dog-on

Maybe, as far as Justin was concerned, the individual now known as Paul, was Simon.

Ben C Smith

The argument that Justin knew Marcion is obvious, prima facie, and has been made before. The argument that Marcion knew Paul is obvious, prima facie, and has also been made before. The argument that either of these propositions is false is not at all obvious, not at all prima facie, and has, to my knowledge, not been made before (even the most radical of the Dutch school assume that Marcion knew Paul, whether as an apostle or as a fiction that Marcion himself invented).

So make your argument.

Ben.

spamandham

...if Marcion invented Paul, then it's rather silly to say that Marcion 'knew' Paul. People don't say things like "Mark Twain knew Tom Sawyer".

Yes of course it is (unless of course Marcion invented Paul). However, if we agree that the texts were probably edited along the way (do we agree on that?), then it is no longer valid to make arguments based soley on this prima facia evidence, and even less valid to claim that such evidence is of higher quality than an argument from absense. The quality of this prima facia evidence is unknown the moment we allow for later revisions.

This is why I stated earlier that the best approach to figuring out the original genre of Mark, is internal analysis, not external evidence (at least not with the evidence known to date). Mark doesn't read like a historical narrative, it reads like an allegorical fiction filled to the brim with religious symbolism and references straight out of the Jewish scriptures.

This internal evidence is also prima facia evidence.

Ben C Smith

Mark Twain, having invented Tom Sawyer, was certainly aware of a character called Tom Sawyer.

Aa___ has claimed that the very idea of a Paul the apostle did not yet exist when Justin wrote; if Marcion invented Paul the apostle, then that idea did exist when Justin wrote.

No, we agree on the possibility of this happening, not the probability. To turn the possible into the probable one must mount an argument.

Ben.

spamandham

I agree with that, however, the point I'm attempting to make is not directly related to aa's argument. That's a separate subdiscussion.

Fair enough. Would you agree that the 'authentic' Pauline epistles have probably been edited along the way?

Ben C Smith

Ah, but you were responding to a comment I was making to aa___. Of course my comments were geared for his particular assertions.

I think fairly strongly that the doxology at the very end of the epistle to the Romans is not original to Paul, and I suspect that the note on women keeping quiet in the church in 1 Corinthians 14 is also an interpolation. Both of these interpolations have left a disturbance in the manuscript record (the former more so than the latter). That is why I am somewhat confident about their status as interpolations; the internal and external evidences coincide, and I value the external evidence more than the internal.

I have considered other interpolations, including the note on the Jews in 1 Thessalonians 2 and others that Walker identifies, but their identification seems so subjective to me that I have trouble latching on to any one of them as probable.

The most fruitful avenue, to my mind, of identifying interpolations into Paul is to use the Marcionite text of Paul (which aa___ is basically claiming does not exist). But I am still considering the methodology behind this approach and have made absolutely no significant headway as of yet.

Ben.

aa5874

Ben, please do not distort my position. I made no such claim "that the very idea of a Paul the apostle did not exist when Justin wrote" You seem a bit eager to misrepresent me.

And furthermore, I have not made any claim on this thread that Marcion invented "Paul".

And why would Marcion invent "Paul", when Paul's God was of the Jews and Marcion's God was greater, and of a different origin, who had a phantom as a son, according to Justin?

aa5874

Again, Ben, I have made no such claim about any Marcionite text! Why do you keep on doing this?

schilling.klaus

Also knowing Paul doen't imply knowing of the epistles.
The Apostolic Acts don't mention them explicitly.

Klaus Schilling

angelo

Marcion was an influential Gnostic teacher. He rejected the old testament and parts of the gospels that he regarded as falsified. Acknowledged Paul as ''the great apostle''. Remembering that he was active in Rome around 144c. which is what? around 100 years after Paul's mission to Greece between 48-53 ce. Seeing that many of Paul's letters are either forged or doctored and his dates are uncertain, how on earth can anyone take Marcion's writing seriously?