John was possessed by the spiritual Christ in the gospel read by Celsus

[Giuseppe]

A strong evidence of the Marcion's Gospel 's priority on our catholic Luke is obviously Luke 3:1-2:

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness

Where it is simply ridicolous to imagine all these "historical" details to make it precise… ...what?

Something that would have happened in the Wilderness!

Hence the original incipit talked about the descent of the Marcion's Christ, already adult, on the earth.

But then they were the Judaizers to introduce John as the "coincidential" Jewish recipient of a descending spirit (otherwise alien).

John was the only witness of the descent of the "Word" (=another judaization) for the original "Christ" or "Chrestos") on himself.

Hence Celsus was polemizing against a Judaizing gospel (who had an interpolated John in the role of the Jewish recipient of an alien spirit to judaize said spirit, in a gospel where John the Baptist was totally absent).

Hence Tertullian could well say:

But now, how happens it that the Lord has been revealed since the twelfth year of Tiberius Cæsar, while no creation of His at all has been discovered up to the fifteenth of the Emperor Severus

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03121.htm

The sequence is the following:

• 1) the original gospel: Christ descends from heaven already adult.

• 2) the gospel read by Celsus: Christ descends on John the Baptist in the Wilderness.

• 3) our Mark: Christ descends on the man Jesus during the his baptism by John.

• 4) all the other Gospels.

[Giuseppe]

Ok that John was introduced to contain an alien spirit in a Jewish human recipient.

But why just John?


Origen says, to introduce the interpolation (by the same Origen) in Josephus (per N. P. Allen) that Celsus accepts "somehow John as a Baptist":

I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04161.htm

If John was the Teacher of Justice, then John was famous as a Baptizer of his own right.

And as for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary; for before sun-rising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising. After this every one of them are sent away by their curators, to exercise some of those arts wherein they are skilled, in which they labor with great diligence till the fifth hour. After which they assemble themselves together again into one place; and when they have clothed themselves in white veils, they then bathe their bodies in cold water.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Josephus_on_the_Essenes

By interpolating Josephus with the Baptist passage, Origen would have isolated John the Baptist from the Essenes and showing him as a solitary baptizer.

Celsus could know that John was a baptizer only for general not-Christian hearsay. Probably Greg Doudna recognizes the origin of that hearsay.

But then, if Origen was interested only to isolate John from the essenes, who interpolated first John in the Gospel used by Marcion by showing him as the Jewish recipient of the alien spirit descending under Tiberius?

There are no doubts: the followers of John, the essenes themselves.

They were the original Judaizers.

[Giuseppe]

This thread resumes the my view about the way "John the Baptist" (aka John Hyrcanus II) ended in the gospel used by Marcion.

It makes a lot of sense to see John being introduced (against Marcion) as the first man posseded by an alien Christ, later followed by the man Jesus in the his same role of human recipient of this Christ. The anti-Marcionite Christians couldn't use John as the Christ, differently from the real followers of the memory of John. Hence this was a conflict not among two sects (Marcionites against Judaizers) but among three sects (Marcionites against followers of John and against the Judaizers).

From the my prospective, I lose definitely the dr. Carrier when he even denies that Luke falfisied Marcion.

I respect absolutely dr. Carrier only for what he says about Paul and Hebrews and the original Pillars. But about the way Jesus was euhemerized, the my view diverges completely from the his view.

Basically, I consider irrational and I despise soundly anyone who reveals himself entirely unable to realize the key of all the enigma: i.e. "Barabbas" as an anti-marcionite caustic parody revealing (beyond any reasonable doubt) the existence - before the time Mark was written - of a marcionite gospel.

[Ethan]

Possess refers to gas (πνεῦμα) occupying the lungs, so this gas that people where breathing in throughout the New Testament was probably psychotropic. Jesus was an eye-spitting physician, thus a drug leader, wandering around selling drugs and weed, so Jesus was most likely hanged for drug trafficking in a realistic history.

Barabbas (παραμυθία) 'consolation, relief from, diversion, distraction'

Marcion of Sinope probably a fictional character produced by 11th century Catholic monks and inserted into history as a fictional Jew, this is evidence with the name. In fact they stole his name from Pliny, Marcion smyrnaeus (Pliny the elder Naturalis Historia 28.8), another physician.

