aa5874

But, similarly I don't know where you got the idea that the Marcion's phantom Jesus was crucified or died. Can you provide a passage from a source of antiquity that clearly shows Marcion believed or wrote that the phantom Jesus was crucified and died.

But, I can show you Tertullian's "On the Flesh of Christ" Marcion's Jesus was not even born.

The crucifixion and death of the NT Jesus was fabricated or manufactured out of Hebrew scripture, primarily from the Psalms. Marcion's phantom was not. Marcion's phantom Jesus had nothing whatsoever to do with Hebrew scripture. The Father of Marcion's Jesus was OF another God greater than the God of the Jews and so was the Phantom.

Justin Martyr, the living witness to Marcion, made that very clear.

Justin Martyr in First Apology 26
See. www.earlychristianwritings.com

And now after Marcion was dead, perhaps for 50 years or so, Tertullian in "Against Marcion" made a startling admission.

Tertullian in the very first lines of "Against Marcion" 1,
See www.newadvent.org

While Marcion was alive Justin wrote that Marcion preached another God and another Son and that Christ was not predicted by the prophets.

After Marcion was dead, a writer called Tertullian wrote a new work about Marcion, telling his readers to ignore previous information about Marcion, and all of a sudden, Marcion was in possesion of or was familiar with gLuke, the Epistles of Paul and manipulated or mutilated them to write his Gospel.

But the writer called Tertullian would make another startling admission, the Gospel that he claimed was by Marcion was actually anonimous. There was no author atrributed to the writing.

The writer called Tertullian in Against Marcion 4.2

This is incredible. The writer called Tertullian is claiming that a work ought not to be recognised if the author is unknown or refuses to acknowledge authorship and yet is doing the exact opposite to an anonimous wtiting.


It would appear that the information about Marcion in Tertullian's Against Marcion" is bogus. It would seem that information with respect to gLuke, AND the epistles in the possesion of Marcion were planted to mis-lead the readers about the true date of writing of gLuke and the Pauline letters.

Justin Martyr wrote nothing about Paul, nothing at all about any letters from Paul, nothing about the revelations of Paul, nothing about any churches of Paul. Nothing about the martyrdom of Paul. Nothing about Saul or Acts of the Apostles. Nothing about any [b]bishops of Rome or bishops anywhere. In all Justin's writings, he did not acknowledge the bishop of his congregation or church in one single writing.

Justin Martyr, the living witness to Marcion, contradicts the Church.

The Pauline letters and a Gospel with the name gLuke are all after Marcion and the writings of Justin Martyr.

jakejonesiv

HI AA,

By what methodolgy do you determine that the writings of Justin Martyr are authentic and date to around the mid-second century? I don't necessarily disagree, but I want to see in what manner you formulate your underlying arguments.

Best,
Jake

aa5874

And, I can ask you how did you determine that Tertullian's Praxeas is authentic and was written in the third century?

Now, I can only tell you that Justin Martyr's writings APPEAR to be credible. But, first the dating of Justin Martyr's works is based on a passage found in First Apology 46.

Justin in "First Apology" 46 It would appear the Justin wrote about 150 years after the birth of the so-called Jesus or around the middle of the 2nd century.

There are several factors that made me come to the view that Justin is credible.

It is my view, based on a multiplicity of reasons, that Jesus and his disciples were fictitious characters, they simply did not exist in the 1st century, but were BELIEVED to have existed at such time.

Therefore any writer of antiquity was not credible if such a person claimed to have SEEN Jesus or his disciples, or claimed to KNOW persons who saw or heard Jesus or his disciples.

Justin, unlike writers called Paul, Ignatius, Clement, Irenaeus made no claims that he saw Jesus or his disciples or claimed that he knew persons who saw or heard Jesus or his diciples.

Justin Martyr wrote nothing about any post-ascension activities of the disciples or apostles, including the so-called Paul, which is consistent with my theory that Jesus and his disciples including Paul were fictitious and that the post-ascension activities found in Acts of the Apostles are fiction.

Justin wrote nothing about the Pauline letters, or his churches, his companion called Luke, or Peter, but still Justin mentioned Simon Magus, a magician, the Holy one of God, whose followers were called Christians, and a contemporary of Peter.

Justin wrote nothing about receiving the Holy Ghost and speaking in tongues or the day of Pentecost when it is claimed the disciples received extra-ordinary supernatural powers promised by Jesus.

