The First Edition of John as the Dionysian Gospel

7 thoughts on “The First Edition of John as the Dionysian Gospel”

1. Richard Seaford and Courtney Friesen also go into this subject.

   Dionysos(Routledge, 2006), Richard Seaford

   …a secret of the mystery-cult was that dismemberment is in fact to be followed by restoration to life, and this transition was projected onto the immortal Dionysos, who is accordingly in the myth himself dismembered and then restored to life. Third, this power of Dionysos over death, his positive role in the ritual, makes him into a saviour of his initiates in the next world… Dionysos, like Jesus, was the son of the divine ruler of the world and a mortal mother, appeared in human form among mortals, was killed and restored to life… The restoration of Dionysos to life was (like the return of Kore from Hades at Eleusis) presumably connected with the immortality obtained by the initiates…Not inconsistent with this is the possibility that the dismemberment myth was related to the drinking of wine that we have seen to be common in the mystic ritual…wine is earlier identified with Dionysos himself (e.g. Bacchae 284), more specifically with his blood (Timotheos fragment 780).

   Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians(Mohr Siebeck, 2015) Courtney Friesen

   A juxtaposition of Jesus and Dionysus is also invited in the New Testament Gospel of John, in which the former is credited with a distinctively Dionysiac miracle in the wedding at Cana: the transformation of water into wine (2:1-11). In the Hellenistic world, there were many myths of Dionysus’ miraculous production of wine, and thus, for a polytheistic Greek audience, a Dionysiac resonance in Jesus’ wine miracle would have been unmistakable. To be sure, scholars are divided as to whether John’s account is inspired by a polytheistic legend; some emphasize rather it’s affinity with the Jewish biblical tradition. In view of the pervasiveness of Hellenism, however, such a distinction is likely not sustainable. Moreover, John’s Gospel employs further Dionysiac imagery when Jesus later declares, “I am the true vine”. John’s Jesus, thus, presents himself not merely as a “New Dionysus,” but one who supplants and replaces him…

   Not only does Paul employ language that reflects mystery cults in several places, his Christian community resembles them in various ways.They met in secret or exclusive groups, employed esoteric symbols, and practiced initiations, which involved identification with the god’s suffering and rebirth. Particularly Dionysiac is the ritualized consumption of wine in private gatherings (1 Cor 11:17-34).

   Reply

2. It was probably written by the Cerinthians. They used the earliest version of John, the Signs Gospel, and apparently combined the Jewish Endtimes prophecy with the more Hellenistic concept of heaven that Dionysus worshipers were familiar with.

   https://lost-history.com/dionysus.php

   Reply

3. The reason Mary Magdalene confuses Jesus for the “gardener” is because an earlier tradition identifies Judas as the gardener of the garden where Jesus’ body was buried and then stolen away in the Toledot Yeshu (Matt. 28:13). Since the Gnostics then turned Judas into “Judas Thomas” the twin brother of Jesus, the Gardener would have looked exactly like Jesus.

   Reply

4. This has the same problem as the rest of MacDonald’s work.

   I do agree that the turning of water into wine may be a Bacchic reference or a way of casting Jesus as comparable to or superior to Dionysus, but most of the rest I don’t agree with. Just as in the prior example where we looked at the Calming of the Storm scene, most of these things are better explained in other ways.

   “Other adduced parallels run the gamut from uncertain to puzzling. In these occasions, it may simply be that MacDonald knows these texts far better than readers like I do and that he sees connections that have to be explained point by point to the uninitiated.”

   Err, no. This is a sign of a problem, not something to be dismissed. This is exactly how these types of claims shouldn’t be dealt with. Don’t say, “Well I don’t get it, but he’s the expert so I guess he’s right.” Wrong.

   And again, many of these things that MacDonald calls out are better explained from Jewish sources. And again, all of these stories had been stewing together for hundreds of years, so there are already many commonalities between Dionysus and Jewish figures.

   Just a random handful:
   “He is the one who can miraculously escape arrest” – Elijah
   “Jesus and Dionysus are similarly opposed by god-fighters” – Elijah (and other prophets)
   “The people’s leaders reject him” – Elijah (and other prophets)
   “He is the liberator of slaves” – Moses (I mean come on…)
   “Though the ignominy of the crucifixion and lack of vengeance are uncharacteristic of Dionysus, the Johannine Jesus still plays a Bacchae-inspired role in his imitation of Pentheus, the murdered king.” – This isn’t Johneen, this comes at least from Paul and of course from Mark, from which John is ultimately copying.
   “Like Dionysus, Jesus is a god who comes to earth in mortal disguise.” – Same as above.

