The ascension of King David to heaven

There is a rather obscure statement in Acts 2:34 that specifies that "David himself never ascended to heaven". The obvious question that arises from this remark is -- who ever believed that David ascended to heaven? To answer this, we need to look where else but to the pseudepigrapha. But the text in Acts 2 does provide some interesting clues. The text is part of an extended midrash on Psalm 16:8-11, a psalm attributed to King David. In this miktam on Yahweh as one's heritage, David states:

Most Bible scholars understand that this verse originally did not refer to a resurrection but to salvation from death; it is expressing a sort of "everlasting love" hope, that his relationship with God is so total and complete that not even death could break his devotion to Yahweh. It is on this basis that some later believed that indeed David never did die. Peter counters this by saying that the actual referrent of the psalm was not King David himself but his descendant, his successor to the throne, who died but was indeed resurrected so that his body "did not see corruption" (the LXX equivalent of the Hebrew "Pit"). The proof of this, Peter says, is that "no one can deny that the patriarch David himself is dead and buried; his tomb is still with us" (Acts 2:29).

Indeed, there were those who believed that David and other patriarchs (e.g. "ancient worthies") were preserved in Paradise. But Peter's proof against this view, that tombs of these people existed, is actually based on a misunderstanding. Enoch and Elijah were both mentioned in the OT as bodily taken by God; in the case of Elijah, physically to heaven (Genesis 5:24; 2 Kings 2:1). The removal of the patriarchs and David to Paradise presented more of a problem because their death and burial was an accepted fact and their tombs were known as shrines. This problem was circumvented in the pseudepigraphal testaments by noting that the soul of each patriarch was removed to be with God though the body itself was buried. The Testament of Abraham, for instance describes the death of Abraham as follows:

This story explains a number of otherwise obscure things in the Gospels. First, there is the reference to the "Bosom of Abraham" in Luke 16:22-23 as a place of bliss for the righteous dead. This is the same place referred to in the Testament of Abraham. The parable in Luke 16 in fact presents Abraham as still living and having a conversation with the dead rich man (Luke 16:27-31), drawing on the popular conception as Abraham being rescued into Paradise. Luke 20:37-38 similarly refers to God as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living." While this is applied by Luke to the resurrection, it also draws again on popular conceptions of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as still alive in Paradise.

The Testament of Isaac 7:1-2 thus mentions the assumption of Isaac into Paradise: "When Isaac had said this, the Lord took his soul from his body and it was white as snow; he took possession of it and carried it with him upon his holy chariot and ascended with it to the heavens, while the cherubim were singing praises before it, likewise his holy angels. The Lord bestowed upon him the kingdom of heaven, and everything which our father desired out of the abundance of blessings from God he had." The description of the assumption is probably dependent on the description of Elijah's chariot-bound ascension in 2 Kings. The Testament of Jacob tells a similar story regarding Jacob:

Again, the burial of a physical body does not rule out the ascension of the patriarch's soul to Paradise. The question of what happens to the body is significant, however, in view of the hope of a later resurrection of the patriarch on the Day of Judgement. This issue comes up specifically in the case of Moses, the subject of the Assumption of Moses. Like the other assumption tales of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Elijah, this story tells of Moses' soul ascending to Paradise but it also mentions a dispute with Satan over the fate of Moses' body. Although the original ending to the story has been lost, Jude 9 summarizes the story:

Ancient authorities such as the Council of Nicea and others recognizes that Jude was alluding the Assumption of Moses, and there are literary allusions elsewhere in Jude as well (e.g. Assumption of Moses 10:5-6 = Jude 12-13; Assumption of Moses 7:3-4 = Jude 18-19; Assumption of Moses 7:9 = Jude 16). The role of Michael the archangel in Jude 9 is parallel to his role in the Testament of Abraham and the Testament of Jacob. Although the reason for the dispute over Moses' corpse is not preserved, it probably has something to do with the later resurrection and judgment. The episode in the Assumption of Moses, which incidentally also concerns Joshua and the last testament Moses gives to him, may also have something to do with Zechariah's vision of Joshua in Zechariah 3:1-2 which involves a dispute between Joshua and Satan and the "angel of Yahweh" saying to him, "May Yahweh rebuke you, Satan, may Yahweh rebuke you."

The Ascension of Isaiah also relates the story of Isaiah's ascension to heaven and presents a legend on Isaiah's death alluded in Hebrews 11:37. The Apocalypse of Moses, otherwise known as the Life of Adam and Eve, also relates the story of Adam's deliverance to Paradise after death.