John 9:6 - he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eye (Physician)
Isaiah 38:21 - Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover. (Physician) (Ctesias)

Since Christian don't believe in medical science or physicians, they deleted all the medical stuff from the writings, such as the various creams and ointments Doctor Jesus applied to peoples bums. cos Christians always need money, they pretend to heal people by praying to brick walls then demand payment, hence so many forgeries in the New Testament.

[Giuseppe]

Jesus was an eye-spitting physician, thus a drug leader, wandering around selling drugs and weed, so Jesus was most likely hanged for drug trafficking in a realistic history.

the your reading is a perfect example of literalism. The eye-spitting episode refers to the creator in the his role of inhaler of life in the inert body of Adam.

Barabbas (παραμυθία) 'consolation, relief from, diversion, distraction'

attention, please, otherwise the risk here is that you seem totally demented as Joseph. D. L. It is evident as the sun and the moon that the theological point behind "Jesus Barabbas" is to oppose a Jesus Jewish Messiah against the Jesus Son of the Father of the marcionite (or proto-marcionite) tradition: the only rival Jesus "Bar-Abbas" whose adorers we have real evidence in the texts (as opposed to a seditious Jesus, a Jesus evil scapegoat, a pre-Christian Jesus, etc).

Marcion of Sinope probably a fictional character produced by 11th century Catholic monks and inserted into history as a fictional Jew, this is evidence with the name. In fact they stole his name from Pliny, Marcion smyrnaeus (Pliny the elder Naturalis Historia 28.8), another physician.

the man could be a fiction and a mere label, but the anti-nomianism and the anti-demiurgism connected with it was very real among the marcionites.

[Ethan]

Suetonius Vespasian 7
Who assured them that he would restore sight to the one by anointing his eyes with his spittle

Pliny Nat. 28.7
On the same principle, it is the practice in all cases where medicine is employed, to spit three times on the ground ... We may well believe, then, that lichens and leprous spots may be removed by a constant application of fasting spittle; that ophthalmia(inflammation of the eye,) may be cured by anointing, as it were, the eyes every morning with fasting spittle.

Healing in the New Testament was done with treatments, so the language of the New Testament was originally literal, rather then they overly abstract interpretation of theologians.

[Giuseppe]

Healing in the New Testament was done with treatments, so the language of the New Testament was originally literal, rather then they overly abstract interpretation of theologians.

William Blake realized the theological point behind the Jesus spitting better than you:

[Giuseppe]

“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 25 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. 26 But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

(Luke 7:24-26)

If John was originally the first mortal being possessed by the spiritual Christ, then the author of Luke 7:24 was confuting that embarrassing hearsay with the following apology: "John was not possessed by the spiritual Christ (as "a reed swayed by the wind"), he was only the precursor of the Christ".

[Ben C. Smith]

“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 25 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. 26 But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

(Luke 7:24-26)

If John was originally the first mortal being possessed by the spiritual Christ, then the author of Luke 7:24 was confuting that embarrassing hearsay with the following apology: "John was not possessed by the spiritual Christ (as "a reed swayed by the wind"), he was only the precursor of the Christ".

I know of two attested meanings for the phrase, "shaken like a reed by the wind," in antiquity: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4026. One is a shaking in divine judgment (as in 3 Maccabees 2.22); the other is a shaking in human weakness against outside pressures (as in Lucian, Hermotimus 68). I do not know of any instances of its applicability to the idea of being possessed by a spirit.

[Giuseppe]

I do not know of any instances of its applicability to the idea of being possessed by a spirit.

Can a man possessed by the spirit and pressed by the spirit in the wilderness be compared to a "reed etc"?

Καὶ εὐθὺς τὸ Πνεῦμα αὐτὸν ἐκβάλλει εἰς τὴν ἔρημον

(Mark 1:12)

The my idea (if you have followed this thread from the start) is that in the second gospel (second after the first) John was introduced as first recipient of the spiritual Christ (as first step to judaize the latter).