Justin Martyr's history of Jesus and the disciples ended at ascension or after the disciples had written their memoirs of Jesus.

In Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr could not get past the ascension of Jesus.

According to Justin, after the ascension, it was Simon Magus the Magician, not Simon Peter.

Justin did not ever tell Trypho about Peter and Paul, Jews who were converting thousands of Jews and Gentiles to belief in Jesus with outrageous miracles, including bringing the dead back to life.

I simply cannot find anything fundamentally incredible in ALL the writings of Justin, His writings are consistent with a belief in Jesus who he believed lived over a hundred years earlier.

Justin did not write that he witnessed any event that can be shown to be fiction or implausible, unlike Paul. Justin did not write that he personally knew persons who witnessed events that can be shown to be fiction or implausible, unlike Paul.


I am of the view that Justin Martyr is a credible writer and wrote in the middle of the 2nd century.

Now, how did you determine that Tertullian is credible when it can be shown that he wrote about Paul who witnessed fiction and participated in the very fictitious events?

Tertullian wrote that the Gospels were written by disciples called Matthew and John and others called Mark and Luke but such information is deduced to be not credible. Tertullian's information about the authorship of the Pauline Epistles appears to be in error.

How did Tertullian become credible?

jakejonesiv

HI AA,

Thanks for the reply! You are basically on the right track. Your insight that Tertullian may have misrepresented Marcion is good, but one that requires a careful sifting of the evidence.

I think belief in a historical Jesus is naive, and that Pauline Christianity arose from a different source from Gospel christianity. My opinion is that Christianity is the result of combing many originally disparate beliefs. What do you think? Could you give me a thumbnail scetch of how Christianity arose IYO?

Sorry, but I can't follow your reasoning for distinguishing between Tertullian and Justin. Neither Tertullian nor Justin "claimed to have seen Jesus or his disciples, or claimed to know persons who saw or heard Jesus or his disciples." They both believed in the doctrine of the incarnation, which is "not credible." The possible reasons that Justin didn't mention Paul I have enumerated before. IMO, he may simply have referred to Paul by another name, Simon Magus.

It is true that you can't trust these guys to give historically accurate information about alleged first century events, but you can trust them to promote the self interest of the groups they represent. (Even if you overthrew the authorship of Tertullian and Irenaeus, someone was writing the documents, and we can easily adduce the agenda of the authors).

Perhaps you missed that I was discussing how the figures of St. Peter and St. Paul evolved during the second/early third centuries.

Tertullian has credibility precisely because he represented the vested interests of the proto-orthodox against the more esoteric versions of Christianity extant at the time. He promoted Peter and demoted Paul in that effort. IMO it was all cut throat competition between competing sects. I really don't care who "existed" or not. The proxy heads may or may not have existed, but the underlying sects & dogmatics did. The proto-orthodox and the Marcionites were locked in a struggle in the second and third centuries to determine which version would become the dominant form of Christianity, and we may view the texts as propaganda tracts. Tertullian (or whoever you think wrote in Tertullian's name) accused the Marcionites of forging the gospel, and the Marcionites accused the proto-orthodox of the same.

It turns out the proto-orthodox won, and rewrote history to give the illusion of of harmonious origins. This is the furthest thing from the truth. Indeed, they could not erase all signs of earlier estoteric christianities.

Since you have limited your sources (not mine!) to Justin Martyr (and the reasons you give above are ad hoc), then you should believe him when he stated that Maricion's teachings were universal throughout the empire, "Marcion ... has caused many of every nation to speak blasphemies." They indeed differed on the nature of God. This was a common area of dispute, with the Gnostics and Marcionites seeing a dualism between the Father and the Creator, the proto-orthodox (in a manner consistent with their carnalized Christ) seeing the Father and Creator as identical, and Apelles seeking a muddled middle ground. Yet even Justin must admit that Marcion was a Christian. "All who take their opinions from these men, are, as we before said, called Christians." Apology 1.58. We may also note that the earliest known church inscription is Marcionite (Jesus the Good, not Jesus Christ!) and dates to 318 CE.

Best,
Jake

aa5874

What is the right track? And who determines the track? On my track, the writer called Tertullian was a fiction writer, he mis-represented the history of Jesus believers.

