Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Only Luke

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Secret Alias
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Re: Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Luke

Post by Secret Alias »

Latin c I think. Influence of Latin. It was Markion for von Campenhausen. C rarely used in German
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Re: Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Luke

Post by Stuart »

perseusomega9 wrote: Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:44 am Why do people say Mar(s)ion instead of Mar(k)ion?
Americans for over a century said Marc(s)ion and English have said Mar(k)ion. That is 99% the explanation, pronunciation is local to your English. As an American I prefer the soft "c" to more clearly distinguish Marcion from Mark. Some Americans like to use the hard "c" to sound more English as that is considered in some circles more erudite Eastern elite accent than a Midwest, Western, or Texas type casual accent. I'm not one of those people.

As for Stephen's OP, he really is inconsistent in his judgement. Saying Tertullian is telling the truth when it matches his own views, and saying he is lying or using another source for everything when it doesn't.

It is generally considered that Tertullian is expressing Catholic polemic position with regard to the Marcionites, claiming the Canonical Gospels and Paul were prior to the Marcionite and that Marcion removed passages "small and great". So it is consistent with the polemic to claim that Marcion had all the Gospels. before him. This doesn't hold up well under technical inspection.

However for Stephen technical textual issues are of no concern since his arguments exclude philology.
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Re: Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Luke

Post by Secret Alias »

As for Stephen's OP, he really is inconsistent in his judgement. Saying Tertullian is telling the truth when it matches his own views, and saying he is lying or using another source for everything when it doesn't.
Which is what you would expect if I was following what was in the text.
It is generally considered that Tertullian is expressing Catholic polemic position with regard to the Marcionites, claiming the Canonical Gospels and Paul were prior to the Marcionite and that Marcion removed passages "small and great". So it is consistent with the polemic to claim that Marcion had all the Gospels. before him. This doesn't hold up well under technical inspection.
I guess the thread is an opportunity to point out a better explanation rather than hide behind what 19th and 20th century scholars had to say. I've pointed out that Roth wrote an article explaining the seemingly inconsistent Matthean references. I've also mentioned Lieu's criticism of that approach. But at least Roth and Williams attempt an explanation. I've also noted that this Latin translation of an original Greek text (= Against Marcion) used caedo in a way that clearly meant 'beat up' rather than 'cut.' This is plain from the use of caedo to translate the 'beating up' of the servant in Luke. I've also provided an explanation why men - rather than women - are always behind this 'stupid interpretation' of Tertullian where his gospel was 'Luke-only' etc. Men aren't actually engaging the text for what it is or what it says. They typically want to explain away the anomalies because they are an impediment to their grander ambitions - in this case the reconstruction of Marcion's gospel. Because women have less testosterone they are better scholars and don't avoid or cover up the inconsistencies. Yay women.

Scholarship has improved with the addition of women. They aren't prone to the same kind of stupid bravado that characterized the male-only eras of scholarship. They are willing to let small things be small things. It's not about leap frogging onto 'grand ambitions' like resurrecting Marcion which is impossible. They used to say that women weren't capable of holding positions of responsibility because they were too emotional. I'm starting to think the opposite using the study of Marcion as an example. Why do men go beyond what the texts say and ignore what the texts do say in order to attempt the impossible - viz. 'resurrecting the gospel of Marcion'? Because men are depressed by the idea of loss. They can't handle it and so - in the same way as they stalk a 'lost' girlfriend - they ignore all evidence to the contrary of their hopeless attempts of winning Marcion back. Bunch of losers.
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Re: Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Luke

Post by MrMacSon »

perseusomega9 wrote: Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:33 am My working hypothesis, which involves no actual work whatsoever, is canonical GMark(ion) is a reworking of The Evangelion.
Secret Alias wrote: Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:37 am That's suggested by the Philosophumena. The difficult of course is figuring out how that can be true with the Luke-based argument in Tertullian
Jason Beduhn and Matthias Klinghardt both presently propose that 'Marcion's Gospel' preceded both Marcion and Luke and was, in fact, the earliest Gospel written.

Klinghardt thinks that G.Mark depended on such a [pre-]Marcion Gospel; that Matthew used both G.Mark and the Marcionite Gospel; that John used the previous three, and then Luke used all the previous four.

Klinghardt notes that many of the readings attributed to Marcion's Gospel show up as variant readings in the textual tradition of Luke, leading him to conclude that "this gospel was not the arbitrary product of a mean-spirited heretic but, quite simply and obviously, an older text utilised by many, including Marcion himself. And that text was, quite simply and obviously, edited by Luke". Klinghardt thinks what he argues solves the synoptic problem.

(Markus Vinzent thinks Marcion himself wrote the earliest Gospel).

BeDuhn sees Luke as a Marcionite-neutral redaction of 'the Marcionite Gospel', which perhaps took place prior to Marcion. He said (in a 2017 paper) "...it could even be suggested that Luke is a second edition of Marcion's Gospel by the same author." BeDuhn also thinks that the Two-Source hypothesis may be correct, once Luke is replaced in the equation with the Marcionite Gospel and the reconstruction of Q proceeds along these new lines.

eta: Beduhn favours the Semler Hypothesis: that Luke and the Evangelion share a common ancestor [a proto-Luke], over
  1. the Patristic Hypothesis (the Evangelion is an edited version of Luke), or
  2. the Schwegler Hypothesis ('our' Gospel of Luke is derived from the Evangelion).
eta2: Beduhn wonders if a proto-Lukan text came about by its use of Mark and Q, and only in its second edition did it make secondary use of Matthew, incorporating among many things the Baptism of Jesus?

eta3: Assuming a proto-Luke similar to the Evangelion reduces drastically the minor-agreements between Matthew and Luke (an otherwise powerful argument against the Q-hypothesis). The remaining agreements could be due to scribal harmonization from the time before we have our first manuscripts, and before the time of Marcion.
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Re: Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Luke

Post by Ben C. Smith »

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Oct 03, 2018 12:46 pmJason Beduhn and Matthias Klinghardt both presently propose that 'Marcion's Gospel' preceded both Marcion and Luke and was, in fact, the earliest Gospel written.

....

BeDuhn also thinks that the Two-Source hypothesis may be correct, once Luke is replaced in the equation with the Marcionite Gospel and the reconstruction of Q proceeds along these new lines.
These two statements are in tension; both cannot be true. Either the Two-Source theory is true (with Marcion replacing Luke as suggested) or Marcion is the earliest gospel written; not both. (The Two-Source theory hypothesizes that Mark came first and that both Matthew and Luke copied from him and from Q; in the reworked version you describe, Mark would still come first, with Matthew and Marcion copying from him and from Q.)
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Re: Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Luke

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Secret Alias wrote: Wed Oct 03, 2018 6:30 am But the question for me always has been - to what degree was the fourfold gospel (i.e. one gospel made of four) a mystical development of the interest in the tetrad among the followers of Mark. It is too convenient the way scholars speak of four gospels. This wasn't the belief of Irenaeus or at least the statement in Irenaeus which might have been attributable to another source and incorporated into Against Heresies. The gospel in four is a direct counterpart to the trinity and the Jewish idea of two powers in heaven. In each case there are multiple things which are taken as one thing.
Irenaeus's reasons for naming four gospels as authoritative are dubious. He calls then 'natural' since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds ...[and proposed] "it is fitting that she [the church] should have four pillars" (A.H. 3.11.8).

Furthermore, Irenaeus weirdly appeals to "the cherubim [who] were four-faced" and four creatures: a lion, a calf, a man, and "the fourth was like a flying eagle".

