stephan huller

I am writing about this at my blog as we speak (my dog keeps waking me up to take her outside to go to the bathroom but nothing comes of it). Rather than direct everyone to my blog (I hate obvious attempts at drawing traffic) let's develop it into a simple formula.

Let me start by answering your objection that I just throw things out there and sees what sticks. That's what I think these forums and blogs are there for. I'm not writing a paper with a set position. I see myself as collaborating with peers to come to a better understanding of the evidence.

1. Philo says that there are two powers described in the Pentateuch - a power of mercy (theos) and judgement (kurios).
2. Irenaeus accuses Marcion of dividing the godhead in the exact some way (AH 4.25.1 - 5)
3. the LXX translates El Shaddai as 'your god' in Genesis 17.1
4. Philo identifies this god as 'the Good God'
5. Clement who certain knew this passage from Philo identifies the figure which Philo describes as the 'Good God' as 'his Instructor' (= Jesus)
6. Clement elsewhere identifies the members of the Jesus cult as 'chrestoi'
7. while it is impossible to know how the Marcionites developed their own interest in Jesus Chrestos we know that they had a strong presence in Alexandria and had an epistle of Paul to the Alexandrians.
8. When Clement of Alexandria references the Marcionites he is clearly not mere recycling things that other people said about them but has some first hand knowledge of the sect.

Based on all of this evidence I conclude that:

a) the Alexandrian Jewish 'Good God' is likely identical with the Alexandrian Christian Jesus
b) the way Clement connects Genesis 17 with Genesis 32 (i.e. that Jesus was both El Shaddai and the figure who gave Jacob the name Israel) Chrestos is developed from yashar
c) I would assume that Alexandrian Christians identified themselves as chrestoi because of some special association they had with the power of mercy (= the Good God/theos) who was also called Jesus for reason's I don't fully understand.
d) because Irenaeus tells us that Marcionites divided the godhead in the very manner of Philo (i.e. mercy and justice) it is likely that their 'Good God' was related with Philo's terminology (how could there be two powers of mercy in the Marcionite system?)
e) because the nature of Clement's statements about Marcion (they shared a gospel and Clement only accuses the Marcion of being a Platonist who went two far with his Platonizing tendencies) one would expect to find many affinities between the contemporary Alexandrian Christianity of Mark and Marcionitism

This is where my hypothesis stands today based on the evidence I have amassed. I tend to think that the Therapeutae hypothesis developed by Eusebius may not be complete bullshit. In other words, that Alexandrian Christianity was somehow developed from a Qumran-like community in Egypt who called themselves chrestoi in the same way the Qumran sectarians called themselves yesharim. My highly speculative guess would be that the yesharim were associated with a divine figure called Israel or some such name in the same way the Alexandrians were associated with Chrestos.

The bottom line for me at least is that the Marcionites are unlikely to have called Jesus Chrestos if they know Philo gave this name to the power of Elohim/theos in the Pentateuch. How could Marcion have been ignorant of Alexandrian Judaism given what Irenaeus and Clement tell us about Marcion? Again I think modern scholarship has uncritically developed the hostility in the Patristic writings.

The Marcionite 'other god' was likely no more than a perpetuation of the Philonic notion that there were two powers in the known heaven AND a hidden Father in some supernal realm. This understanding was normative in Alexandria but heretical everywhere else apparently.

Got to get some sleep before I go to work ...

Duvduv

As a witness for early Christianity from a historical perspective Dialogue with Trypho is not good, i.e. in chapters 7 and 8.

He tells the story of the old man at the sea with whom he discusses philosophy and who mentions the Christ.
Now if Justin was a teenager or in his early twenties, say around the year 120, the old man would have been born in the year 50 or 60, or even earlier.

Isn't it strange that Justin has nothing to report from the old as to how he find out about the Christ (which the old man doesn't describe anyway)??

In all of that discussion, the old man never mentioned any great people who he knew who in their youth had seen the historical Christ? Not a single name? The old man doesn't mention a single text written by anyone about the Christ, and simply expresses admiration for the "prophets" who are neither identified with a location or a background, i.e. Jewish prophets?

The old man said that the ancient prophets preceded the philosophers (who he does not identify either), something which is not true.

Justin doesn't ask him a single question about where the old man found out about the Christ, who told him about it, etc. The prophets "glorified God" and made known the Christ. From this on its own it definitely doesn't sound as if this old man was talking to Justin about the historical Christ of less than a century earlier in Judea and the Galilee. It does sound like he is talking about a non-physical being.

