Ben C Smith

I have read Robbins (even before it was available online), and was initially excited about it. (This was years ago.)

But I do not think the thesis withstands scrutiny; his own examples do not do what he needs them to do.

However, that said, he does of course make an argument, and this thread is about arguments, not necessarily conclusions. The problem is that it actually does not help to date Acts with respect to Marcion, which is the purpose of this thread.

Could you flesh out this anachronism into an argument for the con side? That is exactly the sort of thing I am looking for. Thanks.

Ben.

2-J

No substantive contribution to make at this stage I'm afraid - just posting to say this is a topic very interesting to me, I'm glad someone's brought it up and I'll be following it with interest.

robto

Interesting thread.

I was going to add

Pro2: Marcion's gospel begins:

3:1/4:31 In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar,
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea,
Jesus descended [out of heaven] into Capernaum, a city in Galilee,
and was teaching [in the synagogue] on the Sabbath days;
And they were astonished at his doctrine...

This seems to be an edit that tacks Luke 4:31 onto 3:1 in an awkward way - the idea that Jesus descended out of heaven to earth seems to be missing from other early sources, and only shows up in John and later writings. The awkwardness and the implicit christology argue for a late dating for Marcion's version.

[End of PRO2]

However, in Googling for the passage (which I remembered vaguely from some book read years ago), I came across a different translation of Marcion's gospel:

1. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,
2. [Pontius Pilatus being the Governor of Judaea,] Jesus came down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was
3. teaching on the sabbath days: and they were astonished at his doctrine...

Here there is no suggestion of a descent from heaven - which in any case seems to be only implied in the first translation I quoted. I note too that "went down to Capernaeum" is how my NIV translates Luke 4:31.

So, here are a couple of questions for those of you more expert than I:
- Is there anything in Adversus Marcion or Panarion to support "from heaven", or is this just a translator's suggestion of what Marcion intended?
- If "from heaven" is supported, is there any validity to the argument I sketched above?

Ben C Smith

The Greek words for ascent and descent are commonly used for merely journeying from one point to another. For example, when the gospels say that Jesus journeyed to Jerusalem, they are really saying that he went up, or ascended, to Jerusalem. (Cultural perspectives appear to have played a role here, since AFAICT people always seem to be going up to Jerusalem, rarely if ever down.) John 4.51 has Jesus going down, or descending, toward the house of the royal official. A similar verb (same prefix) is used in Luke 4.31.

This is what Tertullian has to say about this passage in the Marcionite gospel, in Against Marcion 4.7.1:

Marcion premises that in the fifteenth year of the principate of Tiberius he came down into Capernaum, a city of Galilee, from the heaven of the creator, of course, into which he had first come down out of his own.

The from heaven portion appears very clearly to me to be interpretation of the actual text, which must have simply read: [Jesus] came down into Capernaum, a city of Galilee. I think Tertullian is saying that Marcion interpreted came down as a descent from heaven, not that the text itself had anything explicitly about heaven.

As for Epiphanius, he confirms that the bit about Tiberius was there, but he fails to include anything either pro or con about Capernaum in his catalogue of variants, and I do not know offhand whether he ever discusses it elsewhere in the Panarion.

Ben.

the_cave

Counterproposal: Marcion's gospel was a rewrite of a proto-Luke (or a proto-Matthew, depending on how you look at it). Luke then rewrote Marcion, perhaps harmonizing it with proto-Luke, but also adding his own material (including, apparently, Acts, which may have been based on an earlier tradition.)

Ben C Smith

This would be a variant of my con proposal above. The only difference would be the recognition that Marcion did not just take over the proto-gospel; he actually modified it. In both cases, for the purposes of this thread, our canonical (extant) Luke would postdate the Marcionite gospel, thus qualifying as a con proposal.

Ben.

spamandham

True that it doesn't exactly help to date them relatively, but it does call into question one of the arguments that would date Acts early.

Sure.

So here we have Peter, referring to himself "in the early days". If Acts was written in "the early days" this would make no sense at all. So, at least this portion of Acts, was written long after the early days. That doesn't help us pin it down precisely, but it it does favor a much later date rather than a much earlier date.


*I chose this version, because it was the closest online translation I could find to a scholarly translation as provided by RM Price

Ben C Smith

How long after the early days? What makes it have to come after Marcion?

Ben.

spamandham

There's no way of knowing how long, it's just "a long time". It does not have to have come after Marcion. I doubt we're going to come across a smoking gun. The argument is going to boil down to likelihoods.

Ben C Smith

The arguments I gave attempted to date Luke and Marcion specifically with relation to each other. Your argument attempts to (very vaguely) date Luke alone with relation to the first days of Christianity. That would be a different thread, would it not?

My contention is that the Robbins article does no such thing; it attempts to do something like that, but falls very much short of its goal.

Did you read the review by Kirby? Various scholars have also responded in print. What do you think? Which examples adduced by Robbins do you think survive the criticism?

Ben.