Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 06-28-2008, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

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.

Now, why did the Church writers, ALL OF THEM, claim "Paul" had a travelling companion named Luke when he did not?

Was there really a "Paul"?

Marcion rejected Luke's history of Paul as written by the supposed Luke according to the Church writer Tertullian.

Where did this author get Paul's history from?

The names of Luke and Paul are NOT in the reconstructed gospel of Marcion.

spamandham · 06-28-2008, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

I don't disagree really, but this thread is all about the arguments that support these conclusions, rather than simply the conclusions themselves. So, what do propose supports this idea?

aa5874 · 06-28-2008, 11:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

I don't disagree really, but this thread is all about the arguments that support these conclusions, rather than simply the conclusions themselves. So, what do propose supports this idea?

Scholars have deduced gLuke was written after gMark and as late as the 2nd century. Eusebius in Church History claimed Paul died during Nero, and that Paul was aware of the Gospel of Luke before he died.

It would appear the Church writers cannot truly account for the author of Luke or Paul.

Tertullian claimed Marcion's Gospel the Antithesis has no named author. I don't really know if the Church writers were correct when they claimed Marcion wrote the Antithesis.

They were wrong about Matthew, Mark, Luke John, Acts, the Epistles and Revelation.

Who told the Church writers Marcion wrote the Antithesis, the same person who told them Luke was a disciple of Paul and wrote Acts of the Apostle before Paul died at around 66 CE?

Against Marcion 4.2

Quote:

..... Marcion, you must know, ascribes NO author to his Gospel......

Marcion was already dead when Tertullian claimed Marcion wrote the Antithesis.

neilgodfrey · 06-28-2008, 11:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

(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 list demonstrates that the whole story is make believe. There is nothing distinctive from the real world. Everything is drawn from known literary images. Like the Passion being drawn from OT allusions. Sure those can be used to embellish an otherwise historical account, but if once we strip away those embellishments there is no core of historical account left, then we are left with nothing but a made up tale. The list is definitely relevant because it clarifies the literary as opposed to historical context of the "we" references.

neilgodfrey · 06-29-2008, 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

[
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?

Sort of. But in an indirect way they do provide evidence that Marcion did think that there were at least 2 versions of Luke that had existed . . .

Irenaeus is the first to identify Luke as the author of the gospel. But his accusation against Marcion is anachronistic. He accuses Marcion of essentially picking a revered text from an existing canon and egregiously proceeding to mutilate it. But the idea of 'revered texts' and canons in the sense Irenaeus is thinking simply did not exist at the time of Marcion.

The more plausible scenario is that Marcion was rewriting a text at a time when mostly what was known were various editions of texts, nothing formal let alone "canonical". Texts were fluid before the post-Marcionite canonization process.

Some suggest it would have been natural for Marcion to have chosen a gospel by the companion of Paul, but this again is an anachronistic notion. The name of Luke was evidently not attached to the gospel until the time of Irenaeus.

But whatever text Marcion used, it did have clear overlaps with canonical Luke.

And even despite the anachronistic claims of the fathers, it is those same fathers who do provide evidence that there was more than one version of Luke: at the very least, Marcion's and theirs.

neilgodfrey · 06-29-2008, 01:06 AM

[QUOTE=Ben C Smith;5418546]

Quote:

Originally Posted by neilgodfrey

Quote:

But am happy to discuss details here if this third alternative is also up for grabs.

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

I meant I'd be happy to discuss specific questions by drawing on Tyson's work, as I did with another post here by JoeW. But to present the details all here would simply be too much work.

Of relevance to your question are Tyson's discussions on the following:

Did Marcion mutilate the gospel of Luke?

Character and contents of Marcion's gospel

The date of canonical Luke

Discovering an original gospel behind canonical Luke and Marcion's gospel

Luke's infancy narratives as response to Marcionism

Luke's resurrection chapter . . .

Luke's Preface

The body of Luke (chapters 3-23)

Those are the notes from Tyson's work that are of most direct relevance to the argument that there was an original gospel behind both Marcion's and canonical Luke's. So you will probably agree it would be a bit of a task to spill the details in a few posts here. But certainly happy to discuss specifics, as per my response to JoeW.

