For those of us who like to be stimulated with different views on Christian origins René Salm has translated and made available a 1956 essay by Georges Ory, Was Jesus “John the Baptist”?
This hypothesis reminds me of Robert M. Price’s suggestion that the two figures are doubles, or that Jesus was indeed something of a mythical hypostasis of John. (Unfortunately I forget the source for this discussion now — I welcome a reminder from anyone reading this.) Others — Roger Parvus and Hermann Detering, if I recall correctly, have had thought provoking views of the role of John the Baptist and Simon Magus.
I’ve had a less “psychological-anthropological” explanation for John the Baptist than Bob Price’s views, and have to admit I have never given enough sustained attention in the past to some of the views of Parvus and Detering. I know I have only covered one dimension of the evidence available — the midrashic literary. I wonder if the motif of a representative of the old, usually metaphorically rough in appearance, as the deliverer of one who ushers in the new creation and new world, is a deeply rooted cultural archetype found from the Epic of Gilgamesh right through to modern fiction and fables.
I may not always come away from reading radical new views being immediately convinced, but rarely do I ever come away without having been stimulated with new questions and avenues to explore.
So who was George Ory?
René Salm has done a bit of digging and has published his findings on his site. The key section of interest for me is (and I have reformatted the last paragraph for here):
In 1949, together with Prosper Alfaric, Georges Ory co-founded the Cercle Ernest Renan in Paris, a “ Center for the history of religions, for biblical criticism and free research [libres recherches] into the origins of Christianity.” The Cercle (CER) has been at the cutting edge of French Jesus-mythicism for over half a century and continues to publish quarterly Cahiers and to offer monthly lectures in Paris. Ory was also prominent in the Union Rationaliste, and was the principal religion contributor for its Dictionnaire Rationaliste (1964), writing over fifty entries including those entitled “Jésus Christ,” “Gnosticisme,” “Paul-Louis Couchoud,” and “Charles Guignebert.” The dictionnaire is an indispensable resource for liberal French trends in religion.
Some notes can be culled regarding Ory’s thought.
- He identified John the Baptist as the original Christian messiah.
- He further identified this figure with the Samaritan heresiarch Dositheus. . . .
- Ory refused to identify the Essenes with the Dead Sea Sect . . . .
- He supposed that Marcion had a disciple, Lucanus, who was ultimately responsible for the third gospel and who succeeded Marcion at the latter’s death. Lucanus led the Marcionite community in Rome and considered Christ a heavenly being. “Jesus” was a composite.
So here is a second copy of the link — Was Jesus John the Baptist? — in case you ever lose the first one.
“(Unfortunately I forget the source for this discussion now — I welcome a reminder from anyone reading this.)”
You’re probably thinking of one of his essays in “Jesus is dead”.
Comment by Hjalti — 2012/02/21 @ 2:21 am |
Neil, have a look at the Infancy Gospel of James. I put up a thread on FRDB a while back….
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=298696
John the Baptist: “destined to be king over Israel’?
“23. And Herod searched for John, and sent officers to Zacharias, saying: Where hast thou hid thy son? And he, answering, said to them: I am the servant of God in holy things, and I sit constantly in the temple of the Lord: I do not know where my son is. And the officers went away, and reported all these things to Herod. And Herod was enraged, and said: His son is destined to be king over Israel. And he sent to him again, saying: Tell the truth; where is thy son? for thou knowest that thy life is in my hand. And Zacharias said: I am God’s martyr, if thou sheddest my blood; for the Lord will receive my spirit, because thou sheddest innocent blood at the vestibule of the temple of the Lord. And Zacharias was murdered about daybreak.”
Comment by maryhelena — 2012/02/21 @ 3:38 am |
“King over Israel” is esoteric. “Israel” is the body of believers. John and Jesus (if there was a Jesus) were Masters, or saviors. James the Just was definitely a savior, and Judas Thomas, and Simeon Cleophas (“Peter”), too. All brothers, all martyrs:
Amazon.com: Saviors: Beyond Qumran, Nag Hammadi, and The New Testament Code (9781441545688): Robert Wahler: Books
Comment by Robert Wahler — 2012/02/21 @ 4:41 pm |
I’m afraid we are on a different journey here. My aim is early christian history and ‘saviors’ are not in my sights at all!