But what of David? Some Jewish writers did regard him as having ascended to heaven as well. This view is most clearly stated in the first century B.C. Apocalypse of Zephaniah:

A later Christian Apocalypse of Paul, inspired by the experience in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, elaborates this notion further:

The view of Peter (or perhaps more properly, Luke's conception of Peter) in Acts 2 disputes this notion but fails to adequately refute it by attacking a "straw man," pointing to the physical corpse in the tomb when believers in David's ascension apparently believed in the ascension of David's soul to heaven as what happened and fulfilling his words in Psalm 16 (which in the original Hebrew, makes no mention of the "corruption" of David's body, only the abandonment of his soul in Hades and the "Pit"). Peter is misled by the LXX translation, which renders Hebrew shachath "Pit" as "corruption" (Gk. diaphthoran), which in proximity to the mention of "my flesh" (Gk. sarx mon) in vs. 9 seems to allude to the decay of human flesh at death:

But the believers of David's ascension who were not dependent on the Greek Septuagint (e.g. such as native Aramaic speakers or those who read Hebrew) would not have necessarily understood Psalm 16 the same way as Luke-Peter and would not have necessarily understood the resurrection of Jesus before his body decayed as a fulfillment of Psalm 16:9-10.

Finally, John goes much further than Luke by saying in John 3:13 that "no one has ascended up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven." Although Luke allows for the presence of Abraham in Paradise (which is ambiguously located as an abode of the righteous in Hades, though a common view at the time was that the gate to Paradise was located in Hades but Paradise itself was in heaven), John wants to limit heavenly ascension only to Jesus. The reason for this is quite clear when we consider the otherwise anti-Gnostic rhetoric of the gospel (which, incidentally, draws on a Gnostic source of Jesus sayings). The Gnostics believed that Deity resides in all people, humans originate in heaven but through the Demiurge are born in corruption on earth, and through correct self-knowledge may return to heaven and live with immortality and incorruption. By limiting past ascensions only to Jesus, John refutes the Gnostic notion and argues that only with faith in Jesus, and not through anyone's own natural right, may people have "eternal life" (as the Son is the source of life, John 5:25-26) and join him in heaven when he returns (John 6:40; 14:1-3).

Thanks again Leolaia.

One related issue may be the differences between Lukan and Johannine christologies.

Lukan christology, although not quite consistent, seems to be mostly adoptianist, in line with mainstream early 2nd century Catholic Church. It implies no preexistence (even the virgin conception in Lk 1--2, although rather loosely connected to the rest of the work, appears as the very beginning of the "Son of God"'s existence). The concept of adoption at baptism, as suggested by all Synoptics, is even more evident with the Western variant quoting Psalm 2:7 in Luke 3:22. The discourses in Acts regularly associate the titles of Son, Christ and Lord to the resurrection (e.g. 2:36; 13:33). This goes hand in hand with a very "realistic" (i.e., antidocetic) concept of resurrection, and the subsequent ascension (which, again, is only Lukan). Whence, IMO, the insistance on bodily resurrection as contrasted with "corruption" of the corpse (with the help of the LXX).

GJohn, on the other hand, always implies preexistence, as the logos in the Prologue, or elsewhere as the Son of Man (1:51; 3:13ff etc.). But preexistence may not be the exact word, because the whole vision of time is different. You seem to retain the lectio difficilior "the Son of Man who is in heaven" in 3:13, in fact I find it very compatible with texts such as 8:56ff or 12:41 (implying Abraham and Isaiah, in their own time, had seen the true timeless Johannine "Jesus" -- "I to I" if I dare write). So in fact Jesus acts the eternal Revealer, and the sentence "no one has ascended into heaven" serves a function very similar to "no one has ever seen God" in 1:18 (cf. 5:37; 6:46; 14:8f). (Implied, I still see GJohn as protognostic, not antignostic, and its Jesus as the occasion, not cause, for salvation of those who already and always were "from God". But we've already discussed that earlier... ) 

