Indeed, and thanks for pointing out Litwa on this subject.I think he's saying that views about the Jewish deity among some 'non-orthodox' early Christian groups1 aligned with interpretations of this verse.
- essentially, I think he did infer 'arose,' but I'm not sure (1) if he might only have inferred that so as not to entertain or invoke the issue of the relative dating of orthodox texts, like the Gospel attributed to John, wrt non-orthodox, "Gnostic" texts;a or (2) whether his views have changed (in the subsequent 3-4 yrs).
Litwa's The Evil Creator lays out things that support the proposition that negative and derogatory views about the Jewish deity preceded Christianity (largely arising initially in Egypt, eg. conflation with the Egyptian god/s Set[h] and Toth)
- I think aspects of John, at least, might have been quite early in the development of early Christianity, ie., contrary to 'the consensus, core aspects of John may well date before the synoptic gospels; I wonder if proto-John/s or G- John (or both) date to or even before Marcion (whose Euangelion Litwa dates quite early, ie., iiuc, ~100AD, ie., before Marcion became an evangelist)
I certainly agree that many parts of John are quite early. My current view is that at the core of John is a Johannine letter or letter collection which pre-dates any narrative Gospels. The prologue also of course pre-dates any Gospels and was not written about Jesus at all. It was only later grafted on to the Jesus story. It is, perhaps, a proto-Gnostic, pre-Jesus hymn about origins.
But more important I'm now thinking that the first narrative about Jesus was a proto-Markan story and that the earliest narrative version of the Gospel of John is a response to proto-Mark. The earliest version of the Johannine story was meant to completely turn the Markan story on ins head. It presented an completly oppositional take on the Markan story. In the Markan story Jesus is truly "betrayed" and he is Jewish in character. The early John turns Jesus' betrayer into his most believed disciple. He converts Jesus from a Jewish figure in the vein of Elijah/Elisha sent by Yahweh into an anti-Jewish figure sent to save the world from Yahweh. I agree with Litwa that John is perhaps proto-Gnostic and indeed did give rise to many aspects of Gnosticism, but that it itself was not an expression of developed Gnosticism.
Indeed I think that essentially all of the forms of Christianity that we know of developed from interpretations of writings that were "non-denominational", meaning that the various sects we know of, including orthodox Christians, all arose as a result of interpretation of writings that were not written by individuals with those specific theologies in mind.
But I view Marcion's Gospel, Luke, Matthew, etc. as all derived from both Mark and John. I think that John is the one that introduced Gnostic character to the series and works like Marcion's Gospel are attempts at harmonization between Mark and John. It begins with Mark. John is written as a counter-point to Mark. Every other narrative is derived from some combination of these two.
Statistics: Posted by rgprice — Tue Nov 19, 2024 4:06 am