Comment by maryhelena — 2012/02/21 @ 5:42 pm |
To rey and maryhelena,
You have no idea how duped you are by the writers of the New Testament and those who picked it up and formed the Roman Church and subsequent orthodox Christianity out of it. Jesus himself condemned Paul at least five times prophetically for this in Matthew and Revelation. Look up “Jesus Words Only” online by Douglas Del Tondo. He is A CHRISTIAN. His book is online in full. He has links about Paul and the following: Matthew 5:19 as “Least in the kingdom” (‘Paulos’ and ‘Paulus’ mean ”least” in Greek and Latin). Matthew 7:15 as the “Ravening wolf” of Genesis 49:27 devouring the flock and then splitting it, Matthew 25:5-15 in the original Hebrew
https://www.createspace.com/3760866
as false prophet and author of the AntiChrist church doctrine, and again in Revelation 2:2-14 as false prophet to two future churches, saying he was “apostle (Ephesians 1:1) and teaching it is OK to eat things sacrificed to idols (1 Cor. 6 and 15).
I used to be Christian, and have studied this full-time for five years now. The Dead Sea Scrolls Pesherim call Paul “the SPOUTER OF LYING” and several other unkind things.The people of Qumran were the first true “Christians”, so they should know. Read Robert Eisenman: “James the Brother of Jesus”. He covers it in exhaustive detail. They (led by James, Jesus’ brother) were the first Christians, run out of Jerusalem to Qumran by Paul. Paul physically attacked James in the 40′s at the Temple, and eventually led the mob that killed James in 62 CE, after High Priest Ananus (the “Wicked Priest”) had him condemned in a kangaroo Sanhedrin court. This was all after his supposed “conversion” — with three conflicting versions of said event in Acts. Paul was a bad man. He is the one people follow in church today, not Jesus. Turn on any Sunday preacher. They will be discoursing from PAUL, not Jesus. It should be called “Paulianity”.
The main accomplishment of the NT was to suppress the other saviors of the time, all of Jesus’ three brothers, and cousin John the Baptist. All of them are minimized in various ways to eliminate any opposition to the church elders and their aggrandizement of a DEAD Master, Jesus Christ, into the mystery-religion hero the Greek audiences wanted. Just read the words of Jesus if you think I am making this up: “For it is the will of my Father that every one who SEES the Son and believes in him will be given eternal like, and I will raise him up at the last day [their death].” -John 6:40. “We must do the works of him who sent US [C. Sinaiticus] while it is day; night come, when NO ONE can work. AS LONG AS I AM IN THE WORLD I am the Light of the world.” -John 9:4-5. “I am the Way…” “for those who “HAVE SEEN” Jesus. -John 14:6-7. And John 17:11, where he prays to the Father to protect his “given” souls who were ALL (“they” is all of them) “IN THE WORLD” as he spoke his Prayer.This is all that survives the redaction of orthodoxy for teachings of Jesus Christ reflecting the truth of other Masters besides Jesus.
The blood salvation Paul taught was NEVER TAUGHT by Jesus. Mark 10:45 is a giving of his “soul” or “Life” (“Psuchen”, the Greek word here, means “breath” or “Soul”) to his disciples, not his sacrificial death. The translations are all wrong about “betrayal” in Matt. 26 and Mark 14. It is “to deliver” not “betray”. Judas is not the one delivering, but Jesus, OF HIMSELF, as Holy Spirit. The “betrayal” of Judas is myth. Judas Iscariot is myth. It is Judas THOMAS, the “doubting” brother, who is thereby otherwise minimized. The Gospel of Judas, just found, shows the mistake all have made where Jesus tells Judas “you will exceed them all, for you will sacrifice the man that bears me” — which is mystic revelation of Jesus as Master *within JUDAS*, not Jesus betrayed.
