schilling.klaus

no, there's no reason for assuming that.
nothing in the Apolgy implies that Justin was truly familiar with Marcion's work, he just slandered insanely.

it is hollow and vain, as it is possible for anyone even today to write in purported Tanakhic Hebrew, Platonic Greek, or so.
In addition, it's impossible to determine what is the difference between language of first and second century, as one needs to rely naively on the authenticity of any so-called first-century work.

it's a pointless objection as the epistles are not supposed to be read by typical Jews.

Klaus Schilling

DCHindley

And for a completely different POV, try David Trobisch:
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=91

"I was born in Africa. My parents were missionaries. My grandparents were missionaries. So it seemed very natural to me to view Paul as a kind of David Livingstone of antiquity.

I grew up with a picture of Paul traveling through Asia and Europe, founding congregations, counseling and teaching the men and women who had given their life to Jesus. If he could not visit them, he sent letters. When Paul died, his letters were kept as treasures. Each church that had received one of his letters saved it, had it read during worship services, and exchanged copies of the letter with other congregations close by. Later the congregations tried to complete their collection.

But this view does not match the uniformity of manuscript evidence. "

"The view I grew up with does not suggest that there was any archetype of the letters of Paul. There were several collections and different editors combined these collections at different places until all known letters were included."

"Let me sum up the two points I wanted to make so far. First, the complete manuscript evidence can be interpreted to testify to an edition of thirteen letters of Paul with the order Romans 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1 Thessalonians 2 Thessalonians 1 Timothy 2 Timothy Titus Philemon. Second, it is very unlikely that two editors would arrange the letters of Paul in this way independently of each other.

These two assumptions lead me to conclude that the canonical edition of the fourteen letters of Paul as it is presented in the New Testament today goes back to one single copy of thirteen letters of Paul, and that only the letter to the Hebrews was added at a later stage of the text-tradition."

In this POV, there is no direct input from Marcion, although he may have spurred the publisher of Trobisch's proposed "canonical edition" to compile, edit and publish the NT letters of Paul as we know them today. It would still have to be demonstrated that Marcion likely created them first.

The internal grouping of these 13 letters (I leave Hebrews out for the moment) does not suggest they all came from a single source (Trobisch identifies three earlier collections combined into one), but the edition was included in the cannonical edition of the NT which came out no later than 180 CE. If Marcion developed his own cannon about 150 CE, there would have been enough time for the canonical edition of the Pauline corpus to have evolved, and even to have been republished in the canonical edition of the NT, but I would have expected more pointed anti Marcionite polemic in the pastorals, the sub-grouping usually associated with pseudonymous students who were supposed to have reacted to Marcion and occasioned the publication of the cannonical edition of the Pauline corpus.

This suggests that the Pastorals already existed in the time of the first edition of the Pauline corpus (maybe mid 2nd century CE) and were not composed specifically to combat Marcion, but only used to show Paul was not as Marcion portrays him in his (shorter) edition of Paul's instructional letters.

DCH

Doug Shaver

Nuff said.

aa5874

Well, let's look at the Acts of the Apostle for details of "Paul". In Acts, there are lots of details about "Paul " yet the authors managed to give "Paul" a nameless sister who had a son without a name.

Acts 23.16-20 & 21 I am looking for details about "Paul", I cannot find any. The Acts of the Apostles appeared to have been written long after the supposed death of "Paul", why did not the author write about the death of "Paul"? Why did he terminate his history of "Paul" before he died? After all, "Paul", according to the Church fathers was martyred, why did the author leave out the single most important detail?

"Paul" like "Jesus" cannot be accounted for in the NT, they all came and disappeared without a trace. I think he is fiction.

TedM

The "lack of detail" argument simply doesn't fly here. You need to show why we should have a strong expectation for such detail. What your arguments seem to lack is the recognition that if Paul was fiction those authors could have easily made up a sister's name, or a hero's death, or whatever. Either Paul simply didn't tell us many details or the authors simply chose not to make up details they could have easily done so to make their case sound more "historical". You've already chosen your route based on OTHER evidence: Your claim that Paul wasn't attested to by early Church fathers (requiring you to claim Ignatius and 1 Clement references are fraudulent). That's a stronger argument IMO.

take care,

ted

TedM

He mentioned him as a widespread heresey of his day, which falsely called themselves Christians--the same title Justin applied toward himself. I think it is naive to think that he would not have read Marcion's material or at least been familiar with his revence of this "Paul" character.


You are saying we can't rely on the authenticity of any 1st century work, and any similarity or differences between fraudulent and authentic works could well be due to good faking. You just rejected the validity of an entire field of study in 2 sentences.

That sounds simplistic. You know that Marcion wrote the Antithesis specifically to show how the Jewish God of the OT cannot be the Christian God of the NT. He basically denigraded and mocked the Jewish God! Why would Marcion then have his hero Paul go to Jerusalem--the heart of Israel--to get the blessing of very Jewish Christians, and then have those Christians extend him the "hand of fellowship"? It not only would have made no sense to the Jews, but it would have made no sense to the "untypical Jews" and the Romans who had read Antithesis, and it would have made no sense to Marcion himself!

ted

schilling.klaus

as a reaction to the equally fictive Acts of the Apostles


Klaus Schilling

TedM

Marcion was reacting to Acts? I don't get it..don't you believe Acts came AFTER Marcion? Also, since when did Marcion feel the need for Catholic approval?

aa5874

You are wrong, again. The present evidence drives me to think "Paul" was made up.

Justin Martyr does not talk about "Paul" at all in any of his extant writings, but he does talk about Marcion, Peter, John the Baptist and Jesus. Justin Martyr never mentioned that authors called Matthew, Mark, Luke or Paul wrote anything, Justin's gospels were merely called "Memoirs of the Apostles".

And further to show that it is reasonable to think "Paul" was fabricated after Justin, the apostleship of "Paul" is not found anywhere in the Synoptics and was first mentioned only, once, in Acts 14.14, but Justin Martyr does not appear to be aware of the Acts of the Apostles, Acts appear to be after Justin, so "Memoirs of the Apostles" most likely does not include "Paul", since this "Paul", it would appear up to 150 CE, was unknown, he had no history and was never named among the original 12 apostles.

And how do you account for the word "Paul" being missing from the extant works of Justin Martyr in the middle of the 2nd century?

And how do you account for Acts of the Apostles? It appears that it was written may be 100 years after the death of Nero.

TedM

He only mentions Peter 2 times, in just one of his works. He doesn't mention James anywhere, though he one time mentions the sons of Zebedee. Just because someone isn't mentioned doesn't mean he didn't exist. 1 Clement and Ignatius quote extensively from Paul and they were before Justin. But, I know, you think they were forgeries.

What would really be interesting is to get ahold of a copy of his Against Marcion, which Irenaeus mentions, but there is no copy anymore. That would answer our question about whether he addresses Paul or not, and what he said.


I don't see why there should be any strong expectation of such, since it was an account of events up to just after the resurrection. Note too that none of them go talk about James' future prominent role either as the first leader of the Church....Are you going to say he didn't exist too?


I agree--he appears to be exclusively drawing from gospel-or gospel-like sources.


I'll answer yours after you answer mine.



Again, I'll answer you question after you answer mine.

Here's another one: If Marcion made up Paul as a mouthpiece for his various philosophies about God and Christianity, why in the world would the Catholics accept his Paul as a legitimate apostle so soon after considering Maricon and his works to be heresies?

ted