   In fact, my view of John is that John was explicitly building on Jewish references because he was of the school that was popular in the second century of claiming that the Jews weren’t the authors of the Jewish scriptures and that Jews didn’t understand their own scriptures. John makes this point by building on the Jewish scriptures to identify Jewish hypocrisy, failure and misunderstanding. John isn’t trying to portray Jesus as Dionysus, he’s going out of his way to show the Jewishness of Jesus and how the Jews failed themselves. John is trying to show that Jesus fulfilled all of the Jews expectations (as he understood them) and despite it all they still failed to recognize him and believe in him. If Jesus presented in a Bacchic way then this failure would be understandable, but he isn’t, and that’s why their failure is inexcusable, which is a major theme of John – the inexcusably of the Jewish rejection of Jesus. That whole point fails to be made is Jesus is some new Dionysus.

   Reply

   1. And again, many of these things that MacDonald calls out are better explained from Jewish sources. And again, all of these stories had been stewing together for hundreds of years, so there are already many commonalities between Dionysus and Jewish figures.

      I don’t know why you are so set against MacDonald’s thesis. It explains details that are simply not explained at all from the Jewish sources. But that does not exclude Jewish sources — we know for a fact that ancient authors of this era were taught to emulate many sources. You don’t seem to be able to accept Hellenistic influence in what we call “Judaism” of the era.

      Reply

5. The Paraclite, the defender of Christ is a man. And, therefore, the identification that the Gospel proposes for us is artificial. He is supposed to want to enlighten us, to guide us. In reality he misleads us. Let us leave this lie and try to identify the character who originally bore the title of “Defender”, which everyone, on a certain date and in a certain environment, commonly called by that name. To deserve such honor, he must have, doubtless, engaged in an extraordinary apostolate. But which one? The gospel tells us that he has relations with the unbelieving world. But this information, which seems to put us on the right track, teaches us nothing, since Paul and all those who, after him, have spread the Christian name, met on their way the incredulous either Jews or pagans. The embarrassment disappears when one remembers where one is. We are at the spiritual Christ, and it is the master of the house who has the word.

   This man whose spiritual Christ announces the coming has appeared around 130; he was called Marcion. He has ”given witness” to his master; he has “glorified” him; he has “remembered” to the disciples all that the divine doctor had revealed; he has “teached all things”. And we now understand these formulas which, applied to an ordinary apostolate, would seem strange. The “Defender” did not perform an ordinary apostolate. He preached Christ, not to Jews and Gentiles, but to the disciples, more precisely disciples of the disciples, conforming in this to the intention of the teacher who said, 17:20: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message”. It was addressed only to people who had already heard of Christ, who thought they knew him, who knew him, but who had in mind only an image distorted by prejudices. He worked to correct their mistakes, “reminding” them of the teachings given by the teacher but forgotten. In this way he gave “witness” to Christ, to the true Christ, to the spiritual Christ; that is how he “glorified” the Christ. This good servant, let us hasten to say it, was not abandoned to his own strength. His master supported him, inspired him, dictated his sermons (16:13: “He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears… it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.”). Yet, despite such a powerful collaboration, the “Defender” achieved only incomplete results. No doubt he made conquests; but the great mass of the Christian people was irreducible and refused to abandon their carnal Christ. The “Defender” had no other resource than to convict this unbelieving world of sin. It is, moreover, what the spiritual Christ had predicted (16: 8): “he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin”.

   Marcion originally occupied the role of Paraclete. Then he was ousted and his role, after a detour, ended up in the Spirit of truth. I said: after a detour. Indeed, the Spirit of Truth, who was the definitive heir of Marcion, was not the immediate heir. The charge of Paraclite, after having escaped Marcion, had an interim holder who exercised it for a few years before yielding it to the Spirit. This holder was Montanus who, from around 160, evangelized the Phrygia.

   (p. 112-114, Le quatrième Evangile, H. Delafosse alias Joseph Turmel, my translation)

   Reply

6. Classical Greek Models of the Gospels and Acts: Studies in Mimesis Criticism is available at:

   http//claremontpress.com/uploads/3/4/8/4/34846481/classical_greek_modedownloadable_proof.pdf

   Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.