gurugeorge

Great post, and I think I see your point. The only thing I can come back with is as follows (ok this is a joke because I'm not a scholar, so I'm just winging it, but I hope this makes some kind of sense just based on the English - of course I have no Koine Greek so I have no idea whether this would make sense or not from that point of view):

It looks a bit more complicated than the way you've got it, there aren't 2 but actually 3 things going on here. Look at the Marcion reconstruction:

20 But I was desiring to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I am perplexed in you.
21 Tell me, [ye] who under the law desire to be, the law do ye not hear?
22 For as it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondmaid and one by the freewoman.
23 But he from the bondwoman after the flesh was born; and he from the freewoman was through the promise.
24 Which things are allegorized: for these are two covenants; one indeed from mount Sinai unto the synagogue of the Jews, according to [the] law, generates unto bondage;
26 But [the] other generates above all powers ( power, lordship, and every name that is named not only in this eon, but also in that to come), which is [the] mother of us.
31 So then, brethren, not of the bondwoman are we children, but of the free.

That's totally clear as it stands. OK that clarity might be the result of Marcion's whittling of the proto-orthodox version. Paul might just have been prolix. But let's look at the proto orthodox version, which here I mark in red and blue only (I'm using the RSV translation, which I more and more like as a translation of the Bible, it feels really "clean" to me):

20: I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.
21: Tell me, you who desire to be under law, do you not hear the law?
22: For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman.
23: But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise.
24: Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One is indeed from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar.
25: Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
26: But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.
27: For it is written, "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and shout, you who are not in travail; for the children of the desolate one are many more than the children of her that is married."
28: Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.
29: But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now.
30: But what does the scripture say? "Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman."
unto the synagogue of the Jews, according to [the] law, generates unto bondage;
26 But [the] other generates above all powers ( power, lordship, and every name that is named not only in this eon, but also in that to come), which is [the] mother of us.
31: So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

Now the yellow bit is an integral part of the Marcion version, but isn't found in the proto-orthodox version. So supposing Marcion's version is Paul's version, the proto-orthodox has cut a bit of Paul out and inserted your part 2 instead, while Marcion has restored the original.

Not only that, but the yellow bit draws the contrast in the allegory more powerfully than just leaving both it and the red bit out would do. Notice also the switch in meaning re. "things coming from Mount Sinai" from "covenants" (which makes sense given that he's explaining an allegory) to "women as covenants" (which serves to segue into the scriptural twaddle).

Another way of putting it: "Now this is an allegory", which, because it makes sense as introducing your part 2, you say (if I understand you correctly) is something that Marcion has sort of randomly left in in the course of his "whittling away", thereby cutting across clarity of distinction between your 2 parts, thereby revealing his whittling efforts, is actually part of a running line of argument if you include the yellow bit.

So Marcion has not only cut away precisely the bit you are saying is an addition, he's also restored something that was taken away in order that the bit you are saying is an addition could make sense. (i.e. the proto-orthodox guy: a) introduced his bit with a bit that was already in Paul, so the proto-orthodox insertion point is slightly later than you have it, and b) he couldn't find a way of making the two kinds of generation make sense in the context of what he wanted to add, so he cut it out).

DCHindley

Was this a version of the Maher interlinear? It is a little different than the one at Detering's site. I added in double brackets something you left out: "unto the promise of the holy church." This is late 2nd century language. The phrase "synagogue of the Jews" is particularly un-Pauline. The yellow bit also seems to me to be a comment meant to contrast the Jewish Law, which he equates with bondage, with the power of his good God. Marcion, if anything, was a dualist. The true God is all about power and freedon, and the Jewish God is all about restrictions and bondage. That is not even close to what either of the other two threads was all about. It is a second level of redaction.

DCH

DCHindley

gurugeorge,

I see Detering does not include that phrase about the "holy church, our mother", which seems to come from Tertullian _Against Heresies_ book V.4, per Maher.

DCH

gurugeorge

Yes, Mahar's translation of van Manen's reconstruction, from here, which I used for convenience because the .pdfs at the centre for Marcionite research were a few further links away. It seems to be a first attempt by Mahar, because there's a slightly better version here (based directly by Mahar on Harnack and Zahn), which you can compare with Mahar's Greek/English interlinear here.