Following Koester, I tend to view John's logia source as proto-gnostic like the Gospel of Thomas, following the basic gnostic paradigm but unelaborated in theology like the later Coptic gnostic works.  I would not disagree in calling John proto-gnostic as well, especially since he still retains much latent gnosticism, but it is clear from the way he adapts the Jesus sayings that he departs considerably from the proto-gnostic Jesus of the GThomas -- especially in the theory of salvation and restricting (maybe not perfectly) divine descent to Jesus alone.  Koester, for instance, points out that in John 14:2-6 believers are fully dependent on Jesus in their quest for the kingdom ("No one comes to the Father but by me") while the gnostic version of the same saying claims the opposite: "No one will enter the kingdom of heaven at my bidding"  (Apocryphon of James 2:29-34).  Although the proto-gnostic Jesus promises his followers in GThomas and other works that those prepared spiritually can follow the Savior into the heavenly realms (cf. GThom 1, 19, 49; Apoc. Jas. 2:23-27), the Johannine Jesus repeatedly reminds his disciples that they cannot follow him into his realm and must wait until he returns to take them with him (John 7:34-36, 8:21-22, 13:33).  Thus Jesus in Apoc. Jas 2:23-27 says "I shall go to the place whence I came.  If you wish to come, come with me," but the Jesus in GJohn says: "I am going away and you will seek me...where I go you cannot come" (John 8:21-22).  This reversal of gnostic Jesus sayings, Koester explains, is not accidental but is part of an overall de-gnosticizing trend in John's gospel -- reflected also in the rejection of docetism in 20:24-29. 

Back to the David issue, I found it very interesting how this is an instance how an "OT messianic prophecy" arose because of a peculiarity of translation in the LXX and how Luke-Peter misunderstood the beliefs of those who claimed that David ascended to heaven.  Incidentally, since Peter was a native speaker of Aramaic, while Luke wrote in Greek, and since the logic of Peter's argument in Acts 2 is based entirely on the LXX and not the original Semitic, this may constitute evidence that the Petrine speech in Acts 2 was a construct of Luke's mind and not a historical report of something Peter said.

Leolaia

This thread is as good as anything online, great discussion. once again you two have identified opposing themes running concurrent in Gjohn. Does not the primacy of John model best answer this? Why not a Gnostic proto-john predating Matt and Luke and possibly Mark being reworked by a later antignostic hand? Or possibly the later hand was also Gnostic but of a different and less docetic stripe? The term Gnostic is after all a catch all. Even apart from the very late Catholic additions the layers stand out rather prominently once we recognize what to look for.



Also i am coming to accept that Peter is a late literary creation. His character formed from orthodox need for textural support for central hierchy. (peter in Rome -Rock- Paul going to see Peter etc) Possibly some of his actions in the narrative were originally those of an Ebionite named Cephus and MMagdelene. The Lukan speaches and various conversations with jesus tho are likely simply apologetics. How does this sell with you?

I'll toss in that there is a very real possibility that the original author of Gjohn was mary mag. Or at least a woman that later became identified as MM. This requires a lot of explaining, I think peter Kirby has a link to some of this at his Xtian Writings site. otherwise a Google will get there.

My pet "speculation" at the moment is that the proto-gnostic precursor of GJohn was the gospel used by Cerinthus, or alternatively, the gospel used by Cerinthus drew from a common source to GJohn. I don't dispute that such proto-John precursors may have antedated the publication of Matthew and Luke between A.D. 80 and 90, and I think we had earlier sources like the Semeia Source and a GThom-like logia source which were contemporaneous with Q and proto-Mark. It is quite clear that it went through redaction under anti-docetist hands when it passed through the community responsible for the anti-docetist tract 1 John, and addition of the ch. 21 appendix may have had something to do with anti-docetist John the Presbyter responsible for 2, 3 John (cf. John 21:24=3 John 12).

I think regarding Peter mostly as a "late literary creation" is a bit of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Accepting 1 Corinthians as a genuine Pauline letter (as Clement of Rome does in 1 Clement in writing to the Corinthians), I would say that Peter's original importance was as a popularizer of the notion of Jesus' resurrection and thus as one of the earliest leaders of the new movement. I also don't doubt that Peter's mission included Gentiles, as Galatians and Acts both attest (and I regard Acts as containing some historical information, despite its novelistic features). The association between Peter and the orthodoxy may instead rest with Peter's involvement with proto-orthodoxy (e.g. the Jewish and Gentile chuches Paul was involved with), and the later ecclesiastical organization of the Gentile church at the end of the first century is possibly in part an adaption to the loss of the Jerusalem church and its earlier centricity to the Gentile mission. Seeking a figure to centralize around, and preferring a member of the Twelve (and the first witness to the risen Christ) over Paul, Peter was then made post facto the founder of the orthodoxy. Thus, in the 80s and 90s, we find a proliferation of writing asserting this -- such as Matthew making Peter the "rock" Jesus would build his church, Acts fleshing out Peter's mission to the Gentiles, 1 Peter putting to paper the "orthodox" teaching of Peter and locating him in Rome, 2 Timothy confirming Peter's location in Rome (via Mark), 1 Clement describing Peter's martyrdom and describing him as one of our "greatest and most righteous pillars," the appendix to the Gospel of John (ch. 21) making Peter the shepherd of the flock, and the Gospel of Thomas even reacting to Peter's orthodoxy by parodying Peter's confession that led Jesus to bestow upon him primacy (in their version, this primacy is instead bestowed to Thomas and Peter in fact showed he misunderstood Jesus' significance). I doubt such a widespread claim could have succeeded so early (and addressed even by the opponents of the orthodoxy) if Peter had no historical connection with the emerging orthodoxy.

