Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 08-09-2011, 10:26 PM

Saadia Gaon the first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Arabic, and considered the founder of Judeo-Arabic literature wrote a response to a treatise associated with a certain 'Hiwi' of Balkh, Khorasan (now located in Afghanistan). The text called 'a Book of Questions' or a 'Book of Two Hundred Questions' was one of the earliest rational critics of the Bible.

I think I am one of the first people to take a second look at Hiwi Al-Balkhi and wonder if the book associated with is in fact, the Marcionite 'Antitheses.' The reason for this is simple - the Marcionites are always associated with snakes from the time of Polycarp's 'firstborn of Satan' (= the snake) down through to Theodoret's puzzling equation of Marcionites with the Ophites. What immediately struck me - and was already confirmed by Judah Rosenthal is that Hiwi (חיוי) can easily and obviously connected to the Aramaic, Syriac and Arabic words for viper or serpent. Indeed the problem for most of the scholars who have studied Hiwi is that they have only stopped at saying that Hiwi was 'like' Marcion because they were familiar with all the snake references in the tradition. Here's another for good measure - "Our heretic must now cease to borrow poison from the Jew — “the asp,” as the adage runs, “from the viper” — and henceforth vomit forth the virulence of his disposition." [Tertullian, Against Marcion 3.8]

About one sixth of the original book of 'questions' associated with this heretical snake has been preserved in the rabbinic literature dating to tenth century Persia. Could it be that we have rediscovered the Marcionite 'Antitheses'?

http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/20...questions.html

stephan huller · 08-10-2011, 02:27 PM

For the lazy (or unwilling) here are the list of questions or objections to the Jewish scriptures raised in Hiwi's original report according to Davidson's work:

Quote:

A. THE QUESTIONS DEDUCED FROM OUR TEXT

1. Why did God withhold the Tree of Life from Adam? (1-4)
2. Why did God accept Abel's gift and reject that of Cain? (5)
3. Why did God ask Cain where Abel was? (6)
4. Why did not God save the life of Abel ? (7-9)
5. Why did God make man liable to suffering? (10, 11)
6. Why does not man live forever? (12-15)
7. Why was not man created holy and pure? (16-18)
8. Why has God implanted evil in man, and has not freed him from the Evil Yezer? (19, 20)
9. God seems to have regretted that He created man. (20, 21)
10. Since God blessed men with the power to subdue the earth, why did He destroy them afterward? (22, 23)
11. Why did not God rest from inflicting punishment? (24)
12. Why were the earth and all the animals destroyed, together with man, in the flood? (25)
13. Why did God save Noah? (26, 27)
14. Why should blood of animals be acceptable to God as an atonement? (28, 29)
15. Why should God have feared that the builders of the Tower of Babel would wage war against Him? (31-34)
16. Why has God chosen the Jewish people as His own portion and given the other nations into the care of the angels? (35-40)
17. Is not circumcision the same as mutilation? (41)
18. Did not God change the name of Abram to Abraham that it may act as a charm? (42)
19. Are not the verses in Gen. 22, 17, and Deut. 7, 7, contradictory to each other? (43)
20. What is the meaning of the vision of Abraham? (44-46)
21. Why did God inflict the Egyptian servitude upon the offspring of Abraham? (47-49)
22. If Ishmael had not been born would not the Jews have suffered less? (50)
23. Is not the Godhead represented as three? (50)
24. Is not God represented as eating and accepting bribes?(51-56)
25. Wherein was Sodom more iniquitous than other cities that it should have met with such severe punishment? (57, 58)
26. Were not the descendants of Lot forbidden to be admitted in the assembly of the Lord, because of the incest in which their first ancestors were born? (59, 60)
27. Was it not foolish of Isaac to yield himself as a sacrifice? (61, 62)
28. Why should God have needed to put Abraham to test, since everything is known unto Him? (63, 64)
29. Why has God made the children of Esau more prosperous than the children of Jacob? (65-68)
30. Would not the tribes have lived in peace among themselves if they all had one mother as they had one father? (69)
31. Why was Jacob subjected to so much suffering? (70-73)

B. THE QUESTIONS RECORDED IN THE THIRD CHAPTER OF SAADIA'S PHILOSOPHIC WORK NOT FOUND IN OUR TEXT

32. Are not many commandments in the Bible stated without giving a reason for them? (1)
33. Are not the verses in 2 Sam. 24, 7, and 1 Chron. 21, 5 contradictory to each other? (2)
34. Does not the Bible contain also impossible statements? (3)
35. How is it that the Creator made His light to dwell among men and left the angels without light? (5)
36. What need has God for tabernacle and curtain, for burning candles and sound of song, for the show bread and the smell of incense, for the offering of flower and wine, oil and fruit? (6)
37. How is it that the ashes of the red heifer make unclean people clean and vice versa? (8)
38. How was it that a sacrifice was offered on the Day of Atonement to Azazel when that is the name of a demon? (9)
39. How could the breaking of the head of the heifer atone for the people when they committed no crime? (10)
40. Does not the Bible omit the mention of reward and punishment in the next world? (12)

