Camplani on John the Baptist fitting PERFECTLY his role in Mcn

[Giuseppe]

Alberto Camplani has written an interesting article on John the Baptist:

https://iris.uniroma1.it/retrieve/handl ... s_2018.pdf

John the Baptist’s portrait in the Euangelion edited by Marcion fits very well with the outline of his thought that modern scholarship has been able to recover from the elements transmitted by the heresiological sources. John appears to be part of an “economy” different from Jesus’s, he is not connected to his biography, to the point that the episode of Jesus’s baptism by John was in all probability lacking in the Euangelion. John appears as the last representative of the old economy: he is the greatest of the prophets; he is under the authority of God the Creator, like the prophets of Israel; as all the Jews, he is awaiting for a Messiah whose supposed aspect and actions are very different from those of Jesus, and for that reason John does not recognize him as messiah.

My implications:

• If the original Marcionite reader of Mcn could derive a similar portrait of John as the perfect anti-Jesus, then the Tertullianesque argument that John is introduced in Mcn without an apt preliminary description of the his identity collapses at all.

• John working as the prophet of the Messiah of the demiurge in the dualistic Marcionite economy of salvation (= an unpredicted Messiah for gentiles and a predicted messiah for Jews), his name "YHWH gives grace" would fit also the marcionite role of John: the way by which the demiurge "gives grace" to the Jews is by sending a prophet of the his own messiah.
  
  Note the irony: the Messiah sent from the Good Father has come totally unexpected and without a herald who could predict his arrival, while the messiah who will be sent by the demiurge has already a herald: John the Baptist.

[Giuseppe]

Now, it is interesting the fact that Marcion could have realized that "Jesus" means "YHWH saves", and rejected consequently a such name for his hero, replacing it with yesu.

A very characteristic feature of the three Discourses against Marcion contained in Ephrem’s Prose Refutations,47 as well as the Commentary to the Gospel Harmony,48 is the name that the (Syriac) disciples of Marcion used to give Jesus: not the common yšw‘ (yešo‘), but the peculiar ysw (yesu ?), which could be a transcription of the Greek Ιησους. We wonder whether this name is the product of Ephrem’s argumentative strategy, which aims at transforming the Marcionite emphasis on the name of Jesus, the humble son of the alien God, into an orthographic oddity, or an orthography deliberately created by the Aramaic-speaking Marcionites, having the function of an identity code. It is difficult to answer, partly because of the shortcomings of the text.

Their embarrassment about the ethymology of the name "Jesus" would imply that they knew that "John" means "YHWH gives grace".

[mlinssen]

Alberto Camplani has written an interesting article on John the Baptist:

https://iris.uniroma1.it/retrieve/handl ... s_2018.pdf

John the Baptist’s portrait in the Euangelion edited by Marcion fits very well with the outline of his thought that modern scholarship has been able to recover from the elements transmitted by the heresiological sources. John appears to be part of an “economy” different from Jesus’s, he is not connected to his biography, to the point that the episode of Jesus’s baptism by John was in all probability lacking in the Euangelion. John appears as the last representative of the old economy: he is the greatest of the prophets; he is under the authority of God the Creator, like the prophets of Israel; as all the Jews, he is awaiting for a Messiah whose supposed aspect and actions are very different from those of Jesus, and for that reason John does not recognize him as messiah.

Yes, that is exactly the goal: John B functions as the demonstration of the failure of Judaism to recognise Jesus

That's exactly what Vinzent argued for as well, but what I'm only now realising is the following: how can this be a bad thing?

Either Jesus really is the Judaic Messiah and then John B is a dumb loser demonstrating the bankruptcy of the Judaic religious organisation and system - BUT NOT JUDAISM ITSELF

Or Jesus is not the Messiah - and then what could one possibly blame John B for?!

So really - what is behind this. I don't get it

[Charles Wilson]

John is of Bilgah.
The derivative character "Jesus" was of Immer.

1 Chronicles 24.

CW

[Giuseppe]

Or Jesus is not the Messiah - and then what could one possibly blame John B for?!

John the Baptist is innocent, since Marcion would have accepted the future birth of a Jewish Napoleon who would have conquered the world, as expected by Jewish scriptures. If Marcion has no problem with the davidic Messiah, then he has no problem with a his herald, too.

The Baptist is not innocent when he does his propaganda in the wilderness, causing Marcion to wonder sarcastically: what have you seen in the wilderness?

So the Baptist becomes a polemical target when he is a rival on the religious market.

Accordingly, he allegorizes Christian propagandists who are already contemporary with Marcion.

Doudna thinks that the John of the Fourth Gospel is not the Baptist, but John the Elder or John of Ephesus.

Since Turmel has proved that the Fourth Gospel is marcionite/cainite in its original layer, then the implication is that the historical figure eclipsed/alluded/foreshadowed behind "John the Baptist" was for Marcion a Christian rival. One who was contemporary or quasi-contemporary with Marcion. Surely not a pre-70 figure, even if he was retrojected in the time "under Pilate".

This would fit the Rivka Nir's conclusions about John the Baptist as a Christian icon, in a book that I have ordered finally.

[schillingklaus]

Neither Johnny B nor Johnny Elder have any historical significance whatsoever except in the minds of apologists like Ehrman.
Johnny B is just a corruption, euhemerization, and Judaization of the figure of the preacher (keryx) of the baptism in the pool, found in the fourth part of the corpus of Hermetic writings.

Once Marcionis appeared, John was already the announcer of the Messiah accordibng to Scripture, so Marcionism was opposed to Johnnt B; but this oes in absolutely no way indicate a pro-demiurgic origin of John's figure; likewise, Marcionism vilifies the serpent of Genesis 3, a hero of proper anti-demiurgism.

[Giuseppe]

Once Marcionis appeared, John was already the announcer of the Messiah according to Scripture, so Marcionism was opposed to Johnnt B; but this oes in absolutely no way indicate a pro-demiurgic origin of John's figure

but if Jesus is de facto humanized by being baptized by John, then how can this baptism be not someway pro-demiurgic ? A baptism is by definition a submission: isn'it?

A descent from heaven already adult is very worthy of a deity. But a baptism? Even only a self-baptism?

Jean Magne's precursor, Georges Ory, was rather persuaded that John the Baptist was never mentioned in the entire Mcn.

[Giuseppe]

The point is that, beyond if pro-demiurgist or anti-demiurgist, the baptism is a decisive step to humanize/historicize/euhemerize Jesus. I go even further and say: the baptism is the only decisive step to humanize/historicize/euhemerize Jesus.

Apologists know this and accordingly they appeal to baptism with all their hearts and with all their souls.

[Giuseppe]

The baptism witnesses also a conflict, not between a man and a god, but between a god and a god: between Jesus and the divine spirit from above. The divine spirit is YHWH himself, who sanitizes the (perceived as) rival deity Jesus by filling it himself.

It is not that the man Jesus ceases to be a man and becomes a god by the baptism.
What happens is that the rival Jesus of the anti-demiurgists ceases to be a god and becomes a man in the service of a superior god.

Some anti-demiurgists (Cerinthus) reacted by identifying the superior god who descended during the baptism as the Alien God of Marcion, but in whiletime the collateral effect was gained: they conceded that Jesus was a mere man and not more a deity.

[schillingklaus]

The activity of the original John was preaching a baptism, not performing one; this is also described in the Crater and the Monad. The performance of rituals is an invention of Catholic priests to justify their own existence.

Jesus does not become a god by the baptism but receives the pneuma, just as Joshua of Nun did by imposition of hands from Moses. Likewise, Isaiah was not considered as a god after saying that God's spirit was upon him upon being anointed.