I once asked Bart if Jesus was not the new YHWH, the son of El Elyon. This better son than YHWH. Less cruel.
“Yahweh was one of the sons of El Elyon; and Jesus in the Gospels was described as a Son of El Elyon, God Most High. In other words, he was described as a heavenly being. Thus the annunciation narrative has the term ‘Son of the Most High’ (Luke 1:32) and the demoniac recognized his exorcist as ‘Son of the Most High God’ (Mark 5:7). Jesus is not called the son of Yahweh nor the son of the Lord, but he is called Lord. We also know that whoever wrote the New Testament translated the name Yahweh by Kyrios, Lord … This suggests that the Gospel writers, in using the terms ‘Lord’ and ‘Son of God Most High’, saw Jesus as an angel figure, and gave him their version of the sacred name Yahweh.” G. Widegren M. Barker.
Bart said that he was not convinced by this proposal because El Elyon does not appear in the Bible and Kyrios is an ambiguous word. According to Bart, for all early Christians, Jesus was always the son of YHWH. Only Marcion invented his Alien God.
Yesterday I got my hands on Deuteronomy 32:8 in the version from Dead Sea Scrolls and we have El Elyon, the father of YHWH.
So Windengren and Barker were right and Bart was wrong.
Both Luke and Mark treated Jesus as YHWH’s younger brother.
Bart’s theses in How Jesus Became a God were a bit exaggerated.
In the LXX manuscripts we know two versions – angels of God/sons of God. In copies of Deuteronomy we have sons of El/sons of El Elyon. In a much later Masoretic text it is the sons of Israel.
Deuteronomy and Genesis 10 clash with the Ugaritic texts in terms of the structure of the pantheon. There is El and 70 sons assigned to the nations (KTU1.4VI). In Genesis 10 you have 70 nations. In Deuteronomy, El is the father of IHWH. And he assigned Jacob’s inheritance to YHWH Deuteronomy 32:9
Jesus is not YHWH’s son – he is his better brother. He is the son of the Most High God who exists from eternity. YHWH was unknown to Abraham.
Today El/Elyon are just epithets attributed to YHWH but this was not the case in the past. If you read Paul’s letters, you can interpret them as Bart did or as Barker did. Why ?
Because we can see a possible interpretation transition.
Deuteronomy 32:8 – polytheism – El has sons and assigns Jacob’s inheritance to IHWH.
Psa 82 – henotheism – IHWH takes over the functions of El.
Deuteronomy 32:39 – IHWH is the only God.
Marcion’s elevation of Jesus as the Lord’s son of the one and only Supreme God was not a unique approach in early Christianity and had a specific basis. His market message was simple – Jews have their God and we have Jesus. Their God is a strict judge and ours is a god of forgiveness and love. This is why the Jews killed Jesus.
Robert, I know that you see this as the cause of the conflict, and I only see its elegant justification, after the money was taken. Marcion and his opponents were similar people. Business thugs fighting for power.
Who else held this view independently of Marcion?
Maybe Mark, maybe Luke, maybe Paul? Maybe anyone who knew Deuteronomy 32:8? How do you know they thought otherwise?
First, books and money were taken from Marcion, as well as knowledge on how to build a structure so that it would not collapse financially. Then the word heresy was changed and they began to look for theological reasons to cover their own lust for power. You’re confusing PR with causes.
My “maybe” El turns out to be much stronger than the consensus assumption that it was YHWH. There is not the slightest trace in the gospels and letters that YHWH is the father of Jesus. And the evangelists provide evidence that they had El in mind.
The attitude of the Roman commune towards Marcion is something that has been repeated for centuries. We don’t want him, he’s strong, let him go. When we grow up, we will take care of his organisation
Robert, I will try to explain it to you again.
Marcion comes, gives money, gives a book collection, shows for a few years how to run this business to finance the missionary action. He does not come to terms with the Roman commune and after a few years he gives up further negotiations.
After some time, his opponents change the meaning of the word heresy, appoint people to new tasks of combating heresy and order them to find reasons why Marcion is a heretic. Newly created specialists called heresiologists use every argument to fulfill their task.
What does your question make sense in such a scenario?
Marcion had to be guilty because this was the task given to heresiologists.
Marcion must have been rejected by John, must have been a disciple of Simon Magus, and so on.
Why none of the heresiologists accused Luke or Mark of heresy. There was no such command… Simple as that.
When Stalin fought against Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev were good communists. But later they turned out to be heretics of communistic ideas and traitors to the nation.
A few years ago I was looking for errors in How Jesus Became a Good where Bart shows the gradual path of Jesus’ deification in the gospels. So I wrote a question to Bart, quoting from Barker: For some Christians, wasn’t Jesus the son of El Elyon? And Bart replied that there is nothing about El Elyon in the entire Bible. Bart said he would rule out this possibility. I asked Barker but she didn’t answer. I trusted Bart’s knowledge and didn’t ask any further questions.
And suddenly it turned out that he was wrong, which happened 3 days ago. El Elyon is in Deuteronomy there are sons of El… So this is some possible tradition dating back to the evangelists.
Jesus son of El…
Do you have a link to this discussion. I think there must have been some miscommunication or misunderstanding on one or both sides. Bart certainly knows that El Elyon (אֵל עֶלְיוֹן, ό θεὸς ό ύψιστος), Elohim Elyon (אלֹהִים עֶלְיוֹן), and Elyon (עֶלְיוֹן) appear hundreds of times in the Hebrew scriptures. The Qumran and LXX variants of Dt 32,8 are important for more specific reasons regarding the history of YHWH prior to monotheistic reforms.
The problem becomes particularly difficult in the case of early Christian writings written in Koine. Ambiguous words are used there, such as κύριος, ό θεὸς, ό ύψιστος, which may be epithets of YHWH, El or Jesus. Who did they concern? The answer to this question depends on who is reading.
Dead Sea Scrolls are not so old. El was still a known God in Jesus’ time.
It is not my reading. I am simple mined CEO collecting recommendations to understand and reconstruct the process.
Geo Widengren, “Early Hebrew Myths and their Interpretation” in S.H. Hooke, ed., Myth, Ritual and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel. (NY: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 191.
Margaret Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), pp.4-5.
William Benjamin Smith, Ecce Deus: Studies of Primitive Christianity (London: Watts, 1912), pp. 135-137.
Archibald Robertson, Jesus: Myth or History? Thinker’s Library. (London: Watts, 1946), p. 95.
T. Francis Glasson, The Second Advent: The Origin of the New Testament Doctrine, (London: Epworth Press, 1947), Chapter 18, “The Coming of the Lord,” pp. 162-179.
Robert, it is simply possible reading of the Gospel quotes and those from the letters during the Kitos War and the Bar Kokhba revolt when Marcion’s missionaries successfully ran around Asia Minor and talked about Jesus killed by the Jews. 30 years later, when a generation had passed, one could safely create one’s own theology in opposition to Marcion. We have nothing from the period of personal conflict, only the later propaganda of those who ultimately won. The only significant problem to solve is the correct analysis of the chronology of events. Heresiologists were not involvet in this conflict.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert