The Gospel of Marcion Cannot Have Been Derived from the Gospel of Mark

[John2]

Not even worth pursuing.

Suit yourself.

[Secret Alias]

Ignoring the idiotic approach of our own Eisenmann I mean John2 we move on to discuss what is different about Irenaeus and Papias's account of Matthew.

Irenaeus does not get his information about the place and time of origin for Matthew from anything in our Papias, so either Papias said more which we do not have, or Irenaeus had another source https://books.google.com/books?id=Hdg9Q ... AHoECAAQAg

or Irenaeus made up the information. Obviously I presume the last to be true because - as is obvious - Irenaeus is developing a fourfold gospel harmony from a 'Matthew' as its anchor text.

Another piece of evidence which doesn't come from Papias is:

Irenaeus claims that Mark wrote sometime after Peter's and Paul's deaths.

If Watson's reading of Papias is correct this can't be true because:

Irenaeus understands Matthew's work among the Jews to correspond with Peter and Paul's work of preaching and founding the church in Rome.

This is not what Papias says and the bit about Mark contradicts what is in Clement. It would stand to reason that given the way it helps Irenaeus's system.

[John2]

Ignoring the idiotic approach of our own Eisenmann I mean John2 we move on to discuss what is different about Irenaeus and Papias's account of Matthew.

Irenaeus does not get his information about the place and time of origin for Matthew from anything in our Papias, so either Papias said more which we do not have, or Irenaeus had another source https://books.google.com/books?id=Hdg9Q ... AHoECAAQAg

or Irenaeus made up the information. Obviously I presume the last to be true because - as is obvious - Irenaeus is developing a fourfold gospel harmony from a 'Matthew' as its anchor text.

It seems reasonable to me to suppose that Papias said more about Matthew than one sentence. Bauckham addresses this issue (and echoes Ben) in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses:

We do not know whether in Papias's report of what the Elder said this sentence [about Matthew] followed immediately on the account of Mark's Gospel as Eusebius reproduces it or whether there was intervening material that Eusebius omitted. The latter seems more probable, because the "therefore" (oun) at the beginning of this statement about Matthew seems to presuppose something that has been omitted, unless, with Robert Gundry, we suppose that, according to Papias, it was because Mark's Gospel lacked order that Matthew gave order to his collection of the logia. That would make this earliest of all accounts of the origins of the Gospels a witness to Markan priority over Matthew. But it seems more likely that Eusebius has omitted some material, perhaps to the effect that Matthew, unlike Mark, was a personal disciple of Jesus. Eusebus may have thought this obvious and therefore redundant. Alternatively, Eusebius has omitted something of which he did not approve. He had his own ideas about the origins of and differences among the Gospels (see especially Hist. Eccl. 3.24.5-16) and is likely to have suppressed material in Papias that was not consistent with them.


https://books.google.com/books?id=zcVVp ... am&f=false

Regarding the content of Mark not being "in order," since Papias explains that this was a reflection of Peter's teaching style, do you really think Papias thought that Peter's teaching style was "less than holy"?

[Secret Alias]

Please you aren't reasonable and besides I was demonstrating the differences again between Papias and Irenaeus - something you don't even care to recognize. So please STFU

[John2]

Another piece of evidence which doesn't come from Papias is:

Irenaeus claims that Mark wrote sometime after Peter's and Paul's deaths.

If Watson's reading of Papias is correct this can't be true because:

Irenaeus understands Matthew's work among the Jews to correspond with Peter and Paul's work of preaching and founding the church in Rome.

This is not what Papias says and the bit about Mark contradicts what is in Clement. It would stand to reason that given the way it helps Irenaeus's system.

I think it is reasonable to suppose that Papias said more about Mark and Matthew than what Eusebius cites and that it is thus not out of the realm of possibility that he said something about Mark "hand[ing] down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter" after Peter had "departed," as per Irenaeus. And if that was so, I don't think it would contradict what Clement says about Mark writing while Peter was alive in EH 6.14.6-7:

As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it. When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it.

I think a good clarification of the situation is made here:

There is one more statement by Clement that comes directly from a Latin translation of his Hypotyposes by Cassiodorus (called Adumbrationes in epistolas canonicas in its Latin translation). He is commenting on 1 Peter 5:13 and relates,

“Mark, the follower of Peter, while Peter was publicly preaching the gospel at Rome in the presence of some of Caesar’s knights and uttering many testimonies about Christ, on their asking him to let them have a record of the things that had been said, wrote the gospel that is called the Gospel of Mark from the things said by Peter ..."

... the early church fathers make it clear that Mark wrote his gospel at the request of certain Christians at Rome. Clement of Alexandria gives some detail about how it happened. In one quote he mentions who requested it and in another quote he indicates that Mark gave his gospel to those who specifically requested it. These quotes imply that Mark’s gospel was originally a private edition for them and the church at Rome, but not written for the churches at large, which Mark gave to those who requested it ...

Certain Roman Christians who were of the equestrian order and thus wealthy requested Mark to write a gospel for them. They most likely funded the necessary papyrus rolls and copies made by scribes for them. This was the normal way author’s works were published in the ancient Roman world. A “patron” or “patrons” funded the publishing of an author’s works. Mark wrote the gospel and then had copies made for them at their expense. It was a private edition for the church at Rome ...

In Eusebius’s Church History 2.15.2 Eusebius tells us that Clement also wrote, “And they say that Peter when he had learned, through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had been done, was pleased with the zeal of the men, and that the work obtained the sanction of his authority for the purpose of being used in the churches. [Clement in the eighth book of his Hypotyposes gives this account, and with him agrees the bishop of Hierapolis named Papias]" ...

Clement’s above statement about Peter’s approval demonstrates that Peter’s endorsement was obtained to copy and distribute it to all the churches. This was the publishing of the public edition of his gospel. It is possible that after his revelation, Peter himself suggested that Mark publish his gospel to the churches. Therefore, Mark’s gospel had two publications, one for the private edition and one later for the public edition.

... Irenaeus records in his work, Against Heresies (3.1.1) that “after their departure [Peter and Paul’s], Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter.”

The word “departure” normally refers to leaving a place. Irenaeus would then be saying that after Peter and Paul left Rome most likely on missionary journeys, Mark wrote his gospel. This harmonizes with Peter not knowing about the private edition of Mark’s gospel until he returned to Rome.

E. Earle Ellis concurs with the meaning of “departure” in Irenaeus as leaving Rome when he writes,

“Irenaeus speaks, then, only of the transmission of Mark's Gospel. He is thinking not of the deaths of Peter and Paul but rather of their departure on further missionary travels after an initial evangelization of Rome, i.e. after Paul's release in c. AD 63 and after an earlier visit and departure of Peter.”

(Ellis, E. Earle, The Making of the New Testament Documents, Brill Academic Publishers, Inc., Boston, 2002, 362

Some scholars believe that the meaning of “departure” in the Greek in Irenaeus refers to their martyrdom. The only other possible evidence that Peter was dead at the time Mark published his gospel is from the Anti-marcionite prologues which uses the Latin word for “departure.” Although “departed” can mean “death” when taken euphemistically. Its regular meaning is “went away” and this meaning fits best with the other evidence.

Even if “departed” means death it can still fit with the evidence. Mark wrote the gospel while Peter was still alive as a private edition. Peter found out about it and at first was neutral. Then Peter had a revelation and endorsed it. Before Mark could copy it and begin circulating it among the churches, Peter was martyred. Therefore, the gospel of Mark was published for the churches after Peter’s (and Paul’s) death.


http://jesusevidences.com/originntgospe ... elmark.php

[John2]

Please you aren't reasonable and besides I was demonstrating the differences again between Papias and Irenaeus - something you don't even care to recognize. So please STFU

The "differences" between Papias and Irenaeus that you say you are demonstrating are precisely what I am addressing. But feel free to ignore anything I say, of course.

