PhilosopherJay

Hi Ben,

This should probably be a new thread, as we are moving to a move specific topic then previously discussed. I'll let the moderators decide.

The main proposition of Tertullian that Marcion was splitting the gospel from the laws (of Moses) is certainly correct. However, his subproposition (which he devotes extraordinarily little energy to proving) that he was consciously interpolating Luke is extremely dubious.

Marcion saw contradictions (antitheses, as he calls them) between the gospel and the laws. All he needed to do was to bring them together to show them. He had no intention and no need to change the gospel that he found in circulation. In fact, it would be ridiculous for him to do so. It would only hurt his case. Tertullian claims that Marcion says that the gospel was altered, but only brings up vague references to false prophets in Paul's letters, to support his case. If Marcion had claimed that the Church/ a Church corrupted the gospel, Tertullian would surely have reproduced the text. Since he doesn't, we may assume that Marcion never did.

This leads us to the idea that Marcion is, in fact, simply reproducing the best version of the gospel that he has at hand. In other words, it is in his interests to use the state of the art gospel that he finds (circa 140-150) in writing his antitheses. He is not, in fact writing or changing a gospel. He is, in fact. comparing the existing gospel with statements in the Hebrew Scriptures.

In fact, starting from this proposition, we can tell a lot about the state of the gospel before Marcion. First, it did not contain the birth narrative. Second, it has the empty tomb story, but only has a post resurrection appearance by a ghostly Jesus to two disciples. There is no instruction to disciples to go out in the world and preach anything. Third, it seems to be neither the gospels of Luke nor Matthew, but has elements of both -- a proto-Luke/Matthew. In many cases Marcion gives us elements and wording that are quite changed in both Luke and Matthew.

We may consider chapter IV of Tertullian's Anti-Marcion as the best evidence for the state of the gospel art circa 140-150 and more important than the canonical gospels (whose dates are quite problematical) themselves and other material from the Second century which appear to have floating Jesus sayings for the most part, for establishing this text.

Again, the main point is that there is no such thing as the Gospel of Marcion, rather, Marcion is giving us the Gospel exactly as he found it (circa 140-150). If he knew of other Gospels, he would certainly have made note of it. He did not.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Ben C Smith

As I mentioned on that other thread, I believe we were speaking past each other. I read you as saying that there was no gospel in that time period. That Marcion simply used a protogospel of some kind as his Evangelion, and that protogospel was later edited into canonical Luke, was one of the viable options that I proposed.

Ben.

schilling.klaus

no, it's wrong , for the original gospel was not tied to the law.
only the Roman Catholic church at some later date fraudulently made the ties,
and then forged the canonical gospels from previous heretical ones.

Klaus Schilling

spin

Umm, is there a copy of this original gospel that you refer to that allows you to make this sort of judgment? If not, on what grounds do you talk authoritatively of the "original" gospel and of fraudulence?


spin

Jeffrey Gibson

Some later date? Could you be more specific? 200? 150? When exactly?

And which heretical gospels in particular were the canonical Gospels forged from?

Jeffrey

PhilosopherJay

Hi Ben,

I just read your recent thread Matthew and Luke late, Marcion early?#5083587.

My library does not have the Matthias Klinghardt article "The Marcionite Gospel and the Synoptic Problem: A New Suggestion" yet, so I have not read it, but from Neil Godfrey's summary Marcion enters the Synoptic Problem at http://vridar.wordpress.com/2008/01/...optic-problem/

it seems that his position is close to what I am trying to point out.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

mountainman

If I am permitted to speculate in this matter,
(on behalf of Klaus)
the original gospels may have been things like the
Dhamma of the Buddha, and things like
The Hymn of the Pearl.


These things - these original gospels of humanity
and of the condition of the embodied soul were
preserved by the collegiate ascetic network in
the greek, until Bullneck, then Coptic/Syriac.


These things were the authority of the ascetics.
The men considered "holy men" of antiquity were ascetics.
This umbrella description thus of course includes
the neo-pythagorean/Platonic lineage to Sopater,
whom Constantine executed.

See Philo and the therapeutae of Egypt.
See Galen and the therapeutae of Asclepius.

Constantine liked his beer, pork chops
and sexual excess (See Zosimus).
Jesus the Healer replaced Buddha
and the therapeutae of Asclepius.