P.S. -- Have decided to try posting one of the above here, . . . . the general one on "discovering the original gospel behind...." --

The early church fathers accused Marcion of mutilating the canonical gospel of Luke. But there are problems with accepting this charge, as discussed in a previous post. Tyson in Marcion and Luke-Acts resurrects the hypothesis that both Marcion and the author of canonical Luke used another text no longer surviving and which he calls, after Baur, "original Luke".

Tyson traces the historical pedigree of this hypothesis of "original Luke" through Ritschl, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Volckmar and Knox.

Albert Ritschl, in 1846, argued that the author of our canonical Luke used Marcion's Luke as his source:

* he showed that inconsistencies in canonical Luke disappeared in the reconstructed gospel of Marcion
* Ritschl later came to reject his view that the canonical author used Marcion's gospel. It requires one to imagine a proto-orthodox author would base his work on a text he believed to be heretical

Ferdinand Christian Baur, in 1847, disagreed with Ritschl's 1846 argument. Baur's argument was that the author of canonical Luke wrote it as an anti-Marcionite gospel by using material from:

* an "original Luke" (apparently also known to Marcion),
* from Matthew
* and from other material unique to him (Sondergut)

Baur dismissed the claims of the church fathers that Marcion had "mutilated" canonical Luke. Such a charge, he said, carried as little weight as any other evil charge the fathers delivered against those they deemed heretics, such as their propensity to seduce virgins. "A heretic may be presumed to have done both."

Baur's most convincing evidence that canonical Luke was a mishmash of other sources was the number of inconsistencies throughout it. He drew on Ritschl for most of these inconsistencies in canonical Luke:

* The pericope of Jesus' rejection at Nazareth (4:16-30) refers to a scene in Capernaum that has not happened, but that is narrated as happening later (4:31-37)

o Baur saw this as evidence that the author of canonical Luke rearranged his source

+ so that Jesus' ministry began at his hometown (more natural in view of the canonical author),
+ so that it began as a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy as per 4:21 (thus anti-Marcionite)
+ so that it began with a link to Elijah and Elisha who preached to both Israel and the gentiles

* Luke 4:24 ("no prophet is accepted in his own country") makes better sense if the reader has already seen a contrast between how Jesus is accepted in other places and in his own town
* Luke 11:29-32 allegedly contains two interpretations of the sign of Jonah and a seemingly irrelevant note about Solomon and the Queens of the South

o Old Testament signs and relevance is anti-Marcionite

* Luke 16:16-17 says both that the law has come to an end and that it can never come to an end

o Baur believed that in the second verse the "original Luke" spoke of Jesus' "words" never failing, and the author of canonical Luke changed this to the law never failing, thus creating a contradiction

Baur's hypothesized "original Luke", however, was very similar to Marcion's gospel.

Gustav Volckmar, 1850, maintained that both Marcion and Ritschl had oversimplified the question. Simply reversing the order of events in Luke 4 (so that the Capernaum pericope preceded the Nazareth one) in Marcion's gospel did not work either, for the following reasons:

1. the Capernaum-Nazareth order provided no motivation for the Nazareth residents to turn against Jesus, since the verse immediately preceding the rejection (4:22) says they all highly approved of him
2. 4:23 has the Nazareth people speaking of the things, plural, that Jesus had done in Capernaum so the one Capernaum incident preceding it is not enough. 4:22 assumes a long history of deeds in Capernaum has preceded this scene.
3. 4:24 ("no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown") only makes sense in the context it is used in Mark 6:4 and Matthew 13:57 -- after Jesus has first been shown to be a great prophet

Volckmar's conclusion: both the Marcionite and canonical authors took the two pericopes (Nazareth and Capernaum) from a common original.

John Knox, 1942, summarized the nineteenth century German debate as ending "in the establishment of a new view which denied both that Luke was derived from Marcion and that Marcion was derived from canonical Luke."

