And Who Was the Gospel Written For?

Again another question that two hundreds years of scholars have never solved. As always I go back to the ancient sources themselves. Irenaeus and his cohorts say that Paul directed his efforts toward the conversion of the Gentiles. The Marcionites say that the gospel of the Apostle was directed toward the proselytes.

Which makes more sense?

For God's sake people, it is bloody obvious. Only proselytes could have had the pre-existent knowledge to make sense of the Apostle's arguments AND the necessary understanding to see that the gospel narrative 'fit' within the existing Palestinian liturgy associated with the 'first festival' - i.e. Passover/Unleavened Bread.

Above all else we have to get rid of the 'supernatural arguments' that have falsely been promoted in Catholic Christianity. We have to get rid of them like chametz during the 'first festival' itself!

No one who witnessed the first application of the gospel as a living liturgical cycle for the people it was intended relied on 'supernatural forces' for their understanding. The damage that pseudo-historical texts like 'the Acts of the Apostles' caused to the scientific study of the gospel are immeasurable.

As I see it the Marcionites preserved the original understanding when they claimed that the gospel was established to bring the proselytes out from servitude to the hated Pharisaic Jews. The Exodus narrative was allegorically reinterpreted to apply to these Gentiles who had come over in the hopes of being Jews but who nevertheless were deemed to be second class citizens within the nation of Israel.

The author of the gospel drew from the Samaritan - and particularly the Dosithean - understanding of the Exodus narrative. He saw the crossing of the Red Sea as being related to ritual water immersion. Only he further developed the understanding to the point that these proselytes were chosen for the revelation of a higher more powerful God than had previously been revealed to Moses and the ancient Israelites, the ancestors again of the hated Jews.

I am working out all the details over the course of the next month or so as I transcribe each page of MacDonald's translation of the Mimar Marqe but already a few patterns are becoming obvious:

the angelic 'Jesus' of the Marcionite gospel was the equivalent of the Glory in the Exodus narrative.

the beloved neaniskos was Mark who was the equivalent of Moses

the contemporary oppression the gospel addresses is the status of the proselytes within the Jewish community

the development of the festival of Passover/Unleavened Bread into an initiatory ritual to 'free' the proselytes from enslavement to Jewish principles was ultimately politically motivated. Anyone reading this post should be aware that I identify Mark with Marcus Julius Agrippa. The interest that the gospel takes in the events surrounding the destruction of the Jewish temple would be shared by Agrippa (these were after all his subjects).

Indeed let's not forget that the Exodus narrative projects its 'redemption' - viz. the inheritance of the Holy Land - into the future also. All events described in the Pentateuch are mere preparations for the ultimate redemption.

The fact that Mark should set his gospel narrative thirty years before the final redemption of the proselytes - i.e. when the Jerusalem of the hated Jews was surrounded and the Gentiles who came over to their cause witnessed the revelation of the 'grace' of being finally adopted as sons - was only in keeping with the original Mosaic formula.

In the same way as we never actually see 'the redemption' of Israel at the end of the Pentateuch, the question of 'what happens after the Resurrection' is also left open in the gospel. The reality was that the events were being played out in the late first century environment that first converts were living through as they participated in the first Christian liturgies.