According to Tertullian, the word "christian" is derived from "anointing" and in the LXX, the word "anointed" is translated as "christ" many times. There appears to be some Jewish connection to the origin of the term christian.

Tacitus claimed that the mischeivous christian belief originated in Judaea.

A belief in Jesus or in the doctrine of incarnation does not really make a person "not credible". A person's credibilty is directly dependent on their veracity or lack thereof.

Now, the difference between Justin Martyr and the writer called Tertullian is very significant. Tertullian wrote about characters called Paul, Peter and John as though they were real historical persons when all of them never lived at all in the first century before the death of Nero or up to the time of Trajan. Tertullian implied that there were bishops of Rome starting with Peter, but this must be false Peter was a fictitious character.

It appears to me that more than one person used the name Tertullian, the writer of "Ad Nationes" is not the same writer of "Against Marcion" Many of the works with the name Tertullian are fiction-based and most probably were written later than the early third century.

If the authorship of Tertullian and Irenaeus is found to be erroneous then the credibilty of the Church would be further eroded.



I find that Tertullian did not promote Peter over Paul.

This a writer called Tertullian in Against Marcion 5 Tertullian fundamentally promoted Paul. He used perhaps hundreds of passages from the Pauline epistles and very few from the Petrine epistle.


I don't understand. What sect can really exist without a head?

There is no corroborative information external of the Church writers that there was a proto-orthodox versus Marcionite struggle. The church writers claimed there were many many so-called heresies but did NOT ever show that all these numerous sects were locked in any stuggle with each other.

The Roman Church became dominant with its collusion with the Political Power around the 4th century, I think that is really when all the so-called heresies had to struggle for survival. Before the Roman Church, christians were regarded as cannibals and atheists, based on Against Celsus, up to the third century.

When did the Valentinians engage in a struggle with Menander, Cerinthus or the Ebionites?

BUT, it is known when the Roman Church erradicated or began to struggle with all the other Christians of diverse doctrines.

It was the 4th century.

I think it was the Political Power that won and then manufactured orthodoxy.

Are you claiming that there is an abundance of information about Marcion that can be corroborated external of the church writers?

Now, according to Justin the blasphemy of Marcion was that there was another God greator than the God of the Jews and that Jesus as predicted by the prophets was NOT his Son.

Justin also claimed Simon Magus, the magician, the Holy one of God, and his followers were called Christians when neither Simon or his followers believed in Jesus.

It was NOT necessary for Marcion to have believed in Jesus or to have known a single Gospel or epistle of Paul to be called a Christian.

jakejonesiv

HI AA,

Well, sorry, but your standards are not logical. Tertullian mentioned fictious first century characters but so did Justin. "Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judaea, in the times of Tiberius Caesar." Apology 1:13.

He who is both Son and Apostle of God the Father of all and the Ruler, Jesus Christ; from whom also we have the name of Christians. Apology 1.12.

:wave:
Jake

aa5874

I don't think you understand what I wrote.

Justin Martyr believed that Jesus Christ existed based on the information he had, that is, the Memoirs of the apostles, a Revelation by an apostle called John and the Acts of Pilate.

He believed that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin by the Holy Ghost of God and eventually ascended to heaven after his resurrection from the dead.

These are the fundamental beliefs of Justin and Jesus believers, including the church writers, that is, Tertullian also.

Now after the ascension of Jesus, Justin Martyr wrote nothing about the activities of the disciples where they performed miralcles, received the Holy Ghost and spoke in tongues, and evangelised the Roman Empire with Paul and Peter.

The absence of any historical events with respect to the disciples, or apostles, in the writings of Justin Martyr is consistent with the theory that Jesus and the disciple did not exist.

Justin then appears to be credible.

1.NO JESUS therefore NO DISCIPLES.
2.NO DISCIPLES therefore NO HISTORY.

But, now examine the writer called Tertullian. Although there were NO DISCIPLES, the writer called Tertullian appear to have information about the post-ascension activities of the DISCIPLES that did not exist.

This writer Tertullian claimed Peter and Paul preached in Rome. Such a scenario is virtually impossible. Paul could not have met Peter, this so-called apostle, did not exist.

The writer called Tertullian is not credible.

