Duvduv

Tanya, since nothing of the Marcionites remains, all the intellectual gymnastics about Marcion and Marcionites cannot change the fact that the nature of their existence wholly depends on the claims of ancient church officialdom, which is hardly a reliable and objective source.
Thus the existence of Marcion, Marcionites and Marcionism is totally a matter of fanciful speculation. And scholars who discuss this subject don't even bother to mention that the so-called second century Justin does not mention anything about them despite supposedly having lived in the same town and period as Marcion.

tanya

Thank you Duvduv, well written. But, then, how could Stephan pose this question?

When you write, "Justin does not mention.....", I am a bit concerned, not dramatically so, but, simply alert, let's say, regarding the extent of our knowledge about what Justin did and did not write--Codex 450 Paris, dated 1364 is our only source.

I am uncomfortable citing our only extant manuscript, ostensibly copied from an original by Justin, to prove or disprove anything. Simply inadequate documentation. Maybe Justin had written about Marcion, but the Italian monks, copying the manuscript, during the Spanish Inquisition, preferred to continue drinking that wonderful Rosso di Montepulciano, on terra firma

Duvduv

I guess Stephan has FAITH in the subjective claims of the apologists of the church.
Someone named Marcion was some kind of a bogeyman in the 4th century to the Party. Maybe he was simply like Ron Paul to the Republicans. Then they built castles around him.
Who knows? And if there is only a single manuscript possessed by a monk then the whole thing is really in question, isn't it? After all, the monasteries had the monopoly on everything to do with antiquity.

aa5874

So, are you claiming that Marcion was aware of the Pauline letters??

The facts are that the writings of Justin, Hippolytus and Ephrem do NOT support the claim that Marcion was aware of the Pauline letters whether or not we have very late copies.

Effectively, we have Apologetic sources that contradict the very Church about the very provenance of the Pauline letters. This is extremely significant.

Duvduv

Please indicate the Marcionite texts that shed light on this. Not citations rom unreliable subjective church sources.

Duvduv

There is no way anyone can independently confirm the existence of second century marcionites and doing so requires one to accept the statements of the church sanctioned apologists with FAITH.

Toto

:hobbyhorse:

You keep riding this hobbyhorse as if we hadn't heard, and as if no one has replied.

Cease and desist.

Duvduv

And therefore your assessment of self-censorship requires one to stop mentioning a topic per some FAQs you have ("Thou shalt not restate a view more than X times......").
Please afford me the number of times and cases you have used that terminology of "cease and desist" with other participants on the Forum.
Shall I indicate the other members who have restated statements so that you can ask them to "cease and desist" their own particular hobbyhorse?

However, the fact is a fact. People discuss matters out of FAITH and RELIANCE on the statements of ancients apologists as IF they were a fact of history without any empirical evidence. This is rarely discussed as far as I can tell, but should be pointed out if for no other reason than to shake people out of complacency.

Toto

Check out this thread: Overwarn topics. Your hobbyhorse can be added to the list.

You are not shaking people out of complacency, you are just failing at carrying on a dialog. All historians know the limits of their sources - that's why they talk in terms of probabilities, or drop any pretense of knowing what happened and just engage in literary criticism.

Duvduv

In the case of this Forum the approach is often one of VIRTUAL CERTAINTY about what Marcion did not did not do, as if it is known that he actually even existed in the second century objectively.

AND I have yet to read anything related to scholars who discuss this matter who have claimed that we really do not know if there was a Marcion in the 2nd century because all we have to rely on are the subjective writings of the church-sponsored apologists.

Furthermore, why wouldn't anyone at least admit that the Jesus mythist position needs to rely HEAVILY on the assumption that the epistles attributed to Paul are more or less unified letters rather than cut and paste jobs with some compositions of the HJ believers of an EMERGING church BEFORE the full gospel story of Jesus was even put to paper or constructed?

So the ATTEMPT at shaking people out of complacency about their ostensible certainty based on the biased church historians is no guarantee of success, is it?

Please indicate for me all your other exceptions to the hobbyhorses of others, or should I do that for you?

PS: The word in English is "overworn" not "overwarn"