spamandham

No, but then again, neither have I read Robbins. I merely presented Price's support of it. You may well be right that it's invalid, and I'll try to make time to read your link this evening.

neilgodfrey

There is a third argument that has been advanced by Tyson in "Marcion and Luke Acts". It is that canonical Luke (with Acts) is post Marcion. But that canonical Luke is a redaction of an "original Luke", a pre-Marcionite Luke. Marcion also knew and used this "original Luke".

This "original" presumably knew Mark's gospel and Q (or Matthew if you prefer, maybe), and other (Sundergut) material.

But it did not include the infancy narratives (chapters 1-2) and it began at Luke 3:1. Nor did it include most of the post-resurrection chapter (24).

These bookend sections demonstrate strong anti-Marcionite motifs. It is not very plausible to think that Marcion would choose to use a gospel that contained so much material to be excised when there were other shorter ones around closer to his desired starting point.

The final author of canonical Luke has also made a few anti-Marcionite changes to some of the main body of this "original" gospel, and worked his material well enough to overlay it with a unifying style and thematic development that leads the reader into Acts, which he also wrote.

I've recently compiled comprehensive notes from Tyson's argument. But am happy to discuss details here if this third alternative is also up for grabs.

neilgodfrey

The we-passages are not prima facie evidence of personal eye-witness or involvment in the story. The storm at sea is riddled like swiss cheese with poetic and other literary allusions testifying to its creative fictional character. All of these outweigh any plausibility that the "we" should be taken as prima facie evidence of a real eyewitness participant in that scene at least:

This is a summary by Steven Carr from a fuller discussion of mine:
So forget about "we" being a prima facie indicator of real life biography. In that context above, one has to argue that "we" should indicate a real participant, not assume it.

Similarly, historians never used an anonymous "we" or "I" as we find in Acts:
See also another post on this topic where it is shown that first person involvement in a story is arguably more likely to appear in the third person in a historical work.

Also note that the "we" passages do not occur consistently with an eyewitness participant. If so, we should find the "we" used more often, such as when Paul is in Ephesus I think, but the text seems to drop in and out of "we" without any really satisfactory explanation -- except possibly maybe the one by Robbins, Peter Kirby's very detailed article notwithstanding.

But I think there might be another explanation for the we-passages that I have not seen discussed anywhere yet, and that is that in each case the movement is towards Rome or a signified Rome proxy, such as the colony or Philippi. If so, this might be something that needs explanation, and I wonder if it might be found in the thesis of Bonz who sees in Acts a transvaluation of a founding epic like the Aeneid. I would also add the possibility the author is tying in the Israelite epic of its Primary history, which also concluded with the final lead character in a comfortable prison-like situation (2 Kings), thus leaving the reader with a hint of hope for what was to follow.

If so, then the we passages might have been originally read vicariously by a Roman audience as a narrative of a movement towards their city -- to found the "new Rome" which by the middle of the second century (when Acts was possibly written) was seeing itself as a rightful base of ecclesiastical leadership. I began a series on this on my blog but found my notes too scattered to organize quickly enough -- will have to return to them and finish them sometime.

Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

andrewcriddle

Argument Pro 2

(This Argument assumes Marcan priority)

i/ Both Marcion's Gospel and Luke have numerous passages based on Mark.
However some of the pasages in Luke derived from Mark are omitted in Marcion's Gospel (One can find a reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel here http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Itha...7/Library.html which gives references to the Patristic sources being used).

ii/ Hence we have two possibilities:
a/ Marcion's Gospel used some of Mark while omitting passages uncongenial to the agenda of its author while Luke later added some but not all of the Markan material omitted in Marcion's Gospel. (I think one could show that in some of these places Luke is adding from Mark not Matthew.)
b/ Luke used Mark, Marcion's Gospel then abbreviated Luke omitting (among other material) some Lukan material derived from Mark.

ii/ although a/ and b/ are both formally possible; b/ seems more straightforward and plausible and a/ seems over-complicated.

Andrew Criddle

neilgodfrey

This reconstruction is, of course, not a definitive reconstruction but one of several impressions. The evidence does not permit a word for word reconstruction of the gospel of Marcion (see Marcion's gospel: its character and contents) but only, at best, a general idea of its contents. Some variations in wording can be deduced, but we cannot reconstruct with very high confidence the complete gospel of Marcion.

But the mere fact that there were undeniably two versions of the Gospel of Luke in existence, Marcion's and the canonical version (see Tyson notes I've titled Did Marcion mutilate the Gospel of Luke?), should give pause before basing a hypothesis on a single-stream chicken-egg question.

robto

Thanks for that, Ben. It looks like my argument won't fly.

Ben C Smith

(A) I cannot forget about the most obvious answer to the question.

(B) I am not necessarily arguing for a real life biography; it is also possible that the we references are fraudulent. That is, they are intended to indicate eyewitness participation, but falsely so.

(C) The vast majority of the items on that list have nothing, but nothing, to do with whether the author is claiming to have participated in the events. Using Homeric vocabulary and motifs? Come now.

The issue of the we passages is far from settled, and settling it is not nearly so easy as you seem to be making out.

Ben.

ETA: Just for the record, I do not think there is any way Luke was ignorant of Homer.

Ben C Smith

I probably should have included this option in a trio of possibilities, but I was really after the nature of the canonical gospel of Luke; did it come before Marcion, or was it a reaction to Marcion?

I would love to see the details if you have them, Neil.

Ben.

ETA: Oh, and see my pending PM to you on a completely different matter. Thanks.

aa5874

The information provided by Church writers about Luke appear to be seriously flawed. It is now thought that the author of Luke wrote very late in the 1st century or beyond, and that the author was not a follower of Paul.
How could the Church writers be so wrong about the author of Luke?

According to Eusebius, Luke was with "Paul" and wrote gLuke and Acts before Paul died at around 66 CE. Biblical scholars disagree that Luke and Acts were written before 66 CE.

Where did the Church writers get their information about Luke and Marcion? They all seemed to be using erroneous data about Luke.

Why did the Church writers claim Acts was written before 66 CE when it was not?

JoeWallack

JW:
Related to this:

Con 1:
Marcion is the earliest attributed, non-controversial user of "Luke". As far as I know the orthodox provide no evidence that Marcion was aware of any other version of "Luke". Neil?

Related to this it is likely that the orthodox have a false earliest attribution to "Luke". Since it's likely that "Luke" used Josephus as a source it is unlikely that the author of "Luke" was a traveling companion of Paul.

Related to this the orthodox have attribution to two different "Luke's". The Epiphanius' Hippolytus/Forged Hippolytus' tradition is that "Luke" was a Disciple who fell from the Faith and was restored by Paul. So much for the Prologue.

Clearly, based on Attribution, it is Marcion who has the credibility. And this is based solely on orthodox testimony!



Joseph

PLAGIARISM, n.
A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.
PLAGIARIZE, v.
To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.

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