Dating the Marcionite prologues

[perseusomega9]

I'm rereading BeDuhn's. The First New Testament, and the part thatPeter Kirby quotes below from another thread jumped out at me. I date Acts in first half of the second century following BeDuhn, MacDonald, Tyson, Jesus Seminar, etc. If, as BeDuhn argues below, the prologues were ignorant (or ignored) of Acts, then the latest we would date these prologues is around the mid second century. Yet the prologues suggest the epistles are nearly equivalent to the current catholic counterparts, or as tradition says, Marcion found them with judaizing corruptions already in place. This would suggest to me we're looking at least at a third round of editing by the mid 2nd century. First round being the original letters, second round being the first editorial composition where smaller letters or their fragments were compiled into larger epistles (e.g. Corinthians), third round the Marcionite editorializing with the prologues. Any problems with my relative dating of the Paulines?

Jason BeDuhn, The First New Testament (2013), pp. 42-43.
In 1907, Donatien De Bruyne demonstrated that a set of Latin prologues to Paul's letters, found in a number of Vulgate biblical manuscripts, contained wording suggesting that they derived originally from a Marcionite context. First, they have as their central unifying theme the conflict between Paul and "false apostles" who promoted the Jewish law, even for letters where this was at best a minor subject of Paul's discussion. Second, of the existing prologues, the ones introducing letters not included in Marcion's Apostolikon can be shown to be secondary additions to an original set for only those letters known to Marcion. Third, their wording indicates that they originally had a different sequence than the canonical order of the letters in which they currently appear in catholic Bibles, and that they relate to each other in the order of the Apostolikon. These prologues can be traced back at least to the mid-fourth century.

... why would catholic copyists include Marcionite texts in their Bibles? Yet there remain several features of the prologues that are difficult to explain if they are not Marcionite. For example, the prologue to the letter to the Colossians only makes sense within a Pauline corpus in which it followed one addressed to the Laodiceans - since it begins, 'Colossians also, like Laodiceans, are Asians.' Moreover, the prologues' understanding of Paul's final movements - in prison in Ephesus and transported from there to Rome - ignores or is ignorant of Acts, as would be the case with Marcion or a Marcionite writer. Finally, concern with 'Judaizers' is one thing, but speaking of Christians being 'led astray into the Law and Prophets,' as the prologue to Romans does, puts the author beyond the pale of 'orthodox' Christian sentiments, and pretty squarely into a Marcionite world view.

[Ben C. Smith]

I'm rereading BeDuhn's. The First New Testament, and the part thatPeter Kirby quotes below from another thread jumped out at me. I date Acts in first half of the second century following BeDuhn, MacDonald, Tyson, Jesus Seminar, etc. If, as BeDuhn argues below, the prologues were ignorant (or ignored) of Acts, then the latest we would date these prologues is around the mid second century. Yet the prologues suggest the epistles are nearly equivalent to the current catholic counterparts, or as tradition says, Marcion found them with judaizing corruptions already in place. This would suggest to me we're looking at least at a third round of editing by the mid 2nd century. First round [A] being the original letters, second round [B] being the first editorial composition where smaller letters or their fragments were compiled into larger epistles (e.g. Corinthians), third round [C] the Marcionite editorializing with the prologues. Any problems with my relative dating of the Paulines?

Jason BeDuhn, The First New Testament (2013), pp. 42-43.
In 1907, Donatien De Bruyne demonstrated that a set of Latin prologues to Paul's letters, found in a number of Vulgate biblical manuscripts, contained wording suggesting that they derived originally from a Marcionite context. First, they have as their central unifying theme the conflict between Paul and "false apostles" who promoted the Jewish law, even for letters where this was at best a minor subject of Paul's discussion. Second, of the existing prologues, the ones introducing letters not included in Marcion's Apostolikon can be shown to be secondary additions to an original set for only those letters known to Marcion. Third, their wording indicates that they originally had a different sequence than the canonical order of the letters in which they currently appear in catholic Bibles, and that they relate to each other in the order of the Apostolikon. These prologues can be traced back at least to the mid-fourth century.

