Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Post Reply
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Post by Giuseppe »

Bernard Muller wrote: But when Jesus allegedly spoke these words, there was no scriptures of Jesus yet. Actually, Jesus is never said to have written anything.
This assumes a priori the existence of Jesus (for who wrote that passage), but who created his literary portrait could not realize the difference so easily (between what was doing him and what was doing an imaginary or presumed Jesus).


My question is: if gLuke had been written after gMarcion, why would "Luke" put forward a Jesus' failed prophecy?
Because only at that price ''Luke'' could judaize better the marcionite Jesus. It's the same thing about the Two Swords logion : why did Luke show Jesus as a seditious requiring two swords? To make him more a traditional Jewish messiah (contra Marcion), at the price of raising doubt about his pacifism.
Does not work on literature. A new character is very unlikely to be first presented abruptly with no detail on who he is.
More, in gMarcion, further in the text, John is identified with many details (Lk 7:18-28). So he was of great importance for Marcion.
Note: According to Epiphanius, Marcion changed "And blessed is he who takes no offense at me." by "And blessed is John who takes no offense at me."
The logic of your argument, if I bear it in extremis, can make very a strong argument in support of Mark's knowledge of Josephus: if Mark didn't read Josephus, then how could he explain to his gentile audience who were the ''pharisees'', by him introduced so rapidly in his incipit?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Bernard Muller
Posts: 3964
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:02 pm
Contact:

Re: Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Giuseppe,
This assumes a priori the existence of Jesus (for who wrote that passage), but who created his literary portrait could not realize the difference so easily (between what was doing him and what was doing an imaginary or presumed Jesus).
But Marcion, in his gospel, acknowledged the past existence of Jesus on earth, in a physical body and looking like a human, but not born from a woman.
That passage, by the way, was written by Marcion.
Because only at that price ''Luke'' could judaize better the marcionite Jesus. It's the same thing about the Two Swords logion : why did Luke show Jesus as a seditious requiring two swords? To make him more a traditional Jewish messiah (contra Marcion), at the price of raising doubt about his pacifism.

Luke judaizing the marcionite Jesus is just an assumption. Even the Marcionite Jesus (& Paul) comes with some reference to OT figures, which can be best explained by Marcion cutting as much as possible of Judaism from gLuke, but leaving some remnants. And even Marcion had Jesus dealing with Jews exclusively.
As for the two swords, you should know that weapons were allowed to be carried by travelers then:
Josephus' Wars, II, VIII, 4 "... they [Essenes] carry nothing with them when they travel into remote parts, though still they take their weapons with them, for fear of thieves."
Having (only) two swords in a group is not a sign of a seditious group, but rather a pacifist one. Actually, it seems "Luke" was reacting to those who read Mk 14:47, who wondered if the people around Jesus then were heavily armed. "Luke" tried to defuse that with her only two swords.
It is ridiculous to me that some used these two swords to "prove" Jesus was the leader of a seditious group.
The logic of your argument, if I bear it in extremis, can make very a strong argument in support of Mark's knowledge of Josephus: if Mark didn't read Josephus, then how could he explain to his gentile audience who were the ''pharisees'', by him introduced so rapidly in his incipit?
The pharisees were known in the Diaspora. They probably existed in Mark's community, along with teachers of the Law.
However, John was a common name and that man did not exist in Mark's community, and therefore was requiring identification when first presented in Marcion's gospel.

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Post by Secret Alias »

But Marcion, in his gospel, acknowledged the past existence of Jesus on earth, in a physical body and looking like a human, but not born from a woman.
That passage, by the way, was written by Marcion.
Where is this passage?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Post by Secret Alias »

I accept the possibility that the Marcionites - like Justin Martyr - identified Jesus as the angelic 'Man' who visited the Patriarchs and is identified as 'man' by the Marcionites in many Patristic references (also the fiery angel of the Marcionite Apelles). But I am still interested in the passage have in mind.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Post by Secret Alias »

Luke judaizing the marcionite Jesus is just an assumption.
I actually agree with you here Bernard. We don't know what the actual characteristics of the Marcionite text were. I think it is more like that Luke is forgery simply because the whole beginning of the gospel is alien to the text. But that's another issue.
Even the Marcionite Jesus (& Paul) comes with some reference to OT figures, which can be best explained by Marcion cutting as much as possible of Judaism from gLuke, but leaving some remnants. And even Marcion had Jesus dealing with Jews exclusively.
Why is that the 'best explanation'? Just the one which requires the least amount of work. Surely Irenaeus altered Luke in the same way as he altered Justin's 'apostolic gospel-based' treatise into a 'Luke-based' Adv Marc. That alone settles the issue to the point we can be comfortable acknowledging Luke's secondary nature.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Bernard Muller wrote:Even the Marcionite Jesus... comes with some reference to OT figures, which can be best explained by Marcion cutting as much as possible of Judaism from gLuke, but leaving some remnants.
That the Jewish bits in the Marcionite gospel are "best" explained by Marcion having cut stuff out of Luke seems to be a logical error. Let us take two different scenarios:

#1
#2
1. Marcion inherits the extant gospel of Luke with much Jewish stuff.1. Marcion inherits a proto-Lucan gospel text with some Jewish stuff.
2. Marcion cuts out a lot of the Jewish (and other) stuff.2. Marcion (re)publishes the proto-Lucan gospel basically as it stands.
3. Marcion tolerates the bits of Jewish stuff he did not cut out.3. Marcion tolerates the bits of Jewish stuff already there.

