gnostic it is, because alot of the seemingly gnostic things are either stronger in the later Coptic version or else are actually a version of sayings in the NT or the Fathers.

iskander wrote:
Forgiving someone's sins was God's prerogative
Today the forgiving of sins is the prerogative of Catholic priests and Luther said the priest is not necessary . This constituted a heresy and still does. The reaction of a religious authority is not a defining event and it could not make neither a God nor a devil out of an autonomous man.

Baptism of repentance offered by another autonomous man :
John the baptizer is an ascetic proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John is forgiving sins.!!!???. And individuals went out to him to be forgiven. Jesus is one of those men who seek forgiveness from a' quack' .
Mark tells the story of a Jewish dissenter struggling against the power of the clerics of his time and place. He is like Jan Hus and Martin Luther , for example. Why was Jesus baptized? He was a religious man who believed ' in the world to come' and its associated consequences, but could no longer accept the atoning sacrificial system of the temple. Both Hus and Luther were obedient servants of the papacy before turning 'heretics'.

The Way to god according to Jesus :
John offered an alternative path to eternal happiness if only if man/woman could transfer the faith in the temple ceremonial to the simpler ceremony offered by John. Jesus discovered that ' faith' was the solution for every person. He accepted the purifying water-- cleansing water is a very common finding in different religions-- and later he settled for the 10 commandments and the mercy of God. Luther must have travelled along a similar path towards his rejection of extra ecclesiam nulla salus and its associated consequences.


Or take for example the opening of Mark:
Isaiah is hoping for a religious revival ; a holy man who will sanctify the nation. One who is preparing the way for the one who will preach The Way of Hashem.
Isaiah is not of any importance for us since both the announcer and the lecturer are men.



We will leave the Eucharist out of this for now .

I am not sure if you are making the case that he was not seen as divine in Mark, but what I want to offer in this thread is a new reason to think that Mark sees him this way: "the mystery" aspect of early Christianity that comes across in Thomas' gospel.
We already know that Mark and Thomas claimed that there were certain things that Jesus showed, did, or taught to a small group of apostles and followers, including healings and the teaching that he was Christ and the Transfiguration, just to name a few. For example, in the Transfiguration story, afterwards Jesus says to the apostles not to tell people about this until later.

So if you were just sitting at the Sermon on the Mount or listening to Jesus talk near the sea of Galilee, you might never pick up on stuff like the Transfiguration or the idea that he was the Messiah. There are only three times I think in the gospels where Jesus revives someone who was dying or dead, so even those things weren't done that commonly. So this is what I mean about one image publicly and then something else for the disciples. Mark and Matthew were the two earliest gospels, and so it's reasonable for me to see one or both of them reflecting the earlier public sense of mystery and hiddenness and puzzles with the secret meanings behind.
When I am reading through the gospel of Thomas, I have a greater sense of how much the parables and riddles reflect the style of the earliest Christian teachings, since I can go check and see how alot of those Thomasine sayings show up in the NT already.

So this is what I think, it's not like Mark was written in AD 40 and then Matthew and the others were written in AD 120 and they had totally different ideas of whether Jesus was God or not. I just think that in the case of Mark there is deliberately more hiddenness. Same thing with the resurrection. The revival process and the appearances to the apostles are never narrated in Mark, even though Mark practically tells the reader that those things happened. Mark does lead the reader to think that Jesus' body reenlivened and physically left the tomb. I think that due to the chiastic style, the resurrection matches up with the virgin birth, but neither of those are narrated in Mark because I think they are deliberately not and it's left as a holy mystery.

rakovsky wrote: ..........................................................................
When the scholars turn to the Gospel of Thomas, which some think traces to 1st to early 2nd c. Christian teachings, they sometimes notice that it doesn't have the normal gnostic idea of a good Superior God and a lower demiurge, and so some eveb question if it's gnostic. They also question whether it portrays Jesus as God Himself. One of the curious things I noticed though was in Saying 13. It seems to portray the teaching that Jesus was God as a secret, only shared openly with a limited circle, much as the Gospel of Mark does.

Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like."
Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel."
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

The three words I expect were אני מי שאני. They mean "I am that I am", and refers to God's words in the Torah to Moses identifying Himself. Jesus' assertion in the Passion story "I am" offended his judges whereupon they called for his death. This can explain why Thomas said that the words would make people stone him, but that out of the stones would come the punishing fire against the persecutors. That those were the three words would make sense because in Judaism, the name of God is normally ineffable - not spoken aloud. This would help explain the whispering, the passing of it in secret.

Also, Jesus is called an angel, a philosopher, a master. What else could there be? Christ and God and a friend. It seems that whatever Jesus told Thomas was an answer in that vein - what kind of person or being he was. Identifying himself with God would fit.

The ECW commentary notes:

It's easy to see that Jesus spoke three words in Hebrew to Thomas, in English this is the meaning of these words: "I am who I am."
...

Pistis Sophia 136 mentions Yao Yao Yao, the Greek version (with three letters, given three times) of the ineffable name of God;
(The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, pp. 74-75)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... mas13.html

IMHO the three words are Kaulakau, Saulasau, Zeesar known to be sacred amonng the Naassenes.
See http://www.gnostic.org/gnosis.htm

Andrew Criddle

כִּי
30,
צַו לָצָו צַו לָצָו,
96, 126, 96, 126 = 444
קַו לָקָו קַו לָק
106, 136, 106, 136 = 484
זְעֵיר שָׁם, זְעֵיר שָׁם
287, 340, 287, 340 = 2212

474 = Etz Hadaat (Tree of Life)?