renassault

Option 3 doesn't work because why would this presumably popular (since both Luke and Marcion would use it) proto-Gospel be replaced by the Gospel of Luke for the Orthodox Christians; understandably why this would happen for Marcion's sect, since he is its leader, but not so for the others, since by 150 AD, it would be too late to remove the hypothetical ur-Luke in order for there to be no trace of it now. (Marxsen uses this same argument against an ur-Mark, though little does he realize that he would have to abandon Q if he followed it; ur-Mark would have been written in the 50's, maybe even earlier, so the lack of textual evidence is not so damaging, as it isn't for Q).

Ben C Smith

I thought you meant you had never heard fathers or scholars speaking as if Marcion called his text a gospel. Sorry. I see now (I think) that you do not know of any quotation of Marcion himself in which he calls it that.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

That is the thing. We do have evidence of a version, if you will, of Luke: Marcion. The gospel of Luke and the gospel of Marcion are clearly interdependent texts. We are taking Tertullian at his word to suppose that the relationship between these texts is Luke to Marcion. But what if Tertullian is wrong? I do not think (pending further review) he had independed tradition detailing the composition of the Marcionite gospel; I think all he had was the texts themselves.

The direction of dependence may be Marcion to Luke. Or both of them may rely on a proto-Luke. That is what this thread is trying to decide (provisionally, of course).

Do you know of any evidence for the Tertullianic reconstruction besides his word itself? For example, do you find evidence that Tertullian was indeed relying on some tradition of the actual composition of the Marcionite gospel?

No. But I can see some relevance to that question.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

It would have outlived its usefulness, being entirely (or nearly so) swallowed up by another gospel.

(A similar scenario is often imagined for Q; once Matthew and Luke absorbed it, few had any real use for it. You mention Q later in your post, but I do not know whether you accept it or not.)

Overall, on a broader level, it is precarious to argue that a text should have survived. Too many texts are lost to us to make such an argument.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I kid you not? Do we have Sarah Palin to thank for the recent popularity of this phrase?

Thanks for the information on F. Reitzenstein. It almost sounds as if you know him personally.

Ben.

dog-on

Ben, what do you make of Tertullians arguments in Book IV chapters IV and V? Does his timeline make sense?

DCHindley

I humbly assumed that she borrowed it from ME. <g>

Frank & I are not tight. However, I realized that the Jesu Chrestos thingy in the marketing blurb was a direct borrowing of Mahar's "liberty". Since I look down on the practice of adopting "liberties" as facts, and this is what he leads off his marketing blurb with, I suspect that the rest of the book will be similarly liberal in adopting conjectures of this type.

BTW, this doesn't mean I find Mahar's presentation worthless. He bases it on earlier scholarship of the good type. I just don't think the points of evidence cited are strong enough the prove that Marcionites called Jesus "Isu Chrestos."

DCH (taking my union mandated 15 minute break before I have to hit the road and won't have a chance to comment)

aa5874

To find out if Marcion would have used an un-named gospel, it must be known or information should be gathered about the God and the son of God of Marcion.

According to Justin Martyr, Marcion preached another God and another son, not the God of the Jews nor the son of the God of the Jews, not the God of the Gospels.

It is not likely that Marcion, based on Justin, needed any gospel. Marcion blasphemed the God of the Jews

Now, Irenaeus also wrote about Marcion.

"Against Heresies" 27.1-2 So, according to Irenaeus Cerdo preceeded Marcion and was already teaching that his Jesus had nothing to with the God of the Jews, nothing to do with the God of the gospels.

Continuing Against Heresies 27.2 I know of no gospel named or un-named that supports blasphemy of the God of the Jews, that support abolishing all the works of the God that made the world.

Marcion must have abused the gospels. He does not need the "good news" of the God of the Jews.

Ben C Smith

His timeline of texts makes sense:

If that gospel which among us is ascribed to Luke — we shall see <later> whether it is <accepted by> Marcion — if that is the same that Marcion by his Antitheses accuses of having been falsified by the upholders of Judaism with a view to its being so combined in one body with the law and the prophets that they might also pretend that Christ had that origin, evidently he could only have brought accusation against something he had found there already.

According to this, Marcion in the Antitheses knows of two texts; one is a gospel falsified by Judaizers, and the other is a gospel that he himself produced in order to remove the falsifications.

Strictly speaking, my option 3 in this thread says nothing about whether our gospel of Luke came before or after Marcion, but I have used this very passage to argue that it came before. Since, however, I am leaning at present to option 3 rather than to options 1 or 2, my exceedingly tentative (and relative, not absolute) timeline looks something like this:

1. Proto-Luke is written.
2. Canonical Luke is written (along with Acts).
3. Marcion considers canonical Luke to be a Judaized gospel, and reverts back to proto-Luke, probably making adjustments even to that.

Think of all that this scenario explains. Why was the Marcionite gospel anonymous? Because Marcion knew that the gospel attributed to Luke had been based on a proto-gospel that he regarded as the real deal. Why did Marcion consider Luke to be doctored? Because he knew of another gospel that looked similar, but shorter.

The scenario that best competes with this one, IMVHO, is this:

1. Canonical Luke is written (along with Acts), but is anonymous.
2. Marcion considers canonical Luke to be a Judaized gospel, and goes about removing whatever he thought was too Judaistic.

But I have several reservations about this. First, if Marcion chose Luke to modify, I have trouble accepting it as sheer coincidence that Luke happens to be attributed to a companion of Paul, whom Marcion reveres, yet Marcion omitted this information, opting instead for an anonymous text. Second, several scholars have noticed that Marcion must not have done a very good job of excising the Judaistic influences, since Tertullian and other fathers are still able to use his own text against him, and not all of their arguments are a stretch.

Ben.

dog-on

Ben, my problem with this is the seeming silence concerning the existence of Luke/Acts prior to the time of Ireneaus.

Justin, who seems to be a contemporary of Marcion's is oblivious to to this argument.