So you are saying that this is the pure Paul, unadulterated by either Marcion or whoever added your second bit:

I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.
Tell me, you who desire to be under law, do you not hear the law?
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman.
But the son of the slave (Hagar) was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman (Sarah) through promise.
Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.
So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

And you are saying that "the point here is that both Jews and Gentile God-fearers are justified before God by their faith in that promise God made to Abram".

But surely Gentiles (especially Celts, if that's who the Galatians were!) have no faith in the promise God made to Abraham? If they did they would be Jews, and circumcised! As I see it, on any conceivable reading of Galatians, unless we ditch the whole thing as some sort of muddled patchwork, what Paul is complaining about is that some Jewish Christians are pestering his flock and telling them something like, "Pah, call yourselves Christians? You have to be circumcised and follow the Jewish law to be Christians!" I don't see how the finely-tuned interpretation you have, elegant though it is, works under those circumstances. It presupposes a knowledge of, and belief in the validity of Scripture, and a keeping faith in a "promise", that can't be presumed in Paul's audience. It also presupposes that they would be swayed by an example from Scripture. But it seems to me rather that Paul is being sarcastic in the phrase "you who who desire to live by the law, do you not hear the law?" (which we would both agree to be authentic Paul).

I admit though, I'm swaying A lot depends on whether the standard picture of Paul as a Pharisee Jew (which I take it you hold) is correct, and that's the very thing I'm questioning, playing around with. But it seems to me that that standard picture relies on the validity of Acts as history. If we don't do that, and follow the Detering route of Paul as a Samaritan (Simon Magus) whose intense conflict with the Jews is both concealed and revealed in the pseudo-Clementines, etc., and in Acts, then it makes sense either that Paul is pulling the wool over the Galatians eyes wrt the true meaning of scripture (for of course the children of the freewoman were the Jews, not the children of the bondwoman), or is simply ignorant himself, or intrinsically has an (Samaritan?) interpretation of Genesis that is anti-Jewish.

(He doesn't actively hate the Jews, as some later redactions would have it - after all, in this reading theres no Jesus-killing he's blaming them for. It's just that he doesn't want them messing around with his converts (converts, presumably from Celtic religion, in the instance of Galatians).)

S.C.Carlson

In this article, Quispel reviews the work of J. J. Clabeaux and U. Schmid on the text of Marcion in Paul and agrees with their findings that Marcion's base text for the Pauline epistles is an early form of the "Western" text in Paul. Quispel further argues that this pre-Marcionite, pre-Western Pauline text is a Roman recension of the early second century.

Stephen

gurugeorge

Thanks very much!

DCHindley

Why not Gentile god-fearers in Galatia? Galatia, whatever the ethnic makeup of the rural inhabitants, also had a Hellenic region along the seacoast with something like two or three more or less major towns. It is known that Jews had been deported to nearby regions to establish colonies for the Syrians. Some of the wealthier folk were undoubtedly Jewish traders or bankers, and these had households of slaves, and these also served as patrons to networks of retainers/clients (artisans, schoolteachers, property managers, etc). Probably all of their slaves and many of their retainers would be Gentiles. For one reason or another, some of these Gentile retainers and slaves may develop a fondness for the God of their masters/patrons.

Jews were granted a number of privileges that were not available to most other ethnic groups. They were exempt from serving in the army, were subject to autonomous Jewish courts as foreign residents, and were not subject to requirements to participate in (that means "pay for") civic governance and/or subsidize religious rituals.

To buy into these privileges, the custom was to convert. Many Jewish masters also manumitted their Gentile slaves who agreed to convert to Judaism. Circumcision, however, carried a certain negative stigma among most Gentiles (Greek/Roman alike), who likened circumcision to mutilation of the genitals and thought Jewish culture to be barbarous and did not quite measure up to the Hellenic ideals most, including Romans, considered the epitome of culture.

So here comes Paul, a Jewish trader of a more humble sort but with connections to individuals in Herodian households, who says: "Hey, you guys are all right with me! I'm telling you that you can consider yourself part of Israel simply by believing in the promises God made to Abram. You don't even have to convert!" All sorts of Gentile ears prick right up at that.