Knox also argued that a gospel preceding both Marcion's and the canonical one would have contained:

1. roughly the same Markan and Matthean units that our canonical Luke contains
2. and some of Luke's Sondergut

and that this primitive gospel was:

1. shortened by Marcion
2. and enlarged by the canonical author of Luke-Acts

Tyson writes, p. 85:

This formidable scholarly tradition, which includes Baur, Ritschl, and Knox, has established grounds for serious doubts about the claims of the church fathers and has encouraged an alternative theory, namely that canonical Luke, although not based directly on Marcion's gospel, was composed, among other factors, in reaction to the preaching of Marcion.

Tyson then goes on to show how this argument is strengthened by observing some of the differences between Marcion's gospel and canonical Luke.

Nope, trying to edit the formatting to post here is too much work -- no more.

JoeWallack · 06-29-2008, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neilgodfrey

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

[
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?

Sort of. But in an indirect way they do provide evidence that Marcion did think that there were at least 2 versions of Luke that had existed . . .

JW:
Ahem. Tertullian, even though he was a very little man, seems to be our best source on Marcion as he was close to Irenaeus and wrote in detail on the subject. The starting point for this investigation should be Attribution of usage because that is the simplest and most direct category. Trying to determine attribution based on what you think Tyson thinks Tertullian thought, is [understatement] inefficient [/understatement]. We need to start here with extant Tertullian. Of course Tertullian lacks credibility and his testimony requires huge discounts but it looks to be the best source we have on the subject.

If you try and trek through the Internet you will see lots of discussion on the subject which misapplies what Tertullian has to say about "Marcionites" of his time to Marcion. Let's try and look at Tertullian's "testimony" as to Marcion's attribution of "Luke":

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...ullian124.html

Quote:

CHAP. II.--ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL, SELECTED BY MARCION AS HIS AUTHORITY, AND MUTILATED BY HIM. THE OTHER GOSPELS EQUALLY AUTHORITATIVE. MARCION'S TERMS OF DISCUSSION, HOWEVER, ACCEPTED, AND GRAPPLED WITH ON THE FOOTING OF ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL ALONE.

You have now our answer to the Antitheses compendiously indicated by us. I pass on to give a proof of the Gospel--not, to be sure, of Jewry, but of Pontus--having become meanwhile adulterated; and this shall indicate the order by which we proceed. We lay it down as our first position, that the evangelical Testament has apostles for its authors, to whom was assigned by the Lord Himself this office of publishing the gospel. Since, however, there are apostolic men also, they are yet not alone, but appear with apostles and after apostles; because the preaching of disciples might be open to the suspicion of an affectation of glory, if there did not accompany it the authority of the masters, which means that of Christ, for it was that which made the apostles their masters. Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instil faith into us; whilst of apostolic men, Luke and Mark renew it afterwards. These all start with the same principles of the faith, so far as relates to the one only God the Creator and His Christ, how that He was born of the Virgin, and came to fulfil the law and the prophets. Never mind if there does occur some variation in the order of their narratives, provided that there be agreement in the essential matter of the faith, in which there is disagreement with Marcion. Marcion, on the other hand, you must know,

ascribes no author to his Gospel, as if it could not be allowed him to affix a title to that from which it was no crime (in his eyes) to subvert the very body. And here I might now make a stand, and contend that a work ought not to be recognised, which holds not its head erect, which exhibits no consistency, which gives no promise of credibility from the fulness of its title and the just profession of its author. But we prefer to join issue on every point; nor shall we leave unnoticed what may fairly be understood to be on our side. Now, of the authors whom we possess, Marcion seems to have singled out Luke for his mutilating process. Luke, however, was not an apostle, but only an apostolic man; not a master, but a disciple, and so inferior to a master--at least as far subsequent to him as the apostle whom he followed (and that, no doubt, was Paul) was subsequent to the others; so that, had Marcion even published his Gospel in the name of St. Paul himself, the single authority of the document, destitute of all support from preceding authorities, would not be a sufficient basis for our faith. There would be still wanted that Gospel which St. Paul found in existence, to which he yielded

his belief, and with which he so earnestly wished his own to agree, that he actually on that account went up to Jerusalem to know and consult the apostles, "lest he should run, or had been running in vain;" in other words, that the faith which he had learned, and the gospel which he was preaching, might be in accordance with theirs. Then, at last, having conferred with the (primitive) authors, and having agreed with them touching the rule of faith, they joined their hands in fellowship, and divided their labours thenceforth in the office of preaching the gospel, so that they were to go to the Jews, and St. Paul to the Jews and the Gentiles. Inasmuch, therefore, as the enlightener of St. Luke himself desired the authority of his predecessors for both his own faith and preaching, how much more may not I require for Luke's Gospel that which was necessary for the Gospel of his master.

