Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

In another thread ---

maryhelena wrote: The debate is over which came first - the Marcionite or the Pauline. When that debate is settled then one can begin to debate who wrote what.....

That debate is old and tired --- and prominent modern-day proponents of Radical Criticism have gained little, if any, ground. The debate is not anywhere close to an even match.

For more than a century --- from Bruno Bauer, from the Dutch Radicals, to the modern-day proponents like Hermann Deterring and Robert M. Price --- Radical Criticism has failed to gain significant traction.

Why? IMO, the preponderance of the evidence is against them.

Dr Detering writes,
http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/detering.html

“Because of the factors already mentioned I am of the opinion that accepting a "Marcionite School" as the cradle of the "Pauline Epistles" is preferable to accepting a Pauline one.”

But Detering admits ---

“An enormous scholarly job awaits us …”

Dr. Robert M. Price sees the Pauline epistles as fragments from Simon Magus, Marcion, Valentinian Gnostics, and Catholics. **

Price asks in a “forthright attempt to hark back to that golden era” of Higher Criticism ---
http://depts.drew.edu/jhc/pricejhc.html

“Why has the Higher Criticism gradually slipped from its place of dominance to the point where it is either a toothless tiger or worse yet, covert apologetics wearing the Esau-mask of criticism?”

Price lays the blame, at least in part, on the current dominance of a conservative establishment ---

"The sheer volume of conservative biblical students and scholars reflects the demographic triumph of the conservative denominations and their seminaries."

I can’t argue with Price on that in relation to the larger picture. But in regards to Pauline authorship, considering decades of critical scholarship, the preponderance of the evidence just does not support Marcionite priority.

robert j.

** Robert M. Price, The Amazing Colossal Apostle – The Search for the Historical Paul, 2012, p. 534

robert j wrote:In another thread ---

maryhelena wrote: The debate is over which came first - the Marcionite or the Pauline. When that debate is settled then one can begin to debate who wrote what.....

That debate is old and tired --- and prominent modern-day proponents of Radical Criticism have gained little, if any, ground. The debate is not anywhere close to an even match.

For more than a century --- from Bruno Bauer, from the Dutch Radicals, to the modern-day proponents like Hermann Deterring and Robert M. Price --- Radical Criticism has failed to gain significant traction.

Why? IMO, the preponderance of the evidence is against them.

Dr Detering writes,
http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/detering.html

“Because of the factors already mentioned I am of the opinion that accepting a "Marcionite School" as the cradle of the "Pauline Epistles" is preferable to accepting a Pauline one.”

But Detering admits ---

“An enormous scholarly job awaits us …”

Dr. Robert M. Price sees the Pauline epistles as fragments from Simon Magus, Marcion, Valentinian Gnostics, and Catholics. **

Price asks in a “forthright attempt to hark back to that golden era” of Higher Criticism ---
http://depts.drew.edu/jhc/pricejhc.html

“Why has the Higher Criticism gradually slipped from its place of dominance to the point where it is either a toothless tiger or worse yet, covert apologetics wearing the Esau-mask of criticism?”

Price lays the blame, at least in part, on the current dominance of a conservative establishment ---

"The sheer volume of conservative biblical students and scholars reflects the demographic triumph of the conservative denominations and their seminaries."

I can’t argue with Price on that in relation to the larger picture. But in regards to Pauline authorship, considering decades of critical scholarship, the preponderance of the evidence just does not support Marcionite priority.

robert j.

** Robert M. Price, The Amazing Colossal Apostle – The Search for the Historical Paul, 2012, p. 534

Well now, re a recent thread by Peter - Marcion is now bigger than Q. Perhaps that's the way forward - bring Marcion into the Synoptic Problem.....

• Marcion: Bigger than Q
  
  Post by Peter Kirby » Tue Sep 08, 2015 3:00 am
  
  Looking over the discernable data from scanning blog posts with an automated word-tagger, it appears that Marcion is officially more popular than Q. This implies that Marcion's canon has surpassed Q as the most popular 'reconstructed' ancient Christian text to talk about these days!

