Porphyry said
It sort of makes sense. The God of the OT commands some pretty troubling stuff, so if you start with the premise that God is good, it isn’t too hard to see how someone could conclude the the God portrayed in the the OT is not the real God. I guess I mean that, it depends on what commitments you take as the foundation of your theology.
When you look at statements like “Your father is the devil” [John 8:44] or “No one can serve two masters” [Matthew 6:24], it becomes incredibly clear why Marcion arrived at his “Two Gods” theory.
We are on the same page here. Help me out to develop this thread.
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- Their Father (The Demiurge): A lower, tribal god who governs by law, accommodates human hardness, and compromises on morals by allowing divorce. [** you do not have permission to see this link **]
- Our Father (Jesus’s Father): The supreme God of absolute love and perfection, who demands total heart-transformation (“from the beginning”) and does not compromise with sin. [** you do not have permission to see this link **]
about Marcion from his critics and enemies
Our only window into Marcion’s mind came from the furious rants of his bitter orthodox enemies: Tertullian of Carthage (writing around 207 CE in Adversus Marcionem) and Epiphanius of Salamis
sberry said
the idea of a second god being over the overly-just god who created the world,
Jesus never mentions a second god.
Mark, Matthew, Luke, John- none of them mention a second god.
There isn’t a second God; it’s just God and the Devil. When gnostics refer to the Creator, Demiurge, the God of the Old Testament, the God of the Jews, what they mean by this is the Devil. I’d suggest to read as much as you can about gnostics before putting rookie questions.
sberry said
as neither Paul nor the Gospels (nor Jesus to the extent we have evidence) ever said anything of the sort?
Didn’t they? There is plenty of of subject matter right there.
Jesus telling the Pharisees that their Father is the Devil, not God in John 8:42-44
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John the Baptist calling Pharisees “sons of the viper” in Matthew, which clear reference to the Snake in the Eden, calling them, thus, son of the Devil; Jesus repeats this in his woes:
Matthew 23:33
33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
These are just two that I remember from the canon gospels; you’ll find more in the gnostic ones. Surely you can find more with an AI search.
sberry said
Jesus/Christ was Jewish so to be Christian you must be Jewish first.
Jesus was not Jewish. Jesus was a Galilean, a region and a people different of the actual Jews. It was almost always hold distinct. When writers (like Josephus) would mention Judea, they would mention Galilee alongside with it. Christianity very probably extended first to people of jewish ancestry, specifically because the Temple was destroyed and their priesthood class (the Pharisees and Sadducees) were corrupt. See the parable of the fig tree. Therefore, they need a Messiah to cleanse the Temple and bring some sort of peace. People didn’t need to be Jewish to become a Christian, in fact, that’s precisely the point, people could become directly Christians since the Judaism was obsolete/decrepit. Jesus destroyed the [jewish] Temple and he rebuilt the [Christian] Temple. Jesus was an Israelite. The Jews were just one tribe from Israel.
I would also avoid to call God “jewish”, see:
Exodus 3:6
“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Moses, who was allegedly the writer, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob – none of these were Jews. These people are better called Hebrews, but even this term might be incorrect. They were speaking Hebrew. There is this confusion, I think intentionally by many, that these were just ancient Jews or just Jews of a different period. But the ancient Jews weren’t even speaking Hebrew anymore; they were speaking Aramaic, which suggest different ethnicities in the area, especially the dominant ones.
As well, the Old Testament is not “jewish”. It’s not the “jewish” Bible. People who say this again they intentionally push an agenda. What they want to say is “the bible that was used by the jews” but in any case it was not “the bible written by the jews”. It was written by Hebrews in a different language of theirs. There is no “jewish Bible” created by the jews; the jews actually had an oral tradition; Jesus was scolding them precisely that they circumvented the hebrew law with their jewish traditions. Jesus was a restorationist, he was calling for a return to the religion of the Hebrews, the original religion.
It’s like when Bart distinguishes John from the Synoptics – if Jesus really said he was God, why did the synoptics omit that?
Well, because Bart is lying and distorts the truth. In the synoptics Jesus does say he is God. The apostles know this. The writers of the gospels know this. The Christianity of that time, when these gospels were written, already know this and accepts this. What Bart tries to do is to misinterpret and distort the truth that Jesus never said he was God – he has a couple of articles and a couple of podcasts on this idea. He tries to separate Jesus from his divine attribute, in order to make him look like an earthly human, a failed prophet. I know all his tricks. I’m reading him like an open book.
Similarly, Docetism makes sense – he just appeared. No big stretch.
No, it doesn’t. Jesus was speaking of a Kingdom of God (Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew) that was based on the restoration of Creation. The souls of the righteous don’t go to heaven (actually heaven), as we might believe today; the Heaven is not in heaven. The souls of the righteous would be resurrected in body, their bodies restored, and live for ever, with Jesus as King, on earth, but this time, the earth how it supposed to be, how it was before of the Fall. A renewed restored earth; a perfect earth. Jesus has resurrected in body. It’s literally the role model for it. It’s the symbol of what he was speaking about.
Docetism failed because of that: it literally goes against the original message of Christianity. In fact, gnosticism failed almost immediately because of the same reason. Because there were way too many hints in the gospel where Jesus was acknowledging the Law, the 5 books of Moses.
