A Marcionite Reading of Zechariah 11:13

[davidbrainerd]

Double posting, see next:

[davidbrainerd]

it is intellectual limitation that's the enemy here.

Yep, your intellectual limitation. Your intellect is limited to there only being 2 sects in antiquity, 'orthodox' and marcionites. So you subsume Valentinians, etc. etc. all the 'heretical' groups into marcionites and create an idiotic mess. You're like Muslim apologists who think only two religions exist today: Islam and Trinitarian Christianity. Sorry, idiot, but there were more than 2 sects back then. I wonder if you'd also be shocked to find that Buddhism, Hinduism, Bahai, etc. exist today, or even that Unitarian Christianity exists today.

[Secret Alias]

Your intellect is limited to there only being 2 sects in antiquity, 'orthodox' and marcionites.

Well maybe partly true. I think that the Church Fathers exaggerated the multiplicity among the sects because they reused other people's reports so the same sects often got reported twice or three times. So I will give you part marks there.

So you subsume Valentinians, etc. etc. all the 'heretical' groups into marcionites and create an idiotic mess.

I don't assume that the Valentinians were Marcionites. I actually think Polycarp and Florinus might have been 'Valentinians.' But again I think that all heretics who depreciated the Creator likely had some commonality so again 10 percent correct.

You're like Muslim apologists who think only two religions exist today

Interesting. I assume as a member of the alt-right you hate Muslims so the appropriateness of the analogy.

Islam and Trinitarian Christianity. Sorry, idiot, but there were more than 2 sects back then. I wonder if you'd also be shocked to find that Buddhism, Hinduism, Bahai, etc. exist today, or even that Unitarian Christianity exists today.

I don't know if you can see that you are more extremist than I am. I am merely saying 'take a lot of what the Church Fathers say with a grain of salt.' Do I think the Church Fathers made up sects? Of course they did and not just Christian fathers but Samaritan, Jewish and Islamic traditions too. I hope that we can get away from 'the Fathers said X' therefore 'X' is true. But apparently not yet ...

[Secret Alias]

And to put things in perspective. How truthful do you think the Church Fathers were?

[davidbrainerd]

If the church fathers are as bad of liars as you say then just call your one amalgomized sect "the un-orthodox" or "the gnostics"....don't call it "Marcionites"...after all, you're basically saying they made up all the sect names. If you want a giant unspecific gnostic gematria sect, call it "the giant unspecific gnostic gematria sect." But calling your made up amalgom sect "Marcionites" is making you a FAR WORSE liar than the worst of the fathers was.

[Secret Alias]

But you don't answer the question. You just do the 'fake news' bit and attack the questioner. Let me ask it again - to what degree should we doubt the testimony of the Church Fathers? Is what they say for the most part - (a) absolutely true, (b) mostly true, (c) a mix of truth and falsehoods, (d) mostly false or (e) absolutely false? I think the testimony of the fathers ranges from c - d.

[davidbrainerd]

But you don't answer the question. You just do the 'fake news' bit and attack the questioner. Let me ask it again - to what degree should we doubt the testimony of the Church Fathers? Is what they say for the most part - (a) absolutely true, (b) mostly true, (c) a mix of truth and falsehoods, (d) mostly false or (e) absolutely false? I think the testimony of the fathers ranges from c - d.

I'd say Marcionites, Marcoasians, Valentinians, Basilidians were real sects. Simonians, Ophites, etc. were not. Simonians weren't since Simon is a fake character invented from Acts. But the msjor sects against which many treatises were written must be real. Also Simonians and many minor ones are clearly Valentinians renamed, same ideas. Marcosians you will want to make the same as Marcionites due to similarity of name. But Marcosians are gematria sect and Marcionites interpret OT literally. Its a non-starter to claim Tertullian lied and Marcionites were gematriaists, because grmatriaists are stupid and easy to defeat because they sound like idiots. It would be more in orthodoxy's interest to make Marcion into a gematria nutbar to make him easier to defeat than turn a gematria nutter into a literalist and cause major problems for themselves like having to defend Isaiah 7 being about Jesus **in context**. Gematria guys can be dismissed off hand, literalist cannot.

Addendum: I do think Tert makes up Marcion saying Jesus had no flesh, and he virtually admits it by saying rhe Marcionites interpret Jesus as making a body like angels who appear in the OT must have made a body. There is so much contradiction in Tert on this point its obvious he is pressing Marcion's Jesus not being born too far in order to create a docetism Marcion did not really teach.

[Secret Alias]

I'd say Marcionites, Marcoasians, Valentinians, Basilidians were real sects. Simonians, Ophites, etc. were not ...

OK but you again sidestepped the main question by latching on to a sub-interest. Again are the Church Fathers reliable witnesses? You don't seem to want to answer that question which is everything I think. You can't just accept this or that being reported if the reporter is basically not reliable ... which incidentally neatly segues to the whole Trump obsession with 'fake news.' I don't get how his followers uncritically fault the MSM (main stream media). I can see an argument that they don't cover 'what is important' (a selective and subjective criticism) and choose to lay emphasis on stories which the alt-right don't like or aren't interested in. This sort of a bias is legitimate. But is the reporting of the NY Times, the Washington Post and the like reliable? Of course it is or at least as reliable as humanly possible. To use the analogy for the ancients, I think all the heresiologists had an inherent bias against heresy (like the MSM might choose to cover race in America rather than the crisis in Venezuela for instance). But on top of this they are like Trump and the alt-right absolutely mendacious - i.e. they lie, distort, hold back information. Not what you want in a reporter or a witness to anything.

So now to move on to your tangent - do I think there were these sects. No I don't. I don't think the Marcionites called themselves 'followers of Marcion.' And moreover in the case of these other teachers, assuming they existed, I think they simply identified themselves as Christians. The sectarian distinctiveness was emphasized and exaggerated by the Fathers. Clement is closer to the truth when he simply cites things Valentinus or Basilides wrote. That was the extent of it. If these people existed they wrote things or held positions of prominence in a fluid community of Jesus believers. Fluid until Irenaeus and his boys wanted to be selective about membership in the Church.

[Charles Wilson]

And then it starts to make sense. The thirty pieces of silver was clearly connected with 'redemption' of a slave via Exodus 21:32:

If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay thirty shekels of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull is to be stoned to death.

SA --

Nice reading of sense. Your use of "redemption" in regards to the slave calls for a study of "Amargi", the first use of the word "Freedom" known in literature, from Sumer. As the word migrated through the Akkadians, it became associated the manumission of slaves. Its origin means "Return to Mother" and it is shown in the Story of Nicodemus:

John 3: 3 - 4 (RSV):

[3] Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
[4] Nicode'mus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

The word/Idiom is obvious: "Unless you are Freed/Redeemed/Born Again (Amargi)..." Nicodemus understands the words but not the meaning and that is indicative of an idiom. I believe that you are correct in your reading here. I overuse the word "Transvalued" but that is what has happened.

CW