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Old 02-01-2010, 09:08 AM   #11
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Why would I do that - Obama has himself put pen to paper..

By all accounts there are no Marcion written documents available - looks like the orthodox did their job in stamping out his 'heresy' pretty well - and yet did not contend themselves with that and themselves put pen to paper to try to put out any fire that Marcion had lit...Sure, most probably included a lot of propaganda along with the facts of Marcion's ideas - but that they felt the need to counter his arguments in print does indicate that his ideas were generally available and holding sway among a large section of the christian community...
Seemingly true, but this does not change my question.
So, what's the alternative - what would you suggest?
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Old 02-01-2010, 09:13 AM   #12
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Seemingly true, but this does not change my question.
So, what's the alternative - what would you suggest?
This is a problem for anyone that starts to investigate Marcion. The fact is that we do not have any evidence from the defense and must solely rely on trying to extract his ideas from the prosecution. Such an exercise, though fun, still leaves us guessing.
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Old 02-01-2010, 09:30 AM   #13
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So, what's the alternative - what would you suggest?
This is a problem for anyone that starts to investigate Marcion. The fact is that we do not have any evidence from the defense and must solely rely on trying to extract his ideas from the prosecution. Such an exercise, though fun, still leaves us guessing.
Sure, but methinks, no smoke without a fire....

Perhaps the prosecution, in their haste to have Marcion done away with - let slip a true tale or two - looks to me the prosecution did protest too much....

Actually, bottom line is that it does not really matter whether the idea of a non-Jewish Jesus was Marcion's idea or it was not. The fact remains that the issue, the question, the debate, the heresy, that was being railed against by Tertullian included the idea of a non-Jewish Jesus. And the fact that this heresy appeared so very early in christian history, should, at the very least, give mythicists pause for some serious thought...

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Old 02-01-2010, 11:17 AM   #14
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I find Marcion's position re a non-Jewish Jesus most fascinating. Much writing seems to have been done re Marcion' two gods theories - but I have not seen any discussion on his, to my mind, far more important 'heresy' - his idea that 'his' Jesus is not to be equated with a Jewish Jesus. If, indeed, the early christian movement was intent upon doing a merging operation - of a non-Jewish historical figure into OT prophetic interpretations - do we not have here, with Marcion, a very early attempt to rock the boat...

(my bold)
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<snip>

It would appear to me that the information about Marcion supplied by the writer under the name Tertullian may be filled with errors.


All who take their opinions from these men, are, as we before said, called Christians.
See http://earlychristianwritings.com

Based on Justin Martyr, Marcion simply did not accept the Jewish God and invented some other God with another son.

Marcion would have not singled out gLuke or the Pauline Epistles, when he had REJECTED the Hebrew Scripture starting from Genesis.

It was Marcion's God that created the world not the Jewish God. Now such an idea is not peculiar to Marcion.

And that Gods have sons is far less unusual. It was not necessary for Marcion to SINGLE out gLuke when he had already REJECTED the Jewish Creator.

And further, based on Justin Martyr there were probably Tens of Thousands of Christians since the time of the Emperor Claudius who did NOT BELIEVE in a Jewish Christ.

The information about Marcion from the writer using the name Tertullian is internally contradicted among the Church writers and may be erroneous.

aa5874, at this point I'm not really that concerned whether Marcion 'mutilated' the gospel of Luke or not - I am interested in the charge against him - that he did not accept the 'orthodox' Jesus position that Jesus was predicted by the prophets. Marcion's Jesus was a non-Jewish Jesus ie a Jesus that was not a fulfillment of OT prophecy. So whether Tertullian was wrong on lots of things is besides the point - on this issue - with collaboration from Justin Martyr - Tertullian does seem to have got a handle on what Marcion believed about 'his' Jesus - ie a non-Jewish Jesus.

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JUSTIN MARTYR -- THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN

And there is Marcion, a man of Pontus, who is even at this day alive, and teaching his disciples to believe in some other god greater than the Creator. And he, by the aid of the devils, has caused many of every nation to speak blasphemies, and to deny that God is the maker of this universe, and to assert that some other being, greater than He, has done greater works. All who take their opinions from these men, are, as we before said, called Christians..

And, as we said before, the devils put forward Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching men to deny that God is the maker of all things in heaven and on earth, and that the Christ predicted by the prophets is His Son, and preaches another god besides the Creator of all, and likewise another son.
(my formatting...)

So, then, do we not have here a christian community that had a Jesus storyline that involved a Jesus that was not a product of OT prophecy and Jewish genealogy?
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Old 02-01-2010, 12:08 PM   #15
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We do not know the details of what Marcion’s gospel contained. Tertullian tells us that he writes from memory (his first draft was lost or stolen), and Marcion’s gospel was said to have been regularly being revised even after Marcion’s time. So by the time we are reading accounts of Irenaeus and Tertullian we cannot know what version of Marcion’s gospel they were reading. Nor can we know how much they were paraphrasing accurately from memory.

But there is good reason to think that Marcion’s gospel was closer to the gospel of Luke’s than it was to the other canonical gospels -- discussed in Did Marcion Mutilate the Gospel of Luke.