1.Tertullian did not write that there were more than one writer using the name Paul.
2. Tertullian did not write that the Gospels called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were originally anonimous and that they were heavily interpolated.
3. Tertullian did not write that Peter could not have been the 1st bishop of Rome.
4.Tertullian did not write that Clement could not have known or met Peter.

5.Tertullian did not write that if Paul existed he could not have met Peter.
6.Tertullian did not write that there were no churches started by Peter in Judaea.
7.Tertullian did not write that Peter and Paul could not have started any churches together.

The list can be expanded to include Ignatius, Clement, Irenaeus and other church writers, but it is clear that the writer called Tertullian brought forward a multiplicity of errors and mis-information that are in the process of being corrected even today.

Justin Martyr's credibilty is still intact. He wrote no post-ascension fiction about Peter, Paul, Clement, bishops and the Pauline churches that were supposed to be all over the Roman Empire.

It is almost certain that when Justin was writing, he did not know that there was a writer called Paul who was one of the foremost celebrated pioneer evangelist who claimed he had revelations from Jesus after being blinded by a bright light and was commissioned by the very Jesus from heaven with the Gospel of uncircumcision.

But Justin wrote about Simon Magus while not mentioning Peter, this is consistent with the theory that Peter did not exist.

And, Justin wrote about Marcion without mentioning the Pauline Epistles, this is consistent with the theory that the Pauline Epistles were not written or known when Justin wrote.

Justin Martyr's writings appears to be credible.

Now, Tertullian does not appear to be credible, his writings support the improbable post ascension history of Paul and Peter.

jakejonesiv

HI AA,

You seem to have some underlying scheme that you are promoting, perhaps that Tertullian was a fourth century conspiracy. You also seem to conflate Tertullian with Irenaeus. :hijack:

You statements should at least be internally consistent, and I do not find them so. Justin does indeed mention the apostle Peter and the brothers Zebedee. Dialogue with Trypho. chapters C, CVI.

If Marcion was teaching a religion that had nothing to do with Jesus Christ, then Justin would not give a flip about him. Justin considered Marcion a rival and a Christian.

This fact does not necessarily establish that these disciples were historical persons as described in the gospels (i.e. Justin could have been relying on legend or pre-canonical gospel material), but this is sufficient to establish that Tertullian did not invent the disciples as you claim.

Justin doesn't mention Paul by name, and doesn't show evidence of his epistles. I have discussed this is at length elsewhere. But again, Tertullian didn't invent Paul or create the association to Marcion. Jake

aa5874

I hope you understand that difference between a conspiracy and what the information provided by the church is revealing.

It is no conspiracy that the Roman Church through Eusebius and others provided fraudulent information about the history of Jesus believers where documents were altered to make it appear that even Jesus, their Saviour and God, made statements which can be found to be false.

Once it is recognised that the Roman Church provided erroneous and mis-leading information using the MOUTH of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the son of God as the medium, then there is no real conspiracy to come to the realisation that the same may have been done to the writer called Tertullian.

It is known that the Roman Church had chronological problems. They backdated the date of the writings of the Gospels, they backdated at least some of the Pauline Epistles.

It would appear that John 21 was backdated, perhaps by a hundred years or more.

It is not far-fetched that they backdated at least some of Tertullian's writings.


The Roman Church had doctrinal problems. They had to make Jesus, their Lord and Saviour, Peter and Paul say things that supported only the Roman Church.

The words of Jesus in John 21 appears to have been backdated by at least200 years.

It cannot be far-fetched that they made Tertullian say things that only supported the Roman Church and backdated them.


As I have pointed out to you before Justin Martyr wrote no POST-ASCENSION history of Peter, or about the adventures of any character called Paul with Peter.

Justin's history of Peter and Jesus ENDS at Ascension.

But, there was Simon Magus, the magician, the holy one of god, surely Justin did give more thana flip about him and yet Simon did not believe in Jesus.

And, I did not claim that Marcion religion had nothing to do with Jesus, but that it was NOT necessary to believe in Jesus to be called a Christian.

Justin called Simon Magus a christian.

And, by the way, it was the son of the God of the Jews that was to be called Jesus as prophesied by the Jewish scriptures.

It must be noted that Marcion's Christ was not prophesied in the Jewish scriptures. Marcion's Christ was from another God greater than the God of the Jews.

The name for Marcion's Christ cannot be found in the scriptures of the Jews.