Bart says Marcion says “Jesus had nothing to do with the Law, since he represented a different God from the one who gave the Law” – well that is not only the opposite of what the gospels say, but also is totally unsupported by anything that we have now. “The proto-orthodox guys censored it” is all we have to go on?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bart conducts one of his lies part of his agenda. Not sure why, I would need to study in order to answer, but I’m busy right now.
The question was never about whether Christians needed to follow the Law.
It was about how much of the Jewish Law did Christians need to follow.
Things like circumcision, eating kosher, and things like that.
People still needed to love God, love their neighbor, not murder, not commit adultery, not kidnap, not steal…
There is a good deal of the Jewish Law that was carried over and practiced in Christianity.
The question was never about whether Christians needed to follow the Law.
Well there was clearly some controversy amongst early Christians. And it seems pretty obvious that the Apostle Paul and the writer of the Gospel of Matthew did not agree on this issue. As the church became increasingly dominated by Gentile converts, Paul’s view won the day. Subsequently Matthew has been reinterpreted to mean the opposite of what it actually says, that Christians must follow the Torah even more stringently than the Pharisees. Strangely, “fulfill” has come to mean ” do away with”!
Stephen said
The question was never about whether Christians needed to follow the Law.
Well there was clearly some controversy amongst early Christians. And it seems pretty obvious that the Apostle Paul and the writer of the Gospel of Matthew did not agree on this issue. As the church became increasingly dominated by Gentile converts, Paul’s view won the day. Subsequently Matthew has been reinterpreted to mean the opposite of what it actually says, that Christians must follow the Torah even more stringently than the Pharisees. Strangely, “fulfill” has come to mean ” do away with”!
There are two issues here:
One is about how much Jewish Christians should continue to follow all of the Jewish Laws as opposed to Gentile Christians. Should, or is it okay for Jewish Christians to continue eating kosher and things like that? Perhaps one of the questions might be if Jewish and Gentile Christians are going to eat together, who is going to do the cooking? Wouldn’t it be okay for Gentile Christians to eat kosher once in a while when they are having a meal with Jewish Christians?
The other issue is about following the Law more stringently than the Pharisees. Bart has mentioned this in some of his talks. He states that Jesus said that people should take the Law to an even higher level. The Law says, “Do not murder”; Jesus says, “Don’t even get angry”. The Law says, “Don’t commit adultery”; Jesus says, “Don’t even look at a person that way”. The Law says, “an eye for an eye”; Jesus says, “turn the other cheek”. There are some other things like this that take the Law to a higher level, and perhaps one could say make it more “stringent” or complete.
Helen Young said
Bart has mentioned this in some of his talks. He states that Jesus said that people should take the Law to an even higher level. The Law says, “Do not murder”; Jesus says, “Don’t even get angry”. The Law says, “Don’t commit adultery”; Jesus says, “Don’t even look at a person that way”. The Law says, “an eye for an eye”; Jesus says, “turn the other cheek”. There are some other things like this that take the Law to a higher level, and perhaps one could say make it more “stringent” or complete.
Well Bart is lying like always. Jesus never said to take the Law to an even higher level, he said to respect the Law how it was intended originally. It was about restoration, not amplification. Jesus was calling out the Jews for their hypocritic, ad literam, legalistic interpretation of the Law.
Thus, the only conclusion that one can have is that the recent Jewish converts did not need to observe legalism. Jesus claimed an autonomy and independence of the a) established priesthood class, the Pharisees and Sadducees, and b) their Temple. Keep kosher, but not really, because Christians now worship God in faith, not in laws. The Laws had a deeper message about faith, not about the body. Jesus was making a revival of the Hebraic religion.
Bart says that the Matthew’s gospel is “the most jewish” of all – that’s a damn lie. Matthew’s gospel is literally about a new priesthood class replacing the Pharisees and the dismissing of the Temple. It’s the most anti-jewish of all. It literally calls them the “sons of the Viper” (the snake from Eden which was identified with the Devil).
Look carefully to pictures with rabbis praying with tefillin on their heads (that black cube contains small Torah scrolls and is worn during prayer) and on their hands. This is what is based on:
18 Therefore you must fix these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, so that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.
** you do not have permission to see this link ** and try to understand this verses and tell me honestly that this was the exact intended message of the Torah writer…
That’s why I believe we must distinguish clearly between Hebrews and Jews. The Hebrews were writing with a deeper meaning, giving advice in how to behave, while the Jews read their scriptures literally and made charms based on them, lol. Such clumsiness and naivety. It’s like modern Indians when they were worshiping the ** you do not have permission to see this link **. They start worship things in a legalistic/idolater/magical way that they don’t understand and were part of a different more advanced culture.
Stephen said:
If no one responds to his vile spew eventually he’ll tire and go somewhere else.
Stephen, let me commend you on your word choice – vile spew.
Are there any two words that better describe what we have unfortunately been seeing ever since he appeared? I think not.
Once we all ignore him, and he realizes that his publicity campaign has, well, not been the success he imagined (How could one even anticipate that? Why would people not be drawn to the blog of someone seething with such hatred?), he’ll scurry off.
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