JW:
So far, all Tertullian says on the subject of Marcion attribution of "Luke" is that he did not ascribe a name to authorship. We can see above that all of Tertullian's attributions of names are likely wrong. Therefore, at this point, Point Marcion! Score:

Marcion 3:15

Tertullian Love

Joseph

SCRIPTURES, n.
The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

http://errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

JoeWallack · 06-29-2008, 07:17 AM

JW:
Let's move this forward:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...ullian124.html

Quote:

CHAP. IV.--EACH SIDE CLAIMS TO POSSESS THE TRUE GOSPEL. ANTIQUITY THE CRITERION OF TRUTH IN SUCH A MATTER. MARCION'S PRETENSIONS AS AN AMENDER OF THE GOSPEL.

We must follow, then, the clue of our discussion, meeting every effort of our opponents

with reciprocal vigor. I say that my Gospel is the true one; Marcion, that his is. I affirm that Marcion's Gospel is adulterated; Marcion, that mine is. Now what is to settle the point for us, except it be that principle of time, which rules that the authority lies with that which shall be found to be more ancient; and assumes as an elemental truth, that corruption (of doctrine)

belongs to the side which shall be convicted of comparative lateness in its origin. For, inasmuch as error is falsification of truth, it must needs be that truth therefore precede error. A thing must exist prior to its suffering any casualty; and an object must precede all rivalry to itself. Else how absurd it would be, that, when we have proved our position to be the older one, and Marcion's the later, ours should yet appear to be the false one, before it had even received from truth its objective existence;

and Marcion's should also be supposed to have experienced rivalry at our hands, even before its publication; and, in fine, that that should be thought to be the truer position which is the later one--a century later than the publication of all the many and great facts and records of the Christian religion, which certainly could not have been published without, that is to say, before, the truth of the gospel. With regard, then, to the pending

question, of Luke's Gospel (so far as its being the common property of ourselves and Marcion enables it to be decisive of the truth,) that portion of it which we alone receive is so much older than Marcion, that Marcion, himself once believed it, when in the first warmth of faith he contributed money to the Catholic church, which along with himself was afterwards rejected, when he fell away from our truth into his own heresy. What if the Marcionites have denied that he held the primitive faith amongst ourselves, in the face even of his own letter? What, if they do not acknowledge the letter? They, at any rate, receive his Antitheses; and more than that, they make ostentatious use of them. Proof out of these is enough for me. For if the Gospel, said to be Luke's which is current amongst us (we shall see whether it be also current with Marcion), is the very one which, as Marcion argues in his Antitheses, was interpolated by the defenders of Judaism, for the purpose of such a conglomeration with it of the law and the prophets as should enable them out of it to fashion their Christ, surely he could not have so argued about it, unless he had found it (in such a form). No one censures things before they exist, when he knows not whether they will come to pass. Emendation never precedes the fault. To be sure, an amender of that Gospel, which had been all topsy-turvy from the days of Tiberius to those of Antoninus, first presented himself in Marcion alone--so long looked for by Christ, who was all along regretting that he had been in so great a hurry to send out his apostles without the support of Marcion! But for all that, heresy, which is for ever mending the Gospels, and corrupting them in the act, is an affair of man's audacity, not of God's authority; and if Marcion be even a disciple, he is yet not "above his master;" if Marcion be an apostle, still as Paul says, "Whether it be I or they, so we preach;" if Marcion be a prophet, even "the spirits of the prophets will be subject to the prophets," for they are not the authors of confusion, but of peace; or if Marcion be actually an angel, he must rather be designated "as anathema than as a preacher of the gospel," because it is a strange gospel which he has preached. So that, whilst he amends, he only confirms both positions: both that our Gospel is the prior one, for he amends that which he has previously fallen in with; and that that is the later one, which, by putting it together out of the emendations of ours, he has made his own Gospel, and a novel one too.