Leolaia

I see what makes the Mary Magdalene thesis attractive -- the reference to the author as the "Beloved Disciple" and Mary's relationship with Jesus in later gnostic works, the claim in John 19:35 to be a witness to the crucifixion (which Mary was and which few of the other disciples were), and the connection of Mary with gnostic revelation and the gnostic character of GJohn's precursor.  The account of Mary's epiphany experience in John is also independent to that in Mark and Matthew.  Against this view I would point out the lack of connection between the sayings in the GJohn and the Gospel of Mary.  A connection might be expected if GJohn and GMary both originated from the same Magdalene tradition.  This is not decisive, of course, since the later GMary did not necessarily have to derive from the same earlier "Magdalene traditions" to be accepted as a revelation of Mary by later Egyptian Christians.

I take on one minor exception in this conversation.  It's implied that all...or most Catholics were adoptionists in the 2nd century.  Actually...we have two extremes and everyone in between in the 2nd century as Christiology developed.  We have the Adoptionists on one side, and the Docestitst/Gnostics on the other.  On side favored viewing Jesus as merely human and adopted as God's son...the other side viewed Jesus as divine and only appearing to have a human body...eventually we get to the middle road of the homostatic union...Christ being 100% God and 100% man with out confusion of the two natures.

Back to the program.

Leolaia...If you look again at 1Cor you'll see Peter is not there only an ebionite named Cephas is. The only reference to "Peter" in any of "Pauline" works is Gal 2:7 and it is an interpolation made for the very reasons being discussed. The fact that all surrounding verses use "Cephus" (who was an early Ebionite) makes this awkward and an obviously distinct hand.



One reconstruction as I understand it is that the protognostic novel like source stories contained no Peter. his character was early on created to disguise the female roles in the tales. Much like the attribution of GJohn to a man. (bear with me as it gets messy) Is has been suggested that a female lover/wife of jesus was in fact the betrayer in the original tale. possibly over jealousy of his involvement with MM a very grateful convert. Her role was then assigned to a male, a trusted confidant to conceal his love interests. Perhaps in the Ebionite form of Matt he was named Peter but it seems more probable that this would have occured first in a Greek community. Either way he became known as Peter.

Later yet this was felt unbefitting the chosen leader of the new Orthodoxy so a 'Judas Ischariot' was invented to be the betrayer. (a character about whom nothing is known other than obligatory introduction of him and a motive inserted into the narrative) His expanded role in the orthodox mission was gradual. Even in Acts we find him second fiddle to James in some episodes. This is likely because of the assumption of Cephas into the Peter character.



I know it's not possible to prove any of this, but this reconstruction seems to adaquately explain the absence of Peter in Paul and the odd narrative stream. It also explains the multiple names given to this composite character, (Symeon,Simon, Cephas) The name Peter in greek (rock) also seems a bit too etiological to not be contrived. (a name not used by any other character).



The stickiest part is the how the Ebionite community understood the role of Peter. Or did their recension of Matt not use the name Peter? Did they like the Nazarites (apparently) interpret many things allegorically so that if Peter was in their story, he was not literalized? The Gnostics of course would have had no problem as Peter was not part of their tradition.



Well anyway it's a theory. A theory that wallows in a great deal of speculation. How much we need more documentation from this early formative century!



I've hijacked the thread, sorry. I again want to thank you for your explanation of the David in heaven passage, great stuff. My mind obviously is not as disciplined as yours.

Pete:

The names have been changed to protect the innocent, huh?

