aa5874

Now what did Marcion curtail from the gospel according to Luke and the epistles to make them authentic?

It must be known in what manner Marcion mutilated gLuke and the epistles, since the authenticity was derived from the mutilation.

renassault

Ben, those texts were apparently not as widespread as proto-Luke would have to have been. If both Luke, Orthodox, and Marcion would use the same Gospel, then it must have been really widespread. Q is 100 years before this when there wasn't enough literacy to quote it or anything other than integrate it into Matthew and Luke.

DC Hindley, what do you mean by this:

Scholars regard the epistles as Paul's, written by him, not overtaken works from other places. Philippians is suspected of being multiple letters, but letters by Paul to the Philippian Church. It is widely acknowledged Paul Christianized and incorporated hymns into his letters, but other than that, there are Paul's letters.

DCHindley

No, actually it has nothing to do with the internal sources of the letters as they survive. I was referring to the hypothesis of David Trobisch (Paul's Letter Collection, Fortress, 1994) that the letters of Paul come to us as if composed of three distinct sub-collections based on relative size:

A) Epistles addressed to communities:

1) Romans (34,410 characters), 1 & 2 Corinthians (32,767 & 22,280 respectively) & Galatians (11,091), to which was appended a second such group:

2) Ephesians (12,012), Philippians (8,009 characters), Colossians (7,897), and 1 & 2 Thessalonians (7,423 & 4,055 respectively).

B) Letters addressed to individuals:

3) 1 & 2 Timothy (8,869 & 6,538 characters), Titus (3,733) & Philemon (1,575)

Arguing from the facts that all surviving manuscripts have a uniform number of letters (13), and uniform titles, he concludes that the canonical edition of the letters goes back to one single published collection (or archetype) of letters of Paul, which itself represented several sub-collections that had been combined at different places by different editors until all letters now known were included.

The traditional view, on the other hand, is that Paul wrote letters to congregations and individuals when he could not visit personally, and that when Paul died these congregations or individuals kept copies of his letters as treasures, to read at worship services etc, exchanging copies with other nearby congregations, with congregations later attempting to gather these copies into collections. There would develop a number of competing collections.

If these various congregational collections circulated independently we should expect a greater variation in the relative order of books (size is not the only principle used in antiquity to organize editions of letters) and titles (these are usually arbitrarily added by the publishers to uniquely identify the letters of the edition, with different editors calling the same letter by different titles when published independently) than what virtually all the surviving manuscripts do have.

If the surviving edition of the letters of Paul lends itself to a single archetype circulating among Christians, rather than multiple editions in competition, then I concluded that competing collections did not circulate among the Christian communities that seemed to only know the single archetype that has come to us today.

I have to warn you that I have proposed that the canonical edition known to Christianity was an edited version of several such congregational sub-collections, adding the Christology to works that originally had nothing to do with it, but rather dealt with the nature and justification of close association between circumcised Jews and God-fearing gentiles. But that is just me, and I do not want to derail the thread.

Ben is open to Harry Gamble's idea that evidence of a version of Romans that did not include chapter 15 could relate to a 10 letter collection used by Marcion, which only included letters directed to congregations, not individuals. Ben is apparently referring to The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans (1977).

Peter Head, a well-known textual critic, stated in the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog:

Gamble says about the abridged version: "such forms must have had an earlier existence and continued for a long time to affect the textual tradition which even now preserves their traces" (Textual History, 121), to which I fully agree. However, I don't buy his point that the abridged version "emerged prior to the Corpus as a whole, during the period when this letter circulated independently" (ibid.). To my mind, an abridged version of Romans as an individually circulating entity hardly carries enough "weight" to impose itself to an editor, who is confronted with two (or more) versions of Romans. After all, the abridged version looks conspicuously incomplete and in itself not very appealing. It seems far more likely to assume that the abridged version once was part of an ancient and venerated edition of (a number of) Paul' letters.

There is undisputable evidence that the abridged version once was part of an ancient edition of Paul's letters, namely the edition that is associated with Marcion (Origen, Commentary on Romans 10,43). It is, however, virtually certain that Marcion was not responsible for the abridged version, i.e. he simply took it over as part of the 10-letter-edition he has used and edited for the purpose of his church. Why is this "virtually certain", despite the claims of such eminent scholars like, e.g., Kurt Aland and Eduard Lohse that it was Marcion who excised the last two chapters of Romans?

Tertullian repeatedly observes that Marcion's version of the letter to the Romans lacks considerable parts of the text (e.g., in chapters 2, 8 and 9-11). The fact that none of these omissions has left any trace in the textual history of Romans is the most glaring evidence AGAINST Marcion's edited version as being responsible for the severe impact of the abridged version. Thus, Marcion's edition inherited the abridged version, it did not start it!

