gurugeorge

Ben, as I'm sure you're well aware, there have been a few arguments in the Synoptic wars that make out Lukan priority. I gather those arguments have generally been rejected (wrt canonical Luke of course), but perhaps if you looked into those arguments, you might find grist for the proto-Luke mill? e.g. there might be linguistic traces or something that show an earlier origin?

dog-on

Ok, Ben.

I am about to take a ride on your train, (of thought, that is).

Why are you so sure that Clem and Igy are secure?

Ben C Smith

That is possible.

I am not a Lucan priority advocate, but of course what Lucan priority means is canonical Luke, as you point out.

Thanks, guru.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I do not wish to derail this thread. Perhaps you could start another thread calling either calling these epistles into question or simply asking for arguments for or against them.

Cheers.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

Given that Matthew contains at least most of these passages it seems improbable that they were missing in the version of Mark used by Luke. (It is an interesting possibility but IMO the claim that material now in the canonical triple tradition was not in the earliest form of the synoptic gospel tradition needs better evidence than its absence in Marcion's Gospel.)

Given that the passages omitted in Marcion's Luke but present in the canonical triple tradition tend to represent Jesus as the fulfillment of OT prophecy, the idea that they were deliberately omitted by proto-Luke has the effect of making the author of proto-Luke a quasi-Marcionote before Marcion.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Could I have a reference for this please ?

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith

This post.

Agreed.

But I am saying that proto-Luke (not Mark) may have lacked them (number 1 above), explaining their lack in Marcion (number 2 above), while Mark contained them, and canonical Luke decided to copy them from Mark (number 3 above).

This is a better argument against my proposal (because it understands my proposal better — unless I am misunderstanding your critique), and it is why I am, for the moment, leaving open the question of whether Mark depends on proto-Luke or proto-Luke depends on Mark.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

Irenaeus seems to have understood Marcion in this way.

Against Heresies Book 3
Andrew Criddle

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, all,

I've read this whole thread already, and here are some comments.

First of all, there are a lot of misconceptions about Marcion. Some people are saying that he completely rejected Judaism, that he had no use for Jewish Scriptures, etc. Well, I don't think this is true.

In the first 100 years of Christianity, it was mostly a Jewish movement, so how could have Marcion rejected all that, and still have any sort of weight in the movement?

So here's a nice article (in summary) that casts some light on what was Marcion's real attitude towards Judaism, and especially on the role of Cerinthus.

I posted this elsewhere a few years ago,

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


Dear friends,

Marcion has always been a very puzzling figure to me. There was always a
problem explaining where did he get all that anti-Judaism of his? And why
were his teachings so popular all of a sudden? But now there's a very good
article by C. Hill that explains all that quite well. And the figure of
Cerinthus is the key to his explanation. He seems to be half-way between
the Jewish-Christians and Marcion!

CHARLES E. HILL, "Cerinthus, Gnostic or Chiliast? A New Solution to an Old
Problem", in JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES (8.2, Summer 2000)

[the article is available online here,
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journ...08/8.2hill.pdf
but the access is restricted]

Abstract:
Despite the potential importance of Cerinthus for
understanding the development of Christianity in Asia
Minor, his teaching and legacy have been obscured
in the patristic reports about him. One can identify
two contrasting images of Cerinthus in the sources:
an early "gnostic" in conflict with the Johannine
tradition (Irenaeus); a Judaistic chiliast who opposed
the apostles (beginning with Gaius of Rome and
culminating with Epiphanius of Salamis). This has
resulted in an impasse in understanding the early
heretic and his significance which has continued up
to the present. This article proposes a way of sorting
out the traditions concerning Cerinthus and making
sense of the earliest accounts. Upon critical
investigation, Irenaeus' profile of Cerinthus as an
early ditheistic and adoptionistic Christian emerges
as essentially unproblematic and plausible. But most
elements of the "Judaic" portrait are shown to be the
product of confusion. What remains from this
portrait, namely Cerinthus' chiliasm, may however be
understood as consistent with Irenaeus' report if it
was the type of chiliasm taught later by Marcion. The
article shows how Cerinthus' chiliasm finally can be
accounted for as a natural, not a heterogenous, part
of his dualizing and anti-Judaistic system. It suggests
that a coherent picture of Cerinthus' teaching can
now be of help in elucidating the background and
history of the Johannine churches and the rise of
Christian gnosticism.

[end of abstract]

Essentially, Hill argues that the figure of Cerinthus is fully credible
historically. Also, Hill seems to be arguing that Cerinthus should be seen
as a true precursor of Cerdo and Marcion in many important aspects of
their theology.

And here are some other salient points,

- It turns out that Marcion believed in two Christs. The "Jewish Christ"
was still to come, apparently.

- Paradoxically, part of Marcion's polemical program against orthodox
Christianity was to insist that the Jews were right and the Christians
were wrong about the interpretation of the prophets. Thus, Marcion
acknowledged that the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament was
essentially correct. So Marcion was "making common cause with the Jews"!

- Marcion believed that the "Jewish Christ" will come eventually, and will
inaugurate a new millennium, that will not be the true millennium, though.

Thus, it turns out that Marcion's anti-Judaism was rather nuanced, and he
was not rejecting the validity of OT as such. He just thought that
Christians misinterpret it, and that the Jews have a better
interpretation.

All this also clarifies some things in the Apocalypse of John. I thought
the whole thing is very interesting, although very complex.

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

All the best,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Isn't fairly uncontroversial that Marcion was the author of the first Christian canon? I.e. there was no Christian canon per se before Marcion? So it was in response to him that the orthodox Christian canon was created.

Thus, we can say that, before Marcion, there were a number of competing gospels, as used by different Christian communities. It's highly likely that none of these gospels had names, to begin with – they were all anonymous. (It's only when you're using more than one gospel together, that there's a need to name them, to separate them from each other.)

Marcion's gospel was similar to Luke. Surely he also had access to Matthew and Mark type-of-texts, but chose Luke-type-of-text as his main gospel. Why did he do this? It could be that a Luke-type-of-text was then the main gospel among the Christians in Rome, and since Marcion wanted to be the Bishop of Rome, so this is what he chose.

Or it could be that a Luke-type-of-text was then the main gospel where Marcion came from.

Or _both_ of these things could have been true, and a Luke-type-of-text was simply the most popular gospel of the time generally in the Christian world! (Which is what I'm inclined to think.)

In any case, it's clear to me that a Luke-type-of-text was the earliest gospel, on which both Mt and Mk were based. We can call it proto-Luke. So in regard to Ben's original theses, obviously it's #3 IMHO,

“Marcion and Luke both copied from a separate gospel, a proto-gospel of some kind (no longer extant).”

Except that it's still extant as fragments, incorporated in various ancient writings, including the canonical Lk.

As I've written elsewhere,

http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku/bbl/HMt-Lk1.htm

Howard's Hebrew Gospel of Matthew happens to constitute the best proof that Mt was originally based on proto-Lk. There are literally hundreds of unique parallels between the Hebrew Matthew and Luke. So HMt must be a middle term between Lk and Mt -- a middle term in the editing process that resulted in our canonical Mt. There's simply no other logical explanation for all these parallels.

All the best,

Yuri.

PS
My old biblical webpage at trends.ca has now been moved to
http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku

It's been unavailable for a few months, but now it's online again.