The idea of many of the main characters of the NT being female and changed to male, to suit some kind of orthodoxy, sounds almost as miraculous as the events portrayed.  If there were clear evidence to that end, my mind might have a better chance of rebelling against the notion.  I don't believe that there are any "token" females in the account, as it stands.  The fact that they were more given to faith (as also appears to be the happenstance of our modern era), only heightens the role of those reported as having such gender.

May I ask if there is anything left of the biblical canon that you hold as historic, or is it all a fiction, to your mind?

 

Yerusalyim....I like your description of how orthodox christology arose....it really gets the essence of it, but it also oversimplifies the situation a lot. There were many shades of adoptionism and different ideas about Jesus' divinity. Adoptionists disagreed on when they believed Jesus was annointed as the Son of God (whether at his baptism, resurrection, or conception and birth) and whether the annointing merely gave him kingship and Lordship or whether it also made him divine. Those who believed that Jesus was divine may have regarded his deity as the result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit at Jesus' annointing, or they may have regarded him as one of the angelic "sons of God," the incarnation of heavenly wisdom, God in the flesh, etc. Docetism had various subtypes, such as illusionist view that claimed that Jesus' body was spiritual and not of the flesh and the possessionist view which claimed that Christ never had his own body but descended and possessed the man Jesus at his baptism and left him during the crucifixion. The latter view, attributed to Cerinthus and also attested in the Gospel of Peter, is an example of a christology that is both adoptionist and docetist/gnostic.

The earlier adoptionist idea (especially popular among the Ebionites and other Jewish Christians) was that Jesus was annointed with the Holy Spirit at his baptism -- an act that made him the Davidic Messiah (Annointed) and Son of God, understanding the title "Son of God" as a title of Jesus' kingship bestowed at his baptismal annointing (Psalm 2:6-7). While it is not clear whether Jesus actually claimed to be the Messiah (and many doubt this), two of the most certain things Jesus is known to have said -- calling God "Abba" or "Father" and focusing on the "Kingdom of God" as the central theme of his teaching -- surely contributed to this belief. This is the concept in the Gospel of Mark, especially the baptism narrative in 1:9-11 and ratified in God's declaration during the Transfiguration in 9:7. Jesus' kingly entrance into Jerusalem in 11:1-11 follows, Jesus cites his baptism as the source of his authority (11:28-30), he is questioned by the Roman authorities on being "King of the Jews" in 15:2-5, and finally at the moment of his death even the Gentiles acknowledge him as the Son of God (15:39). Apostle Paul, in his earlier writings, also had an adoptionist christology but one that viewed Jesus' Sonship and Lordship as resulting from his resurrection. This view is most clearly stated in Romans 1:3-4: By his "human nature" Jesus was "a descendent of David" but he was "proclaimed Son of God in all his power through his resurrection from the dead" and it was at that point when "the Spirit of Holiness was in him." Luke's Peter in Acts 2:32-36 also expresses the same primitive christology: "God raised this man to life ... raised to the heights by God's right hand, he has received from the Father the Holy Spirit ... and God has thus made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ." A third view is expressed in Luke and Matthew which pushes Jesus' annointing all the way to the other extreme -- the Holy Spirit came upon him at his conception (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35), so that Luke says that "the child will be holy and will be called Son of God" and Matthew has King Herod referring the Jesus as "the infant king of the Jews" (2:2) and the Magi bowing before the infant King (2:11). Matthew and Luke present a one-stage adoptionist theory, so that Jesus throughout his entire life and resurrection was the annointed Messiah, while Mark and early Paul present a two-stage adoptionist theory -- of Jesus living part of his life before being annointed by the Holy Spirit and part of his life afterward.

The question of deity arises when the Holy Spirit is no longer viewed as mere unction but the indwelling of divine nature and then the indwelling of God himself. The earliest adoptionist views were probably functionalist -- that is, they claimed that Jesus accepted the role of Messiah and Lord but did not necessarily become divine through his annointing. The view of a divine indwelling and the presence of Deity in Jesus led to three-stage adoptionist theories and two-stage non-adoptionist theories that both focused on the sending of Deity or a divine Revealer into the world. This in turn contributed to speculations about preexistence. The view of Cerinthus summarized above is an example of a three-part christology: (1) Jesus lives as a man (2) Christ descends on him like a dove at his baptism and functions as a divine Revealer (3) Christ leaves him as Jesus dies on the cross. This gnostic belief, seemingly distant from anything in orthodox Christianity, is strikingly similar to the proto-orthodox adoptionist view in the second-century Shepherd of Hermas (written by a pastor in the Roman church) which also attests a possessionist christology. The three-part christology of Hermas however focuses on the "Beloved Son's" preexistence: (1) the Holy Spirit, or "the Beloved Son", was pre-existent from eternity (2) Jesus was later born and lived a righteous human life (3) the Holy Spirit found him blameless and descended on him and brought him into a state of blessedness.