Matthias Klinghardt (2008) 'The Marcionite Gospel and the Synoptic Problem: A New Suggestion'

• Novum Testamentum; 50(1):1-27. - full article:
  
  https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B75F1hK ... edit?pli=1

Looking over the discernable data from scanning blog posts with an automated word-tagger, it appears that Marcion is officially more popular than Q. This implies that Marcion's canon has surpassed Q as the most popular 'reconstructed' ancient Christian text to talk about these days!

But Q is not too popular these days, so the predominance of Marcion over Q is not very meaningful.

“Because of the factors already mentioned I am of the opinion that accepting a "Marcionite School" as the cradle of the "Pauline Epistles" is preferable to accepting a Pauline one.”

But Detering admits ---

“An enormous scholarly job awaits us …”

First an opinion based on factors, but the "enormous scholarly job" to justify it is not done yet.
Splendid methodology!!!

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard Muller wrote:

Looking over the discernable data from scanning blog posts with an automated word-tagger, it appears that Marcion is officially more popular than Q. This implies that Marcion's canon has surpassed Q as the most popular 'reconstructed' ancient Christian text to talk about these days!

But Q is not too popular these days, so the predominance of Marcion over Q is not very meaningful.

LOL. Also, Peter Kirby said it, so there's another reason to look askance at this piece of trivia.

Peter, I did not challenge your findings on this matter, just made an additional observation.

Cordially, Bernard

robert j wrote: That debate is old and tired ---

Yes, it Is not debated outside of atheist fanaticism though.


To me it embarrasses good credible atheist everywhere including embarrassing secular scholars.


These people are laughed at and don't care, stirring the pot wont help.

Bernard Muller wrote:But Q is not too popular these days, so the predominance of Marcion over Q is not very meaningful.

That's a non-sequitur: it's illogical.

Bernard Muller wrote:First an opinion based on factors, but the "enormous scholarly job" to justify it is not done yet.
Splendid methodology!!!

It's not really clear what you're saying there, either.

robert j wrote:In another thread ---

maryhelena wrote: The debate is over which came first - the Marcionite or the Pauline. When that debate is settled then one can begin to debate who wrote what.....

That debate is old and tired --- and prominent modern-day proponents of Radical Criticism have gained little, if any, ground. The debate is not anywhere close to an even match.

For more than a century --- from Bruno Bauer, from the Dutch Radicals, to the modern-day proponents like Hermann Deterring and Robert M. Price --- Radical Criticism has failed to gain significant traction.

Why? IMO, the preponderance of the evidence is against them.


Price lays the blame, at least in part, on the current dominance of a conservative establishment ---

"The sheer volume of conservative biblical students and scholars reflects the demographic triumph of the conservative denominations and their seminaries."

I can’t argue with Price on that in relation to the larger picture. But in regards to Pauline authorship, considering decades of critical scholarship, the preponderance of the evidence just does not support Marcionite priority.

robert j.

I'm not sure it's just the preponderance of 'evidence' that's against them as, as Price says,

"The sheer volume of conservative biblical students and scholars reflects the demographic triumph of the conservative denominations and their seminaries."

The situation needs a meta-analysis by a neutral party; something almost always lacking in early Christian "scholarship".

Trying to reconstruct supposed 2nd century Christian texts is fraught with difficulties. Trying to reconstruct Marcion on the basis of adversarial texts, such as Tertullians, is troublesome if those texts have been later edited and redacted.

Things like this require evalution -

maryhelena wrote:

Justin Martyr: First Apologia (to Antoninus Pius)

And there is Marcion, a man of Pontus, who is even at this day alive, and teaching his disciples to believe in some other god greater than the Creator.

Marcion alive when First Apologia written? (Antoninus Pius 138 - 161 AD/CE) http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 184#p40184

what was the relationship between Justin Martyr and Marcion?

First an opinion based on factors, but the "enormous scholarly job" to justify it is not done yet. Splendid methodology!!!

Cordially, Bernard

Why do you make a big fuss over whether something is published or not. You admit over and over again that you don't read much.

"Reading dozen of books is very much time consuming and will dull the mind, which may prevent you to think on your own." -- Bernard Muller

One should hardly expect you to complain that another person hasn't published anything that you won't like read anyway.