There is more evidence that an ancient 10-letter-edition circulated outside marcionite circles and more could be said about what caused the abridged version. But I should pause here not the least because I never had any reaction to my last point (against Marcion's edited version as being responsible for the abridged version of Romans). ... "

http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.b...ne-corpus.html

DCH

aa5874

There is just no evidence whatsoever to claim Marcion's gospel was similar to Luke's.

There is no evidence that Marcion's Jesus was crucified, no evidence Marcion's Jesus died, or was resurrected. There is no evidence that Marcion's Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost, or had a mother named Mary, supposedly with brothers and sisters.

No evidence that Marcion's Jesus was tempted by the Devil, baptised by John the Baptist or had chosen 12 disciples.

Marcion's Jesus did not need any prophecies from the scriptures or the prophets.

There is just no credible information available to make any claim that Macion's gospel was similar to Luke.

In fact, the only real major differences between Luke and the other gospels are the conceptions and births of John and Jesus, and the genealogies, but Marcion's Jesus came directly from heaven to earth, so he did not need the nativity scenes or genealogies of Luke.

Marcion's gospel, if there was one, would not have looked anything similar to Luke, based on Tertullian, Irenaeus and Justin Martyr.

the_cave

I've been inclined to assume it's because it was the best-known gospel in his region, i.e. Anatolia, which is connected to Pauline Christianity--which also explains why he used the Pauline epistles. I've wondered for a while whether the early gospels were regional documents, tied to specific organizations and liturgies--Luke in Greece/Anatolia, Matthew in Syria, John in Egypt, and Mark in Rome (and also perhaps Carthage, though that may have been under Egyptian influence instead).

(ETA: they may also have originally borne their own collections of epistles--Luke the Greek/Anatolian "authentic" letters, Mark the letter to the Romans, John the Johannines, and Matthew perhaps the letter of James, perhaps also the Petrine epistles--though I'd have to look at this more closely sometime. Maybe the Petrines were more associated with Mark. As for the others, it's unclear--Ephesians "feels" sort of Johannine, for example.)

Although I still must strongly disagree with Lukan Priority hypothesis, I need to re-read these arguments that Matthew came from a proto-Luke. It would fit in with my own current attempts at solving the synoptic problem. Though I have read elsewhere that the arguments for a Hebrew Matthew are not really very good.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Well, in such a case, let's say that Marcion's gospel was similar to Luke more than to other gospels.

Regards,

Yuri.

aa5874

Well why don't you name the similarities?

First of all Marcion's God was called the Cosmocrator, so all references in gLuke to the God of the Jews would not be found in Marcion's gospel. All references in gLuke to Jesus as the Son of man, the son of David or as Elijah, Jeremiah or the prophets would not be found in Marcion's gospel.

The so-called prophecies of the prophets, the nativity stories, the genealogies, the crucifixion, the death and resurrection of Jesus in gLuke would not be found in Marcion's gospel.

Tertullian in Against Marcion claimed Marcion mutilated Luke yet he quoted passages from Matthew, the epistles, and many books of the OT. Instead of Tertullian showing what Marcion wrote in his gospel, Tertullian wrote about all that Marcion omitted, curtailed, mutilated or expunged.

It would appear that Marcion rejected the entire OT and NT whether named or un-named.

Tertullian's Against Marcion may be a fraudulent account of Marcion's gospel or was written by some other author possibly after the death of Marcion.

Yuri Kuchinsky

But Irenaeus also said that Marcion used a gospel similar to Lk.

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

That may well be so...

Mark seems to be closely linked with Alexandria. And John both with Egypt and Asia Minor.

In my view, the Paulines were originally introduced to the wider church as a collection of 10 letters. (Marcion used something similar). Before that, they were relatively obscure.

These arguments are really quite incontrovertible, an open-and-shut case IMO.

There are a couple of articles here (near the top),

http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku/bbl/2dh.htm

Also this is quite relevant,

The Originality of Luke
http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku/bbl/earluke.htm

There are a lot of misconceptions about the Hebrew Matthew...

All the best,

Yuri.
___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
My biblical webpage is online again,
http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku/bbl/bbl.htm

aa5874

Are you aware of the prevalency of christian forgeries and dishonesty among christian writers of antiquity?

It was common place for christians of different doctrines to falsify the writings of other christians.

Look at Rufinus Epilogue to Pamphilus the Martyr's Apology for Origen" dealing with fraud and forgeries in the writings of Origen, Tertullian, the Acts of the Apostles, Clement and the Epistles:
Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus claimed Marcion's God was another God, they claimed Marcion blasphemed the God of the Jews, and that Marcion's Jesus was not the son of the God of the Jews, so why did Irenaeus and Tertullian claim that Marcion mutilated Luke when it is obvious that Marcion rejected the entire OT and NT?

I have asked you to name the similarities between Marcion's gospel and Luke. So far you have not.

What is uniqe to gLuke and the other gospels if the birth narratives and the genealogies are removed?

It appears that Tertullian's account of Marcion's gospel is erroneous, it is more likely that Marcion rejected the entire NT and OT.