This shows that even in early orthodoxy were possessionist views to be found and Christians of the Western churches drew on some of the same concepts as the gnostics in the Eastern churches. It was then a short step from belief in the indwelling of deity in Jesus to the idea that Jesus himself was Deity incarnate. The orthodox belief in the Deity of Christ, so prevalent in the Western churches, may also have something to do with the fact that Gentile converts had little background or motivation to view Jesus' Sonship in a Davidic Messianic sense but instead were influenced by the secular concept of the emperor as "Son of God" in a deified sense. At the same time, among Jewish Christians, the use of the term "Son of God" in the Tanakh to refer to angels probably contributed in another approach to Jesus' divinity: viewing Jesus as "a righteous angel," as Simon Peter in the Gospel of Thomas confesses him to be (GThom 13:3). The popularity of this notion in early Christianity is evident from the strenuous attempts in Hebrews 1 to refute it. An even earlier precursor to this belief was the idea, probably held by some when Jesus was alive, that he was Elijah who came back down from heaven to teach them (Matthew 16:14), in fulfillment of Malachi 3:23. In both cases Jesus was thought of as sent from heaven, not born of woman on earth. The Gospel of Thomas and later gnostic works also see Jesus as the Divine Revealer from the "kingdom of heaven" who invites his disciples to join him when he returns to his realm. There is a strong Jewish element in gnosticism and a number of scholars have pointed out that this concept (also found in later Jewish merkabah mysticism) lies in earlier Jewish apocalyptic and mystical works that relate the revelation of secrets by an angel (cf. Daniel 9:20-27, 3 Baruch, 3 Enoch, also cf. 3 Enoch 43:3 which also mentions the heavenly origin of the human soul and the ascent to heaven of the "saved"). A further influence is the idea of preexistent Wisdom or Logos, which as God's thought was the agent of Creation and special revelation to Israel (cf. Proverbs 8:22-31; Sirach 24:1-12; Wisdom 7:24-30; Philo, On Creation).

Paul, the more liberal of the apostles and most intimately involved with the Gentiles (who were more inclined to view "Son of God" as a divine rather than royal epithet), gradually leaned more and more towards asserting Jesus Christ's Deity. Paul's later declaration of the Son's Deity, preexistence, and Creatorship (cf. Philippians 2:6; Colossians 1:15-17, 2:9) had to be reconciled with Paul's acceptance of his humanity (cf. Romans 1:3, 9:5; Colossians 1:20), and so Paul's three-part christology in Philippians 2 introduces the kenotic doctrine that Jesus was God before his incarnation and he resumed his Deity following his resurrection, but during his earthly life he "emptied" himself of his divinity so that he was only man and not God. This idea is consistent with Paul's earlier teaching that Jesus received the Holy Spirit at his resurrection (instead of at some point during his life). John, on the other hand, has no kenotic concept of Jesus and merely says that the preexistent Word was "made flesh" and has him asserting both his Deity and his unworldly origin in his earthly ministry (cf. John 5:18, 6:42, 62, 7:28, 33; 8:23, 58), e.g. "I am from above ... I am not of this world" (8:23) and "I have come down from heaven" (6:42). This claim is made despite repeatedly mentioning Jesus' mother (John 2:3-5, 6:42, 19:25-27; see especially 6:42), and again mentioning Jesus' birth (John 18:37), but John 1:13 also says that Jesus was "born not out of human stock ... but of God himself," which leaves in rather vague territory the issue of Jesus' own human nature -- though John takes pains in 20:24-29 to refute the illusionist theory of docetism. Ignatius of Antioch, writing around A.D. 115-117 and exceedingly preoccupied with the illusionist docetism, clearly asserted both Jesus' humanity and Deity:

Here there is no trace of either Ebionite, Pauline, or Hermas-type adoptionism, kenosis, or docetism. But Ignatius' push towards fully confessing Jesus as God skirted around another big problem: the monotheism of traditional Judaism. Ignatius' solution was a sort of primitive monarchistic modalism. This is the idea that the Christ and God are basically the same Person. Thus he writes: "Being as you are imitators of God, once you took on new life through the blood of God..." (IgEph 1:1). Ignatius furthermore became the first known person in Christian history to claim that Jesus raised himself from the dead instead of saying that God raised him: "He truly suffered just as he truly raised himself -- not, as certain unbelievers say, that he suffered in appearance only" (IgSmyrnaeans 2:1). Ignatius' modalist views would have been heretical only a century later.