The fact is, both scenarios have Marcion tolerating the Jewish stuff present in his own gospel. But for him to have cut out scads of Jewish references and tolerated the remaining ones is not measurably more likely, on its own merits, than that he simply left those bits in when he propagated a gospel text that he had inherited (in fact, it seems less likely to me, but I will not press that point here and now).

I would agree, however, that both of the above scenarios are more likely than that Marcion wrote the gospel from scratch and deliberately included those bits.

Ben.
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Post by Secret Alias »

But for him to have cut out scads of Jewish references and tolerated the remaining ones is not measurably more likely, on its own merits
Williams pulls out a citation from Adv Marc where it is alleged (I forget where now) that Marcion deliberately left some of the Jewish bits in order to cover up his falsification efforts.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Post by Secret Alias »

But again let me add just for the record, an exposition of what we are really dealing with. This notion that Marcion was a 'Jew-hater' (cf Roger Pearse's summary of Adv Marc at tertullian.org or whatever it is) is simply ridiculous. The self-certainty that people have about this is rebuffed by the facts. It is similar to people who argue that anyone who opposes the encroachment of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory is anti-Israel. Many people who bringing up Israeli settlements are anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic etc. But I know of countless Jewish people in America and Canada who have issues with these settlements and the current government in Israel. If you read Forward or any number of Jewish publications today and last week there is much discussion about whether Bernie Sanders and his supporters are 'anti-Israel.' It's not always so clear cut.

It gets very dangerous when we divide things in stark contrasts. Let's return to the main issue. What do the Church Fathers actually say? Without doing a detailed study at this very moment but having read the pertinent material hundreds of times in the last 20 years my sense is that:

1. the Church Fathers lump Marcion together with those who depreciate the 'Jewish god' (= the Demiurge)
2. the Demiurge is not 'evil' in the Marcionite system, he is merely 'just' but inferior to the 'Good god' who is the Father
3. the Marcionites thought Jesus came to destroy the system of sacrifices proscribed in the Law (or possibly the temple). As such he (and Paul) was a 'destroyer of the Law and prophets.'

On the other side of the ledger:

a. the Marcionites are frequently identified as 'borrowing' their opinions from the Jews about the messiah
b. they share the same exegetical interpretation of scripture
c. the observe the Sabbath (albeit with a fast)
d. the identify Jesus as a 'man of war' (Exodus 15:3)
e. arguments developed against the Jews by Tertullian's source are repurposed almost verbatim against the Marcionites (cmp. Adv Iud with Adv Marc bk 3)

Indeed a careful reading of Adv Marc 4 and 5 reveals a pattern which supports the idea that the Marcionites might well have originally represented a Jewish sectarian group (the two powers community a point which Segal comes back to time and again):

i. the most frequent attack against the Marcionites is that they introduce another god
ii. the next most frequent line of attack is that they separate Jesus and Christ or introduce another Christ besides Jesus
iii. many of the 'falsification' of the gospel retain reference to the Pentateuch (such as the order to the healed leper)
iv. moreover the most frequent line of defense of the 'Catholic position' in Adv Marc (which develops from a source older than Tertulllian or Irenaeus) is the author citing scriptural proof that the Law and prophets anticipated or knew of Jesus

In the case of (iv) - especially in light of the verbatim parallels between Adv Iud and Adv Marc III - it would not be entirely implausible to imagine an original source text for Adv Marc IV and V which was directed against the Jews and modified to fit the later anti-Marcionite agenda of late second century and third century Church Fathers. Even if we don't go to this extreme the frequent accusation that Marcion removed Matthew's pro-Torah statements from his gospel suggest that at least one layer of the multi-layered reworking of this text differed on the specific question of whether the gospel displaced the authority of the Law (i.e. whether the gospel was a 'new Torah'). We should view these sorts of debate as best suiting a chaotic 'messianic Jewish' environment (for lack of a better word) than a 'pro-Jewish' vs 'anti-Jewish' state of affairs.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Post by Secret Alias »

So getting back to the main point, I think it is dangerous to define Marcion as 'anti-Jewish' even if it is convenient for us to do so. We know from rabbinic sources that many Jewish groups abstained from wine and meat after the destruction of the temple (these are Marcionite-like traits). We must imagine that it was a time of great confusion for Jews. What it meant to be Jewish was hanging in the balance. Surely ALL groups maintained beliefs and practices or perhaps accepted innovations to the Jewish identity in light of the destruction of the temple which offended other groups. That Judaism eventually came to reject one god on Sinai another god in heaven (owing to R Akiva's implausible solution to the plain meaning of the original text) doesn't mean that those who stuck to tradition were 'heretics.' It just means that some were on the winning side and others on the losing side of history.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
outhouse
Posts: 3577
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:48 pm

Re: Luke prior to Gospel of Marcion ?

Post by outhouse »

Secret Alias wrote:. This notion that Marcion was a 'Jew-hater'


.
Your correct here.

He worshipped and lived around teachings generated by the martyrdom of a Galilean Jew, even if he perverted such and throws out the foundation of mythology and theology of the monotheistic Jewish deity
Post Reply