stephan huller

I read all your posts Joseph but your assumptions in your comments at Goodacre's site aren't necessarily accurate. We don't know whether the community which used the Gospel of Peter believed Jesus was a man or God. The assumptions that Jesus couldn't have spoken on the Cross are contradicted by what appears in John.

Let's suppose that the community which used the Gospel of Peter was docetic (as Severus of Antioch assumes with respect to a gospel related to either this Peter or another Gospel of Peter). The 'crucified one' might well have been God crucified (indeed it is highly probable) or the angel of the presence crucified where crucified could well have meant 'suspended' 'raised' etc as the Aramaic terminology - assuming it was originally written in this language (Severus governed Syria) these meanings would have been implicit.

Yes it is difficult to sort out a provenance. Yes it is difficult to sort out the implications of the text. But the idea that 'the Crucified One' was originally in the text seems reasonable enough. I think the Elxasites had a similar understanding of a Savior whose head stretched up to heaven.

The bottom line is that your assumptions about Jesus being a man are contradicted by the docetic implications about a million mile high man and the association with doceticism in Severus. If Jesus was held to be a divine being rather than a man by those associated with the text all your objections don't hold any water.

stephan huller

And let's not also forget that for a tradition to believe that someone or something could rise from the dead, hold conversations with his/its followers and then ascend to heaven - having a talking crucified one is no giant stretch of the imagination.

mountainman

Photius was reading out of the empire, perhaps in Bagdad, from the libraries available to that city, and he has found openly displayed "Gnostic Gospels and Acts" of the Gnostic heretics, in which one appears to describe a walking talking cross in communion with God. Yes, God communicates with his devices of execution - or so the heretics would have us believe.



I think the far more general reason for the orthodox getting their nickers in a knot over the gnostic gospels and acts has been clearly identified by April Deconnick, and that academics do not yet appreciate the political aspects of the OPPOSITION Gnostic literature.

"Gnostic texts use parody and satire quite frequently ...
making fun of traditional biblical beliefs" ......

[April Deconick]

Tertullian writes that the same author wrote the Acts of Paul (and Thecla) "out of love for Paul!". How do scholars reconcile this statement of Tertullian with the statements made by the later bishops and emperors that this author Leucius was "the son of the devil".

Tertullian's statement, which crossed the desk of Eusebius, is the only information in all of the period of time covered by the supposed centuries of conflict between the orthodox and the gnostic heretics which relates to the identity of an author of any gnostic gospel or act. It has always been taken to be a pivotal statement used in determining the chronology of the authorship of the gnostic gospels. Tertullian mentions the Acts of Paul THEREFORE the Acts of Paul was authored before of during the epoch which Eusebius tells us that Tertullian wrote. Warning Warning Warning Will Robertson!

Tertullian's statement cannot be reconciled with the texts that are before us. The author of the Acts of Paul and the Gospel of Peter, Leucius Charinus according to Photius, who reads the name from the book in front of him, is not writing "out of love". He is a master heretic for Christ's sake! In the Acts of Paul the author uses Aesop to compare Paul to the mouse in the "Lion and the Mouse" which is not "love of Paul" but satire of Paul. (Paul was no lion!)

I think the simple explanation is that the heretics wrote satire and parody in reaction to the WIDESPREAD and POLITICAL appearance of the canonical books in the Eastern empire and Alexandria. Docetism is just another form of satire. The orthodox could not tolerate any form of humor being directed towards their canonicl series of utterly humorous holy books.

Is Monty Python therefore docetic because Jesus, who appeared in the film, was not crucified - Brian gets crucified in "Life of Brian".?

mountainman

But what may have been solved? The appearance of the entire collection of Gnostic Gospels and Acts remains a mystery. The author of the gPeter, despite being named by Photius c.845 CE as Leucius Charinus, remains a mystery.

