If I understand well, you are saying that you disagree with me because you think that the epistles are aware of a historical Jesus, therefore who wrote them (for example: Marcion) could very well also write a Gospel.Joseph D. L. wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2017 2:14 amMy contention with this would be that the [Marcionite] epistles show a lack of awareness of a historical Jesus, or at least a disinterest. Rather, they focus on the importance of the one writing them, whether he be called Paul or Marcion.I think that the dilemma (how could Marcion himself write a Gospel and be totally unaware of a historical Jesus in the presumed epistles authored by him) can be resolved only:
1) by assuming, with Robert Price, that Marcion authored the epistles but he was unaware of any Gospel.
2) by assuming, with Couchoud and Vinzent, that Marcion wrote a Gospel but not the epistles (that therefore are written by the historical Paul).
Tertium non datur. To think otherwise means to be not perfectly aware of what means 'absence of a HJ in Paul''.
I think that one of the few sure facts about the epistles is that they are unaware of a historical Jesus beyond any doubt. Therefore who wrote them very probably couldn't write a Gospel. Not even after the writing of the epistles, since the epistles are clear in condemning any ''other Jesus'' (and the Gospel Jesus is surely a different Jesus from the Jesus of the epistles).
The evidence is so great, pace Bob Price, that the man Marcion wrote or used a Gospel, so simply he couldn't write epistles so soundly unaware of a Gospel Jesus.May I ask why? For the most part I don't see a reason to not accept that Marcion authored the epistles, especially since I see them reflecting policies sanctioned during the reign of Hadrian, and 2 Thessalonians seems to make a passing remark at Simon bar Kochba.I opt for the point 2.
I understand where you want to conclude: that Marcion is samaritan, i.e. he is Simon Magus.The problem here is thinking of Marcion as being apart from Judaism. But even his theology, or at least his writings, is dependent upon Judaism. It my have had trappings of Hellenism, but so did many schools of Jewish thinking at the time. It was predominantly a Jewish focused religious reformation.
I should quote Rylands where he shows that the Gospel of the Hebrews preserves something that only a Gentile Christian could have written. If my memory works, it is the fact that the Jews kill Jesus, but again, I should check again the book of Rylands to be sure and at the moment I can't.I don't follow this, either in it proceeding a Gentile Gospel, that there was a Gentile Gospel, or the negative portrait of the disciples.The Gospel of the Hebrews shows (for that bit in our knowledge) the negative portrait of the disciples: this is clearly an influence from a previous Gentile Gospel.