Paul's letters all derived from Marcion?
Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 5:51 am
I've been doing a lot of research on Paul's letter collection and Marcion and while I would like to be able to believe that the orthodox version of Paul's letters are independent of Marcion, I'm having increasing trouble supporting that conclusion.
Multiple scholars now support the conclusion that Marcion's letters are not redactions of the orthodox letters. I'm not sure if this is a consensus now or how you even define a "consensus" in NT studies anyway, given that 90% of the field is Christian theologians. But there is now agreement among "many" scholars that Marcin's letters aren't a redaction of the orthodox ones.
But the main proposal I've seen, which tries to hang on to the integrity of the orthodox letters, is that Marcion's letters and the orthodox letters derive from a common source that went into circulation and had variation within it. Marcion's letters come from one set of copies while the orthodox letters come from a different set of copies, with the differences between the two largely (though not entirely) accounted for based just on scribal variation, etc.
The problem I have with this is that it implies that the "orthodox" Christians (proto-Catholics, etc.) had some set of Paul's letters in hand before Marcion and that when Marcion came out with his letters, then they went to their own sets of Paul's letters and pointed out differences between their copies and Marcion's.
This pill is increasingly hard to swallow. For one thing, Tertullian et.al. all seem to be reading from very comparable sets of letters. How is it that prior to Marcion no orthodox Christians showed knowledge of a Pauline letters collection, but then after Marcion they all had a Pauline letter collection that different from Marcion's in the same way?
Also, why does the orthodox letter collection have all of the exact same letters as Marcion's, plus 3 more anti-Marcionite letters?
Why would the orthodox collection have the Gnosticizing Colossians and Ephesians/Laodiceans?
If there were really independent Pauline letter collections prior to Marcion, how would those forgeries have gotten into the orthodox collection?
The fact that the orthodox collection is the exact same as Marcion's + 3 is a big red flag. Surely if there were independent collections this wouldn't be so. It almost requires that the orthodox collection is derived from Marcion's.
However, Romans 15 and 16 pose a bit of a wrinkle. I can see Romans 15 being an orthodox addition, but Romans 16 doesn't look that way. Romans 16 looks like a very off thing to fabricate and add on to a letter. I can see why, if Marcion had a copy of Romans with Romans 16 in it, that he would have dropped 16 for innocent reasons, it being mostly cover letter with a big list of greetings. But then the question remains, where did the orthodox get their copy of Romans then?
I think this is solvable. I think that Romans actually was in circulation independently and was most likely the most well known letter. It also appears that the letter of James comments on Romans. So my theory of what happened is this:
There were real letters of Paul. The letter to the Romans was in independent circulation. After all, it is the only letter of the "authentic" letters that appears to have been an open letter. The other letters were all part of a private collection, which Marcion was the first to make public. The orthodox then built on Marcion's collection and used a public copy of Romans, which included chapters 15 and 16. But the rest of the collection really all just derives from Marcion. I guess the other big thing to explain is why they renamed Laodiceans to Ephesians, especially given that Laodiceans is the more appropriate title. Ephesians is clearly a mis-naming.
If this is true, then it means Marcion's letters are the authentic ones, with the possible exception of Romans, and the orthodox letters are all revisions of Marcion's.
Multiple scholars now support the conclusion that Marcion's letters are not redactions of the orthodox letters. I'm not sure if this is a consensus now or how you even define a "consensus" in NT studies anyway, given that 90% of the field is Christian theologians. But there is now agreement among "many" scholars that Marcin's letters aren't a redaction of the orthodox ones.
But the main proposal I've seen, which tries to hang on to the integrity of the orthodox letters, is that Marcion's letters and the orthodox letters derive from a common source that went into circulation and had variation within it. Marcion's letters come from one set of copies while the orthodox letters come from a different set of copies, with the differences between the two largely (though not entirely) accounted for based just on scribal variation, etc.
The problem I have with this is that it implies that the "orthodox" Christians (proto-Catholics, etc.) had some set of Paul's letters in hand before Marcion and that when Marcion came out with his letters, then they went to their own sets of Paul's letters and pointed out differences between their copies and Marcion's.
This pill is increasingly hard to swallow. For one thing, Tertullian et.al. all seem to be reading from very comparable sets of letters. How is it that prior to Marcion no orthodox Christians showed knowledge of a Pauline letters collection, but then after Marcion they all had a Pauline letter collection that different from Marcion's in the same way?
Also, why does the orthodox letter collection have all of the exact same letters as Marcion's, plus 3 more anti-Marcionite letters?
Why would the orthodox collection have the Gnosticizing Colossians and Ephesians/Laodiceans?
If there were really independent Pauline letter collections prior to Marcion, how would those forgeries have gotten into the orthodox collection?
The fact that the orthodox collection is the exact same as Marcion's + 3 is a big red flag. Surely if there were independent collections this wouldn't be so. It almost requires that the orthodox collection is derived from Marcion's.
However, Romans 15 and 16 pose a bit of a wrinkle. I can see Romans 15 being an orthodox addition, but Romans 16 doesn't look that way. Romans 16 looks like a very off thing to fabricate and add on to a letter. I can see why, if Marcion had a copy of Romans with Romans 16 in it, that he would have dropped 16 for innocent reasons, it being mostly cover letter with a big list of greetings. But then the question remains, where did the orthodox get their copy of Romans then?
I think this is solvable. I think that Romans actually was in circulation independently and was most likely the most well known letter. It also appears that the letter of James comments on Romans. So my theory of what happened is this:
There were real letters of Paul. The letter to the Romans was in independent circulation. After all, it is the only letter of the "authentic" letters that appears to have been an open letter. The other letters were all part of a private collection, which Marcion was the first to make public. The orthodox then built on Marcion's collection and used a public copy of Romans, which included chapters 15 and 16. But the rest of the collection really all just derives from Marcion. I guess the other big thing to explain is why they renamed Laodiceans to Ephesians, especially given that Laodiceans is the more appropriate title. Ephesians is clearly a mis-naming.
If this is true, then it means Marcion's letters are the authentic ones, with the possible exception of Romans, and the orthodox letters are all revisions of Marcion's.