In either case, it is amazing that Justin, who is trying to prove the truth of his belief in Christ ("Take my word for it") relying mostly on Hebrew scriptures here and in the Apology, himself admits in these two chapters of Trypho that he knows virtually nothing about the Christ, and apparently neither does the old man, except that both seem to only know of a Christ from the prophets, who as mentioned are not identified.

In Chapter 9 Justin says he does not believe in any fables? So then what does he use as evidence in his dialogue? Quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures. He doesn't laud any apostles, no sacred texts. Only much, much later in chapter 100 is the term "memoirs of his apostles" used with a couple of aphorisms that are also found in Matthew and Luke. Considering how important Christian texts are, the fact that the vast preponderance of references are from Hebrew scriptures is significant.

The OLD MAN never made reference to a single aphorism in the name of the Christ figure.

Then in Chapter 10 Trypho responds by saying that he knows that precepts in the so-called gospel are so great that no one can keep them.
Now, does this make any sense coming from a Jew who follows so many commandments and teachings of the Torah? WHAT gospel is he referring to? Justin doesn't say. WHICH gospel has "precepts" that are difficult to keep? The gospels are stories, they contain no precepts that are difficult to follow compared to someone keeping hundreds of laws.

Like so many other things, this work appears to be a mishmash composite of various writings and interpolations and contradictions.

However, what is of most interest as always is that essentially the old man and Justin know nothing of the life of a historical Christ and the old man says nothing from any texts or in the names of any (unnamed) teachers or apostles, and seems to point to an early sect of believers in a non-physical Christ, whereby Justin became initiated into it via the old man. But this has really nothing to do even with the essentially non-historical Christ of "Paul" or the historical Christ of the gospel stories, or shall we say, the HISTORICAL SETTING of the gospel stories.

If it is much earlier, it is at least pointing to the non-existence of "Paul" or his letters (which of course are never mentioned in Acts either in the fictional story there).

Duvduv

If the writer of Trypho was in the middle of the second century talking of an OLD MAN who he knew several decades earlier, and NEITHER mentions Paul, and then suddenly comes along Irenaeus 30-40 years later and knows all about Paul, something smells very fishy, as I have written before.

Maybe it was a mad race to get "historians" or apologists as close to the Trypho period as possible to save the claim of "Paul" as close to the mid 1st century as possible. And if that wasn't enough the story had to go that MARCION knew about Paul when Justin didn't (whoops).

A couple of others are possible attempts that are even earlier, i.e. Polycarp, Ignatius, etc.

And conveniently the old man has NO NAME either. If Irenaeus and then "Tertullian" weren't placed close to Justin, then Paul would be unknown throughout the second century as well.

It's bad enough he was admitted to have been unknown until the mid 2nd century (Marcion), i.e. almost a century, but then to have that stretch out for another century would stretch the limits of credulity even if there had been 100 pauline letters.......

aa5874

Remarkably the very assumed writers, Tertullian and Irenaeus, who mentioned the Pauline writings, provided bogus information about the dating, authorship, chronology and even contents of the four canonical gospels, Acts of the Apostles and the same Pauline writings.

Duvduv

In that case why would late forgers do such a poor job like that? Surely they were paid to do a good job if they had the NT texts!

aa5874

Answer these questions. Why are there "discrepancies" in the FOUR Canonical Gospels? Why are the so-called Failed prophecies missing from gJohn when it was claimed in the Synoptics that Jesus would come in "this generation"?

Were people PAID to CHANGE the Jesus story?

Duvduv

Good question......UNLESS the various texts came from various sources and were all combined to bring in disparate groups......by which time it was too late to do something about the discrepancies.
But "thankfully" they had Irenaeus back in the "second century" tell us that the 4 contradictory gospels were required.......as a way of making everyone get on the same page.......
The irony is that all the books and apologetics were only good as talking points for a relatively small number of people who could read and write. And look at all the trouble they went to just for them while the masses were illiterate......

aa5874

Why are you implying that if a person could NOT read that they would NOT have known the Jesus stories?

Was it NOT claimed that Paul and the Apostles PREACH the Gospel?

If people actually SAW Jesus crucified before their very eyes then it would NOT really matter if they were illiterate.

Surely the illiterate can HEAR, SEE and TALK.

Duvduv

I mean that if the Roman masses are illiterate all the theological apologetics and other writings of the NT would be useless to them as opposed to the literate minority who they had to rely on.

aa5874

Again, were NOT there Bishops and presbyters who could TALK to the Illiterate? Surely, the Bishops, the Presbyters and evangelists should have PREACHED the Gospel.

We can see the Jesus story was CHANGED in the NT Canon so once there were preachers then the illiterate would have heard the changes in the story.

Illiteracy is of little consequence when people supposedly PREACHED the Gospel.