John the Baptist is such an embarrassment to Luke that Luke has him IN PRISON when Jesus is baptized by him in the other gospels. Peter denies Jesus three times (an esotericism about failure in meditation) and is thereby minimized. Again in John 21, not original to John (sign-off verses are at the end of chapter 20), Peter is shown to be a dufus. “Peter” is Simeon bar Cleophas, Jesus’ second brother. James was the first, Judas the third. ALL were Masters, all died martyrs. “Stephen” of Acts 7 is myth. It is JAMES stoned to death, as historians record. The clothes at “Saul’s” feet indicate PAUL as complicit in his murder. The speech given there is lifted from Joshua 23 Even a mistake is duplicated (24:32). The words at Acts 7:60 “Father forgive them” were James’ and became Jesus’ in the gospels. Acts 1:23, “Joseph Barsabbas Justus” is actually “James” (son of Joseph, son of “Abbas” the Father, and James the JUST) who actually replaces JESUS here as leader of the Jerusalem Assembly, not fictional “Matthias” replacing equally fictional “Judas Iscariot” (“sicarii” is applied to Judas Thomas) in a made-up story of betrayal, just shown to be false.
So, you see, all is not as it seems. The Bible, at least the NT, is POLEMIC, not a record. Mystic “gnosis” saves, not blood. Eisenman shows the origins of “saved by the blood” as a counter to blood-purity observances at Qumran by PAUL in his letters and in Acts by his buddy, Luke. Read “The New Testament Code”. Works versus faith is all thoroughly covered there, too. Paul got his information from a faulty Septuagint translation of Genesis 15:6 about Abraham’s faith. James talks about that in James 2. Many clues tell you it was Paul he had in mind (“scoffer”, “lies”, “tongue” “windbag”, “lawless one”). The gnostic gospels and the scrolls expose Paul all over the place.
Comment by Robert Wahler — 2012/02/22 @ 8:55 am |
Gobleegook.
Comment by reyjacobs — 2012/02/22 @ 12:49 am |
rey,
Here is a gnostic refutation of Paul and his AntiChrist teachings (Matthew 24:14-15, in Hebrew Matthew), as picked up by the Church (“the restoration”) The “name of a dead man” is Jesus, the “evil, cunning man” is Paul, as is the “evil” fruit (Matt. 7:16):
The Apocalypse of Peter (3rd century CE) –
“For many will accept our teaching in the beginning. And they will turn from them again by the will of the Father of their error, because they have done what he wanted. And he will reveal them in his judgment, i.e., the servants of the Word. But those who became mingled with these shall become their prisoners, since they are without perception. And the guileless, good, pure one they push to the worker of death, and to the kingdom of those who praise Christ in a restoration. And they praise the men of the propagation of falsehood, those who will come after you. And they will cleave to the name of a dead man, thinking that they will become pure. But they will become greatly defiled and they will fall into a name of error, and into the hand of an evil, cunning man and a manifold dogma, and they will be ruled without law.”
“For some of them will blaspheme the truth and proclaim evil teaching. And they will say evil things against each other. Some will be named: (those) who stand in (the) strength of the archons, of a man and a naked woman who is manifold and subject to much suffering. And those who say these things will ask about dreams. And if they say that a dream came from a demon worthy of their error, then they shall be given perdition instead of incorruption.”
“For evil cannot produce good fruit. For the place from which each of them is produces that which is like itself; for not every soul is of the truth, nor of immortality. For every soul of these ages has death assigned to it in our view, because it is always a slave, since it is created for its desires and their eternal destruction, in which they are and from which they are. They love the creatures of the matter which came forth with them.”
Comment by Robert Wahler — 2012/02/22 @ 9:08 am |
btw, The word is “gobbledeegook”.
Comment by Robert Wahler — 2012/02/22 @ 1:23 pm |
So Luke was Marcion’s disciple not Paul’s….wait, isn’t Marcion just Paul with a different name?
Comment by reyjacobs — 2012/02/22 @ 12:48 am |