Thanks for all the good feedback, Ben.
Regarding the "born/made of a woman" issue in Gal. 4:4, while I get the impression from Tertullian that it may not have been in Marcion's Galatians, Ehrman suggests that Tertullian did not counter Marcion with the "born/made of woman" part because he may have been using a Latin text that says "made" instead of "born" so it would not have served Tertullian's argument that Jesus was "born."
It should strike us as odd that Tertullian never quotes the verse against Marcion, despite his lengthy demonstration that Christ was actually "born." This can scarcely be attributed to oversight, and so is more likely due to the circumstance that the generally received Latin text does not speak of Christ's birth per se, but of his "having been made" (
factum ex muliere).
Given its relevance to just such controversies, it is no surprise to see that the verse was changed on occasion, and in precisely the direction one might expect: in several Old Latin manuscripts the text reads: misit deus filium suum, natum ex muliere ("God sent his son, born of a woman"), a reading that would have proved useful to Tertullian had he known it.
https://books.google.com/books?id=HGpL9 ... an&f=false
And Tertullian's contemporary Irenaeus (writing originally in Greek) cites the verse in AH 3.22.1:
The Apostle Paul, moreover, in the Epistle to the Galatians, declares plainly, “God sent His Son, made of a woman.”
And while I can't find Jerome's commentary on Galatians online, Clark notes that:
Lieu doesn't seem to place much stock in this, but does say:
Jerome, perhaps following Origen, does claim that 'Marcion and the other heretics' want the text to read 'born through a woman' (
factum per mulierem), but this generlisation is too common to establish Marcion's text.
https://books.google.com/books?id=aAK7B ... on&f=false
Irenaeus then cites Rom. 1:3-4, which of course is long before the codex Boernerianus, so I am inclined to see it as being original to Romans rather than to suppose that only the codex Boernerianus somehow is the original.
And again, in that to the Romans, he says, “Concerning His Son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated as the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
And I think it makes sense for Paul to not mention Jesus' baptism and miracles and to emphasize that Jesus became son of God at his resurrection since in my view he says outright that he has no interest in the earthly Jesus in 2 Cor. 5:16:
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
I think this explains the absence of discussion of Jesus' baptism and miracles in Paul, for I notice that the word for "power" that Paul uses in Rom. 1:4 (δυνάμει) is also used in the gospels to describe Jesus' miracles.
Mt. 11:20:
Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles [δυνάμεις] had been performed, because they did not repent.
Mt. 13:54:
Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers [δυνάμεις]?" they asked.
Mk. 5:24-30:
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power [δύναμιν] had gone out from him.
And I think it would have served Paul's purpose
not to mention Jesus' miracles and baptism given his position against observing the Torah and matters of "the flesh" (which I take as being rooted in his opposition to observing the Torah), and especially not Jesus' baptism, given that Hippolytus says that Jewish Christians associated it with Jesus' observance of the Torah.
RH 7:22-23:
They live conformably to the customs of the Jews, alleging that they are justified. according to the law, and saying that Jesus was justified by fulfilling the law. And And therefore it was, (according to the Ebionaeans,) that (the Saviour) was named (the) Christ of God and Jesus, since not one of the rest (of mankind) had observed completely the law. For if even any other had fulfilled the commandments (contained) in the law, he would have been that Christ. And the (Ebionaeans allege) that they themselves also, when in like manner they fulfil (the law), are able to become Christs; for they assert that our Lord Himself was a man in a like sense with all (the rest of the human family).
But there was a certain Theodotus ... appropriating, however, (his notions of) Christ from the school of the Gnostics, and of Cerinthus and Ebion ... that Jesus was a (mere) man, born of a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, and that after he had lived promiscuously with all men, and had become pre-eminently religious, he subsequently at his baptism in Jordan received Christ, who came from above and descended (upon him) in form of a dove. And this was the reason, (according to Theodotus,) why (miraculous) powers did not operate within him prior to the manifestation in him of that Spirit which descended, (and) which proclaims him to be the Christ. But (among the followers of Theodotus) some are disposed (to think) that never was this man made God, (even) at the descent of the Spirit; whereas others (maintain that he was made God) after the resurrection from the dead.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.