Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Roger Pearse · 12-05-2009, 06:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

This seems somewhat ingenuous to me. Was Marcion's text presented as Marcion wrote it, hmm? Of course not. What we have of Marcion's text is interspersed with Tertullian's invective. Removing that invective and you don't have a continuous text. Have I misrepresented anything??

spin

I took you to imply that the text of Marcion that we do have from Tertullian has been misrepresented by Tertullian. Were you saying something different?

Still waiting to see your CV.

Me too.

aa5874 · 12-05-2009, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

One should, for literary/redactional purposes, consider Marcion as the fourth synoptic, though we are only reconstructing it after it's been through the grind of Tertullian destructive efforts.

spin

We have other sources for Marcion's text eg Epiphanius. I don't think we are simply dependent directly or indirectly on Tertullian.

Andrew Criddle

How can Church writers be credible sources of Marcion when they appear to have given erroneous information about their own Canon?

The authorship, dating and chronology of the books of the NT appear to be bogus, even the words of their own God Jesus appears to have been invented.The activities of their own God, Jesus of NAZARETH, including disciples, appear to have been manufactured.

Books included in the NT Canon were deemed to be not genuine, 2 Peter does not belong to the Canon according to Eusebius.

2 Peter was therefore forged by some-one using the name Simon Peter.

It was deduced that more than one person wrote letters using the name Paul, but this information was never released by the Church writers.

If the Church writers MUTILATED the words of their own God Jesus, it must be expected that they most likely mutilated and invented words and activities of Marcion.

There can be no real expectation that Epiphanius is more credible than the writer who used the name Tertullian.

spin · 12-05-2009, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

This seems somewhat ingenuous to me. Was Marcion's text presented as Marcion wrote it, hmm? Of course not. What we have of Marcion's text is interspersed with Tertullian's invective. Removing that invective and you don't have a continuous text. Have I misrepresented anything??

I took you to imply that the text of Marcion that we do have from Tertullian has been misrepresented by Tertullian. Were you saying something different?

Remember what I said, "we are only reconstructing [Marcion's gospel] after it's been through the grind of Tertullian destructive efforts."

How would anyone know for sure if anything had been misrepresented by Tertullian? We don't know the original form.

He certainly did his best to be destructive, wouldn't you agree?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Still waiting to see your CV.

And I'm still waiting for you to take a clear agnostic stand about religious matters here on BC&H, but I won't hold my breath.

spin

spin · 12-05-2009, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

I took you to imply that the text of Marcion that we do have from Tertullian has been misrepresented by Tertullian. Were you saying something different?

Still waiting to see your CV.

Me too.

Which bit are you me-tooing?

spin

ph2ter · 12-07-2009, 12:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

I think Mark knew some Paul from oral transmission. If Paul's letters were read in churches people would remember and quote from them, creating their own 'versions' of sayings, or sometimes mixing in a synonym. Not all churches would have all copies of Paul's letters but some of the Pauline lore would have likely been traded freely and travel around. For example, Paul uses a clever, catchy metaphor of the church as Christ's bride. (2 Cr 11:2), which he will give away pure. It is hard to imagine, given the context, that Mark's Jesus oblique reference to himself as bridegroom in 2:19 did not originate with the saying. But Paul did not call Jesus bridegroom (nymfios) but husband, or man (aner). However, the communities likely discovered the origin of Paul's reference, Isa 62:5, and reverted to the Septuagint word when they made use of the metaphor. This kind of switching between synonyms is quite common in oral culture. Songs and ditties often come in variant forms. Another strong metaphor that likely sprang from Paul's head was the Lord's day coming as a 'thief in the night'. It stresses the sudden, completely unexpected, stealthy, as it were, coming of the peak phenomena of the OBE. Again it would be very catchy imagery and circulate with variants. In one of them the 'thief' (kleptes) became 'a robber' (lestes) which points to the same features of the experience with the added emphasis on its overpowering, paralyzing nature. There is a parallel cryptic saying of the strong man's who first has to be bound, before his house could be plundered, 3:27 which Mark may have borrowed from the Nazarenes to wow them. At any rate, the saying was known to gThomas. The arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane looks like a free play on the sayings except in the paradoxical scenario of the spirit expiring and being overpowered by the mundane powers that be. Mark's Jesus asks : have you come out as against robber (lestes)... Again the cognitive trail to Paul's Thessalonians is strong even though he uses kleptes. (Luke also preserved 'lestes' but he also understands the connotation of the 'night struggle' of the spirit by adding 'this is your hour, and the power of darkness' )

If oral culture had time to digest Paul's ideas in such a way, then Mark is probably writing well after Paul lived. If Paul's letters were read in churches, then Mark surely had means to obtain them.
Someone so clever to write the Gospel according to Mark surely had everything available under his disposition. There is some indication that the writer knew that he is writing the work of first importance:
Mark 14.9: And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her."
How can Mark knew in advance that his gospel will be preached in the whole world? It looks that he got an order from the church officials to write such kind of work. The church officials liked the result, especially when Matthew corrected it.

Quote:

The quip of shortening the days is Mark's ironical pun : he deliberately couples it with the shortness of days in winter. But in reality the allusion is to the sense of time in people who have the spirit (i.e. people who today would be seen as manics). Of course, the likes of Peter and Andrew and the Zebedees, do not know that when manics are high "their days are shortened", i.e. everything moves at a great speed, you are propelled to move from place to place, and immediately this happens and that happens and immediately after that, he enters Jericho and when he leaves Jericho, there is a blind beggar who obviously knows everything about Jesus who cries out to him, is heard and rushes to Jesus throwing off his shirt....this sort narration mimicks the manic state of mind, a tendency to wander around aimlessly, a world in a feverishly chaotic state.

Interesting idea, but I like to explain things without referring to such kind of unusual phenomena.

Quote:

I think you got it

Except Mark - and there I think he progressed beyond Paul - did not believe in the 'synchronous' parousia as Paul did, i.e. all will be beamed up on a sound of trumpet. Obviously, a few years and few people doing the Jesus thing, made a difference in the outlook of the brighter ones among them.

Jiri

So, Mark is writing surely some generation after Paul.
Such reasoning is more advanced than the one which we can see in 2 Peter 3.8: But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.
which is idea existing also in Barnabas: For with him one day is a thousand years, as he himself testifies, saying, Behold this day will be as a thousand years. Therefore, children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, will all things be accomplished.
Barnabas and 2 Peter are more primitive than Mark. That argues for him being later. Or later Christians forgot all that which Mark knew.

dog-on · 12-07-2009, 12:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Perhaps you have another way of saying what has happened to Marcion's text as presented in Tertullian.

spin

Perhaps I do. But it would be irrelevant, since the issue is how you know, as you claim to do, that Marcion's text suffered at Tertullian's hands. Do you have Marcion's original text so as to be able to show that what we now find in Tertullian is a "ground up" and (presumably) distorted version of it?

Jeffrey

Tertullian rips Marcion for deleting certain material from Luke, in some cases incorrectly, as the material Tertullian is citing is actually found in our Matthew.

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