Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

(Follow from the previous post)

Obviously the marcionite Jesus couldn't answer to John by quoting Isaiah, since he had still to go on the earth from the Sheol where he met a reluctant John the Baptist and all the Prophets of the demiurge.

But then John the Baptist was considered already dead when Jesus descended to Sheol (="Capernaum"). Marcion knew who was really John: Hyrcanus II.

The Judaizers, in their effort to make John a precursor of a Jewish Christ ON THE EARTH, had to invent a more recent John and not one who was already dead when Jesus descended to Capernaum. So they cloned John Hyrcanus II and invented "John the Baptist". Interpolating Josephus.

I wonder if in Marcion's Gospel, the John figure remembers the descending of Odysseus in the Hades, where he met Achilles. Or think about Aeneas, who met Didon in the Hades. The pattern usually is that who descends in Hades meets a dead figure who does some prophecy about the descender. A prophecy about things that the descender will do in the immediate future, at his return on the earth.


Hence it was natural to think about a John met by the marcionite Jesus in the Hades as a prophet of things about Jesus himself. Only, the prophecy of John about Jesus is a sad admission of the his anti-demiurgical nature ("Are you who has to come, or we should expect another?").

The necessary step to make John a positive prophet of Jesus, is to make him a living figure on the earth the first time he met Jesus.

So John had to be made a contemporary of Jesus.

A new (false) John was invented, from the old (true) John: Hyrcanus II.

It seems that one of the proto-catholic legends about Jesus descending to hell assumes that, before the arrival of Jesus in Hades, already John the Baptist was preaching the Christ in the Hades itself!

https://books.google.it/books?id=njMzDQ ... on&f=false

The marcionite influence on all these legends seems evident to me, insofar:


Jesus descends to Capernaum

but Heracleon says that Capernaum = Hades


so Jesus descends to Hades from heaven, in the incipit of Mcn.


Per Ireneus, the marcionite Jesus meets the OT Prophets and the Patriarchs in Hades

Luke puts John in prison when he heard about Jesus's miracles and he asked "are you who has to come?".

But the "prison" == Hades.

Therefore also John was in Hades when all the dead prophets met Jesus the first time.


CONCLUSION:

Marcion knew only a John who was already dead from long time when Jesus descended in the netherworld.

The best candidate for a John already dead when Jesus descended to "Capernaum"/Hades, is John Hyrcanus II.

THerefore: the Judaizers invented the John the Baptist contemporary of Pilate and Herod Antipas. Interpolating Josephus.

The my explanation has the merit to explain:

• The strange claim of Tertullian:
  
  
  Unde autem et Ioannes venit in medium? Subito Christus, subito et Ioannes.
  Whence, too, does John come upon the scene? Christ, suddenly; and just as suddenly, John!
  
  John appears in Hades just when Jesus descended to "Capernaum"=Hades.

• The absence of John as opposed to the presence of the his disciples in Mcn:
  
  The second thing we notice is that in Marcion’s gospel [2] John himself never actually appears on the stage, only his disciples.
  
  http://sgwau2cbeginnings.blogspot.com/2 ... te-to.html

• John is effectively described as already dead through all Mcn. In the magistral analysis of Stuart:
  
  
  John Already Dead
  
  Why is it that John never appears in Marcion’s gospel? And why is it we only see his disciples? One very real possibility is that John is already left the scene when Jesus begins his mission. He is definitely dead before the middle of the Gospel, as the story of Herod’s interest in Luke 9:7-9 tells us this plainly.

  Now Herod [the tetrarch] heard of all that was done, and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, by some that Eli'jah had appeared, and by others that one of the old prophets had risen. Herod said, "John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?" [3]

  Herod’s statement differs slightly from Matthew and Mark, where he declares that Jesus must be John the Baptist raised from the dead. But in all accounts John is dead, and Herod knows of Jesus only after John. And he compares, as others do, Jesus to John, and on the same general terms. But in Marcion, Herod does not know who Jesus is, underscoring the concept of an alien God’s Christ, as opposed to the one Herod knows for John.
  
  (my bold)

Obviously, if:

the Teacher of Righteousness = Hyrcanus II = the marcionite John

(Note that Greg Doudna has already detected that JtB is Hyrcanus II and the qumranic Teacher)


...then the Judaizers had a real reason to invent a contemporary John who was able to meet Jesus on this earth and not in Hades.

For a very strange irony of history, we can really claim that Jesus was able to rise a dead person in a new form: not Lazarus, but John!

The crowd of souls saved by the marcionite Jesus from Hades becomes the crowd baptized by John on earth.

John in Mark doesn't recognize Jesus not even during the Baptism.

The Judaizer "Mark" (author) was embarrassed by a John being surprised by a so ALIEN Jesus!

Think about this scene and imagine it occurring in the Sheol: before John the Baptist there are only ordinary human-too-human souls of dead people in the Hades.



But a particular person before him is surprisingly living in the Hades (!) even being without a body.

It is evident why "Mark" had to eclipse entirely Jesus before John, whereas "Matthew" has Jesus confirming this eclipse pace John's reluctance to eclipse really him. In Mcn Jesus was not eclipsed at all in the Hades.

Note that in the Fourth Gospel John the Baptist recognizes the ALIEN nature of Jesus but he approves it. What I am saying is that in Mcn, when Jesus descended to Hades (="Capernaum"), John the Baptist recognizes the ALIEN nature of Jesus but he is reluctant to accept the Good God of which Jesus is Son.
Therefore there is embarrassment in Mark, in Matthew and in John about the original Baptist episode in Mcn: recognition + disapproval of an Alien Christ. In the Hades.