There must have been some overlap between Marcion's gospel and canonical Luke for Marcion's opponents after Justin to have thought it was canonical Luke he had mutilated. Most notably Luke is the only gospel containing that passage so central to Marcionism -- the statement in Luke 6 about the 2 trees and fruit of good and evil.
I can well imagine that if Marcion wanted a gospel, a message, regarding a non-Jewish Jesus - he would want to eliminate whatever he could from his gospel that would deal with OT prophetic interpretations regarding a coming 'anointed one', a Jewish messiah figure. The last thing he would want is the cut and paste Jewish genealogies of our present day Matthew and Luke. If the basic gospel storyboard was already up and running before Marcion had his 'light bulb moment' - then he probably had to be content with doing a hatchet job of whatever material he had that he wanted to re-order to his liking....whatever Jewish elements that he could not remove - his 'truth' went behind the outward appearance of the Jewish gospel Jesus anyway....perhaps the very first Jesus Myther....:constern01:
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Old 02-01-2010, 12:43 PM   #16
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JUSTIN MARTYR -- THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN
...
And, as we said before, the devils put forward Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching men to deny that God is the maker of all things in heaven and on earth, and that the Christ predicted by the prophets is His Son, and preaches another god besides the Creator of all, and likewise another son.
(my formatting...)

So, then, do we not have here a christian community that had a Jesus storyline that involved a Jesus that was not a product of OT prophecy and Jewish genealogy?
That can be read at least two different ways. Maybe the disagreement isn’t if the Christ was predicted by the prophets; maybe the disagreement is if the Christ - who was predicted by the prophets, was supposed to be His Son.

Do you see what I mean?
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Old 02-01-2010, 01:06 PM   #17
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According to R. Joseph Hoffmann, Marcion thought that the Jewish Scriptures were true, and that since Jesus as described in the gospels did not literally fit the definition of a Jewish Messiah, that was that. Marcion's Jesus was the son of the greater god, not the lesser god (the demiurge, identified with YHWH) who made this imperfect world.

Marcion's opponents had a way of creatively reading the Jewish Scriptures to find what they wanted to, but Marcion rejected this.
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Old 02-01-2010, 01:12 PM   #18
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...and...
Lots of good observations in your post. Thanks.
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Based on Justin Martyr, Marcion simply did not accept the Jewish God and invented some other God with another son.
I wonder if that’s true.

How are your Old Testament polytheism chops? Are you familiar with the notion that the God in the Old Testament is actually a conflation between Yahweh and the gods of the Canaanite pantheon?

This hypothesis asserts that the original god of Israel was a bull-god called El, and that Yahweh was considered a separate deity. - But that over time these two gods were combined to create one monotheistic god. It involves a divine family and all kinds of ‘Sons of God’.

I can’t help but wonder if Marcion’s theology is based on that knowledge, or at least based on some naïve screwed up misconstruction related to it. He wouldn’t have to invent a new god with a new son, he would only have to read the OT with a different slant.
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Old 02-01-2010, 01:20 PM   #19
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...and...
Lots of good observations in your post. Thanks.
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Originally Posted by aa5874 View Post

Based on Justin Martyr, Marcion simply did not accept the Jewish God and invented some other God with another son.
I wonder if that’s true.

How are your Old Testament polytheism chops? Are you familiar with the notion that the God in the Old Testament is actually a conflation between Yahweh and the gods of the Canaanite pantheon?

This hypothesis asserts that the original god of Israel was a bull-god called El, and that Yahweh was considered a separate deity. - But that over time these two gods were combined to create one monotheistic god. It involves a divine family, and all kinds of gods and ‘Sons of God’.

I can’t help but wonder if Marcion’s theology is based on that knowledge, or at least based on some naïve screwed up misconstruction related to it. He wouldn’t have to invent a new god with a new son, he would only have to read the OT with a different slant.
Well this makes sense too... maybe Marcion simply read the LXX version of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 (and similar other places) literally:

Quote:
32:8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, When he separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples According to the number of the sons of god.
32:9 For Jehovah's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance
Jehovah received the tribe of the Jews from the Most High god. Jehovah gave the Jews their law and prophets and will give them their messiah, but the Most High god was a totally different god - and Jesus is the son of this Most High god, not the son of Jehovah.
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Old 02-01-2010, 01:28 PM   #20
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(my formatting...)

So, then, do we not have here a christian community that had a Jesus storyline that involved a Jesus that was not a product of OT prophecy and Jewish genealogy?
That can be read at least two different ways. Maybe the disagreement isn’t if the Christ was predicted by the prophets; maybe the disagreement is if the Christ - who was predicted by the prophets, was supposed to be His Son.

Do you see what I mean?
Yes, basically there was a movement afoot to make the OT god have a son - Marcion says, no way. He sets up his own god who was able to have a son....This son, Marcion's Jesus - is a non-Jewish Jesus ie. a non-Jewish Jesus who was not a product, or fulfillment, of the OT prophecies. I'm not actually interested in any Christology arguments - I'm interested in finding a historical core to the gospel storyline. And in that endeavor, Marcion's idea of a non-Jewish Jesus seems to be, to my mind, to have an important story to tell ie a story beyond any Christology debates...
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