Leolaia

Pete....I'm going to reply to your post in a new thread on Peter since it's already off-topic....

If i could add to your scholarly comment leolaia I'd stir in the mix, traces of an early Jewish layer that's called the "Son of Man" Gospel by some. There in apparently the jesus character denied his being a son of David (a largely meaningless title by then as tribal divisions were largely ceremonial and the geneologies were burned by Herod 1, the title was symbolically a "call to arms" and used by a number of would be saviors) but identified himself as the heaven sent 'Son of Man' of Daniel and other apocalyptic works. The Jewish masses in this protogospel called Urmark by some, insisted upon calling him the son of David to his frustration. (Mark 12 :35-37) The political fever for liberation from Rome was too strong to resist and his later disciples made forever firm the identification as 'David's promised son". Even assimilated to the body of legend his strong arming his way into the temple and holding it for 3 days. ( a great military feat given the thousands of Jewish and Roman temple guards protecting the largest finacial institution in Palestine) Something that was attempted a couple times by Zealot military Messiahs. Perhaps this is why his closest disciples bore zealot titles.



LT.. to answer you, yes of course there is some history is the tales, that is what makes them so interesting, trying to uncover it is like detective work on a 2000 year old murder. Various authors and scholars applying their particular specialties have created a body of evidence that is begging for a unified reconstruction. The small historical value may not be in the core theme as much as the circustantial details.

It is my position that given the nature of the stories, (mythical,contradictory,apologetic) none of it should stand without critical analysis.



Leolaia probably hates me by now as i keep rambling on and muddying up her consise comments.

Pete:

I agree, though it's easy to miss the whole point, when delving into it at that level.

Naaah.  She seems pretty tolerant, and I think she'll keep you in check, with new threads

I'm loving reading the depth of research that has gone into this.  I'm especially enjoying the comments of you three (Leolaia, Narkissos, peacefulpete), on this subject, of biblical authenticity.

I genuinely hope you keep on presenting your opinions here, and don't run out of steam.

 

Sorry I have been out one day.

About the relationship of GJohn with Gnosticism, the main flaw of Koester's analysis IMO is actually taking later clear-cut Gnostic Christian works as the Gnostic paradigm for reconstructing the content of GJohn's source and then evaluating how GJohn supposedly departs from such a source. The later Gnostic works such as the Nag Hammadi Apocalypses of James obviously react to the previous impact of some form of "Great Church" soteriology, which is hardly the case of any supposed source for GJohn. This (Koester?s) model, in turn, tends (still IMO) to obscure the very movement of GJohn?s logic, or initiatic pedagogy, which doesn?t bring in proto-orthodox Christian thinking (involving futuristic eschatology, for example) as the ultimate word to ?correct? any protognostic thought, but to the contrary uses it as a penultimate word, i.e. as the very starting point (common, popular or outward understanding) from which GJohn leads the reader into a ?higher? understanding.

Examples:

Common understanding, John 11:23f: Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."

Specifically johannine understanding, John 11:25f: Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

Common understanding, John 14:3: In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

Specifically Johannine understanding, John 14:23: Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.?

This pattern doesn?t exclude even later additions meant as ?ultimate words? to give the whole Johannine system an ?orthodox? ring, such as John 5:28f (unnecessary to expose the Johannine understanding which was already given in v. 21-25), or the recurring phrase ?I will raise X up in the last day? in chapter 6. The characteristic of those is that they appear as unneeded additions, as the specific Johannine logic stands perfectly (and even better) without them. In my view, one has to distinguish between the two kinds of apparently ?orthodox? references.

On the Petrine issue, I tend to see it as a very late fabrication, building on ?Cephas? tradition and many others. The articles by Ernst Barnikol and Frank McGuire on http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/ are interesting on this subject. But we may come back to this in the next thread.

