jakejonesiv

It is quite certain that Marcion's Galatians did not contain the phrase “born of a woman, born under the law.” Tertullian would certainly have used it against him otherwise.

“Let Marcion's eraser be ashamed of itself: except that it is superfluous for me to discuss the passages he has left out, since my case is stronger if he is shown wrong by those he has retained. But when it came about that the time was fulfilled, God sent his Son—evidently that God who is the God even of those times of which the ages consist …”
Tertullian AM 4:4.

See that AA? Marcion's version of Galatians 4:4 merely read "God sent his Son" and did not contain "born of a woman, born under the law." That much is clear.

The next question is, did Marcion cut down the original text, or did the proto-orthodox add to it? Tertullian claims the former, and Church scholarship has followed ant-like snout to tail behind Tertullian ever since. But we should take Tertullian’s accusations with a grain of salt.

Why write that someone was "born of a woman" when that doesn’t distinguish him from 100% of humanity, unless someone was arguing just the opposite, that Jesus was not born at all? Why write that Jesus was “born under the law” unless someone was arguing that Jesus was not under the Torah? “Someone” was arguing that Jesus wasn’t born, wasn’t under the Law, and didn’t have flesh; Marcion!!


My point is that Gal. 4:4 contains an anti-docetic interpolation, a proto-orthodox corruption of scripture. You can’t have it both ways and make sense.

Bart Ehrman, _The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament_, in chapter “Anti-Docetic Corruptions of Scripture” page 238 documents that orthodox scribes continued to tamper with Galatians 4:4 and Romans 1:3-4 even *after* we reach the extant texts (3rd century and later), and comments on how likely this makes it that tampering occurred in the second century when the stakes were even higher.

Thus Ehrman should be aware that his very own research undercuts the argument for a historical Jesus in the Pauline epistles. We will see if he contradicts himself in his forth-coming book.


Jake Jones IV


P.S.
The priority of Paul was with Marcion. Dr. Hermann Detering's THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS – EXPLANATIONS which fortunately for the readers has been translated into English by Frans-Joris Fabri. It shows exactly how the Marcionite text of Galatians is recreated.
Indeed, for those who are curious about Dutch Radical Criticism, there is a whole web page full of articles Articles, reviews and books in English .

And for those interested in the complete refutation of the so-called secular witnesses to Jesus, you should get a copy of DR. Detering's just released new book, "False Witnesses" Falsche Zeugen, Außerchristliche Jesuszeugnisse auf dem Prüfstand.
Be sure to review the Table of Contents.


JJ4

jakejonesiv

Hi Stephan,

I can see you thinking, Uh OH! This might undercut your Marcus Agrippa theory and you turn and run from the natural conclusions that you first saw! How many times now?

But yes, the earliest version of Galatians started with chapter 3. See Price PNNT.

Jake

stephan huller

Jake

In all fairness I don't bring up the Marcus Agrippa thing here because it really has almost nothing to do with Biblical Criticism per se. I don't know why any of what we are talking about here uncuts any of that. If anything by clearing out the first two chapters of Galatians and most of the endings of the present letters - what's left of any biographical information about the Apostle? Why not identify him as the apostomos (= apostolos cf. Jastrow) of Mishnah Ta'anith 4:6? It's as good a clue as any.

stephan huller

Jake,

I am not questioning any of this to be a dick. I am working on a paper about this subject so any corrections you can provide me with will save me embarrassment. I was looking for this citation at AM 4.4 and found it at AM 5.4 (I do that all the time here). In the Evans translation it is:

I can see that he doesn't cite the second half of the text but does this prove that it wasn't there. My paper is going to argue that Schmid and Clabeaux and the rest who use Tertullian as a guide are wasting everyone's time.

Take the reference to Gal 1:1 in AM 5:1

Are we to conclude that the Marcionite text didn't read:

when Origen/Jerome tells this quite explicitly? I am not arguing for the sake of arguing or to be a pain. It actually will help my paper immensely if I can some arguments against my thesis from someone as knowledgeable as you.

The 'Marcion's eraser' thing is about the Abraham passage just before in AM 5:4? Right?

stephan huller

Also with respect to 'made by a woman':

The fragments of an Arian author discovered in the Bobbio palimpsest apparently had a text reading factum per mulierem (fr. 9, V 67; CCSL 87, 242), a variant Jerome attributes to 'Marcion and other heresies' http://books.google.com/books?id=i5i...39;%22&f=false

stephan huller

Here is what appears in Jerome's Commentary on Galatians:

Diligenter attendite quod non dixerit, 'factum est per mulierem ': quod Marcion et caeterae haereses volunt, quae putativam Christi carnem simulant: sed 'ex muliere' ut non per illam, sed ex illa natus essa credatur

stephan huller

Now watch as Schmid starts to dance around this (he's German so it is a bird dance):

So in spite of the fact that Origen/Jerome explicitly identified the Marcionites as having the text, it 'must' be the Valentinians he has in mind. Tertullian is a reliable source after all! Thank God this is just scholarship and no one cares about any of this ...

jakejonesiv

Or both.
And the "my case is stronger if he is shown wrong by those he has retained" pertains to Gal 4:4. Right?
You know as well as I do the arguement that Marcionite Galatians 4:4 did not contain "born ..."

"The fact is unambiguously confirmed by Tertullian. He surely would not have omitted the words that showed Christ’s genuine human nature to be true and that therefore could be used as an excellent argument against Marcion’s docetism, if then he had found them in Marcion."
Hermann Detering: The Original Version of the Epistle to the Galatians. Explanations. Seite 66

Jake

jakejonesiv

Hi Stephan,

Sorry.

I do not mean to be unfair. But I find many of your observations to be counter intuitive, as when we discussed the Eznik of Kolb myth http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....11#post6933711 and you insisted the Eznik of Kolb myth makes Jesus the Creator. And that Marcion was a better Jew than the Rabbis. I can only make sense of it if you have some unstated goal in mind.

Jake

stephan huller

Right. But I am not asking you whether you would like to marry me. I am asking you to help provide for me a reason why the evidence from Tertullian can be used to reconstruct the Marcionite Apostolikon when (a) Tertullian never claims to be citing from the Apostolikon (b) the text of Adversus Haereses has been reworked in many places or at least has a literary purpose which doesn't seem to fit the notion that it was directed against Marcion from the beginning and (c) most important of all, Origen/Jerome contradicts or provides evidence to make us doubt the certainty of many of the inferences drawn by the supposed experts.

Again I don't care if you like me or like my other observations. I don't claim to possess absolutely knowledge about any of this. I am asking you to disagree with me to make my arguments stronger (which is why I participate at this former in the first place)