Do They Know Anything About 'the Gospel'?

I am a new to the study of Christianity. I didn't know who Jesus was (outside of infrequent references to 'Yosef Pandera' and visits of my Italian friends to the Catholic Church and Catholic school) until I was fifteen. I didn't know much about anything until I started investigating the religion at this time. I went on to take courses at university and publish articles in academic journals but - owing to the inherent stubbornness of my personal make up I never went over to the 'general assumptions' of scholars inherited from their 'white' ancestors.

For instance when I read the earliest theologians of Christianity refer to 'THE gospel' and 'my gospel' I never accepted the nonsense made up by Church Fathers in the second and third centuries to reconcile this 'single, long gospel' system with the later four gospel canon of the Roman Church.

I don't believe that the texts of 'Matthew,' 'Mark,' 'Luke' and 'John' represent the original forms of any of these traditions.

I believe in an original Hebrew or Aramaic single, long gospel which was systematically expunged by Irenaeus and his successors in the faith. I do so because I cannot find any way to explain away the textual evidence amassed by Black in his An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford).

I notice that no one has ever been able to explain away his observations. Instead scholars do what they always do in the face of irrefutable evidence - they ignore it.

It is for this reason that I have always felt very comfortable having my life work ignored and becoming friendly with other academics and ancient cultures (the Samaritans, the Copts etc).

I take Groucho Marx's axiom that I would never join a club that would have me as its member to an absurdity my (purported) great, great granduncle could never have imagined.

To this end, let me restate something which always struck me about New Testament scholars - they take it as their starting point that every essential detail about 'what Christianity is' has already been established.

To this end - the Nicene Creed in one form or another 'confirmed' a 'basic truth' of the tradition which went back to the 'primitive Church' of Jesus and his Jewish disciples.

The reason I have had issues with this is that I am Jewish and even if Jesus disciples were high on LSD they COULDN'T have understood him to be the awaited messiah of their nation. A messiah was supposed to be a terrifying figure. Jesus was - by the admission of the earliest Fathers of Alexandria - cut a weak, unimpressive first impression.

I won't get into all of these distractions. I have inherited the mental incapacity to incorporated 'non-Christian' (i.e. non-European) traditions into my understanding of what Christianity is, was and always will be. I don't look down on the Muslim Jesus. I don't ignore the Coptic Christ.

Above all else I wanted to establish an understanding of Christianity that was reasonable and incorporated the traditions of ALL faiths related to 'Christ' in one way or another.

To this end, I always went back to the beginning with simple questions like "why was the second, more perfect Torah of Christian called 'the gospel'?" and unlike other scholars I actually managed to answer these questions with explanations that went back to Christianity's original roots in Palestinian soil.

In any event, I'd like and move on and ask my readers a problem originally posed - half in jest - by Nietzsche over a century ago. What's so great about the gospel? How can such an inglorious, poorly written literary composition claim to manifest 'the Holy Word' of God?

Let me assure my readers that I am not framing this question to embarrass or 'attack' Christianity. I am instead pointing another direction entirely.

We have to recognize that we don't have the original gospel in its original context.

The story of a crazed lunatic who wants to kill himself to prove that he is God to the world is not what the original gospel represented to the original adherents of Christ in Alexandria.

It is rather Polycarp's vision of Christianity reformed in an ancient text promoted in the middle second century and whose basic 'form' was modified by his student Irenaeus as the template the four canonical gospel.

You can read my article on Polycarp here at Hermann Detering's site.

The point is that because Polycarp was a para-suicidal preacher of Christianity, Jesus and Christianity was recast after his example by his disciples. But this wasn't the original understanding. As I see it the original gospel of Mark was more original and ultimately very different than what now makes its appearance as a hobbled, mangled text in our Catholic New Testament canon.

The first point that cannot be disputed is that Mark originally ended with an enthronement. Why the Longer Ending was excised from the text is anyone's guess but it was accomplished in the fourth century.

Second the whole context of who Jesus was and who the Christ was have disappeared from the text. This was undoubtedly done at Irenaeus' instigation because - as he notes - there were some in the second century who used Mark to prove that Jesus and Christ were 'separated' by the end of the gospel to the point that the former was displayed crucified and the latter beheld his glorious example. Again I am not trying to prove yet WHY this transformation was undertaken, nevertheless the fact that it occurred cannot be denied.

I have also demonstrated that Morton Smith's discovery of a baptism or 'redemption' ritual immediately before Mark x.38 was also removed from the text. I hope it is not too much to suggest to my readers that these 'changes' were not accomplished haphazardly but that the same methodology was applied throughout - viz. the excision of a secret doctrine which 'proved' that the neaniskos of chapter ten appeared resurrected and enthroned by the end of the gospel.

Indeed I will argue that all the 'throne' and 'enthronement' references throughout the gospel - the original single, long gospel witnessed imperfectly by the surviving Diatessaron tradition - all point in the direction of the original 'heretical' understanding known to Origen of Alexandria.

Mark - i.e. 'Marcion' of the 'Marcionites' - ended up enthroned at the right hand of the Father.

That's my understanding of the original gospel and I think it was also the original Alexandrian understanding after all it provides the foundation for their most beloved institution - the original Papacy of Christianity.

If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here

If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here