For what it is worth, here is my take on some of the points you made from which may be concluded that Apelles did not write John.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RParvus
1. Refers to the Law as “your Law”(e.g. Jn. 8:17). This hardly seems a respectful way to refer to it.
|
Very respectful in recognizing the law but since Jesus was not a Jew it was not his law.
Quote:
2. He rejects as fictitious the divine rest on which Sabbath observance was based: “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (Jn. 5:17). These words deny that God ever rested — on the seventh day of creation or otherwise.
|
God doesn't rest nor does night exist for God and here night does not exist for Jesus who now is one with the Father. That evening follows is evidence of alienation from the Father until the twain shall be one again.
Quote:
3. He rejects the idea that God appeared and spoke to the Jews, through Moses or otherwise: “You have never heard his voice (the Father’s) nor seen his form” (Jn. 5:37),
|
Not sure about that but the allusion here is that it is wrong to search the scriptures to seek eternal life if a direct link with the Father is needed to have that life.
Quote:
4. He rejects as fictitious all Jewish claims regarding ascensions whether of Enoch, Moses, Elijah, or Isaiah: “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who came down from heaven” (Jn. 3:13). It should be noted that Origen specifically attributes this teaching to Apelles: “Apelles, Marcion’s disciple, who became the founder of a certain sect, and treated the writings of the Jews as fables, says that Jesus is the only one who has visited the human race” (Against Celsus, 5:54)
|
The firstborn always comes from heaven because it is the only begotten son of the father here reborn and now called Jesus who cannot be a Jew because there never was nor ever will be Jews in heaven. To visit the human race is not possible because the human condition is merely an attribute of man and not a race at all. That Jesus was among humans is only so he could die on the cross that he carried which is made known with "it is finished."
Quote:
5. The Johannine Jesus rejects any witness to himself as the Messiah by John the Baptist: “I do not receive witness from man” (Jn. 5:34).
|
Just inner directed with mandate from the Father to work out his own salvation as an individual.
Quote:
6. In fact, he rejects all the Old Testament heroes: “All who came before me were thieves and brigands” (Jn. 10:8). Moses should be numbered among the thieves. According to
Apelles it was a deceptive fiery angel who appeared to Moses and deceived him. Moses, at the bidding of the fiery angel, “plundered” the Egyptians (Exodus 3:21– 22 and 12:35 – 36). Abraham too should be numbered among the thieves and brigands for, according to Jesus, these do not just steal, they also “kill and destroy” (Jn. 10:10). In chapter 8 Jesus acknowledges that his hearers are the descendants of Abraham. The proof, he tells them, is “you are doing the works of your father” (Jn. 8:41). The only father mentioned up to that point in the passage is Abraham. And Jesus specifies the works he is referring to: “You seek to kill me because my word has no place in you” (Jn. 8:37). That is to say, just as Abraham was willing to kill his own son at the behest of the “god” of the Old Testament, so the hearers of Jesus, to carry out the wishes of the same deceiver, sought to kill Jesus.
|
Moses was wrong to part the water to get into the promised land because he could not face the Egytians in the final rout (par-ousia) which left him stranded in the wilderness without the cross to be crucified on.
Religion must crucify Jesus and the chief priests were willing to convict Jesus by their law while Pilate, who was not a Jew, looked at 'the man' and could find no case against the man as man (repeated three times so we can't hardly miss it).
Quote:
7. In contrast to the Synoptics, the last supper that the Johannine Jesus eats with his disciples is not a Passover meal. This again is understandable if an Apellean was the author of the Fourth Gospel. Apelles would not have used what he considered a fable (i.e the Passover) as a foreshadowing of the eucharist; and he certainly would not have portrayed Jesus as presiding over a Passover meal.
|
It is not Passover meal. It is the real thing of the immitation that the Passover meal is trying to prevent . . . and therefore the eucharist
is the bread of life. Manna is the immitation and thus not bread of life which would be why it never sustained anyone in the past nor ever will in he future.
Quote:
8. Apelles doctrine regarding the flesh of Jesus also makes an appearance in the Fourth Gospel. We have seen that Jesus, according to Apelles, did not derive his flesh from Mary in any way. The gospel author makes this clear when he has Jesus at Cana say to his putative mother: “What is there (in common) between us?” This also explains why the Johannine Jesus does not consider himself to be Jewish. He tells the Jews “your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died” (Jn. 6:49). Notice he does not say “our” ancestors.
|
At this time Jesus needed to transform his own mind which is what the transformation of water into wine was all about and could not be influenced by Mary who was the old wine =new wine into new skins. So the wine that Jesus made represents the second half of life once we have learned to walk on water and so convert it into wine.
Not exactly but he is telling them that he is not like their ancestors who ate manna in the desert and died nonetheless. He is one of them although not himself a Jew. He is a new creation and Judaism is part of his burden.
Quote:
9. Even the omissions in the Fourth Gospel point to Apelles. The original version must have had an Ascension scene for Jesus very clearly intimates this by saying to his disbelieving disciples: “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” (Jn. 6:62). But Apelles’ version of the Ascension was unacceptable to the proto-orthodox church. Apelles, as we have seen, held that Jesus, while ascending, restored the elements of his body to the starry regions. The proto-orthodox editor of the Fourth Gospel appears to have suppressed this unacceptable scene and transferred the pre-Ascension discourses (ch. 14-17) to the last supper. This transferral is the reason for the inconsistencies that have always been noticed in those discourses.
|
Nothing needed to be restored for Jesus to ascent because heaven is not up there but in his own mind where reason is placed subservient to intuition.
05-18-2008, 07:44 PM
Chili-isms split from Apelles thread
