stephan huller

Another example. The Jewish and Samaritan editions of the Pentateuch. If the Samaritans had disappeared (as they almost did at the beginning of the 20th century) and their writings had also vanished, you could just as well have read about a tradition related to Judaism which put forward Gerizim as the holy mountain but you would have ignored it. You would have read what appears in the Jewish texts and come to all these conclusions about the sacredness of Jerusalem, how Melchizedek was from Jerusalem etc and concluded that the Ten Commandments are the Ten Commandments.

But more and more experts on the Old Testament (most recently James Charlesworth) have decided that the Samaritan emphasis on the sacredness of Mount Gerizim was original. In other words, you can't simply use the Catholic text to understand anything other than the Catholic tradition. Imagine what would have happened if the Samaritans had disappeared.

stephan huller

Only one example:

http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/v01/Baarda1996rev.html

stephan huller

Another example from Epiphanius Panarion:

Scholion 4. 'Judas Iscariot, which was a betrayer.' Instead of, 'He came down with them,' he has, 'He came down among them.'

(a) Elenchus 4. Judas Iscariot, 'which was a betrayer.' Betrayer of whom, pray? Surely of the One who was arrested—yes indeed, and who has been crucified and has suffered many things.
(b) But how can he be arrested and crucified if, as you claim, Marcion, he is not tangible? You say he is an apparition!
(c) But your opinion will be refuted because the text calls Judas a 'betrayer,' for he betrayed his own master and delivered him into the hands of men.
(d) And it does you no good to say, 'He came down among them,' instead of, 'with them.' You cannot declare someone a phantom when you later show, even though unintentionally, that he is tangible.

stephan huller

Another example of how different the Marcionite gospel was from Epiphanius, how much was excised:

Scholion 53. He falsified the section about the ass and Bethphage—and the one about the city and temple, because of the scripture, 'My house shall be called an house of prayer, but ye make it a den of thieves.'

(a) Elenchus 53. Wickedness does not see its own refutation, for it is blind. Marcion thinks he can conceal the road of the truth, but this is not possible.
(b) For he jumped right over it, completely bypassing the sections we have mentioned because of their testimony that the temple site was Christ's and built in his name, and leaving out the entire passage about the journey from Jericho and how he got to Bethphage. For there actually was an ancient highway to Jerusalem by way of the Mount of Olives, and it was not unknown to those who also describe the temple site.
(d) But for his refutation out of his own mouth Marcion says, 'It came to pass on one of those days, as he taught in the temple, they sought to lay hands on him and were afraid,'171 as we read in next paragraph, 54.
(e) How he got from Jericho to the temple will be learned from the journey itself and the length of the road. But this should make it plain that the crook concealed what happened on the road, and what the Saviour himself said in the temple before this saying,172 I mean (that he said), 'My house shall be called an house of prayer'173 and so on, as the prophecy runs.

stephan huller

My opinion is that we can't have a 'tout comprendre' about the 'original gospel' or the 'original writings of Paul.' They're gone, lost forever.

aa5874

In the Gospels, Jesus is the Son of God who manifested himself in the Flesh. The Epistles of the Canon do NOT promote the Heresy that Jesus the son of God did NOT come in the flesh.

You seem not to understand Greek, Roman and Jewish Mythology. The God of the Jews, Satan, the devil, the Angel Gabriel and the Holy Ghost were considered figures of history in antiquity whether or not they were on earth.

The very same thing applies to Jesus of the NT, the Son of God who manifested himself in the Flesh and was crucified under Pilate in Jerusalem, resurrected and ascended in a cloud.

The Jesus of the Canon, the Son of God, came to earth in the Flesh.

1 Peter 4:1 KJV2 John 1:7 KJV [u]1 Timothy 3:16 KJV/u] Galatians 4:4 KJV Hebrews 5

Sheshbazzar

All part of the mythology.

EarlDoherty

All of this diversity seems to come from the late 2nd century and later. And I have no difficulty with seeing the Marcionite versions of the epistles as having significant differences from the orthodox line that we have inherited (how that diversity came about exactly is impossible to be sure, but I suspect it was because Marcion made certain changes and deletions). But I cannot see what you think this proves. We cannot tell from our inherited versions what the Marcionite line was in any reliable detail, and certainly not to be able to declare that the original Paulines reflected a faith in a supernatural Jesus who came to earth. That is simply back-reading the Marcionite philosophy and interpretation of Jesus into a pre-Marcionite phase of the documents, and I see no justification for doing so.

