Why a Working Knowledge of Judaism is Necessary to Understand Early Christianity

Yes, this is my basic point in all of my efforts. There is a problem at the heart of modern scholarship in that it doesn't seem to recognize that the 'mission of the Gentiles' is necessarily a secondary phenomenon.

What does Tertullian say about the Marcionites in Book III? The Marcionites understood Christianity to be directed at Gentile proselytes to Judaism. This is a critical distinction and proves that Marcionitism was more original.

Here's the dilemma. Those who are dependent on the "European man's version of Christianity can only think in terms of the supposed first century 'mission to the Gentiles' from the Acts of the Apostles.

Islam however gets it right (once again). This whole conception is Roman propaganda TO AVOID THE ORIGINAL EXPRESSION OF CHRISTIANITY AS A SEMITIC 'LIBERATION THEOLOGY.'

In any event the Church Fathers report 'facts' about the earlier Marcionite to us but they are deliberately warped so as to be incomprehensible.

Take the oft quoted business about Marcion 'hating the Law and the prophets.'

I have maintained over and over again that the name 'Marqione' means 'those of Mark' and that 'Marcion' the heretic is a typical development of the Church Fathers to explain away earlier traditions (so 'Ebion' of the Evionim and so on).

The original head of the Marqione was a religious reformer named Mark. This is now indisputable.

Which tradition did he 'reform' or change? I am sure it was the 'old revelation' of the Law and prophets. The original statements in Jewish sources about Marcus Agrippa were developed by Irenaeus and then the later Church Fathers to a specifically Catholic setting.

In any event, the argument that Marcion 'rejected' the Torah is very similar to arguments found in the rabbinic literature about a group of Jews who similarly cast doubt about the authority of the 613 commandments established by Moses.

What was their position?

Only the ten utterances - i.e. what we call 'the ten commandments' - were from heaven. The rest of the 603 were written on the authority of Moses (there is another school of thought which argued that Moses wrote Deuteronomy but I will leave that alone for now).

Does even the stupidest, strongest believer in the authority of the Church Fathers reading this post begin to see what I am getting at?

The statement about (the) Marqione (those of Mark) 'hating the Law and prophets' could well be a development of a parallel position associated with 'Mark' in the Jewish and Samaritan writings.

The point of course is that Christians do emphasize the sanctity of the Ten Commandments and do for all practical purposes ignore the other 603 commandments.

Where did they get this idea? Jews typically dismiss this as demonstrating the Gentiles inability to 'do what God originally commanded Israel.' What I am suggesting is that this went back to an original position IN FIRST CENTURY PALESTINE still evidenced in Jewish and Samaritan writings associated with a authoritative figure named 'Marcus.'

In rabbinic sources the identity of Mark is made explicit - i.e. he is Marcus Julius Agrippa, the last king of Israel.

The reports about the Marqione just happen to be a filtering of the same information through the lens of late second and early third century Church Fathers.

I beg the believers in the Church Fathers to see that I am NOT destroying the faith in Christianity or any such nonsense. In fact if they really think about it, my theory about Agrippa actually STRENGTHENS the argument in favor of the legitimacy of Christianity.

As it stands without this understanding Christians can be accused of being 'ignorant Gentiles' whose weakness led to the development of a 'sissy religion' because they couldn't do what God commanded Moses.

Now with Marcus Agrippa as the 'architect' of Christianity the truth actually emerges. The Christian position was only a development of the legitimate and ultimately authoritative interpetation of the Law in the first century.

Agrippa received a revelation - the Gospel - which must have been argued to have come FROM THE SAME AUTHORITY AS THE TEN UTTERANCES and which had a higher grounding than the rest of the 603 commandments which only came from Moses.

This undoubtedly is the position of the apostle in 2 Corinthians but then again, I can't see any reason why 'Marcion' (i.e. 'Mark' of the Marqione) shouldn't be identified as the apostle either.

Read my other posts and you will understand how this argument is supported and developed by me.

Sorry got to run ...