dog-on

Regarding Gal. 4:4 , I hope this is allowed...

Here is the passage from Tertullian's - Against Marcion, Book V.4

Notice what part of Gal 4:4 Tertullian doesn't quote here. You would think that, considering Marcion's position, Tertullian would not have passed up the chance to browbeat Marcion with - born of a woman, born under the law

This should be considered, in my opinion, evidence that the 'born of a woman'... was not in Marcion's version and that, for some reason, Tertullian didn't notice that it was missing.

jgibson000

Are we reading the same text?? Tertullian states "... it is superfluous for me to discuss the passages he has left out, since my case is stronger if he is shown wrong by those he has retained.

In the light of what Tertullian says actually says, the quote is extremely good evidence that the absence of GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS in Marcion's text is due to Marcion's excision of it from a text that originally had it.

Moreover, Marcion thought that sex was part of the evil god's creation. This, along with Marcion's belief that Judaism was evil and that Jesus was the end of the Law, provide us with a strong motive on Marcion's part for wanting to excise the text.

Jeffrey Gibson

dog-on

Dr. Gibson, do you have any evidence to show that Marcion's text was not the original? I assume that Tertullian is writing some time after Marcion's death, about 220AD. Is this correct?

In the quoted passage, Marcion doesn't say anything about Christ in the flesh. He seems to be arguing against the Marcion's demiurge.

My point was that Marcion did not have this line as part of the passage. This seeming fact, and the issues that seem to be raised by Acts (eg. the subordination of Paul to the other Apostles, a position that Paul himself, through his own testimony, does not see himself in), that Paul really doesn't seem to ever dwell on fleshy Jesus, much less allude to him as a guy that recently walked around Palestine and that Paul was, to the best of my knowledge, pretty much the "patron" Apostle of the Marcionites, would all seem to prove Marcion priority, at least as being worthy of serious consideration. Especially when one regards the alternative position's evidence.

Clivedurdle

May we be very careful with our definition of Orthodox? We might be talking early 400's before it gets fixed! Plenty of time for iterations because of yes buts and arguments in the Turkish Baths!

dog-on

It is more than born of a woman, its born of a woman, born under the law that seems to be missing in Marcion's version. I understand that Marcion is fairly anti-Jewish, but what about Paul? Could Paul just be a "pretend" Jew? I read, somewhere (I can't recall right now), about Paul trying to marry some Jewish guy's daughter, getting put to the knife, and then basically being dumped.

Maybe Paul was not a Jew, and his original writings where straight mystery religion type of stuff. It was later picked up by Marcion and ended up as part of the church canon, long after Paul had anything to say about it.

And on another note. Was Marcion's version of Luke the first Gospel we have any record of being alluded to by the early church fathers?

Ben C Smith

I quite agree. I never meant to suggest otherwise.

Fairly is awfully generous of you.

That would be a later Ebionite legend (Epiphanius, Panarion 30.16). Nobody AFAIK takes any of that seriously.

Make that case stick and you will be famous.

No. We have Papias (as quoted by Eusebius in History of the Church 3.39) referring to Mark. He also refers to a gospel by Matthew, but I doubt that is our canonical one. We also have Justin Martyr, shortly after Marcion, quoting left and right from gospel materials; it is very unlikely they had all developed just a decade or so before he quotes them. Everything that we have from Marcion is quoted by Tertullian, Epiphanius, Adamantius, and perhaps a few others.

Ben.

Llyricist

Here I have been seeing some major burden shifting. The mythicist's case doesn't stand on any particular explanation for "Born of a woman","seed of David", "kata sarka" and/or "Brother of the Lord". The historicist's case does, it's the historicist that has to show those phrases' inclusion in our extant epistles can only be explained by Paul's understanding that Jesus was a human who lived and was crucified a few years earlier. The mythicist only has to show that that is not the only possible explanation.

The mythicist's case does not rest upon those phrases having only one possible explanation, the historicist's case however.... does.

krosero

This is exactly backward. The mythicist has to show that in each case, for each phrase, Paul most probably did not mean an earthly Jesus. It cannot, in any of those cases, mean an earthly Jesus.

The historicist case has more room. "Brother of the Lord" can be a title for a man who was regarded as a spiritual brother to the Lord, and the Lord himself can still be a human Jesus. "KATA SARKA" can be translated "sphere of flesh" and still denote either a life on earth or in the celestial spheres. "Born of woman" can be translated as "come of woman" or "made of woman" and still mean an earthly Jesus.

Llyricist

All that is, is an argument to agnosticism, which is where I stand. The historicists are claiming that those phrases sink the mythicist case by proving that Paul thought of Jesus as a human. But they CAN be taken in other ways, or explained in other ways. and mind you three of those phrases are in one verse, so they really don't have to be considered separately for some possible explanations.

jgibson000

I think all that is being said by "historicists" -- and even those who are agnostic but who do know Greek -- is that on grounds of Greek grammar, syntax, style, lexicography, and attested usage, the mythicists' claims about what these texts say are ill informed and groudless.

May I ask how you yourself know this? What is the nature and extent of your training in Greek?

Jeffrey Gibson