C. QUESTIONS FOUND IN OTHER SOURCES

41. Concerning the pre-existence of the world, (1)
42. If Adam had not answered where he was God would not have found him. (2)
43. The Israelites crossed the Red Sea without any miracle, because Moses knew the ebb and flow of the sea and the Egyptians did not. (3)
44. The Manna was not a miraculous food but the Persian Tarjabin found in those parts of the world. (4)
45. When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai his face was so shrunken from long fasting that the people were afraid to look at him and therefore he was obliged to put on a veil. (7)
46. Since God first promised to give Palestine to the children of Israel, how is it that he swore afterward (Num. 14, 23) that He would not let them enter into it? (8)
47. The verses in 1 Kings 7, 13-14, and 2 Chron., 2, 13 contradict each other. (10)

RParvus · 08-10-2011, 06:09 PM

Stephan,

Another candidate source would be the “Syllogisms” of the ex-Marcionite Apelles, for some of these objections seem to be aimed at exposing contradictions and falsehoods within the Old Testament itself. According to pseudo-Tertullian the “Syllogisms” sought “to prove that whatever Moses has written about God is not true, but is false” (“Against All Heresies,” 6). From the “On Paradise” of Ambrose it is known that the “Syllogisms” consisted of at least thirty-eight volumes and he gives a few examples from volume 38. One of the examples seems to match up with #1 in Davidson’s list. Apelles wrote: “The tree of knowledge of good and evil is a good work of the Creator, since God knows good and evil…. If then it is good to have knowledge of good and evil, and the knowledge that God has is good, he who refuses it to men does not seem to refuse rightly.”

stephan huller · 08-11-2011, 01:59 PM

It might have been the same work - i.e. that Apelles was the author of the Antitheses - and that later Church Fathers attributed to the 'Marcionites' as such and thereby 'Marcion.'

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08-09-2011, 10:26 PM	#1
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Hiwi Al Balkhi 'Book of Questions' and the Marcionite 'Antitheses' Saadia Gaon the first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Arabic, and considered the founder of Judeo-Arabic literature wrote a response to a treatise associated with a certain 'Hiwi' of Balkh, Khorasan (now located in Afghanistan). The text called 'a Book of Questions' or a 'Book of Two Hundred Questions' was one of the earliest rational critics of the Bible. I think I am one of the first people to take a second look at Hiwi Al-Balkhi and wonder if the book associated with is in fact, the Marcionite 'Antitheses.' The reason for this is simple - the Marcionites are always associated with snakes from the time of Polycarp's 'firstborn of Satan' (= the snake) down through to Theodoret's puzzling equation of Marcionites with the Ophites. What immediately struck me - and was already confirmed by Judah Rosenthal is that Hiwi (חיוי) can easily and obviously connected to the Aramaic, Syriac and Arabic words for viper or serpent. Indeed the problem for most of the scholars who have studied Hiwi is that they have only stopped at saying that Hiwi was 'like' Marcion because they were familiar with all the snake references in the tradition. Here's another for good measure - "Our heretic must now cease to borrow poison from the Jew — “the asp,” as the adage runs, “from the viper” — and henceforth vomit forth the virulence of his disposition." [Tertullian, Against Marcion 3.8] About one sixth of the original book of 'questions' associated with this heretical snake has been preserved in the rabbinic literature dating to tenth century Persia. Could it be that we have rediscovered the Marcionite 'Antitheses'? http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/20...questions.html

08-10-2011, 06:09 PM	#3
RParvus Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: New England Posts: 53	Stephan, Another candidate source would be the “Syllogisms” of the ex-Marcionite Apelles, for some of these objections seem to be aimed at exposing contradictions and falsehoods within the Old Testament itself. According to pseudo-Tertullian the “Syllogisms” sought “to prove that whatever Moses has written about God is not true, but is false” (“Against All Heresies,” 6). From the “On Paradise” of Ambrose it is known that the “Syllogisms” consisted of at least thirty-eight volumes and he gives a few examples from volume 38. One of the examples seems to match up with #1 in Davidson’s list. Apelles wrote: “The tree of knowledge of good and evil is a good work of the Creator, since God knows good and evil…. If then it is good to have knowledge of good and evil, and the knowledge that God has is good, he who refuses it to men does not seem to refuse rightly.”

08-11-2011, 01:59 PM	#4
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	It might have been the same work - i.e. that Apelles was the author of the Antitheses - and that later Church Fathers attributed to the 'Marcionites' as such and thereby 'Marcion.'

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