If the original Paulines (whatever and whenever they were) had a Jesus coming to earth, then we would see clear signs of that in our inherited versions. Because who would have cut them out? Certainly not Marcion. Certainly not the proto-orthodox Church of Rome in the mid 2nd century. But our inherited versions do not present us with a Jesus on earth, or ever on earth. (Nor does Hebrews, or the rest of the epistolary corpus.)

Therefore, to the extent that we can deduce anything, we can deduce that the epistolary originals did not present a Jesus come to earth. Commentators like Clement are dealing with versions which have passed through the meat grinder of the second century with all its competing pictures of Jesus and the great struggle between orthodox literalism and gnosticism. What his copies or commentaries may present cannot penetrate in any reliable way back beyond that meat grinder, whereas the orthodox versions do enjoy some feasibility as pointing back to pre-2nd century originals. If even the orthodox redaction of the epistles could not insert any Gospel storyline or even delete all the indicators that Jesus was NOT incarnated to earth, how can we deduce, let alone assume, that some earlier phase represented by the epistles did in fact involve such things? The epistles don't have to be monolithic. But if even in their present state they present no Jesus on earth, there are no grounds for assuming that they once did.

Every passage save one which "aa" so vociferously and repeatedly presents as his "argument" forces an earthly reading on words and phrases in the text which do not have to mean any such thing, and that includes Romans 1:3. I have pointed out that this information comes from scripture, not history, as verse 2 clearly states, and that others are "seed of David" without being physical descendants. That "save one" is of course "born of woman" in Gal. 4:4 which aa trumpets as though it is the Second Coming of salvation.

But there are a lot of problems with that phrase (and its companion "born under the Law"). I won't argue them in detail here, but many have pointed out that the statement is redundant, has no purpose within the context of the passage, and actually works against it. The verb ginomai is not the normal word for "born" (that's gennao), and is never used of anyone else but Christ by Paul here and in Romans 1:3. Everywhere else that he or any other epistle writer speaks of someone being born, it is always gennao. In the gospels even Jesus is "born" using "gennao" (or tikto). So why, if it were authentic, did Paul use that different verb ginomai?

But is it authentic? I discuss this at length in JNGNM. Bart Ehrman has pointed out that later scribes had their ink-stained fingers all over this phrase, changing the verb. Although it cannot be demonstrated through manuscripts, this suggests that it could have been previously scribally inserted for the same reasons that it was later tinkered with. And we can deduce from Tertullian that Marcion's copy did not contain it. (Whether this is because his original did not have it, or he excised cannot be said for sure, but at least we have evidence that it wasn't there.) I just wish that aa, before giving us his broken-record list of passages ad infinitum, would at least take cognizance of the uncertainties involved and the mythicist handling of such passages.

Earl Doherty

sotto voce

It's perfectly obvious why he did that. He was trying to convey what he considered the humility of Jesus, here, as elsewhere, such as Php 2:5-8:

'Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself.' NIV

There is nothing very humble about the biological fact of birth, but there was ultimate humility needed, in Paul's view, for deity to become human. There is nothing humble about living under moral law, and being tested 'as we are'; unless one is deity. So there are 'problems' here only for those who have problems with deity taking on human form, living under law and fulfilling it, so making atonement possible— 'to redeem those under law'. That anyone can say that this is redundant simply proves that some modern 'scholars' need to start school.

aa5874

Again, your claims are horribly erroneous. Most Scholars, your own Peers, Reject your reading of the Epistles.

And further, you cannot ever establish that the Epistle to the Hebrews was composed in the 1st century, and you cannot establish that it was composed Before the Jesus story was known.


You do NOT really understand the NT and do NOT understand that the Jesus story is the foundation of Christianity--Not the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Your very first error is that you read things into the Epistle Hebrews that are not there.

1. Nowhere it is found that the Epistle Hebrews was composed BEFORE the Jesus story was known.

2. There is NO denial in the Epistle Hebrews that Jesus, the Son of God, did NOT come in the Flesh.


You simply do NOT understand that the Epistle Hebrews is Canonised with the stories that Jesus, the Son of God, born of a Ghost and Virgin, was crucified under Pilate in Jerusalem and was delivered up After a trial with the Sanhedrin.

If the Epistle Hebrews was an Heretical writing then it would be expected that it would have been rejected just as the writings of other so-called Heretics were rejected.

In any event, your argument that Epistle Hebrews a Canonised writing does not admit that Jesus, the Son of God, came in the Flesh is wholly erroneous because it is actually found in the very Epistle.

Hebrews 5 If the author of the Epistle Hebrews did NOT claim Jesus the Son of God came in the Flesh then based on the author of Epistle John THEN the Epistle Hebrews is NOT the Foundation of Christianity but the Foundation of the ANTI-CHRIST.

2 John 1:7 KJV