Solo

The upsizing of sacred objects is not something which has a local, or a time, label on it. It is a common way of verbalizing paranormal or pathogenic forms of perception ("the falling into the vastness of the Cosmos" - Rilke) present in all cultures and in all times. 'If the doors of perception were cleansed', wrote William Blake, 'everything would appear to man as it is, infinite'. The Buddhist descriptions of paradisiac rivers in Sukhavati stress their vastness (yogana ~ 6 miles). One of the al-Bukhari ahadith has Muhammad claiming that, "in paradise there is a tree in whose shade a rider could travel for a hundred years without crossing it."

So, nothing new under the sun; these experiences are universal, only the speculation as to what they mean to the subject has been an endless debate in the esoteric circles of those who get the ticket without asking for it.

Best,
Jiri

JoeWallack

JW:
I've written another critical post here:

http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2011/07...ing-cross.html




Joseph

CROSS, n. An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its significance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity, but really antedating it by thousands of years. By many it has been believed to be identical with the crux ansata of the ancient phallic worship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of that, to the rites of primitive peoples. We have to-day the White Cross as a symbol of chastity, and the Red Cross as a badge of benevolent neutrality in war.

ErrancyWiki

mountainman

Was God talking with the walking talking cross in Greek? Why was Greek God's preferred language, and who taught the cross to speak Greek? The cross does not appear in the archaeology before the 4th century, so was the supposed "early" author of gPeter prescient, or just coincidentally lucky?

Toto

Update:

The Walking, Talking Cross in the Gospel of Peter: Goodacre vs. Foster

mountainman

The cross enters the ancient historical evidence with Helena.

If Jesus was executed 50 years ago would an electric chair have followed Jesus and talked to god?






εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

DCHindley

The owner of that blog, Tim Henderson, has published a monograph entitled The Gospel of Peter and Early Christian Apologetics: Rewriting the Story of Jesus’ Death, Burial, and Resurrection (2011) based on his 2010 Doctoral Dissertation (Marquette University).

I've always been baffled why this fragment as it stands is not recognized as a 3rd century production of the type typical of this age (fanciful, exaggerated, a tad eccentric, etc).

The two "men" with heads reaching the heavens (lower order angels) leading out a man whose head reached above the heavens (i.e., the elevated Jesus). The cross that follows them represents the Gnostic Valentinian's Aeon Stauros (Cross). Since Stauros was on a "rescue mission" to recover souls trapped in the worldly dominion of the Creator God.

Those who are familiar with 3rd (Hebrew) Enoch and Sh’ir Qoma (which describes the dimensions of God's body parts) will will not be surprised by the immense height of the two angels and of the resurrected Christ.

3rd Enoch 18:19: ... SOTHER 'ASHIEL H', the prince, the great, fearful and honoured one, ... is appointed over the four heads of the fiery river over against the Throne of Glory; and ... his height is 7,000 myriads of parasangs (Persian measurement of 2-3 miles) or about 175,000,000 miles. (Hugo Odeberg)

God is even bigger:

Sh’ir Qoma 1. RABBI YISMAEL SAID: “Metatron the Great Lord said to me: I bear this testimony on behalf of the Lord hvhy, Elohim of Israel, the Living and Enduring El (la), our Lord and Master:

• - That His height, from His Seat of Glory and up (is) 118 ten thousands parasangs (rebaboth),
• - From His Seat of Glory down (is) 118 ten thousands parasangs (rebaboth),
• - His total height 236 ten thousand thousands parasangs.
• - From His Right Arm to His Left Arm (is) 77 ten thousand (parasangs).
• - From His Right Eye to (His) Left Eye (is) 30 ten thousands (parasangs).
• - The Skull on His Head (is) three and one third ten thousand (parasangs).
• - The Crowns on His Head (amount to) 60 ten thousands (parasangs) equaling the 60 ten thousands of the [thousands] of Israel.

The preaching to those in the Grave is related to the Trinitarian controversies.