It makes me wonder if 'the four' [gospels] were developed as a result of Irenaeus's musing, or were developed in conjunction with his musings.
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Re: Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Luke

Post by MrMacSon »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Wed Oct 03, 2018 1:01 pm
MrMacSon wrote: Wed Oct 03, 2018 12:46 pmJason Beduhn and Matthias Klinghardt both presently propose that 'Marcion's Gospel' preceded both Marcion and Luke and was, in fact, the earliest Gospel written.
....
BeDuhn also thinks that the Two-Source hypothesis may be correct, once Luke is replaced in the equation with the Marcionite Gospel and the reconstruction of Q proceeds along these new lines.
These two statements are in tension; both cannot be true. Either the Two-Source theory is true (with Marcion replacing Luke as suggested) or Marcion is the earliest gospel written; not both. (The Two-Source theory hypothesizes that Mark came first and that both Matthew and Luke copied from him and from Q; in the reworked version you describe, Mark would still come first, with Matthew and Marcion copying from him and from Q.)
I don't disagree. I've got those comments off a blog about their 2017 papers*, so I need to read the papers directly (which I have not done yet)..

eta: and note my etas in my previous post^^^

* in the April 2017 issue of New Testament Studies; Vol 63, Issue 2. Both papers have the same title, as does one by Judith Lieu
  • Matthias Klinghardt, Marcion's 'Gospel and the New Testament: Catalyst or Consequence?' pp. 318-323
  • Jason Beduhn, 'Marcion's Gospel and the New Testament: Catalyst or Consequence?' pp. 324-9
  • Judith Lieu, Marcion's 'Gospel and the New Testament: Catalyst or Consequence?' pp. 329-334

Beduhn may elaborate more here The New Marcion: Rethinking the ”Arch-Heretic”, 2015.
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Re: Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Luke

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perseusomega9 wrote: Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:44 am Why do people say Mar(s)ion instead of Mar(k)ion?
Greek: "Μαρκίων" (Markiōn). In Greek, no letter existed corresponding to English "c" but they did have one for "s," σ (sigma).

Latin: "Marcion" in Tertullian. Latin has no letter corresponding to Greek κ = kappa, but they do for "s." Obviously, Latin transliterated Greek kappa with their letter "c," suggesting that this letter had a "hard" sound.

English: "Marcion." In English, "c," can be pronounced as either "s" or "k."

To be true to the Greek, and I suppose Latin as well, we *could* just start spelling the heretic's name "Markiohn."

Then NT Μᾶρκος would be "Markos." <polo!> Wasn't he da president of the Philippines?

There will be a test later.

DKH :roll:
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Re: Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Luke

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MrMacSon wrote: Wed Oct 03, 2018 1:11 pm
Beduhn may elaborate more here The New Marcion: Rethinking the ”Arch-Heretic”, 2015.
He doesn't seem to refer to the synoptric problem* in that paper but he does say

* other than reference to 'the common synoptic tradition' in footnote 16 -

16. Knox, Marcion and the New Testament, 156. Yet Knox suggests that the Evangelion’s
apparent harmonizations to Matthew and Mark might not be harmonizations at all, but
might reflect an original text more closely dependent on the common Synoptic tradition,
while Luke represents a text worked over literarily, polished and rephrased in a way that
de-harmonized it, so to speak (156 n. 42).

