Jason BeDuhn's reconstruction/translation of Marcion...

[Stephan Huller]

Perhaps a better line of inquiry is to investigate whether Tertullian (or his source) is actually citing from the Marcionite text or merely drawing from his own edition (with periodic reference to differences with the Marcionite variants). I tend to think this is the case for a number of reasons which will probably bore you and everyone else here. The important thing is to see that Ephrem has this tendency - i.e. cite from the Diatessaron all the while making periodic reference to the Marcionite variants.

[neilgodfrey]

Yes -- in response to your post before your last one, the one with the quotation from AM 1.1. It would be slightly more reassuring had Tertullian given a little more detail about his source for his "final" edition when he tells his readers why they should expect variations from apparent older renditions.

[Tenorikuma]

BeDuhn writes (p. 35):

Research since Harnack has pointed out that Tertullian, in all of his writings, quotes the Bible loosely, sometimes from memory, sometimes paraphrased. Although Tertullian is being careful in Against Marcion to argue against Marcion on the basis of the content of passages actually included in the Marcionite Bible, there is no reason to think that he reliably quotes these passages verbatim. […]

A related concern…is whether Tertullian was working from a Marcionite-approved Latin translation, or was using his own translation skills on a Greek text.

[Stephan Huller]

I tend to think this isn't the original author writing these words. It is the same logic used by Eusebius to correct Origen a century later (cf. Jerome). In other words, a text existed - probably in Greek but perhaps Syriac. Tertullian or whomever translated the text into Latin saw 'lapses in orthodoxy' and 'rescued' the original. Seriously. All of Patristic literature can be explained this way.

[Tenorikuma]

You mean, a later author is writing a revised version of Tertullian's work and passing it off as a superior edition?

[hjalti]

The book just arrived. Let me know if you have any specific questions about it.

Cool. Could you tell us how BeDuhn recontructs the famous passage in 1Cor 15:3-11? Detering thinks it lacked v. 5-10.

Oh, and presumably BeDuhn also thinks that Paul's first visit to Jerusalem was missing in Galatians (Gal 1:18-24)? So "the brother of the lord" wasn't in Marcion's version in Gal 1:19, right?

[Stephan Huller]

You mean, a later author is writing a revised version of Tertullian's work and passing it off as a superior edition?

No that's what's so amazing about the Tertullian corpus. It is made up of reworked editions of other people's writings. Take Against Hermogenes for example. Harnack, Grant, and countless others say it is really based on Theophilus's text of the same name. So too with respect to Against the Valentinians it is based on something written by Irenaeus and which survives in a slightly different form in Adv Haer. Even with respect to Adv Marc look again at the opening words I cited. The author implies that he wrote something that was lost to the heretics and then subsequently rescued. But Harnack, Grant, Quispel all say Book Two derives from Theophilus. Book One is not written by the same author as Book Two. Book Three was copied from the same source as Adv Jud (probably something written by Justin). Book Four and Five were written by the same hand. The point of course is that the five works were not written by one author. No one can possibly claim that. But the introduction attempts to suggest that even though it is a bald face lie. Tertullian did not 'write' the five books from scratch. I promise you that.

[Stephan Huller]

If you want to go deeper into this. That's why I am so suspicious about the Galatians first ordering in Book Five. It isn't that Marcion's canon was Galatians first. Tertullian is citing from an anti-Marcionite treatise where the author simply follows his own tradition's Galatians first canon and Epiphanius has used much the same source uncritically. There was an orthodox Galatians first canon circulating in Syriac speaking countries which was preceded by a Diatessaronic gospel text - something which also helps explain why Tertullian now claims so many times in the companion work (Book Four) that Marcion has cut out things from 'his gospel' which don't appear in Luke.

[Tenorikuma]

Ah, gotcha.

[Tenorikuma]

Could you tell us how BeDuhn recontructs the famous passage in 1Cor 15:3-11? Detering thinks it lacked v. 5-10.

BeDuhn concurs that 5–10 is unattested. He keeps verses 1, 3, 4 and 11, so that it reads:

Now I remind you, (my) colleagues, the proclamation that I proclaimed to you… that Christos died… and [that he] was entombed, and [that he] has been awoken on the third day… so we declare and so you believed.

Oh, and presumably BeDuhn also thinks that Paul's first visit to Jerusalem was missing in Galatians (Gal 1:18-24)? So "the brother of the lord" wasn't in Marcion's version in Gal 1:19, right?

That's right. He goes straight from 1:17 to 2:1, noting that 1:18–24 is unattested.