Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

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Giuseppe
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Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

Post by Giuseppe »

So Tertullian:
After him emerged a disciple of his, one Marcion by name, a native of Pontus, 8400 son of a bishop, excommunicated because of a rape committed on a certain virgin. He, starting from the fact that it is said, “Every good tree beareth good fruit, but an evil evil,” attempted to approve the heresy of Cerdo; so that his assertions are identical with those of the former heretic before him.

After him arose one Lucan by name, a follower and disciple of Marcion. He, too, wading through the same kinds of blasphemy, teaches the same as Marcion and Cerdo had taught.
http://st-takla.org/books/en/ecf/003/0030703.html

What other evidence is more necessary to assume that behind even the same name of ''Luke'' there was the name of a marcionite heretic - Lucan ?

Was he the betrayer of Marcion (as contrappasso of the legend that Marcion was the traitor of John) ?
Was he the real author of Mcn, then ascribed by him to his master?

Suggestions, suggestions.

Surely no people can claim, since now on, that the Mcn priority is a priori a ''laughable'' theory.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Stuart
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Re: Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

Post by Stuart »

Guiseppe,

You are referencing Adversus Omnes Haereses which is a spurious work, not of Tertullian's hand.
see http://www.tertullian.org/works_spurious.htm

These heretic lists are notorious for both interpolation and error, and worse many are like this one spurious and of unknown origin. Here is what is said of it
The work is not by Tertullian. According to the CCSL introduction, the work was written at Rome in the time of Pope Zephyrinus, probably in Greek and then translated into Latin. Victorinus of Pettau wrote a book of the same title, according to Jerome, which may be this book, according to Quasten (v.2, p.412-3). It is thought that the author used a version of the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus as a source (Quasten, CTC).
I favor the latter suggestion. Note Victorinus wrote in the last quarter of the 3rd century (died 303 or 304 AD)
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
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Re: Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

Post by gmx »

How watertight is the case that Luke and Acts emanate from the same hand? Given the absence of Acts from Marcion's canon, it would seem that either Marcion doctored canonical Luke, or Acts is the product of a different author.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

gmx wrote:How watertight is the case that Luke and Acts emanate from the same hand? Given the absence of Acts from Marcion's canon, it would seem that either Marcion doctored canonical Luke, or Acts is the product of a different author.
Or... both Marcion and canonical Luke worked from the same proto-gospel (proto-Luke), and Acts was compiled after that by the same person who compiled canonical Luke.

(If we are allowed to work only with extant and explicitly attested texts, obviously the relationships have to be pretty simple, as simple as your bifurcation above. If we are allowed hypothetical texts, then the possibilities begin to multiply.)
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

gmx wrote:How watertight is the case that Luke and Acts emanate from the same hand? Given the absence of Acts from Marcion's canon, it would seem that either Marcion doctored canonical Luke, or Acts is the product of a different author.
I have read the first chapter or so of The Assumed Authorial Unity of Luke and Acts: A Reassessment of the Evidence, by Patricia Walters. She, for one, is questioning whether Luke and Acts come from the same hand. But I believe she represents a small minority.
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Re: Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

Post by DCHindley »

Ben C. Smith wrote:
gmx wrote:How watertight is the case that Luke and Acts emanate from the same hand? Given the absence of Acts from Marcion's canon, it would seem that either Marcion doctored canonical Luke, or Acts is the product of a different author.
I have read the first chapter or so of The Assumed Authorial Unity of Luke and Acts: A Reassessment of the Evidence, by Patricia Walters. She, for one, is questioning whether Luke and Acts come from the same hand. But I believe she represents a small minority.
The full book is at Scribd:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/224176455/Pa ... 009#scribd

FWIW, it looks very interesting, being myself somewhat of a "Author of Luke ≠ Author of Acts" kind of guy. She really looks at the previous research very closely, and even subjects Luke & Acts to statistical tests.

I would not myself say that speculation over possible separate authors for Luke & Acts, represents a tiny minority of scholarship on the subject. It may be a minority position, but I would say that it is rather a "significant minority position", one with a long history. FWIW, I am not aware of any of these critics being considered kooks.

DCH
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Re: Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

Post by gmx »

DCHindley wrote: I would not myself say that speculation over possible separate authors for Luke & Acts, represents a tiny minority of scholarship on the subject. It may be a minority position, but I would say that it is rather a "significant minority position", one with a long history. FWIW, I am not aware of any of these critics being considered kooks.
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This is what bothers me about the current state of scholarship:

In the last 100 years, despite considerable intellectual application and human endeavour, what can really be considered to be "solved" about the synoptic (or early Christian origins) problem?
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

Post by Peter Kirby »

gmx wrote:How watertight is the case that Luke and Acts emanate from the same hand? Given the absence of Acts from Marcion's canon, it would seem that either Marcion doctored canonical Luke, or Acts is the product of a different author.
The answer to this question requires a careful delineation of terms. What is "Luke," when "Luke" may have had more than one version?

The evidence, stylometric and internal, points towards the idea that the last person to significantly expand a gospel into the one we know as "Luke" (with the prologue and other portions) is the same person as the author of Acts. This is completely consistent with (and supported by) the fact that Acts is absent from Marcion's canon, as Marcion's gospel clearly was not the same thing as canonical Luke.

This discussion requires a careful delineation of both terminology and hypotheses regarding the development of Luke (and Acts).
gmx wrote:This is what bothers me about the current state of scholarship:

In the last 100 years, despite considerable intellectual application and human endeavour, what can really be considered to be "solved" about the synoptic (or early Christian origins) problem?
We are not required to be completely bedazzled by the variety of scholarship, which is all but necessitated both by the necessity of publishing new theses and by the human craving for novelty. Some of them are supported by evidence, some of them are merely not contradicted by it, and some of them are contraindicated by the evidence, such as it is and as meager as it may be.

On the other hand, someone sympathetic to a solution or solutions to the synoptic problem that receives rather marginal attention may feel such a problem more acutely (e.g., if someone had a soft spot for the idea that the Gospel of Mark was posterior to Matthew and Luke). Then the unwillingness of scholarship to rally around that position would be frustrating, as would be the confusion sown by the diversity of views and the seeming cogency (subjectively) of those arguing for such a different idea.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
outhouse
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Re: Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

Post by outhouse »

Peter Kirby wrote:
The answer to this question requires a careful delineation of terms. What is "Luke," when "Luke" may have had more than one version?

.
Yes Carrier touches on that.

I view the text as coming from the same community, and it may have been redacted early on by another community who found value.


Context, style, prose, match up between Acts---Luke.

fact that Acts is absent from Marcion's canon
He was such a weird duck, we cant say if he just didn't use it, or didn't know about it.


Being we only posses or even know about a fraction of the early text, the fact he didn't use it means little knowing his personal theological agenda.
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Re: Was Lucan Luke? Was Luke Lukan?

Post by Peter Kirby »

outhouse wrote:
Peter Kirby wrote:
The answer to this question requires a careful delineation of terms. What is "Luke," when "Luke" may have had more than one version?

.
Yes Carrier touches on that.
FWIW, when I presented the book Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle to Carrier as a reading suggestion (in person), he seemed a little dismissive.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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