JW:
Tertullian claims that in Antitheses Marcion acknowledged that he was aware of another Gospel. Tertullian assumes/concludes that this other Gospel was orthodox "Luke". Was it "Luke" or maybe "Mark"? Neil?

We also have two Attribution issues:

1) Who did each side attribute "Luke" to?

Here Marcion wins because it is likely that the orthodox have a False attribution to a Partner of Paul.

2) Who was the earliest identified attributed user?

Marcion wins again as Tertullian does not identify anyone earlier than Marcion who used "Luke" unless you can conclude from the above that Marcion used orthodox "Luke" before he used Marcion "Luke". Neil?

Joseph

SCRIPTURES, n.
The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

http://errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

aa5874 · 06-29-2008, 09:53 AM

Marcion would have rejected the entire NT. Marcion did not need gLuke.

Without the birth narrative and the genealogy, gLuke would be substantially similar to gMark or gMatthew, without the birth and genealogy.

Marcion's Gospel does not need a birth narrative or genealogy.

Marcion rejected Revelations, Acts of the Apostles and Paul according to Tertullian.

Against Marcion 5.2

Quote:

Now since the Acts of the Apostles thus AGREE with PAUL, it becomes apparent why you REJECT them.

It is because they declare no other God than the Creator, and prove Christ to belong to no other God than the Creator....

All the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John declare no other God than the Creator, and prove Christ to belong to no other God than the Creator.

Marcion would have REJECTED all the Gospels.

mountainman · 06-29-2008, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

I am interested in collecting arguments concerning the following propositions:

Pro: The nonextant gospel known as the Marcionite gospel came later than and both used and modified the extant gospel known as the gospel of Luke.

Con: The extant gospel known as the gospel of Luke came later than and both used and modified the nonextant gospel known as the Marcionite gospel.

I would like to keep the arguments separately numbered according to whether they are pro or con. To be clear, the pro side of the debate basically supports the traditional view that Marcion took what we know as Luke and (tendentiously) abbreviated it; the con side of the debate basically reverses this, arguing that what we know as Luke was created by taking the Marcionite gospel and (tendentiously) expanding it.

Please make each argument stand on its own. On the one side of the debate, you yourself may think that Luke copied from Matthew, but your argument vis-ê-vis Luke and Marcion would not be complete simply by arguing that Matthew postdates Marcion; you would also have to argue (openly) that Luke postdates Matthew, as well. On the other side of the debate, you yourself may think that Irenaeus is a great source of information about Marcion, but you would have to demonstrate how he was able to get the relationship between Luke and Marcion in particular correct (trace the tradition, as it were), since (according to Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.4.1-4) the accusations of alteration went both ways.

To get the ball rolling, here are two arguments, one for each side:

Pro 1: The gospel of Luke appears (by the prologues especially) to have the same author as the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the second half of which bears several passages called the we passages; these passages imply that Acts was written by a sometime companion of Paul, and a contemporary of Paul cannot very well have survived past the time of Marcion. Therefore, Acts was written before Marcion, and, because of the common authorship, so was Luke.

Con 1: The gospel of Luke appears (by the prologues especially) to have the same author as the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and the Acts appears to claim authorship by a companion of Paul. By the time Luke was written, other gospel narratives had already been composed (according to the prologue), and that Marcion would choose Luke to use as his gospel would seem natural, given the profound Marcionite respect for Paul. Yet we must face the fact that (according to Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.2.3) the Marcionite gospel had no name attached to it, and (again according to Tertullian, Against Marcion 5.2.7) Marcion rejected the Acts. Why would Marcion choose a gospel based on its authorship by a companion of the great Paul, and yet simultaneously suppress the fact of that authorship? It seems more natural that the gospel began without the name of Luke, which was added after the time of Marcion.

Finally, kindly note that, while I have not necessarily referenced easy NT passages in the arguments above, I have definitely referenced patristic passages. Please do likewise; give your sources.

Many thanks in advance.

Ben.

What sort of exercise is this Ben? We are very much aware that the prologues to these gospels were written no earlier than the fourth century. We have discussed this before in another thread - the prologues are dated very very late with respect to the (ahem) traditional dating of the texts. What admixture of logic are you cooking?

Best wishes,

Pete

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