It is generally believed that the historical Jesus did not have an apocalyptic orientation and that an expectation of Jesus returning as an apocalyptic Son of Man arose mainly in the community of his followers, especially in Syria.  It may have been the case that some of Jesus' own disciples, during his ministry, had apocalyptic expectations -- such as the Zealots who desired a material restoration of Jewish sovereignty.  Three main factors fed into this eschatology: (1) The circumlocution "Son of Man," which Jesus used to refer to himself in the humblest of terms (this is the non-technical sense of the term and one that accorded with Jesus' emphasis on humility) was successively interpreted by its technical apocalyptic sense -- as the messianic figure who according to Daniel and 1 Enoch would bring to an end current governments and judge humankind on the Day of Judgement; (2) The expression Jesus used to spiritually refer to the new relationship God would enter with people in social equity and justice, the "Kingdom of God", was interpreted to mean a literal messianic kingdom (which may have been the misinterpretation the Roman authorities had when they crucified Jesus as a self-styled "King of the Jews"); (3) Jesus' message to his followers that the Kingdom was already in their midst was then subtly shifted into a statement on the imminence and suddenness of the Kingdom, and the rapidly deteriorating political conditions in Judea in the 50s and 60s intensified the hope for divine deliverance.

 

On the issue of Gnostic sources, the Apocryphon of James is far more primitive than, say, the Dialogue of the Savior which embeds many of the same logia in more theologically-elaborate interpretations.  It is far closer in content to the Gospel of Thomas, and I am persuaded by the seemingly more original forms of the sayings in John, but I agree that John has a higher level of theology that the reversals don't necessarily contribute to.  Koester agrees that some of the passages you pointed to are "later additions": 

The more original eschatological outlook, in fact, is that same as the Gospel of Thomas 51: "His disciples said to him, 'When will the respose of the dead come about, and when will the new world come?'  He said to them, 'What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it.' "  I earlier commented on the possibility that the eschatological redaction may be associated with the eschatological coloring of 1 John (cf. 1 John 2:18; 4:3, 17) and the more eschatologically-minded John the Presbyter, who may have had some role in the later redaction of GJohn.

 

I've never been much impressed with what is "generally believed" as you know by know. Especially since the present orthodoxy (Jesus Seminar for example) seems almost condescending to the Mythicist scholarship. The question goes to the core of whether we see an origin to the jesus legend in jewish messiahism, Jewish apocalypticim and mysticism or Pagan mystery cult. These schools of thought agree on much but differ upon dates. The source we choose has much to do with the dating of eschatological elements and the texts they are found in. All three arenas contributed to the puzzle but which exact order the pieces fell into place is very difficult to say. No simple answer is probably right. The clash and rivalry between Xtian sects as you have pointed out illustrates the complexity of the process of adopting and modifying that eventuated with a few standardized Christologies.

Leolaia,

Sorry I misread your references to the Apocryphon of James (NH 1/1) into the Apocalypses (NH 5/3-4). My objections remain basically unchanged though: the Apocryphon of James may correct the Johannine tradition from the viewpoint of later Gnosis as well.

I cannot help thinking, however, that you too are construing a historical Jesus according to your heart (who doesn't?)... Apocalypticism, in the first century, pervaded all Jewish schools with the possible (and relative) exception of the Sadducees: it was associated with the ritual thinking of Qumran as with the ethics of the Pharisees. How could Jesus escape this? His preaching may have had eschatological and political overtones, which would better explain his fate than "misunderstandings" (such as are suggested in the Gospels, especially Luke, with the obvious intention to make the Jesus' movement more acceptable to the Romans). The fact that James was seen as the natural heir of the Jesus' movement at least proves that it remained within the borders of identitarian Judaism, as could be accepted by the Pharisees on one side and the Essenes on the other side (even if one doesn't accept altogether Eisenman's peremptory assertion, "what James was Jesus was"). The fact neither the Pharisees nor the Essenes appear in the early Passion narratives seems to confirm that. Your point on the "Son of Man" sayings may be strong, but I'm not so much convinced as to the attribution of a "non-eschatological, inward Kingdom of God" concept to the historical Jesus. This sounds rather to me as later spiritualisation, perhaps not free from political interests.

hello,

anything under the son right?  Well here we are, exciting to be living on the seventh day (7000yrs.) of creation right?  Or 3rd day since jah ascended to the father.  I'm david, this is my first visit to this forum,  stumbled into you sort of speak.  Research on king david. 

I agree with you.  IF you ever want to discuss biblical topics, my email is MEAHAREYYAHWEH@AOL.COM anytime!!!  Never knew much about the jahovah's witness's but, recently realized after john 3:3 happened to me, there may be no difference mainly.  It's all in the name (Jah)ovah's witness.  Hope you'll reply.

david