Once realized that John was in the Hades when Jesus met him the first time, the incipit of Mcn is therefore the following:


Please note how the Earliest Gospel is full of myth and only partially an euhemerization of Jesus…

ADDENDA: Note how the demon called the Christ: "Jesus", i.e. "YHWH-who-saves". The reproach of Christ is equivalent not only to a rejection of the role of the Jewish Christ, but also to a rejection of the name itself, “Joshua”. It is not the demiurge that saves.

Ephrem the Syrian reveals, for who has followed my explanation above, why Jesus preached inside a synagogue (and not out of it) in the corrupted (judaized) version of the incipit of Mcn:


https://archive.org/stream/cu3192402933 ... 2_djvu.txt

Think about this: what more than Sheol (="Capernaum") is exclusive property of the demiurge, the god of the Jews?

Hence the Sheol becomes the “synagogue” in the Judaizing incipit of Luke.

Ephrem continues:


Hence, after the his descent to Sheol (="Capernaum"), the marcionite Jesus ascended the first time on this earth, in Bethsaida.

In another thread I have written:

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2020 7:21 am (As premise for a post of this kind, a particular contempt for the interlocutor's skepticism is necessary by me, without offence)

EVIDENCE OF MARCION'S PRIORITY ON MARK ABOUT A PRECISE POINT: THE TESTING OF JESUS IN SHEOL

“In addition to his blasphemy against God Himself, he advanced this also, truly speaking as with the mouth of the devil, and saying all things in direct opposition to the truth—that Cain, and those like him, and the Sodomites, and the Egyptians, and others like them, and, in fine, all the nations who walked in all sorts of abomination, were saved by the Lord, on His descending into Hades, and on their running unto Him, and that they welcomed Him into their kingdom.” But the serpent which was in Marcion declared that Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and those other righteous men who sprang from the patriarch Abraham, with all the prophets, and those who were pleasing to God, did not partake in salvation. For since these men, he says, knew that their God was constantly tempting them, so now they suspected that He was tempting them, and did not run to Jesus, or believe His announcement: and for this reason he declared that their souls remained in Hades. From Book I, chap. 27,Against Heresies)

27 They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. 28 “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?” 29 Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 30 John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin? Tell me!” 31 They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 32 But if we say, ‘Of human origin’ …” (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.) 33 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” (Mark 11:27-33)

Do you see what both the episodes, despite of the great difference of context, have in common ?

The sin of the interlocutors of Jesus is not take position abous his identity.

• The souls don't know how to decide if he comes from YHWH or from the Alien God.

• The pharisees don't know how to decide if John the Baptist was an usurper or a divine Revealer.

COROLLARY

The goal of "Mark" (editor) is to refer to John on the earth an ambiguous testing originally about Jesus and happened in Sheol.

Evidently because the original episode in Marcion, with OT prophets being the sinners and not the pharisees, was too much embarrassing for the Judaizer named "Mark".
But especially because in the original episode, among the sinners in Sheol, there was the prophet John also, as last of the OT prophets (as author of anti-pauline Revelation).

By placing himself on the side of John the Baptist and joining the Messianic Secret with the difficulty to recognize the John's identity, the message of the Mark's Jesus is: John is a prophet of YHWH just as I am the Messiah of YHWH, he is not an evil agent of the demiurge YHWH. Nor I am the Son of the Unknown Father ("Bar-Abbas")

This allows me to infer in great lines the core of the Earliest Gospel:

Jesus takes the form of who lives in the lower heavens, during the his descending through the lower heavens.

His goal is to go to Sheol and reveal there the secret mysteries to the souls of Sheol. These mysteries are secret, but the strong apocalypticism moves some Christians to reveal some of them.

Jesus, assumed the form of a man, is condemned as intruder being arrived apparently without authority to the gates of Sheol.

There Jesus is crucified by demons. He can go to Sheol.

After three days, the soul of John the Baptist (being already dead and therefore already found in Sheol before Jesus), baptizes Jesus, in Sheol. It is in the same time an anointment, a baptism and a resurrection.


Jesus starts to preach in the Sheol. Apparently, John didn't recognize him. So also the other souls of OT prophets. Jesus has strong conflicts with the OT prophets, during his preaching in Sheol.

Then, during the original Tranfiguration, Jesus ascended to heaven from Sheol. With the souls of some "good" people. Abandoning in the Sheol the souls of OT prophets.

This collective resurrection of souls from Sheol is euhemerized in Matthew 27:53 as the zombies episodes visiting the earthly Jerusalem. In the original gospel, these "zombies" were the Cain, the Serpent, the people of Sodoma, etc, who ascended to Heaven with the Marcion's Christ.


The "holy city" originally was the celestial Jerusalem, where Jesus had to go from Sheol, not the earthly Jerusalem.

This talks about a second version of the original gospel, one where the ascension of Jesus was not directly from Sheol to Heaven, but assumed also in the interval a short passage on the earth, the time necessary to reveal some mysteries to the apostles of who wrote that second version of the Gospel.

That introduction of a short interval of preaching on earth, after the resurrection and before the final ascension to heaven, marks the first timide attempt of euhemerization of Jesus.

Basically, the Risen Jesus was euhemerized before the "Historical" Jesus.

More mythicist than yesterday, today.