... why would catholic copyists include Marcionite texts in their Bibles? Yet there remain several features of the prologues that are difficult to explain if they are not Marcionite. For example, the prologue to the letter to the Colossians only makes sense within a Pauline corpus in which it followed one addressed to the Laodiceans - since it begins, 'Colossians also, like Laodiceans, are Asians.' Moreover, the prologues' understanding of Paul's final movements - in prison in Ephesus and transported from there to Rome - ignores or is ignorant of Acts, as would be the case with Marcion or a Marcionite writer. Finally, concern with 'Judaizers' is one thing, but speaking of Christians being 'led astray into the Law and Prophets,' as the prologue to Romans does, puts the author beyond the pale of 'orthodox' Christian sentiments, and pretty squarely into a Marcionite world view.

I have lettered your three stages to see how they might map onto the series of Pauline editions deduced by David Trobisch and Harry Y. Gamble. I have also added a fourth stage just for the sake of completeness, though this may take us out of the second century (the numbers are the word counts which serve as clues to the developing editions):

A. The original letters are written individually.

Both to individuals and to entire churches.

B. The original letters are combined into editions.

Hauptbriefe Edition

Romans, 7111
1 Corinthians, 6830
2 Corinthians, 4477
Galatians, 2230

Note: all four letters are in order from longest to shortest.

Seven Churches Edition

Romans, 7111
1 Corinthians, 6830
2 Corinthians, 4477
Galatians, 2230
Laodiceans/Ephesians, 2422
Philippians, 1629
Colossians, 1582
1 Thessalonians, 1481
2 Thessalonians, 823

Note: the first four (the Hauptbriefe) are in order by length, but then the length jumps up again in between Galatians and Laodiceans/Ephesians, marking where the "appendix" of other church letters begins. Independent evidence for this collection of letters to seven churches includes the Asian parallel in Revelation and the discussion in the Muratorian Canon.

C. The Marcionite edition is published.

Marcionite/Chronological Edition

Galatians, 2230
1 Corinthians, 6830
2 Corinthians, 4477
Romans, 7111
1 Thessalonians, 1481
2 Thessalonians, 823
Laodiceans, 2422
Colossians, 1582
Philippians, 1629
Philemon, 335

Note: the order of this edition, unlike that of the other editions, has nothing to do with the length of the letters; rather, it may be an attempt, sans Acts, to put the letters into a chronological order. For example, if you read the Marcionite Prologues in this order, the "prison epistles" are all at the end of the sequence.

D. The canonical edition is published, both without and with Hebrews.

Thirteen Letters Edition

Romans, 7111
1 Corinthians, 6830
2 Corinthians, 4477
Galatians, 2230
Ephesians, 2422
Philippians, 1629
Colossians, 1582
1 Thessalonians, 1481
2 Thessalonians, 823
1 Timothy, 1591
2 Timothy, 1238
Titus, 659
Philemon, 335

Note: the length jumps up yet again in between the Thessalonian epistles and those to Timothy. Letters to individuals have now been added to what was originally a set of letters to churches.

Fourteen Letters Edition

Romans, 7111
1 Corinthians, 6830
2 Corinthians, 4477
Galatians, 2230
Ephesians, 2422
Philippians, 1629
Colossians, 1582
1 Thessalonians, 1481
2 Thessalonians, 823
1 Timothy, 1591
2 Timothy, 1238
Titus, 659
Philemon, 335
Hebrews, 4953

Note: Hebrews is added at different spots in the sequence in different manuscripts. It is obviously the latest edition to the collection.

Does any of this resonate with you, perseusomega9?

[perseusomega9]

Thanks, I've been wanting to read Trobisch's books on the Paulina and NT editing, and reinforced my need to read Gamble as well (BeDuhn is using him a lot in the current book as well). I don't do a lot of notes when I'm reading, nor keep an annotated bibliography, so all this is in my head. I'm a scientist by training so the closest I'm likening my approach to is absolute and relative dating like the sedimentary record. In this case I'm taking the 2nd century dating of Acts as a given, kind of like a radiometrically dated lava flow with sedimentary layers underneath and trying to sort the relative dating of those layers underneath. So you see where I've come up with at least three events, but it seems I need to look at what you labeled B closer regarding the four versus seven book editions of the epistles.