Of course, he also has to sell this idea to the Jewish patrons/masters. This may not have been a hard as one thinks considering that many were likely liberals (they could afford to be) and faaaaaar away from Judaea, where it would be a harder sell.

Not that Paul didn't try to legitimize his "converts". The Cephas, Jacob, and John of the letter to the Galatians were, IMHO, priests associated with acceptance of free will offerings sent to the temple for the general welfare of the Jewish people. Paul was able to convince them to accept the offerings he had collected from his gentile followers on the same basis as those from Jews. That means these three were likely going against the majority view, I am sure, and they did attach several strings, which Paul chafed at.

In addition, probably not a few natural born Jews and proselytes, especially among the retainer class, felt this "faith based" Jewishness cheapened what it meant to be a Jew. If anybody could get "in" then the Romans could, yes may very well, decide to take those precious privileges away. Now you see why Paul had such strong Jewish opposition.

Don't mix the portrait of Paul in Acts with the evidence from the epistles.

Gentile god-fearers formed no insignificant segment of the folks who had become Christians. The redactor was adopting and adapting the figure of Paul, recasting him as a Christian of the redactor's own stripe.

The author of Acts is also busy claiming Paul as one of *his* kind of Christian. His brand of Christianity is mellower, and perhaps a bit later in time, that the Paul-redactor's. He knows similar, but still different, things about him, but also manages to make him a good Christian.

DCH

gurugeorge

Well that's an impressive array of knowledge of the time that I can't match and can't come back on. I don't think it goes against my basic idea that Paul is proto-Gnostic (that could be true even if he was Jewish), but it does somewhat go against my idea that Marcion was true to the original Paul. Taking your reconstruction seriously, it looks like an original Jewish Paul was tampered with both by the proto-orthodox and by Marcion, in different ways.

Bit out of interest, given your point of view, how do you react to the Couchoud article I linked above?

DCHindley

Well, I can guarantee you that there are many who think my whole hypothesis is smoke and mirrors, if not patently ridiculous. One better-than-average read amateur in particular, who I used to respect, has become offensively sarcastic about it (mostly off-list, in a lecturing sort of way, but it has shown itself also in posts on-list at Crosstalk2).

Yet I have discussed it with the likes of David Trobisch and Mark Nanos, who have been very nice and offered genuinely helpful feedback. But I also get push-back on my less than favorable opinion of J D Crossan's later work. I think Crossan has let his ideological tail wag his critical dog, which seems to irritate some professional scholars and many of the sharper amateurs.

I may have read this some years ago, but am printing it off for another look.

Co-translator Mike Conley and I corresponded together several years ago (we are both graduates of Ohio State University, although he was a graduate student when I was still in junior high school) WRT the Ignatian epistles and the degree to which the Ignatian and Pauline epistles can be considered genuine. He is just a "wee-tad" radical <g>, considering early Christianity not much different than Communist cells in S. Vietnam (during the Vietnam era Mike was doing intellegence research for the U.S. Dept. of Defence).

To preface my impending response, I can say that the Christian movement developed out of Judaism in a manner similar to the way Birgar Pearson sees Jewish Gnosticism developing from Judaism. I think Marcion was in touch with Gnostic speculation which saw a true god in the realm of the "pleroma" (based on middle platonic speculations) mirrored by an imperfect creator god in the physical realm (the Jewish god). He ended up falling in love with the works of the good god, which he equated with the Christology of the Pauline epistles and Luke-Acts, and couldn't stand the works of the creator God, including Judaism

DCH

spamandham

I agree that the author of that reconstruction, has taken the right approach. Marcion's Jesus was not the Jesus of the Gospels. Since Marcion is the first Paulanist of record, and probably the central force behind promoting Paul's ideas, it stands to reason that, that which is authentically Pauline, would be in line with Marcion's ideas, else he would not have been such a promoter of Paul!

All of Paul's letters need to be passed through the Marcion filter to exclude that which is likely a later addition. I believe this would include the incongruent creedal aspects of 1 Corinthians (chapter 15 primarily, but a few bits and pieces elsewhere). If we apply this idea consistently, it seems Doherty's mystical Christ emerges from Paul.