[Secret Alias]

No you are not addressing the issue. You are simply trying to find a way of using whatever you can find in Papias and Irenaeus (and Epiphanius) to justify the existence of your non-existent Jew gospel. If you are so willing to lie, cheat and manipulate the evidence this way and that why don't you go all out and become a fictional writer and make it up yourself. You don't care about truth anyway. Just go all out and invent the text you want to "discover." Being fair with the evidence doesn't seem to matter. Pretending there aren't problems with Irenaeus's testimony is so half-hearted.

[Secret Alias]

And Papias poses a unique difficulty for scholars of early Christianity. We have a paragraph which identifies three core piece of evidence:

1. the oracles of the Lord
2. the gospel written by Mark
3. the gospel written by Matthew

Watson takes (1), (2) and (3) to be chronological. In other words, Matthew wrote his gospel to correct things that were not right in Mark's gospel. So Mark was the first 'gospel' and Matthew was the second 'gospel.' Irenaeus turns that on its head. Matthew was written before the deaths of Peter and Paul, Mark was written after the deaths of Peter and Paul. Irenaeus also seems to take the line:

'Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.'

as it it meant that the gospel of Matthew was the 'oracles of the Lord' which Mark put in the wrong order in the beginning. But this is not likely what Papias originally meant. He wrote a book "An Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord" which meant that the "oracles of the Lord" were an identifiable "thing" which was separate from Matthew's gospel.

As such I think Watson's interpretation of the material makes some sense:

1. the oracles of the Lord
2. the gospel written by Mark
3. the gospel written by Matthew

where Papias's book was a commentary written on (1). Irenaeus on the other hand has created a different worldview based on words, phrases and ideas that he read in Papias but changed to suit his purposes. Haer. 3.1.1 reports that Matthew wrote 'a gospel . . . for the Hebrews in their own language'. The language overlap with Papias suggests dependence on Papias but now - through a sleight of hand - Irenaeus is referring to a Gospel, not simply to a collection of sayings. But he is not yet speaking about our Greek Gospel of Matthew, though he may be speaking about a document in Hebrew or Aramaic that he claimed lay behind the Greek Gospel or even of which the canonical Gospel was a translation. The difficulty for us is that the Greek Gospel of Matthew shows not the slightest sign of having been translated from a Semitic language. As we will discuss below, Matthew not only seems to have been written in Greek but also to seems to have drawn on sources which were at least predominantly in Greek. The fact that Irenaeus is so frequently demonstrated to have made up things, makes the easiest explanation that Irenaeus was drawing from Papias to take bits and pieces and rearrange his information into a 'cento-like' new report which was used to provide the ground for his Matthew-based fourfold gospel.

[Secret Alias]

It is also worth noting that Clement's reporting on the gospel of Mark contradict Irenaeus's claims about its late composition too. My guess would be that Irenaeus read Papias took some liberties with his testimony to fashion a 'harmony' gospel of some sort (in four columns or four back to back texts) which presented Matthew as the first gospel and Mark, Luke and John as being developed from Matthew.

[John2]

It is also worth noting that Clement's reporting on the gospel of Mark contradict Irenaeus's claims about its late composition too. My guess would be that Irenaeus read Papias took some liberties with his testimony to fashion a 'harmony' gospel of some sort (in four columns or four back to back texts) which presented Matthew as the first gospel and Mark, Luke and John as being developed from Matthew.

My guess would be that Papias said more about Mark and Matthew than what Eusebius cites and said that Matthew (in its Hebrew version) was written first or did not say which gospel was written first (leaving Irenaeus to speculate that Matthew was written first). But in any event, I wouldn't call Irenaeus' claim about the composition of Mark as being "late" given that he arguably says that Peter and Paul were still alive when it happened (as noted upthread), which is in agreement with Clement and Papias according to Eusebius in EH 2.14.1-2:

And so greatly did the splendor of piety illumine the minds of Peter's hearers that they were not satisfied with hearing once only, and were not content with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, a follower of Peter, and the one whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a written monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated to them. Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man, and had thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the name of Mark.

And they say that Peter — when he had learned, through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had been done — was pleased with the zeal of the men, and that the work obtained the sanction of his authority for the purpose of being used in the churches. Clement in the eighth book of his Hypotyposes gives this account, and with him agrees the bishop of Hierapolis named Papias.