This is a rip and post from LiveJournal. The following is from a dialogue I had with a conservative Christian on my beliefs at the time. It is naturally more "Christian" than I might word it today, both because of the audience and my position at the time. I suppose I should revisit this at some point, and update.
I should also note that this took place long before my present understanding of Judaism. Apologies if it seems antisemitic now.
Let me start off, in turn, by saying that I do differ in some beliefs from traditional Marcionism. (More on this below.) So, with that in mind...
The "Demiurge," a deity, was responsible for creation, and is a sort of "bad" diety, opposed to the "Christ" deity that indwelt Jesus.
That's a reasonably fair assessment both of classical Marcionism and my own beliefs. I'd add that, unlike most of the ancient Gnostics, I believe that creation was already formed before the Demiurge forged Adam from the dust of the earth. Many Gnostics believe that the Demiurge is responsible for the physical plane; thus, materiality is itself evil. I see no need for that asceticism. (By the way, I'm not sure if traditional Marcionites likewise view the material world as evil. That's something I know to be true of other Gnostic sects.)
This of course means there are multiple deities. (More than just these two? I dunno.)
Yes. The collection of deities is known as the Entirety, to which Marcionites (and most other Gnostics) believe the Hebrew name Elohim refers. The sin of Yaldaboath (the Demiurge) is in denying the Entirety. In so doing, we believe he expelled his power (the power being that given to him by and through the Entirety) and ceased to be part of Them. This is akin to the sin of renouncing the Holy Spirit, in Roman Catholic Dogma.
Jesus was fully man, not divine, and was indwelt by the "Christ" deity who was a separate, fully divine being.
This is perhaps the key difference between my beliefs and the teachings of Marcion. Marcion (along with Arius, et al) rejected the then-budding theology known as homoousion, with which I'm sure you're familiar. I see no way that Jesus, the Christ could have done what He did without being in a state of homoousion. If Christ dwelt in Jesus, then the will and being of Jesus, the man, was subverted; thus, He could not have made the sacrifice to appease the Demiurge in reconciliation of our imperfection vis a vis the Entirety.
Let me explain that one a bit further: The Demiurge created us through Adam. Though Adam was not the first man, we are all descended from Adam through Noah. (And even if one discounts the flood, it's highly likely through intermarriage that everyone now alive would be the descendants of Adam.) The Demiurge condemns Adam, as Adam-- being of the design of the Demiurge-- lacks the essence of being in the Image of God; i.e. one among the Entirety. The Law was given by the Demiurge to condemn the descendants of Adam (again, all of us) because, the Demiurge charges, we are not among the Entirety.
The Law, I'm sure you agree, is fulfilled through Christ. Thus, if Jesus is not the Christ (i.e. is only indwelt by the Christ), He could not have fulfilled the Law, because He would not be of one essence with the Entirety. The Entirety would dwell within Him, but He would still be subject to the Law, and thus unable to fulfill it. Likewise, the Christ had to be man, for if He were not man then He could not fulfill the Law given to condemn man.
The Demiurge is the "God of the OT" while Christ is "God of the NT," illustrated by the OT's focus on wrath and justice versus the NT's focus on grace and forgiveness.
Eh, more or less true, but an oversimplification. The God of Genesis 1is God, the Almighty. The Entirety speaks with one voice throughout Genesis 1. There are other places in both the OT and NT (and in other scriptures) where the Entirety speaks with one voice. IIRC, Isaiah 14 and the Nativity story from the Gospel of Matthew (eh, help me out here... I don't remember the chapter off-hand) are two such examples.
We view "God" as being the Entirety itself; the communion in which all power resides. Thus, it's a bit of a misnomer to call Christ the "God of the NT", as Christ is a part of the Entirety, and not the Entirety as a whole. Now, I do call Christ a God, but that's mainly because I view the Gods as distinct entities. Some Gnostics and Neo-Gnostics-- most notably the famed psychoanalyst Carl Jung-- view the Gods as archetypes; manifestations of either the Entirety or the collective unconscious. (Maybe both; it's been a while since I really delved into Jung.)
The Demiurge is also called the Yaldabaoth, and is referred to in the Gospel of Judas (Nebro).
Well, I haven't heard "the" applied to Yaldaboath in English; this may be a holdover from Koine Greek, where the article kai seems to be applied to darn near every noun. ;-) Also, I'm *this close* to rejecting the Gospel of Judas; it seems not much more than an adaptation of the Gospel of Thomas, written by the Barbelites or some similar sect which wished to use the Demiurge as an excuse to hedonism. (The theory is that by indulging in the material world, one rejects the Law and the Demiurge... er, never mind. That's not all that important for the topic at hand. *grin*) Anyway, while theologically speaking the Barbelites and other adherents of the Gospel of Judas may be more or less correct, philosophically speaking I must reject Barbelism on the same grounds I reject Satanism. As I've often said, faith ought not be based on negatives.
So the God of Genesis 1 is the Entirety before or after Yaldabaoth split off from the Entirety (or do I understand this incorrectly)?
Before.
Either way, where do you place the split and how can you draw that from Scripture - i.e., how do you know where the Entirety speaks/acts and where Yaldabaoth speaks/acts?
The split happened gradually. The creation of Adam was the beginning of the split, but then in Genesis 6 we learn that Yaldaboath repented of the creation of man. By the time Yaldaboath declared himself alone and above all, though, the split was complete.
This happened when he named himself YHWH, or "I am that am". Generally, in Scripture, YHWH refers to Yaldaboath... although, by the time some of the kings and prophets came around, their revelations of the Entirety were channeled through their understanding that YHWH was God. Thus, to repeat an example from earlier, I'm not convinced that Isaiah was referring to Yaldaboath when he speaks of the Lord.
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