The Boss changed the path of history.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Yuri Kuchinsky

Why is it dubious, Jay?

I think his attitude to the gospels was quite similar to that of his adversaries (the proto-orthodox preachers). Both sides didn't really treat the gospel text as something immutable. Both Marcion and the proto-orthodox probably felt free to change things around a bit, to suit their doctrinal preferences.

Both sides made similar claims, and both sides were probably right.

The question may be asked OTOH, Which side tampered with the text more? And here, I think Marcion may probably have been more faithful to the existing text.

May well be true!

Well, he just may have adjusted it a bit...

I agree.

I doubt it. Preaching was big for early Christians.

This is, of course, a very interesting question for me, since I'm into the Diatessaron studies.

Basically, I believe that the earliest gospel, before it was called 'Luke', was in fact quite similar to Luke. Or at least it was more similar to Luke than to Mt or Mk.

But our current Lk is of course not that earliest proto-gospel. Our current Lk has undergone some alterations. And since I believe that Mt was based on the earliest proto-gospel (similar as it was to Lk), then it's quite possible that, in some passages, Mt still preserves the original proto-gospel better than our current Lk does!

Do you see what my position is?

This makes sense.

All in all, I don't really see any need to try and make Marcion 'holier than the Pope'. Since everyone at the time was changing text around quite a bit, so was Marcion as well, most likely (at least to some extent)...

Best regards,

Yuri.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Yuri,

You're absolutely right about Marcion not being pure.

I have rethought my position. We still have to explain the chopping up of the Sermon on the Mount in Luke and Marcion.

As I explain in the Evolution of Christs and Christianities, the Sermon of the Mount is part of a long speech originally attributed to John (the Nazarene/Prophet/Christ/Baptist) that Matthew has reproduced virtually intact.

We can take it Marcion was working from this urMatthew document. Why does he change the order of the text? It is because he is not writing a gospel. He is trying to produce evidence that this gospel "urMatthew" contradicts the law and the prophets. He is being guided by what he reading in the Hebrew Scriptures, especially Isaiah. So the order of Isaiah determines to a certain extent the order of the passages he is reproducing from "urMatthew"

I think that it is likely that the urMatthew document was written shortly before Marcion's response. So we can put both documents circa 140's.

I believe there were at least two revisions to urMatthew after Marcion. The first one of them included putting in the birth narrative. I believe that Tertullian did the second revision circa 207 when he wrote the gospel of Luke based on Matthew (1) and Marcion.

Tertullian's first critique of Marcion was apparently ineffective. He pretended that it had been stolen and published by someone else. In the meantime he worked on rewriting Marcion's gospel so he could present it to the world as the Gospel of Luke.

Since he was rewriting a gospel at the time, he projected his own project onto Marcion. Tertullian claims that Marcion rewrote Luke as Marcion Gospel. In fact, Tertullian rewrote Marcion as Luke's gospel. The rest as they say is history.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

[QUOTE=Yuri Kuchinsky;5118308]

schilling.klaus

there is probably no copy left, as it may have existed only orally within strictly secretive esoteric circles, or otherwise certainly destroyed by the church mongers if found written down later on.

There are of course many mentions of gospels in the patristic writings that betray an original Christianity that was not tied to the Law, and the antiesoteric polemics within the canonical gospels underline the priority of mystic gospels.

But the original character is often only poorly overpainted.
In the Gospel of John, which is closest to the original gospels in meaning, evcen if later than the synoptic ones, the origin of the same sort of thought that penetrates the Hermetic literature of Poimandres and Asklepios is most evident, e.g. the dialogue with Nikodemos. The prologue mentions the logos of Philo's philosophical comment on Scripture.

The Synoptic may portray Jesus in a more down-to-earth-manner than John's, but that's a matter of degree, not of absolute quality. The Synoptic Jesus, too, is at its core the Logos that explains itself, just in a more subtle disguise.
Like John's, the Synoptics are symbolic accounts. Even here Jesus is the Logos that instructs and interprets God for mankind, as did Hermes Trismegistos.

The name Jesus for the divine revealer and redeemer is taken from the septuagintic Jesus Son of Naun, who guided Israel through the desert across the Jordan (==> baptismal scene) into the Holy land, thus allegorically guides the soul that had been captive in flesh consciousness (Egypt) into the katapausis (holy land).

Klaus Schilling