(NIV) 1 Peter 4:6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

The earliest version of Apostle's creed mentioning descending to Hades: (NPNF series 2 vol 3):

The Creed of Aquileia (307-309)	The Creed of Aquileia, translated by W.H. Fremantle. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 3. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace
Credo in Deo Patre omnipotenti	I believe in God the Father Almighty,
invisibili et impassibili	invisible and impassible
Et in Jesu Christo, unico Filio ejus, Domino nostro	And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord
Qui natus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine	Who was born from the Holy Ghost, of the Virgin Mary
Crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato, et sepultus	Was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried
Descendit ad inferna	He descended to hell;
tertia die resurrexit a mortuis	on the third day he rose again from the dead
Ascendit in cœlos	He ascended to the heavens;
sedet ad dexteram Patris	he sits at the right hand of the Father
Inde venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos	Thence he is to come to judge the quick and the dead
Et in Spiritu Sancto	And in the Holy Ghost
Sanctam Ecclesiam	The Holy Church
Remissionem peccatorum	The remission of sins
Hujus carnis resurrectionem	The resurrection of this flesh

(RSV) 1Pe 3:18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; 19 in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.

If this refers to the Watchers who were punished after seeing their sons the Giants drown in the flood:

(OPE 1EN 10:4-6) 4 And he said to Raphael: "Bind Azael foot and hand, and cast him into the darkness, and open the desert that is in the Dadouel, and cast him in.
5 "And lay down upon him rough and jagged rocks and cover him with darkness. And let him dwell there for eternity, and cover his face so he cannot see light.
6 "And on the great day of judgment he will be lead into the fire.

(OPG 1En 10:4-6) 4 καὶ τῷ Ῥαφαὴλ εἶπεν· Δῆσον τὸν Ἀζαὴλ ποσὶν καὶ χερσίν, καὶ βάλε αὐτὸν εἰς τὸ σκότος, καὶ ἄνοιξον τὴν ἔρημον τὴν οὖσαν ἐν τῷ Δαδουὴλ κἀκεῖ βάλε αὐτόν,
5 καὶ ὑπόθες αὐτῷ λίθους τραχεῖς καὶ ὀξεῖς καὶ ἐπικάλυψον αὐτῷ τὸ σκότος. καὶ οἰκησάτω ἐκεῖ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, καὶ τὴν ὄψιν αὐτοῦ πώμασον καὶ φῶς μὴ θεωρείτω·
6 καὶ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῆς μεγάλης τῆς κρίσεως ἀπαχθήσεται εἰς τὸν ἐνπυρισμόν.

(OPE 1EN 10:11-13) 11 And to Michael he said: "Go and reveal to Semiaza and to those remaining with him who have mixed with the women, to defile themselves in their uncleanness.
12 "And when their sons will slay (one another) and they see the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth until the day of their judgment and consummation, until the judgment of the age of eternity is completed.
13 "Then they will be lead away into the chasm of fire and to the torture and to the prison of eternal confinement.

(OPG 1En 10:11-13) 11 καὶ εἶπεν Μιχαήλ· Πορεύου καὶ δήλωσον Σεμιαζᾷ καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς τοῖς σὺν αὐτῷ ταῖς γυναιξὶν μιγεῖσιν, μιανθῆναι ἐν αὐταῖς ἐν ἀκαθαρσίᾳ αὐτῶν·
12 καὶ ὅταν κατασφαγῶσιν οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτῶν καὶ ἴδωσιν τὴν ἀπώλειαν τῶν ἀγαπητῶν, καὶ δῆσον αὐτοὺς ἑβδομήκοντα γενεὰς εἰς τὰς νάπας τῆς γῆς μέχρι ἡμέρας κρίσεως αὐτῶν καὶ συντελεσμοῦ, ἕως τελεσθῇ τὸ κρίμα τοῦ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων.
13 τότε ἀπαχθήσονται εἰς τὸ χάος τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ εἰς τὴν βάσανον καὶ εἰς τὸ δεσμωτήριον συνκλείσεως αἰῶνος.

Whatever the hell all that is supposed to mean, I dunno.

DCH