Ben C Smith

Just by chance today, I happened to stumble upon two unrelated online articles dealing with Marcion that I think are interesting when placed side by side.

First is an article in the latest Novum Testamentum, to which I do not have access. All I have is the abstract (Matthias Klinghardt, The Marcionite Gospel and the Synoptic Problem: A New Suggestion):

The most recent debate of the Synoptic Problem resulted in a dead-lock: The best-established solutions, the Two-Source-Hypothesis and the Farrer-Goodacre-Theory, are burdened with a number of apparent weaknesses. On the other hand, the arguments raised against these theories are cogent. An alternative possibility, that avoids the problems created by either of them, is the inclusion of the gospel used by Marcion. This gospel is not a redaction of Luke, but rather precedes Matthew and Luke and, therefore, belongs into the maze of the synoptic interrelations. The resulting model avoids the weaknesses of the previous theories and provides compelling and obvious solutions to the notoriously difficult problems.

Dating Matthew (especially) later than Marcion (dated to about 140) would seem improbable to me... unless Marcion is to be dated earlier than usual, which is the topic of the other article, by Neal Godfrey, in two parts (1, 2). Neal is reviewing Hoffman and Tyson and giving reasons to date Marcion much earlier in century II than usual.

Combining these two articles, the picture of the synoptic problem that would seem to emerge is this:

1. Mark written (late century I or early century II, I suppose).
2. Marcion writes his gospel (early century II).
3. Matthew and Luke written (later in century II than Marcion).

(This arrangement would seem to have Marcion filling in the role of Q, as it were, though in a very different form.)

I am interested in two things on this thread. First, have any of you read the article by Klinghardt (and any chance of sending me a copy?) or the books by Hoffman and Tyson, and if so what did you think? Second, what do you think of the solution to the synoptic problem outlined above? What longstanding problems are resolved? What new problems would emerge?

Thanks.

Ben.

neilgodfrey

I have not yet read the Klinghardt article. But do plan to do up more Tyson notes to add to the ones you referred to. Tyson posits that our canonical Luke was a late redaction of Marcion's gospel -- by the same author as Acts. Both canonical Luke-Acts were substantially anti-Marcionite products. You've motivated me to hurry up completing my Tyson notes. Will be interesting to see how the Klinghardt article fits in with this.

I don't think we should ignore Detering's placing of the Little Apocalypse post 135 c.e. either. And Justin's "gospel references" add more interesting spice to the argument when one reads them without traditional dating presumptions.

Neil

dog-on

Good articles.

I think that much of the history of early Christianity becomes clarified when one considers the rightful place of Marcion. This, especially, with Marcion's relationship to the Paulines and his "proto-Luke".

I believe that gospel Luke/Acts, the pastorals, as well as the "corrected" original Paulines, were all part of a concerted effort by one group to capture the "flock" of another group of early Christians.

That Matthew may be later than "proto-Luke" seems possible as well.

I wonder what the earliet version of John actually looked like???

dog-on

From Goodacre's blog:

Mark-Q Overlaps V: the degree of verbatim agreement


Where did Matthew get the materials not found in Mark, or for that matter, Marcion?

My answer would be that the additional materials were simply the constructs of the author of Matthew.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is there a listing of material found in Luke but not found in either Matthew or Mark?

JoeWallack

Welcome Back KirBotter

JW:
The following factors favor Marcion as original (to "Luke"):

1) The Beginning (none) agrees with "Mark".

2) The Ending is easier to explain.

3) Marcion retained "Mark's" primary theme of Discrediting historical witness.

4) Marcion was honest about not being able to reconcile the God of Paul and "Mark" with the Jewish Bible.

5) Paul and "Mark's" "proofs" of Jesus in the Jewish Bible are largely Ironic and few and therefore relatively easy to discard.

6) We can convict orthodox Christianity of the sin of Forging Pauline Epistles compared to Marcion.

If Marcion was first this would help explain relatively late orthodox references to the Canonical Gospels. If we go by Papias than through the early second century orthodox Christianity was mainly interested in supposed Jesus' Sayings and Legends. The main competition was Marcion. The advantage Marcion had over the orthodox was that he had a Canon. The orthodox Reaction to Marcion was to create its own Canon. An important difference between Marcion and the orthodox was the orthodox claimed to be the direct successors to the original Disciples while Marcion, like Paul and "Mark", rejected the original Disciples as valid witnesses. The orthodox solution was to create a Gospel that Transitions Discrediting of the historical witness to Crediting and Explicitly shows the Transition and Succession. "Luke"/Acts is where the orthodox did this and what better Gospel to choose than the one Marcion used.

The most Amazing thing of all here and I can't believe I'm even saying it, is that Yuri might actually be right that "Luke" or at least "proto-Luke" came before "Matthew".



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.

"The Simontic Problem" - An Inventory Of "Mark's" Negative Casting Of Peter

dog-on

Which is why the church fathers liked to claim that Matthew was actually written first, in Hebrew, (or was that Aramaic), no less...

neilgodfrey

I have also posited another: Mark's attack on the Eucharist? -- i.e. Mark's apparent attack on the eucharist being in comfortable synch with Paul's attack on its practice -- mixed with the contrary subsequent pastoral stratum (Munro) -- in 1 Corinthians 10-11.

This could also explain Luke's addition to the eucharist scene about how much Jesus says he has desired to keep this (venerable) observance, and the distancing of the Judas stain from it by dissociating him from the rest of the twelve at that point.

Neil

andrewcriddle

Hi Ben

two separate comments

i/ It may be worth noting that the claim that the Gospel used by Marcion predated canonical Luke and maybe canonical Matthew does not necessarily involve dating any of these works particularly late.

In theory Marcion's Luke AKA proto-Luke could be rather early and canonical Matthew and Luke already around in Marcion's time. Marcion however used proto-Luke as older and more authentic compared to the rewrites found in canonical Luke and canonical Matthew.

ii/ One problem I have the outlined solution to the synoptic problem is that, although conservative scholars may have exaggerated the evidence in Luke-Acts for an early dating, Acts does IMO show too much familiarity with the world of the 1st century CE for a date after the reign of Trajan to be at all plausible.

Andrew Criddle

schilling.klaus

Of course Marcion's gospel predates any of the canonical ones, as the later are the work of the generation between Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (if I. is not a fake, as wagered by Jay Raskin, in this case one even may add another generation and so on and so on). JM didn't know them, only precursors.

G.A. van den Bergh van Eysinga proved already 3 generations ago
that all canonical Gospels are to be considered as a pseudo-historification
of Logios metaphysics, the conent of the original gospel.
Mark's and John's are still a bit closer to the
original type than Luke's and Matthew's (no birth of Jesus etc.)

One mustn't rely in any case on the patristic propaganda mill
that relates Marcion's gospel to Luke's , this is the result of
the patristic fantasy that Luke was a companion of Paul yadda yadda.
This has been thoroughly shown by H. Raschke and G. Ory, long ago.

Klaus Schilling

Zeichman

The biggest problem to come to mind for Klinghardt's hypothesis is that there is good reason to believe that Marcion redacted his Pauline letters (check out The Lost Edition of the Letters of Paul: A Reassessment of the Text of Pauline Corpus Attested by Marcion (Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series No. 21)
by John James Clabeaux). If so, it is likely that he edited Luke as well.