The mistake made by Harnack and other modern researchers has been to
take Tertullian’s and Epiphanius’ guesswork as informed. The hypothetical
nature of their comments makes it clear, however, that they had not a single
word from Marcion about his supposed editorial decisions—no comment at all
about “omitted” passages, and only theological interpretation and application
of the “retained” content. Modern scholarship has been laboring under the vain
illusion that Tertullian and Epiphanius might know things about Marcion’s
editorial principles that we cannot know directly, because they had access to
Marcion’s original writings. Whatever Marcion wrote—in the Antitheses, for example—apparently
did not include anything about choosing or redacting texts.
None of our sources quote words of Marcion where he actually claims to have
“corrected” or “restored” an original text from a “corrupted” version. A passage
highlighted by Harnack, where Marcion is paraphrased referring to an “interpolation”
at the hands of “pseudo-apostles,” does not refer to texts at all but to
the “gospel” as the Christian kerygma, which Marcion found to be ideologically
compromised with Judaism in the practice of the Roman Christian community,
where everything was being interpreted in the context of deep engagement
with the Jewish scriptures: “that gospel … that Marcion by his Antitheses accuses
of having been falsified (interpolatum) by the upholders of Judaism with
a view to its being so combined in one body with the law and prophets that
they might also pretend that Christ had that origin.”8
It is Tertullian himself who anachronistically reframes Marcion’s comments by taking them as referring
to a gospel text, which he merely hypothesizes to be Luke: “If that gospel
which among us is ascribed to Luke is the same (gospel) that Marcion accuses
in his Antitheses …” Clearly, then, Marcion did not name Luke in his work, nor
in any way identify it by a specific comparison of textual content. Otherwise,
Tertullian would not be forced to hypothesize. Yet a surprising number of modern
researchers, beginning with Harnack, treat Tertullian’s guesswork as fact,
and suppose that Marcion had indeed commented on interpolated gospel texts
that he restored to ideological purity by his editorial work.9
Despite a number of questioning voices going back to the very beginning
of modern critical study of the Bible, most have simply accepted the polemical
claim that Marcion edited out portions of the texts he received. When it comes
to the evidence contrary to this claim, modern commentators have either embraced
Tertullian’s answers—that Marcion was an incompetent editor or cleverly
left in passages contrary to his views to allay suspicions that he had tampered
with the text—or have worked to come up with ideological motivations for
Marcion’s editorial decisions that went unrecognized by Tertullian and others.
. . . . .
There is nothing inherently implausible about the idea that Marcion could
have edited his scriptural texts to make them more representative of what he
valued and considered important. In fact, he lived at a time when gospels were
still being actively composed, often by reworking, merging, and elaborating on
earlier gospels. The problem with attributing this sort of authorship to Marcion
comes from an examination of the Evangelion and Apostolikon themselves, which
simply do not show themselves to be texts carefully tailored to Marcionite positions.

https://d1cam0bj22fh80.cloudfront.net/w ... arcion.pdf
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Re: Tertullian Says Marcion Had Access to All Four Gospels But 'Beat Up' Luke

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... there are also a number of passages where ... the wording of the Evangelion, not
that of Luke, ... appears to be brought into harmony with the wording of Matthew.14
Once we have ruled out likely misquotation by our sources (by comparison
with how they quote the same passage elsewhere), it is impossible to account
for Luke not sharing these harmonized readings if it were based on the
Evangelion, which already contained them.15 It seems, therefore, that Luke and
the Evangelion were subjected to separate and independent harmonizing textual
influence, which would mean, as John Knox surmised, that the derivation of
either text directly from the other seems to be ruled out on strictly text-critical
grounds.16 They must represent the end products of two lines of transmission
going back to a common foundation.

Already in 1783, Johann Salomo Semler made such a proposal, that both the
Evangelion and Luke go back independently to a common proto-Luke.17 Semler
put forward the intriguing suggestion that the version that Marcion adopted as
the Evangelion arose in the context of the gentile mission and that its relatively
lesser Judaic material compared to Luke finds its explanation within the context
of this intended audience. The lack of clear ideological differences between the
two recensions, or any clear agenda of “correction” from one to the other, suggests
that some such pragmatic cause, rather than an ideological one, explains
the co-existence of two versions of the gospel. It is a bad habit of the historical
study of Christianity to imagine that everything in the development of distinct
varieties of Christianity was ideologically driven. Issues of practice or even
ethnic and cultural differences played a role in initiating divergent forms of Christianity.

https://d1cam0bj22fh80.cloudfront.net/w ... arcion.pdf


14. Harnack enumerated thirty-four harmonizations to Matthew and Mark in the
Evangelion not found in witnesses to Luke. Wilshire, “Canonical Luke,” 252–53, lists thirty-two.

15. This problem is highlighted in Wilshire, “Canonical Luke.”

16. Knox, Marcion and the New Testament, 156. Yet Knox suggests that the Evangelion’s
apparent harmonizations to Matthew and Mark might not be harmonizations at all, but
might reflect an original text more closely dependent on the common Synoptic tradition,
while Luke represents a text worked over literarily, polished and rephrased in a way that
de-harmonized it, so to speak (156 n. 42).

17. Semler, Neuer Versuch, 162–63. A modification of this hypothesis, retaining the notion
of some editorial activity by Marcion on a proto-gospel from which Luke also derives, is
found in Knox, Marcion and the New Testament; Gregory, Reception of Luke, 193–96.
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