mountainman

It's got to be up there with the greatest of anti-orthodox Gnostic Jokes. I have listed over 20 of these here, but Toto refers to the list as a dirty laundry list. I am not sure what to make of this.

I may have mentioned this before, more than once, but the classic example of a text that I can think of like this is "The Acts of Peter and the 12 Apostles" which features the appearance of the major figure of Lithargoel, whom the Apostles repeatedly fail to recognise. Despite this, the world's scholarship has convinced itself that the author intended Lithargoel to be the risen Jebus - the physician who dwells "In the City of Nine Gates" - a phrase which is mentioned in the Gita.

I think it was designed to be performed and the OUTWARD superficial appearance of the play was that the Christians in the audience would see Lithargoel as Jesus, but the pagans would see Lithargoel as a physican of Asclepius - the Graeco-Roman healing god whose public hospital system in antiquity Constantine trashed and destroyed with the Asclepian temples, libraries and gymnasia.





The Greek intellectual tradition was suppressed. Skeptical and critical thinking were no longer required. The new and strange monotheistic state cult appeared on the wings of war, and was energetically supported by the Supreme Warlord. Both favors and punishment were about to be dispensed in the name of the Most High Holy Holy Waffle.

Constantine galvanised the empire into accepting Christianity.

Arnaldo Momigliano puts it this way .....

Toto

Mark Goodacre thinks it is based on a confusion between "the cross" and "the crucified one", because of the use of a nomen sacrum.

It's a common phrase - laundry list, not a dirty laundry list.

A laundry list is just a list of unrelated items.

I should stop replying to you.

Sheshbazzar

But what he 'thinks' is not in agreement with what the surviving texts state, and is not even supported by christian 'scholarship' or translations down through the ages.
(and they would have had the most to gain by 'correcting' it if they thought it was any kind of accurate account, or that they could get away with it.
In my view Goodacre's theory just doesn't wash.)
Sorry Toto, knew it wouldn't take much.
But it aligned so well with the suggestion that the Gospels originated as an adversarial insider prank against Pauline cosmic-christ religion.

Solo

I believe, there is much of this going in Mark targetting the Nazorean Petrine traditions. Matthew lashes back sometimes by very clever ripostes, e.g. in the offer to drown Peter - to remind the conceited Paulines they are flesh and blood and thus fallible. Or, in straight up and down mocking of the duo of the crucified 'robbers', Paul and Mark (Simon, really). Mark created a plot of the Zebedees wishing to sit beside Jesus in his messianic 'glory', preparing the paradox of the honorary (self-)crucifixion of the two robbers, on the two sides of Jesus cross, the symbol of the true messianic glory of the suffering servant. The 'robbers' (ληστης) are thinly veiled reference to the 'lawless' (ανομοις) in Isaiah 53:12 (in some later editions of Mark the 'he was numbered with transgressors' was made explicit). Mark here was punning the theological 'lawlessness' of Paul and himself.

To Matthew, the 'imitiation of Christ' mantra was hogwash. There was one Jesus and he belonged to the traditions Matthew spoke for, the traditions of the disciples. So, he ridicules the robbers in making them appear in his own version of the Markan lampoons of the Gerasene demoniacs and Bartimaeus, and adds one of his own : the duo are hinted at as the two donkeys on which Jesus rides to Jerusalem. Inside joke but not one hard to read !

There is a lot of self-mocking in Mark's tale but I do not read the writing as mocking Paul the same way Mark mocks the Petrines. Paul taught that one must have faith in the Spirit. Mark trusts the Spirit absolutely. He knows that if he were 'betray' (or 'deliver up') Jesus by agreeing with the intellect that the Spirit is a manifestation of insanity, which must be abandoned - he would be done for ! Matthew IMHO correctly interprets Mark's midrash of Judas as a self-destructing act. By betraying Jesus, Judas betrays himself. When he comes to the realization he hangs himself.

So, I don't think, the purpose of Mark was to parody Paul's religion. Mark's faith was genuine and sustained him through all his intellectual misgivings. It is just that he couldn't help himself observing that wherever one encounters the idea of God in man, it comes out as outrageous, flakey nonsense, no matter how sincere the confession, no matter how noble and beneficient the intent. To that extent Mark was way more intellectually audacious than Paul.

Best,
Jiri

Cege

If many of Jesus' parables would have actually been considered hilarious in first century Palestine, early commentary on those parables would surely have noted the humor.

Did any one, any where, any time? TIA

Sheshbazzar

If they did, neither they nor their writings long survived the christian fires.
To be found speaking, or being in possession of any such blasphemous heresy would have brought immediate execution.

DCHindley

Perhaps, Toto, we should call this region the "Sub-Loony" realm?

DCH

Solo

It is unlikely there were commentaries on the gospels in the first century. The texts had targeted limited readership, outside of which the allusions and puns would have been meaningless. Later church had a distance from the phenomena of the Spirit. It considered the texts sacred and read them as such, i.e. in awe.

Best,
Jiri

arnoldo

Hippolytus of Rome appeared to have a remarkable sense of humour. In his writing entitled, “Refutation Against All Heresies, (Book VIII,Chpt. IV)” Hippolytus writes in the following section against the doctrine of the Docetae,

Hippolytus' reference to the parable of the “beam” appears to be a wordplay since Docetae (taken from Sokci) is similar to beam (taken from Sokos). Hippolytus continues this humorous argument further by stating that the Docetae not only “appear” to act foolishly but are foolish in reality.

mountainman

Hey arnaldo,

We may understand the humour of Hippolytus by understanding he was a 3rd century heresiologist and his humour was of the 3rd century heresiological kind, which required the existence of both the orthodoxy (US) and the heretics (THEM) in the 3rd century.

The humor resolves to invectives couched in canonical authority like "the mote in the 3rd century orthodox eye, and the massive beam in eye of the 3rd century heretic". This is not humour but simple literary calumny, the characteristic tool of orthodox christian heresiologists ever since "Christian Origins" was fortuitously published by Eusebius in the 4th century.

Q: What form of humour is to be found in the statement "This docetic heretic is foolish!" ?
A: Heresiological.


Best wishes


Pete