You seem to have completely mis-understood me. I never did claim Tertulliuan invented the disciples. It is the post-ascension history of the disciples, including Peter ,and later Paul, that have been found to be fiction or not credible as found in the writings of Tertullian.

Again, I never did claim the writer called Tertullian invented Paul.

My position is that information found in Tertullian's writings are not credible.

It appears to be false that the Marcionites would claim "that Paul alone knew the truth" when for about 100 years before Marcion, based on church writings, Paul preached and established that Jesus was the son of David according to the flesh and was crucified, died, resurrected on the third day, then ascended to be with the GOD of the JEWS the Father of Jesus.

1.Marcion's Jesus did not ascend and sit on the right hand of the GOD of the Jews.
2. Marcion's Jesus was not the son of David or the God of the Jews.
3.Marcion's Jesus was not born of a woman.
4.Marcion's Jesus was not crucified, died and then resurrected according to Jewish scriptures.
5. Marcion's Jesus had nothing whatsoever to do with Jewish scriptures.


Romans 1.4 Romans 10.8-11 It is evident that the Pauline writer did NOT preach the Jesus of Marcion. The Pauline Jesus is of Jewish scripture and the son of a Jewish God.

It is not credible that the Marcionites would claim Paul alone knew the truth after Paul preached that Jesus was of Jewish origin. And it also appears that there were no letters of Paul before the writings of Justin.

Tertullian is not credible with respect to Paul.

jakejonesiv

I agree that the stories of Jesus and the apostles are basicaly 2c fictions cast back into the first century. (It is more complicted than that, but we cover that later).
But it doesn't necessarily follow that Tertullian was treated in the same manner. You have offered that "it is not far-fetched." That is a pretty low threshhold. All you have demonstarted is plausibility, but at least that is a start. Please continue.

You mentioned the "Roman Catholic Church" specifically. Isn't that anachronistic?

Agreed.

I will agree that the gospels were backdated. But how did you arrive at 200 years?

I will agree that some things attributed to Tertullian may not have been written by him. It hasn't been established that "they made Tertullian" say, i.e. that Tertullian is 100% forgery.

Of course he doesn't. Acts had not been written yet.

And how are you establishing this, since you have arbitrarily restricted yourself to the alleged writings of Justin Martyr?

Thank you for clearing that up!


Agreed.

Sure it was. Joshua=Iesous(gk)=Jesus. But you make a good point. Marion's prefered designation was Chrestos, not Christos. And if Earl Doherty is right about Phillipians 2:9-10 Jesus was not the original name of the heavenly redeemer. However, I could perhaps be convinced otherwise on this.

I find it very odd that you keep leaving out Irenaeus, who was the main promoter of the fiction that Peter and Paul worked hand in glove to found the Roman church. Why is that? Is there another shoe to drop in your conspiracy theory?

But just for the record, here is a quote from Irenaeus AH 3.3.2.
"that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority,(3) that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere."
http://www.gnosis.org/library/advh3.htm


That is good because he didn't.

You keep saying that like it is some great revelation.
None of the church fathers had primary knowledge of historical events in the alleged time of jesus and the apostles in the first century.

My point in this thread is that the characters of Peter and Paul evolved over the course of time, in response to the doctinal struggles of the second century. Are you having trouble with the concept?


Well, I don't disagree with what you have written, since you qualified #1 with "and sit on the right hand of the GOD of the Jews" and qualified #3 with "according to Jewish scriptures."

But it is my turn to ask you a question. Since you have arbutrarily limited yourself to Justin Martyr, how do you know these thing? I think perhaps you are using your sources in an inconsitent manner.

But be that as it may, the Marcionte Recension of the Pauline epistles fits your list of 5 points. (The MR of the PE can be reconstructed with some degree of accuracy from the church fathers becuase they wrote so much against him).


You are making the error of assuming the unity of authorship of the Pauline epistles. The passages you are quoting are IMO proto-othodox redactions made in the late second century (after Marcion).

You are right. The Marcionites didn't preach a Jesus of Jewish origin.

Perhaps not. At least before Marcion came to Rome with his Apostilicon, Paul was scarcely known (if at all). The Romans church had built their Gospel Jesus without any detectable influence from "Paul."

Of course not. Please read the OP again. You will see that Tertullian misrepresented Paul because the Marcionites were kicking proto-orthodox @$$ by appealing to him. :rolling:

Jake