Marcion's Apostolikon was Corinthians First

[stephan happy huller]

But my point was - why do we see Justin and Clement of Rome SEEM to know Paul but never cite him directly? This what is the issue for me. I think the situation is the same in Tatian (only that scholarship is willing to acknowledge the use of Paul here). Yes transforming the original question but I think the Letter to Theodore (another segue) has been resisted so much because it makes explicit what is implicit in these other sources. Paul might not have been rejected. He might have only been used 'secretly' because there was a secret canon.

[stephan happy huller]

Vinzent has done a lot to open the door to the idea that Justin and Marcion might have shared a similar gospel and general parallels between the two.

[stephan happy huller]

And the idea of a 'secret' Paul is implicit in Tertullian's treatment of Marcion at the beginning of Book V and it changes everything. The basic idea that the pious use to defend Acts etc. is to say - how on earth could someone have just 'invented' bullshit about Paul and had it almost universally accepted? But that depends on what was there before. If Paul was held in 'secret' then Irenaeus was just filling a vacuum.

I went to university which had 90 percent females and the few men that were there were either gay or undecided. I was stud but only by default.

[andrewcriddle]

But my point was - why do we see Justin and Clement of Rome SEEM to know Paul but never cite him directly? This what is the issue for me. I think the situation is the same in Tatian (only that scholarship is willing to acknowledge the use of Paul here). Yes transforming the original question but I think the Letter to Theodore (another segue) has been resisted so much because it makes explicit what is implicit in these other sources. Paul might not have been rejected. He might have only been used 'secretly' because there was a secret canon.

1 Clement does cite Paul directly, see chapter 47

Take up the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write to you at the time when the Gospel first began to be preached? Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he wrote to you concerning himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because even then parties had been formed among you.

Andrew Criddle

[stephan happy huller]

But there are a number of echoes that reminded me of a pattern in Justin.

[Bingo]

Yahweh and Elohim are two different beings. Few scholars have stopped to consider the full implication of that understanding.

Hello Stephan. It’s good to see that you’re happy. The circus has kept me really busy. I regret that I don’t have more time to devote to this new forum. But this topic really pushes a button in me, and so I have to at least say something.

IMHO the possibility that Marcion’s two gods evolved out of Elohim and Yahweh is very appealing; it has a lot of explanatory power. I think you’re on to something. I’ve thought about this subject myself many times.

But I can’t understand why you’re using the title “Elohim” when (at least as far as I see it) you should be using the proper name “El” instead. I have always thought that the title “Elohim” is a late word that developed after Yahweh and El conflated.

FWIW I think the two gods in Psalm 82 (the judging god and the father god) are Marcion’s two gods. -You can call the judging god “Baal Hadad” or “Yahweh” or “Melchizedek” or “the Son of Man” or “Jesus” or whatever you want; but thems be the primordial sources.

I think the mental stumbling block is in believing that these two gods are somehow real, and therefore it all has to make perfect unified sense.

It doesn’t. It’s just fiction.

- Bingo

[stephan happy huller]

Thank you Mr. Bingo,

There is one more possible line of argument which is a little bit more complicated to develop but may ultimately prove the hypothesis. The Dialogue on the True Faith of God (De Recta in Deum Fide) is universally recognized to be a corrupt work that goes back to something more original. The Latin is older than the Greek text. It speaks of persecutions being ongoing. But what is the ur-text? I think Harris's suggestion that the reference in the 'Valentinian' section to an original treatise (Fourth Part) ostensibly from Valentinus but Harris argues for a Marcionite origin. I suspect he's correct (owing to parallels with the beginning of Book One in Tertullian's Against Marcion. But if this is true it suggests the work as a whole was directed against a single Marcionite (= Megethius). This ur-text was then deliberately corrupted to reflect the presence of a number of heresies all refuted by Adamantius.

If this proposition is tentatively accepted it is extremely important to focus our attention on the last part of the Fourth Part and the whole of the Fifth Part (p. 138 - 192 in the Pretty translation). This much of this section has already been demonstrated to be repeated in Methodius and Eusebius's citation of Maximus. This latter original work dates from the Commodian era. What is intriguing is that the Fifth Part of De Recta in Deum Fide is an extensive refutation of the heretical interest in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Some of the language suggests it was treated as an antitheses.

[Bingo]

Yahweh and Elohim are two different beings. Few scholars have stopped to consider the full implication of that understanding.

What are your thoughts on Psalm 82?

1. Elohim stands in the assembly of El, in the midst of the gods he renders judgment.
6. I thought ‘you are gods, sons of Elyon’.

How many gods do we have here?

And where is Yahweh?

[Blood]

I don't think Biblical scholars are that smart. If Steve Jobs or the guys at Google had a desire for low wages they'd wipe the floor with the current crop of scholars. You basically have slightly above average minds with little or no imagination pretending that certainty exists in a field defined by hopelessly corrupt and one-sided textual evidence purely for job security and personal piece of mind. If the existing canon were likened to a driving aid - it would be a bottle of Jack Daniels.

[perseusomega9]

...

Okay, obviously I haven't got past the very beginning of the book with this analysis, but already something odd appears. Marcion is regularly taken to task for omitting statements from his Gospel that are found only in Matthew, or only in Matthew or Mark. What gives? Surely the author of the statement that Marcion's Gospel is an adulteration/mutilation of Luke would also know that almost everything he brings up is also absent in Luke. Such tepid stuff to accuse your opponent of removing material that wasn't there to remove!

But if it were Justin behind this set of remarks? Then clearly Justin was comparing Marcion's Gospel against his own, which could be either Matthew or, as several has said is more likely, a harmony of Matthew, Mark, and/or Luke (canonical version with infancy stuff - maybe John too, tough question). So Justin would be the one getting upset with Marcion, not for using one gospel instead of four, but for using one gospel but one which takes out some of the best bits, as Justin knows them from his gospel harmony.

http://markusvinzent.blogspot.com/2013/ ... el-of.html by Vinzent (which Stephan comments on), regarding the Egerton gospel, Marcion, and a diatesseron. If Justin is the author of AM as you note above, are there any ideas when the tradition of ascribing Marcion's gospel to a redacted Luke can be assigned? Do the traditions ascribing it to Ireneaus or Tertullian need to be redated (as in Ir. and Tert. themselves), or can the timing of Lukan redaction tradition claim still be maintained circa Ir.? Could this imply that Luke-Acts, or at least Acts be redated post Justin to coincide with the tradition that Luke was a follower of Paul?